Saturday Linkages: Paleo Flour, Viking Tents and Chinese Cabbage as the New Kale

September 19, 2015

...rootsimple) September 15, 2015 We'd be in so much trouble if sparkling water were bad for us-fortunately, the myths are busted here: http://t.co/qCjJAWRxDB — Root Simple (@rootsimple) September 15, 2015 What the Sale of Niman Ranch Could Mean for Farmers https://t.co/TjwwQuSWDr via @CivilEats — Root Simple (@rootsimple) September 15, 2015 Pizza receipt warns of labyrinth, minotaur via @BoingBoing http://t.co/JJs45cDDz9 — Root Simple (@rootsimp...

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Our Disastrous Summer Garden

Mr. Homegrown

September 15, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

37 Comments

...ed by climate change. Drought, of course, made everything worse. We had to water our already alkaline soil with alkaline water. Only the native plants and what we call the Biblical plants seem happy (e.g. the fig and the pomegranate). The drought and an extreme heat wave pushed everything in the garden to the edge–and a few over the edge: in the last month we abruptly lost some garden stalwarts, including a rosemary bush and a culinary sage. Despi...

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Will the Lawn Rebate Turn LA into a Gravel Moonscape?

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2015

Gardening

14 Comments

...nintended consequences! Drought conditions here in California prompted our water utilities to offer rebates for ripping out water hungry lawns. Unfortunately, as Ivette Soler has pointed out in a blog post, “The Road to Hell is Paved with Chunky Gravel and Indifferently Chosen Plants,” unscrupulous “landscapers” are taking those rebates and installing gravel and mulch moonscapes. It’s an education problem. For most people plants are a sort of gree...

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Behold the Ant Lion

Mrs. Homegrown

November 20, 2014

Animals, Insects, Nature Awareness

17 Comments

...have been made by a big man’s thumb. I might think it was made by dripping water, if there was ever any water anywhere in this dry land. The answer was “ant lion” — and I was the only one among them who did not know the answer. Ant lion??? It was such as strange conjunction of terms (see jackalope) that I thought they were pulling my leg. When I got home and checked the Internets, I realized that, as always, truth is stranger than fiction. The nam...

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The Hugelkultur Question

Mr. Homegrown

November 17, 2014

Gardening, Permaculture

48 Comments

...contend that the logs break down and become open fungal pathways to store water and nutrients. Kelly suggested we take an unused raised bed in our front yard and try an at-grade hugelkultur experiment (mounding in our dry climate seems like a bad idea, especially given our current drought). I balked at the amount of digging that would be involved. Kelly suggested that we should try it since we had little to lose and we’re supposed to be experimen...

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