Sunday, March 22, 2015

Grow a Living Wall by Shawna Coronado

 Grow a Living Wall, by Shawna Coronado.
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 If you're stuck for space in your garden then this is the book for you. If you've ever wanted to save some space and grow your garden straight up and down, then this is the book for you.

Author, Shawna Coronado, has hundreds and hundreds of ideas, and photos, of ways you can incorporate vertical gardening to grow a living wall into most any aspect of a modern backyard.

I am genuinely impressed with the author's obvious passion and her enthusiasm shines through on every page to make this a thoroughly enjoyable book to read.

Shawna's thoughts, ideas and a practical approach on how to grow a living wall are well set out and build from the basics of growing a living wall to the most complex of ideas.
Part 1 includes  some great chapters on 'How to Create Living Walls,' which includes what tools you'll need, how to water your living wall and what soils and compost to use.

Part 2 of Shawna's book, then moves on to more specific applications of growing living walls with chapters on, Growing a Fern Garden, a Vertical Vegetable Farm, a Culinary Kitchen Garden and many more.

Beautifully illustrated with step by step photo and instructions on how to create your own Living Wall Garden.








Shawna Coronado
Here is a copy and paste from Amazon.com on Grow a Living Wall by Shawna Coronado

Make a beautiful, practical, environmentally conscious garden, even in a small space - grow UP with a living wall!
A living wall is a vertical structure, usually outside the home, that is built with live plants growing in containers hung in a decorative arrangement.
Sometimes called "Green Walls" and "Vertical Gardens," living walls are easier than ever to plan and grow! Grow a Living Wall is the first wall-gardening book to focus exclusively on the needs of home gardeners.
Make your vertical garden environmentally friendly and sustainable. It's easy with author Shawna Coronado's help! One of her themed vertical gardens is stocked mostly with flowers to make it a haven for bees and other pollinators. Other gardens are filled with vegetables and herbs so anyone with an outdoor wall can grow their own food - beautifully! Even more gardens promote aromatherapy or medicinal plants. Some are designed to provide a green net of air filtration near a living area, or to protect exterior walls from exposure to direct sunlight, which helps to keep the indoors cool.
In addition to the comprehensive, step-by-step information that explains the basics of vertical gardening, each of the 20 featured gardens has its own chapter filled with useful tips, stunning photography, and fascinating background stories that point out how much difference a small garden can make. Like author Shawna herself, the gardens you'll find in Grow a Living Wall are positive, life affirming, and sure to produce a smile or two.

 Shawna Coronado is an author, columnist, blogger, photographer, and spokesperson for organic gardening, green lifestyle living, and culinary preparation who campaigns for social good. Shawna's goal in authoring gardening and green lifestyle books is to promote a world initiative to encourage healthy and sustainable living. Shawna was featured as a Chicago Tribune "Remarkable Woman" and speaks internationally on building community, simple urban garden living, and green lifestyle tips for the everyday person. Shawna lives in the western suburbs of Chicago where she has a suburban front lawn vegetable garden. This adventurous garden is highlighted in all her books and has been featured in many media venues including radio, and TV. Her organic living photographs and stories have been shown both online and off in many international home and garden magazines and multiple books. You can learn more about her at www.shawnacoronado.com.

Cheers and happy Grow a Living Wall,

Stewart.



Monday, March 16, 2015

Garlic bed prep.

I've started getting the soil ready for planting garlic around the end of March or early April.

I have two varieties to plant. One is Italian Red coming from The Diggers Club and the other is a white garlic that I picked up from an organic shop and have been growing here for the last two or three years.

Both soft neck varieties suited to our warmer climate.


Sunday, March 15, 2015

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Renewable energy

Here's some good news on the Solar power front from ABC Catalyst Program.

Dr Graham Phillips investigates new technology that is able to convert more than 40 per cent of the sun's light into electricity. This is more than double the efficiency of today's domestic rooftop solar panels, and could eventually lead to cheaper sources of renewable energy.

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/4194517.htm?WT.mc_id=Innovation_TV-Catalyst|CatalystSuperSolarCells_FBP|abc