Defining a Garden’s Purpose

...of plants as being a kind of green background material are doing a kind of gardening, albeit one that is not helping our planet. What kind of gardening did I see from the train? The photo above sums it up. The most common sight was dead grass and junk storage. In more affluent areas people had lush grass and maybe a pool. Some had vegetable gardens, a few chickens and goats. One enterprising person, somewhere between Bakersfield and Fresno, had a...

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Leave Your Leaves Alone

...view that we need to consider a mix of native and hardy non-natives in our urban spaces, Our urban landscape bears little resemblance to pre-development conditions. Consequently, formally local natives may be unable to succeed in these altered environments. What plants are then most appropriate? Rather than looking to a past that is no more, it may be best to use our understanding of the ecological services plants provide. A review of research by...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

...ing site. A sideline: natives vs. exotic This is a hot button issue in the gardening world. Rainer and West have a very nice stance on native vs. exotic plants. They are not native purists. They point out that in a disturbed environment like an urban center, where even the soil might be imported, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to chase after a lost past, especially when local conditions have changed so much that what once might have grown there si...

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Saturday Linkages: DIY Coffee Roasting and That Crazy Rhubarb Lady

...=sm&utm_campaign=button_chunky … As City Considers Removing Ban on Parkway Vegetable Gardens, Some Communities Continue Planting http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/08/13/as-city-considers-removing-ban-on-parkway-vegetable-gardens-some-communities-continue-planting/ … The view from above Los Angeles http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-green-homage-to-los-angeles-20130814,0,4040309.story … This Week in Crazy Rhubarb Lady by Amy Stewart http://gard...

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Straw Bale Garden Part V: Growing Vegetables

...seedlings. Others, like this cucumber, I sowed directly into the bales by making a little hole and putting in the seed with some home made seedling mix. Again, the vegetables in the bales are doing better than veggies in my two remaining raised beds. The reason, I believe, is that the beds are depleted and the compost I added to them was low quality. While more resource intensive than growing in the ground or raised bed, straw bale gardening has...

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