Looking for Tough, Drought Tolerant Plants?

August 21, 2014

...ve learned that if you’ve got a small garden, having plants that look good year round is particularly important. There’s a number of our favorites on the list: Salvia apiana, Rosmarinus officinalis, Ceanothus ‘Concha’. If you just cashed in your LA Department of Water and Power lawn rebate check and (hopefully) decided against the artificial turf grass option, the All-Star list is good place to start. Kelly and I are working, this summer, on lower...

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The Miraculous Lavender

Mrs. Homegrown

July 25, 2014

Gardening, Herbs

14 Comments

...we’ve had no precipitation for months now. I don’t water it. I don’t send water down the stairs. The soil off the stairs is dry, because that slope is planted with natives, which are getting no irrigation. There’s no plumbing beneath the staircase, either. Yet the lavender keeps getting bigger. I’m going to have to pull it soon, before it ruins our stairs. But I don’t want to, because it’s so determined to live. And this goes to show that when a...

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Hops in Containers

Mr. Homegrown

August 2, 2009

Beer, Gardening, Herbs, Hops, Self Watering Containers

5 Comments

...badly. Hops suck up a lot of water and, thanks to the SIPs, I only have to water once a day. The SIPS are full of potting mix with a ring of organic fertilizer placed on top of the soil as specified in Josh Mandel’s directions. I have periodically added an organic liquid fertilizer to the water reservoirs as hops need a lot of nitrogen. Cascade cones almost ready to harvest in late July I don’t know how my hops will do in SIPs the second year, and...

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Going Gray!

Mr. Homegrown

August 7, 2009

Water and Power, Water Conservation

10 Comments

...as you know takes a good bit of water, so I thought our not-so-gray shower water would be much appreciated by the little yellow bastards. Another benefit is that we won’t have to deal with the recurring shower clogs which have been forcing us to use drano. The drain setup was super simple from a plumbing perspective, so all I did was cut off the old drainpipe, replace the drain assembly, and route a new pipe out to the garden. It took three 22 deg...

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A Self-Watering Container in a Pot

Mr. Homegrown

July 25, 2007

Self Watering Containers

1 Comment

...owers. You fill SWCs up via a pipe and they can go at least a week between waterings. It is, in our opinion, the only way to grow water-needy vegetables reliably in a container. We have used them to successfully grow eggplants, tomatoes, collard greens and blueberries (note to the DEA: no cash crops at the Homegrown Revolution compound!). With our backyard looking fairly ugly this summer we’ve backpedaled on our earlier strident post about how we...

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