Look Pretty For Me! A Book Review “Of A New Garden Ethic” by Benjamin Vogt

A few pages into Benjamin Vogt’s new book, A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion For An Uncertain Future, Vogt talks about two fundamental ways human beings think about ecology and engage with nature and the environment.

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A Very Portable Greenhouse

Urban Gardens posted about this very portable greenhouse on their site a few days ago and I thought it was so great I just had to post about it on my blog.

This amazing greenhouse was designed by Studio Besau-Marguerre in Hamburg in collaboration with Adrien Petrucci. It comes with a leather strap, which, aside from being fashionable, is also practical as you can move this small greenhouse inside or out as weather permits.

Hoover’s Soular Food

Greens and Root Vegetables in a Corner Of Hoover's Garden

In Austin, TX there is a tradition of food trucks. To me they kind of look like a cross between a trailer home, a submarine, and the take out window at a fast food joint. But a lot of brick and mortar restaurants get their start as food trucks and you can get a lot of good food at the trucks.

The general path is to start with a truck and move on to a restaurant. One man, however, went kind of backwards. He had a restaurant and then started a food truck. That man is Hoover Alexander.

After several years of running Hoover’s Cooking, a Tex-Mex restaurant, Hoover began to feel disconnected from the passion he had previously had for cooking. He felt as though he was getting away from his roots; from the way his family had taught him to cook according to the seasons using every part of the animal, fish or vegetable you were cooking with.

In an effort to get himself back on track he planted a garden. It was this garden that led to the idea of opening a food truck serving veggie-centric, locally sourced food.

I recently ate there and the food was terrific. For those of you who live in Austin I highly recommend a trip.

Hoover’s Soular Food is located at:

1110 East. 12th St.

Austin, TX

Bumps on My Tomato Stems?

Image via Wikipedia

For those of us who grow tomatoes, and that is just about everyone who has a vegetable garden, many have probably noticed that there are often little nodes toward the bottom of the main stem of the plant. ‘What are these?, we may have asked ourselves at some point.

They are the root primordia. The root primordia is the earliest stage of root development. If that primordia had been underground it most likely would have developed into a root. This is why, when I transplant my tomatoes I plant them 3-5 inches below where they were in the container. I know it is a little sad to watch your tomato plant shrink in size as soon as you put it in the ground, but, in the long run you will have a stronger healthier plant.

Occasionally the nodes can signal an overall health problem with the plant so keep an eye on it. But the primordia are almost always harmless when above ground and beneficial when below ground.

Whole Foods. Dark Rye

Whole Foods has started a new online magazine and it is quite interesting. Dark Rye features interesting people doing interesting things in interesting ways. The writers themselves could not have described the content better when they wrote, “Dark Rye brings together pioneers of unconventional ideas to explore the edges of the creative life.”

I highly recommend you take a look. If you are interested in sustainable living, gardening, cooking, food or just interesting ideas I bet you will find something in the magazine that strikes your fancy.

Apple Trees For Very Small Spaces. Very, Very Small

I’ve been waiting for Wednesday to post about this for The Once A Week Page since I read about these trees in Urban Farm Magazine. I just think they are so amazing.

These apple trees are perfect for a small urban yard; or anyone who wants an attractive fruit tree. They come in 5 gallon containers, grow to a maximum of ten feet high and about two feet wide. According to the people at Green Leaf Nursery, who grow the trees, you can usually keep the tree in its original container for a year or two before you need to pot it up to a seven gallon container if you don’t want to put it in the ground.

There are four varieties of these Urban Columnar trees and you can read more about them here. To order a tree go to Garden Debut‘s web site and look under Retailers to find a retailer in your area.