Gardening

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for hacking nature from plant grafting to building gardening tools and sprinklers.

Can suburbs produce all their own food?

Can suburbs produce all their own food?

(Image via Wikipedia) They sure don’t now. According to Jeff Vail, they just might: How much of its own food can suburbia produce? In America, the average suburban lot size is approximately 12,000 square feet. That’s about a quarter-acre. At an average of 2.56 people per household, and a rough average of 10,000 feet per […]

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Edible Estates: turning lawns into food

Edible Estates: turning lawns into food

Edible Estates is continuing to march around the country, with 6 gardens that were formerly lawns now in place nationwide. (Images of Austin’s Edible Estate via fritzhaeg.com) Check out Fritz Haeg’s presentation from his Austin visit here for great visuals of the difference between lawns and edible estates. Also check out this Mother Earth News […]

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How To Grow Flowers In Iraq

How To Grow Flowers In Iraq

And you thought your gardening conditions were unfriendly? This guy has successfully created raised beds to grow a garden in Iraq. I particularly like the wick design: the buried bottles have parachute cord running to holes poked in the sides. Filled with water, they slowly feed moisture into the soil throughout the day.

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Austin Event: Permaculture Intro

Austin Event: Permaculture Intro

Permaculture means permanent culture, permanent agriculture, and other sustainability-related things, depending on who you ask. I’d describe it as sustainable design, with a focus on biomimicry and multiple uses for given elements. One popular concept is a ‘food forest,’ allowing multiple layers of edible things to grow in a given unit space: Austin’s lucky enough […]

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Hops trellis from a tree

Hops trellis from a tree

On EMS Labs, Lenore shows a simple way that her dad rigged a trellis for growing hops, using some scrap soaker hose, antenna wire, and a handy tree as the main structure. Hop Trellis

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