18 of Nature’s Most Powerful Medicinal Plants (Part of an Exclusive WebEcoist Series on Amazing Trees, Plants, Forests and Flowers) From marijuana to catnip, there are hundreds of remarkably common herbs, flowers, berries and plants that serve all kinds of important medicinal and health purposes that might surprise you: anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, insect repellent, antiseptic, expectorant, antibacterial, detoxification, fever reduction, antihistamine and pain relief. Here are eighteen potent medical plants you're likely to find in the wild – or even someone's backyard – that can help with minor injuries, scrapes, bites and pains Marijuana Images via Current and Street Knowledge Seriously. Lady Ferns Image via US Forest Service If you grew up in the Pacific Northwest you likely know what ferns are good for: treating stinging nettles. California Poppy Images via Netstate and Mountain Meadow Seeds The brilliant blooms of the poppy make this opioid plant an iconic one. Blood Flower Tansy Image via Earth Heart Farm Korean Mint (hyssop) Alfalfa
Maintain a Hydroponic Nutrient Reservoir Edit Article Edited by Jason Willkomm, Ben Rubenstein, Sondra C, Kent Smith and 15 others A solid foundation for maintaining your hydroponic nutrient solution reservoir! A reservoir forms the center of every single type of hydroponic growing system. These basics give you effective control over every system type. Ad Steps 1These notes are for a wide range of vegetables used for human consumption.. 13Hydroponic gardens grow better outside, but local weather conditions may affect it and should be taken into account. Tips Oxygenation of the nutrient solution is paramount for nutrient uptake. Warnings Some city's water that contain chlorine also contains bromine which may harm your plants, a way to get rid of this bromine is to fill a barrel (not your reservoir) with cold water, the next day you will notice that the walls of the barrel will have little bubbles sticking allover, just tap your barrels sides a few times until all of these bubbles float up to the top.
Small Urban Space Rain Gardens Rain gardens aren’t just for homeowners with large tracts of land. A rain garden planted in a small urban area can make a big difference in the water quality and environment of its surrounding area. When it rains in densely populated urban areas, impervious surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and roofs not planted with gardens, trees, or turf, produce runoff that goes straight into storm sewers. Some storm drains carry water to treatment plants, while water from other storm drains washes directly into lakes, rivers, and oceans. Any time a large influx of water pours into an aquatic ecosystem, the balance of oxygen and nutrients is disturbed, causing death to aquatic life, and other disruptions of the ecosystem. Photo, City of Kingston, Melbourne, Australia In addition to impervious surfaces made of concrete or asphalt, many urban areas have vacant, muddy lots. Planting a rain garden, even a small one, can help divert water and keep it within the aquifer and out of streams and lakes.
Which Artificial Lights Are Best For Growing Plants Indoors? This is a very common question and quite understandable with all the options available in the market. To answer effectively we must understand a couple things. First, what light wavelengths do plants need to thrive. THE VISIBLE LIGHT SPECTRUM or 7 COLORS OF THE RAINBOW (ROY G. The perceptible range of colors or visible spectrum is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum (q.v. 1 nm = 40 billionths of 1 inch, a very tiny unit of length. White light and Sun light can be split into the seven different colors of the rainbow as shown in to following table. NASA (US Space Agency) ASSIGNED COLORS TO CORRESPONDING WAVELENGTHS Color of Color-Wavelengths (nm) Rainbow Center Short - Long R - Red 650 620.0 - 700.0 O - Orange 590 580.0 - 620.0 Y - Yellow 570 540.0 - 580.0 G.- Green 510 492.5 - 540.0 B - Blue 475 460.0 - 492.5 I - Indigo 445 422.5 - 460.0 V - Violet 400 380.0 - 422.5 NASA has defined the central wavelength (WL) for each of the seven colors of the rainbow (ROY G. Color of Important to
The Rise of Urban Farming and Other Varieties of Sustainable Ag | Buildings My newest buzzword for 2011 is CSA. I'd never heard the term until recently, but now it seems to be popping up all over, as is interest in sustainable agriculture and urban farming. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture -- the practice of signing up with a local farm for weekly produce and, in some cases, meat and dairy. Kimball's book is an engrossing depiction of the back-breaking work and edible rewards of CSA. Urban farming is also on the rise. Urban farming comes in a variety of models. A vision of urban and vertical farming. Next Page: More visions of urban farms.
