Paige Johnson works as a nanotechnology researcher at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. [...] Her current landscape research is focused on the strange and fascinating story of atomic gardening, a post-war phenomenon in which plants were irradiated in the hopes of producing beneficial mutations.
Pruned talks to Paige Johnson about atomic gardens.
posted by shakespeherian
on Apr 20, 2011 -
22 comments
Urban gardening and agriculture are becoming increasingly important as our world becomes more urbanized.
Urban Gardening Help is for those environmentally conscious urban dwellers who want to use
hydroponics and other tools to create a green corner devoted to nature in their own home.
Urban Gardens looks for innovative and eco-friendly designs, trends, and ideas for the stylish urban home. See, for example,
tiny herb gardens, where succulent cuttings come in small packages.
Urban Garden Casual works with the constraints of limited-space, light, and micro-climates created from the shadows of neighboring buildings by using unconventional ideas like the
garden pouch.
posted by netbros
on Jul 10, 2010 -
9 comments
Your new veggie garden. Early Saturday morning, you and about fifteen others turn up at a strangers home and get to work setting up a veggie garden using
permaculture design principles.
Once you've done this three times you can put your name on the list to have the horde come to your place.
Permablitz began helping people create home food gardens in Melbourne, Australia in 2006, and the meme is spreading, first to other Australian cities, then to France, Uganda and the Netherlands. The veggie gardens are great, but perhaps even better is the way it is rebuilding the community relationships of mutual support that modern urban dwellers could be forgiven for thinking were gone 19th Century practise of
barn raising.
posted by compound eye
on Sep 29, 2009 -
24 comments
Eartheasy is about sustainable living. It offers information, activities and ideas which help us live more simply, efficiently and with less impact on the environment.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jan 8, 2009 -
9 comments
Planning next spring's garden? Just curious about plants? Then check out
Plant Information Online, which "provides access to: Current Plant and Seed Sources for 107,631 plants... from 1,054 North American firms that will ship plants; Contact information and links... for 2,448 North American retail and wholesale seed and nursery firms; Bibliographic details for 377,083 images of 140,104 wild and cultivated plants from around the world in botanical and horticultural books and magazines from 1982 to the present; and links to expert-selected sites on growing plants in your region of Canada or the US."
(Description from website.)
posted by cog_nate
on Nov 4, 2008 -
5 comments
I first encountered the concept of
forest gardening in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's
Herland (1915)
[relevant part pages 79-80]; the fictional race of women in her book have completely remade the forests to contain only beneficial and food-bearing plants, which live harmoniously together and replenish the soil naturally. This is
actually being done, less than a hundred years later.
More;
similar,
similar.
posted by fiercecupcake
on Jul 7, 2008 -
25 comments
About 15% of the average American's household waste is compostable. Even apartment dwellers can turn their potato peelings and coffee grounds into gorgeous, nutrient-rich plant food with the help of
worms. You can even
buy the little dudes online!
Once you have your worm farm set up, the big question is
"Can I compost this?" You may be surprised at how often the answer is,
"Yes!"
posted by freshwater_pr0n
on Oct 27, 2007 -
48 comments
The
Cooperative Extension Service, founded in 1914 in the US by the Smith-Lever Act, was established in concert with the
land-grant universities to develop practical applications of agricultural research, and spread them to farmers and others throughout the country. As part of this education program, the extension programs have produced and collected an extraordinary amount of practical advice, easily accessible to the layman...
[more inside]
posted by Upton O'Good
on Sep 18, 2007 -
12 comments
A revised U.S. plant hardiness map has been put out by the National Arbor Day Foundation, based on numbers from 5,000 cooperative climate observation stations throughout the United States. The foundation
forged ahead with their own revisions since the official
USDA map update has stalled. One unofficial
draft [PDF] does exist. A USDA
spokesperson said their map delay is because of fine-tuning where to draw the zone lines; the agency also plans to incorporate other data such as wind.
posted by rolypolyman
on Jan 6, 2007 -
8 comments
Guerilla Gardening is a movement to make public spaces more attractive, by planting in derelict or unattractive public ground. Founder Richard Reynolds has enlisted the help of people similarly dedicated to beautifying public space in UK urban areas, and the movement has inspired
other groups. For people who don't want to dig holes in the ground or get their hands messy, there are instructions for
seed-and-run scenarios. Apparently, even the
prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are in on the act.
posted by darsh
on May 18, 2006 -
11 comments
Nature's Control: Hired
Thugs Bugs to police your garden.
"If desired, you can keep ladybug adults from flying by "gluing" their wings shut, temporarily, with a sugar-water solution. Half water and half sugared pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.), in a spray bottle, works fine."
posted by Gator
on Feb 21, 2006 -
13 comments
Lunar gardening is the oldest
form of gardening known to man,
the practice centers on the moon's gravitational effect on the flow of moisture in soil and plants and, to a lesser degree, the effect of moonlight on seed germination. "I've got a large area in potatoes. We've got some planted at the right time of the moon and some crops at the wrong time of the moon. The difference is so obvious and there for everybody to see"
posted by stbalbach
on Jul 17, 2003 -
11 comments
Paghat The Ratgirl (
google cache) is one of the more interesting people that I have encountered on the Internet. A frequent poster to the newsgroup rec.gardens, her
gardening site is an interesting mix of plant history and folklore, lovely images and a darn good place to get ideas on what to add to the yard next. She frequently posts to many other newsgroups as well and
a quick google search or
two turns up thousands of messages by paghat, her detractors and her fans. She even has a
gift shop.
posted by bargle
on Jun 12, 2003 -
7 comments
Wild West Yorkshire Nature Diary. 'My diary describes a year in the life of woodland, field, marsh, river, canal . . . and a fairly wild back garden . . . in the Calder valley in coal measures country near Wakefield.'
Richard Bell's nature diary has been online since 1998.
The site's
links
page leads to more nature diaries and related resources :
Ackworth School's natural history diary,
Roseberry Topping,
an environmentally friendly slug trap,
Yorkshire dialect verse,
wildscapes
from Texas,
Notes from Pure Land Mountain (a journal from countryside
Japan), and more.
Although it's not linked,
An English Country Garden, chronicling a garden in a small village in Dorset, would not be out of place here; neither would
Blackberry Creek Journal, 'a country newsletter about the seasons, animals, gardens and people of a small Michigan farm'. There is a huge collection of gardening journals and homepages
here. [more inside]
posted by plep
on Mar 20, 2003 -
8 comments
