Make your own flowerpot ollas
how to make an easy, inexpensive, DIY olla for your garden - using flowerpots
Raised beds vs. Sunken beds
With effusive and glorious terms, the garden catalogs and East Coast garden magazines try to persuade us that “to be a successful vegetable gardener you need raised beds.” Not in Southern California. Consider what is behind those arguments: a drive…
Are you Ready for Rain?
I’ve been thinking about rain a lot lately, especially since we have 151 adobe bricks laid out right now, supposedly drying in the sun. We’ve had to do tarp-foraging, and monitor hourly weather forecasts, and get together a Tarping Team…
Building water-saving features with urbanite
Today was our first earth-building workshop. Since I’m a little lean on earth-building handouts, here’s a substitute. It’s not particularly about earth-building, but it is about earth-wise construction. It’s about building with “urbanite,” which is a name for reused broken concrete.…
How to Build a Garden Sink
You pull a carrot from your garden and take it to your kitchen for dinner. Before you can put it on your kid’s dinner plate, you have to wash it. A mess of black dirt spatters all over your kitchen…
What we can do about water use
We have a “use it once, then send it away” attitude about many earth resources, and water is just one of these. Right now, we’re feeling the pinch because of the California drought. But these times are a reminder to shift…
Drought-tolerant food plants
Vegetables and food plants that thrive in low water conditions in Southern California … Amaranth African basil (Ocimum kilimandscharicum) Arugula sylvetta – the small-leafed, intensely-flavored perennial arugula Arugula (W) Chicory (W) Grapes Cowpea / blackeyed pea – especially the varieties…
8 Things you can do now, to prepare for summer heat
Some simple (energy-free) things you can do to help ease summer heat
The One-Finger Test
In the Community Garden at Holy Nativity, we used what we call “the one finger test.” That means you take your finger and stick it into the garden soil – about one inch down into the soil. The soil down…
