Vertical garden in an hour at $nil cost
Vertical garden with soil exposed Timber pallet vertical garden with soil in sacks Tafe Outreach students built this couple of vertical gardens in my back yard. It took a couple of hours to do the first one but it had to lie down flat for four weeks while the plants took in the soil. The other one was built and lifted up and the top planting done in about an hour; by containing all the soil in the sacks and cutting a notch in the sacks to insert the... Read More
Mayor Bloomberg donates $50m to fight coal
Wow. Read this: “Michael Bloomberg will donate $50 million to the Sierra Club’s campaign to get rid of coal-fired power plants. Called Beyond Coal it has helped block the construction of 153 new coal-fired power plants. Bloomberg’s donation will allow the Sierra Club to expand their staff on the anti-coal campaign from 100 to almost 200 full-time workers.They will be spread across 46 states and focus on grassroots organizing, lawsuits and... Read More
Can I use treated pine in a raised bed garden?
I asked this question of a soil expert, Phil Mulvey, Chief Executive Officer of Environmental Earth Sciences and Phil’s advice is: In regard to CCA treated timber, there has been a lot of research with CCA treated logs and vegetables. Slow leaching of metals does occur and impacts the soil in contact with the logs (50 mm). Little uptake does occur to the vegetables but the same issue occurs with roots crops in close proximity to the logs... Read More
Dystopian but terrific writing
One of the people I read each week is James Kunstler. Firstly, because of the writing, and secondly, because his ideas and ‘take’ on things is so interesting. Dystopean, yes. Boring, no. His books have a more measured and very well researched richness to them. There’s a link on his blog (www.kunstler.com…) to a recent article in Orion Magazine, Back to the Future A road map for tomorrow’s cities and you can read it,... Read More
Why do I love rain?
When I smell rain coming, or hear it falling on my roof, I feel happy deep inside. It’s been like that since I can remember. On the farm, lying in bed as a kid listening to it on the grass outside it made me smile. “That’ll fix things”, I’d think. The new green grass would be strong in my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t wait to see it. “Dad’s crop will like this.” Rain then renewed what was around me and what our farming family... Read More
