Oof, the gauge of public reaction to drought rots in the in-boxes of landscapers all over Austin.  ”My grass is dead, we need help replacing it with something that won’t die in drought.  How?” There are no easy answers.  Austin is not Phoenix or Seattle, with predictable rainfall and temperature patterns.  2011 was El Paso [...]

Native Plants Don’t Save Water, People Do Even though we consider ourselves as low-impact landscapers, it’s a struggle for me to be excited about landscaping in this horrific drought.  I might as well be bulldozing garbage into the Guadalupe River. We use alternative fuels in our equipment, but propane and waste veggie oil and biodiesel [...]

I’m sure everyone deals with this.  Maybe it’s a moon phase, or some Mercurial alignment issue, or a change in weather, or a switch to a beer with a higher alcohol content, but it’s time for one of those disruptive yet potentially inspiring dives, usually lasting a couple of weeks.  Head first, into the waters of discovery and perspective, [...]

It’s been a rough month.  Whiny details will be spared, but the lowest point was having one of our trucks stolen from the storage lot in East Austin, the first truck that my friend Farmer Mike and I converted to run on waste vegetable oil two years ago.  APD came to file the report the morning [...]

Hello Hibernation Lovers,   The dormant season is upon us, though a little less extreme this year, and we are grateful.  Just like native plants and wildlife, we enjoy the summer weather as an excuse to slow down and take it easy, have a little seasonal nap, and save our resources for the inevitable burst of activity that comes with cooler weather and more rain, which [...]

Almost every day, the BG crew collects excess leaves that could not be mulched and returned to the landscapes they came from.   We also haul away invasive plants, winter cuttings from dormant perennials, fallen limbs, tilled up lawn grass to make way for new native beds, weeds, carcasses of dead trees and shrubs, and more [...]

The broken record spins on.  Weeds are a hot topic this year, so I’ve had hours every day to think about the subject, and what we can do about it.  The quick version: Funky Weather Patterns - Two years of record heat and drought.  Then an unusually hard winter, including a super hard freeze.  Then 6 [...]

Like an ancient coral reef, my approach to organic gardening matures, richens, and deepens every season.  I’m like a sponge in the reef, only with legs and eyes, always trying to get close to smart and thoughtful people who have a slightly different and always more experienced perspective than I, and try to absorb as much knowledge [...]

Ask any organic gardener, farmer, rancher, habitat restorationist, ecologist, agronomist, or organic landscaper – microbes are important.  (See Spring 2010 issue of EDIBLE AUSTIN for more.)  Microbes take a whole corner of the foundational soil triangle:  Microbes – Organic Content (Humus) – Soil Structure.  Beyond that, lack of research lends to a variety of opinions [...]

We don’t maintain any landscapes on Sunny Slope Drive, so it took a little sleuthing to figure out how Ollie’s collar found its way to a chicken coop 82 miles from its home.  But Ollie might like to know about the trip his collar took since it went missing, so I’ll do my best to [...]