Tolosna Bean

February 2, 2008

The beautiful beans pictured above are some sort of Spanish bean called “Tolosna”. Our occasional houseguest, Nance Klehm, gave us these beans from her personal seed archive, along with a few other remarkable seeds we’ll profile as we plant them over the next few months. We’ve promised to save some of the seeds we harvest to return to her archive. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to find any information on this variety of bean other than a brief m...

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Why Urban Farm?

Mr. Homegrown

June 10, 2007

Animals, Chickens

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...r total up to four. Such are the cycles of life and death on the new urban homestead. Bryan Welch, who raises livestock and is also the publisher and editor of the always informative Mother Earth News, wrote an editorial in the February issue called “Why I Farm” in which he says, “There’s a Buddhist wisdom in the stockman’s cool compassion. The best of them seem to understand that our own lives on this Earth are as irrefutably temporary as the liv...

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KRAUT FEST!!!!

Mr. Homegrown

September 5, 2009

Events

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Limited edition Kraut Fest poster–click to enlargulate There’s been way too many Los Angeles based event announcements this week and not enough blogging! So sorry–one last announcement and we’ll be back to our regular programming: Kraut Fest 2009! September 6, 2009 11am – 3pm Taught by Mark Frauenfelder, Erik Knutzen, Kelly Coyne, Jean-Paul Monsche, and the winner of Critter’s 2009 Kimchi Competition, Oghee “Granny” Choe (www.GrannyChoe.com) Come...

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Looking for the Union Label

Mr. Homegrown

September 12, 2007

Domesticus

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...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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Borlotto Bean Lingua di Fuoco

Mr. Homegrown

January 6, 2008

Vegetable Gardening

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...en you cook them. The plant comes in both pole and bush versions. Borlotto beans are basically the Italian version of kidney beans, hailing originally from the New World. Italian folks traditionally use them in soups. We’re considering growing an edible wall of beans along the south side of our house this spring in order to see if we can grow enough to collect dried beans and make some soup. For cultivation and harvesting details for dry beans cli...

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