Fritzing Top 10 Natural, Eco-Friendly and Anti-Pollutant Houseplants | The New Ecologist – Get rid of indoor pollution in a natural way You must have spent practically thousands of dollars to buy the latest vacuum cleaner and the latest floor cleaners that help you keep your house clean. However, there comes a time when these machines fail to work leaving you to the unhealthy dust particles and other pollutants in your house. Rather than artificial machines, you must opt for natural pollution fighters that come in the form of plants. These plants are quiet unlike the noisy machines when you switch them off. Moreover, you do not have to throw hundreds of dollars to repair them. Hence, to get rid of pollution in your house in a natural way, you must go through the top 10 houseplants that you can buy. 1.The Feston Rose plant ( photo by missouristate ) While looking for a houseplant, you generally prefer the one’s that need the lowest maintenance. This houseplant brilliantly tolerates highly saline conditions, lack of water, scorching heat and billowing winds. 2. 3.Phalaenopsis 4.
Urban Gardening: Indoor and Balcony Gardening Tips Posted on Nov 19, 2010 in DIY Projects , Emergency Preparedness & Survival , Urban Gardening, Farming & Homesteading It’s quite feasible to grow your own food even if you live in an urban space and have no outdoor room to garden. If you have just a bit of space on a balcony, patio or rooftop, you can grow even more. Gardening inside presents unique challenges. Supplies: where to find, how to have them shipped Space: small apartments aren’t conducive to traditional fruit-tree growing techniques Light: light levels are drastically reduced on the inside Crops: which will produce in shadier conditions Pollination: certain fruit crops require pollination (generally done by insects) in order to produce There are ways to get around all of these issues. The Internet has made getting supplies much easier. There are lots of things you can grow that are healthy, nutritious, and require relatively little space. Sprouting is one way to grow a lot of food in a little bit of space. Lettuce Peas Bush beans Kale
Window Farms Lets Green Thumbs Grow Fresh Veggies Indoors Window Farms – Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World It all started when Britta Riley decided to build a mini-garden in a Brooklyn window, creating a low-maintenance and self-sufficient alternative to consuming. We’ve been fans of Window Farm‘s edible gardens for long while, and just in time for the holiday season the team has evolved their fantastic gardening systems to create a brand new stand-up version of their original microfarms. These mini-gardens can hang in columns or stand on the sill, allowing you to grow fresh vegetables, herbs, and leafy treats in practically any space. Britta Riley‘s vertical hydroponic Window Farm systems are a boon for space-starved urban dwellers looking to start their own garden. In their latest form the gardens are made from environmentally-friendly plastic and wire. The Window Farm team is featuring special offers through their Kickstarter page, and they even offer a varied selection of seedlings (at an extra cost) which can be shipped to your door. + Window Farms
Green walls create new urban jungles UK company Biotecture have created a green wall for the side of Edgware Road Underground station in London which sits near the busy, and very polluted, Marylebone Road. It is hoped that the new wall will help eradicate some of the air pollution in the area. Buildings with green walls are popping up all over the UK thanks to companies like Biotecture. This one is on a library in the town of Grimsby in northeast England. Green wall pioneer, Patrick Blanc created this flourishing facade for the Musee du quai Branly, Paris in 2005. He also oversaw the creation of a vetical garden on the side of the CaxiaForum, Madrid in 2007. The WestBlaak Building (bottom left) in Rotterdam was recently fitted with a green facade which its developers, Rotterdam Climate Intiative, hope will cover large sections of the car park. London (CNN) -- Vertical gardens are cropping up all over cities these days, transforming drab urban facades into vibrant jungles of color.
Grow Your Own Super Fruit: The Pomegranate By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter This year I have made a commitment to be more hyper-local in my food choices. I have decided not to eat anything out of season that I have not canned or frozen and I will not eat anything exotic that I have not grown myself. But when I made this personal commitment I did not think about one of my favorite fruits and that is the pomegranate. Pomegranates are not that difficult to grow and actual do well indoors since they are self-pollinating. They can even tolerate a few nights of below 32 F degrees but it is always a good idea to move indoor when the temperatures dip into the low 40s F degrees. To start pomegranates from seed requires a little work and patience. Once the seeds have dried out plant two to three of them in a 5-inch pot that is filled with an all-purpose soil and cover with ¼-inch of soil mixture. Once the sprouts appear, remove from the plastic bag and place in a brightly lit area. To keep the pomegranate at a workable size, prune in the winter.
17 Apart: Growing Celery Indoors: Never Buy Celery Again Remember when we tested and shared how to grow onions indefinitely last week? Well, at the same time, we've been testing out another little indoor gardening project first gleaned from Pinterest that we're excited to share the successes of today — regrowing celery from it's base. We've figured out how to literally re-grow organic celery from the base of the bunch we bought from the store a couple weeks ago. I swear, we must have been living under a rock all these years or just not be that resourceful when it comes to food, but we're having more fun learning all these new little tips and tricks as we dive deeper into trying to grow more of our own food. This project is almost as simple as the onion growing project — simply chop the celery stalks from the base of the celery you bought from the store and use as you normally would. We let our celery base hang out in the saucer of water for right around one week, give or take. Update 2: Here's how we are looking at almost 3-4 weeks of growth:
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