If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that I got rid of our lawn (getting rid of your lawn post) at our Seattle house . It took too much water to keep it green in the summer, and the resulting ornamental landscape was more ecologically diverse and aesthetically pleasing for such a small site.
Everyone (including me) hates how the word “sustainability” has been overused and misused. Yet there are some good concepts associated with the word that can help gardeners make rational decisions about products and practices. This week’s podcast deconstructs sustainability into specific actions that gardeners can easily follow:
The podcast illustrates each of these points. … Continue reading this article “Podcast #5 – Selling Sustainability”
One of the best organic fertilizers out there – at least in terms of how plants respond to it — is bat guano. As most of you probably already know, bat guano is made of bat droppings. What you probably don’t realize is that bat droppings need to be aged for a while in an arid environment before they become guano. Caves provide the perfect environment for this to occur, and so that is where most bat guano comes from.… Continue reading this article “Guano”
Recently a well-known gardening blog featured a guest posting by a garden writer who made a case for using Canadian sphagnum peat moss as a horticultural amendment. He defended his preference through “facts” provided by the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association.
This is kind of like relying on the petroleum industry for the most objective information on the environmental effects of oil spills. Or the tobacco growers association for data on the effects of smoking on human health. … Continue reading this article “A sustainable resource? Oh, for peat’s sake!”