Surprised no mention of landscaping “improvement” projects given “drought,” the trend away from a manicured lawn to xeriscaping AND the interest toward “urban farming” (because of an interest and awareness in organic “food”)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAlWrT5P2VI

I’d be the first to admit I’m not any kind of expert in gardening, but over the years I’ve slowly make progress toward landscaping that uses lots less water than a traditional manicured lawn, actually is productive (in terms of growing stuff that can be can consumed), and is low maintenance

Actually started off by re-thinking the idea of raised beds for vegetables,… basically looked and liked the concept of pre-fab planters that are sold at big box stores, which are shown being quickly setup and used on decks or patios BUT IMHO the stuff being sold in stores seemed “delicate”

…So took the basic concept of a “delicate” patio planter and came up w/ a setup that was “robust” and made to last for a long run

http://www.TinyURL.com/Veg-Table

As I got into kitchen-gardening, noticed some of my produce like strawberries, were not uniform or all “pretty” like the stuff you can buy in a store (but have very little taste),… found out strawberry plants will pollinate themselves, but they usually need the assistance of wind or pollinators, such as bees, to do the work of transferring the pollen from the stamens, the male parts of the flowers, to the stigma, the female part of the flower

Now that I have some basic gardening experience, I’m kinda taking the next step(s) of trying to rethink the idea of urban landscaping in terms of having a space that not only grows “produce” to one that also encourages bio-diversity of pollinators,… is pretty simple to build from a DYI aspect (i.e. no power tools needed)

http://www.TinyURL.com/PlasticNestingTube

AND is a personal hedge of sorts that tries to do something “positive” about some arcane knowledge I stumbled upon,…

[quote]
The great nutrient collapse

The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention.

…Goldenrod, a wildflower many consider a weed, is extremely important to bees. It flowers late in the season, and its pollen provides an important source of protein for bees as they head into the harshness of winter. Since goldenrod is wild and humans haven’t bred it into new strains, it hasn’t changed over time as much as, say, corn or wheat. And the Smithsonian Institution also happens to have hundreds of samples of goldenrod, dating back to 1842, in its massive historical archive—which gave Ziska and his colleagues a chance to figure out how one plant has changed over time.

They found that the protein content of goldenrod pollen has declined by a third since the industrial revolution—and the change closely tracks with the rise in CO2. Scientists have been trying to figure out why bee populations around the world have been in decline, which threatens many crops that rely on bees for pollination. Ziska’s paper suggested that a decline in protein prior to winter could be an additional factor making it hard for bees to survive other stressors.

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511
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