Green Living Home

Q: My garden has termites (subterranean). They are in the wood used for the raised beds, and I would like to remove them ASAP. What’s your advice on how to get rid of them without poisoning myself or my family?

The termites should go to the cardboard and stay away from the wood you are using, and the boric acid or borax will kill them. Also, you can treat the wood you are using for the raised beds with a sodium borate such as BoraCare. BoraCare is available online at .

Q: I recently was bitten by chiggers. I probably got them from cleaning the chicken coop. I have nine chickens and usually pick up their droppings every day, but recently, I’ve been hosing part of the coop that has wooden floors. The other part of the coop is a sand-like soil that I rake almost every day. This is where the chicken food and water and food scraps are located.

Read more text…

I have a big garden so I am frequently overwhelmed by it.  But I reminded myself recently just how much can be done in tiny spurts of time. (I re-seeded my front lawn in the time it took my kindergartner to get his shoes on and get in the car to go to school).   It had me thinking.what else can I do in mere minutes.

Here are 5 more ideas (besides re-seeding and over-seeding grassy ares) that you can do very quickly.

1) Clean out a container, a raised bed, or anything you didnt quite get to last year.  Its all dead it comes away with the quickest of swipes.  Leave your garden gloves by the door so you are ready to go and you wont have to wash up afterwards.

2) Turn the compost heap I like to do this when I am just back from a walk with the dog, or yogaI am already needing a little shower, I am all warmed up why not add 5 more minutes of physical exercise.

3) Prune something pick the thing that most recently finished blooming, odds are it is a good time to prune it.

4) Pick a Bouquet You know whatever is blooming.

5) Clean the ashes out of the firepit or fire bowl.and if you only have a grill.clean the grill.  It

Read more text…

The finches and the Bewick’s wren and the local robins are singing, and right on time, here comes the rhythm section, that rataplan rapping on the street-side power pole: a downy woodpecker. We have Nuttall’s woodpeckers and red-shafted flickers in our neighborhood sometimes, too. Other Bay Area places also welcome hairy and acorn woodpeckers, and, in winter, red-breasted sapsuckers. California is a hotbed of woodpecker diversity: 11 species in the northern Sierra alone, a couple more in the desert.

Lacking the vocal sophistication of songbirds, woodpeckers drum to get the attention of rivals and potential mates. The drum, chosen for its acoustic quality, may be a hollow tree trunk, telephone pole, stovepipe, rain gutter, cast-iron camp stove.

Read more text…

I am flat out with getting Issue #2 of Leaf Magazine out the door.  We are hoping to have it all done and ready for your viewing pleasure on Monday.   I have so much to write about but I keep running out of hours in the day and I expect that to continue through the weekend.  I am doing my best but I dont think that regularly scheduled programming will return until this publication is all done.

In the meantime, I heard a story today on the radio that I want to quickly mention There is a lead in the 20+ year old unsolved mystery of the biggest art heist (ever?) in Boston.  The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (my favorite!)  had 13 (I think) paintings stolen and the case has been cold for 20+ years until today, when suddenly, now, a new lead has developed related to some mafia guy in Connecticut!  Fingers crossed for getting those paintings back (btw, they are valued at 500 million yes half a billion dollars).  Go FBI!

Anyway that lead me to remembering to tell you about the Gardners annual nasturtium display that is on right now.  It is an extraordinary thing a feet (pun intended) of horticultural prowess.   Nasturtiums are grown to great lengths so that at the height of their bloom they can be carefully installed in the beautiful courtyard of the museum so that they can dangle in all their glory.  Its a must see.

From rugs to chairs, the idea of patterning a piece of furniture after something natural like a stone is nothing new but you can take it to new levels with this kind of radical dedication.

For sale at LolaHome, the idea is to not just make a couch, beanbag or pillow, but that you could scatter around in-between sizes to fit the nooks and crannies around these core pieces.

You then end up with something like a living room rock garden that encourages playful interactions and constant rearrangement, which could work great for kids rooms or minimalist settings alike.