by Geoff | Mar 22, 2010 | Gardening
Two years ago I picked up a copy of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, by Toby Hemenway. The author packs the book with intriguing ideas. I am trying to adapt many of them to my yard in Austin, Texas. One idea is that of fruit tree centered “guilds”. Hemenway defines guilds as interdependent communities of plants with synergistic properties. He goes on to lay out some ideas for an apple-tree centered guild. I took a few of these...
by Geoff | Feb 19, 2010 | Gardening
Yesterday I decided that it was time to empty the bottom tray of my worm bin and mix up some potting soil. When I managed the greenhouse at the Tsyuhehkwa Center on the Oneida reservation I would make a potting mix that consisted primarily of one part worm castings to two parts sphagnum moss. I am now trying to avoid sphagnum and use coconut coir in this mix. Here is the recipe that I used for this batch: 1/3 five gallon pail worm castings 2/3 five gallon pail...
by Noel | Jan 17, 2010 | CobraHead, Gardening
It helps to have a plan. For business, for life in general, and certainly for growing plants to eat, planning gives you some control of the future. January is planning month for lots of northern gardeners. My planning includes going though several favorite seed catalogs and ordering seeds to replenish any in short supply in my seed inventory. I also start looking at what is going to be planted where. In January, I print out two new charts for my south and north...
by Geoff | Jan 14, 2010 | Gardening
This morning the lid on the compost bucket in the kitchen would no longer close, so it was time to make the first compost pile at my new home. Unlike my dad, Noel, I prefer to build my compost in layers first with materials high in carbon, then a nitrogen layer, followed by a cap of soil, repeating the process until the pile gets to be three to four feet high. I have to mention here that I learned a large part of what I know about composting from my gardening...
by Anneliese | Jan 13, 2010 | Environmental Issues, Gardening
About a year ago I set up a worm composting system using the Worm Factory. I was pretty excited about it at the time, and I decided to name it Phil (each individual worm is also named Phil). Because I’ve read that vermicomposting can take a while to really get going, I was careful not to overfeed Phil during the first few months. I don’t think I even added a second tray until two or three months had passed. When July rolled around, the creator of the...
by Judy | Jan 1, 2010 | Gardening, Recipes
No black eyed peas for us New Year’s Day. This larder has capucijners. Capucijner (pronounced cap-you-sigh-ner according to the Fedco catalogue) peas are one of the richest and most complex soup peas we have cooked with. We’ve been saving seeds that we think we purchased from Johnny’s Seeds about 20 years ago. We’re not sure because they don’t have them in their catalogue any more but this Dutch heirloom purple podded pea (pisum...
