What Will Be the New Kale?

October 31, 2014

Our 2011 crop of spigarello. Since 2011, we’ve been saying that Spigarello is the new kale. Thanks to a tip from the folks at Winnetka Farms, we may need to wait for BroccoLeaf™ to have its fifteen minutes of fame as the new kale. The Salinas, California based Foxy Organic is, quite sensibly, marketing broccoli leaves. Broccoli leaves are indeed edible and tasty. Foxy has the recursive media to prove it, a Facebook photo of someone Instagramming...

Read…

More on our gardening disasters

Mrs. Homegrown

January 21, 2013

Gardening, Mistakes, Thoughtstylings

15 Comments

...to put the heart back into our garden. (Our Heart of Flax from way back in 2011) I thought I’d chime in on the subject of this year’s garden failures. Before I do, I’d like to thank you all for your kind advice and commiseration that you left on Erik’s post. First, I will agree that it really, truly has been a terrible year in the garden. Sometimes Erik gets a little melodramatic when it comes to the crop failure (e.g. the Squash Baby adventure)...

Read…

Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Dealing With the Crisis of Overconnection

Mr. Homegrown

February 19, 2013

Reviews, Thoughtstylings

1 Comment

...who among us actually feels better after an info-crack bender? Published in 2010, William Power’s Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age , is a reasonable, balanced and practical guide to navigating our hyper-connected age (and how ironic it is that the fast pace of technological change makes “BlackBerry” a quaint reference in 2013–the book, however is more relevant than it was in 2010). Powers does...

Read…

Loquat season is here!

Mrs. Homegrown

April 28, 2014

Foraging, Fruit Trees

51 Comments

...in stores. We’ve tried to figure out things to do with them, but they defy preservation because they are made mostly of water. They are also small, have skins which are impossible to peel (you just eat the skins), and large pits, all of which makes processing difficult. Yet they can be really tasty. The best ones taste a little like citrus honey and have a nice floral fragrance. Their light, watery flesh is refreshing on a hot day (If anyone has f...

Read…

How to Organize a Small Workshop

Mr. Homegrown

November 3, 2017

Design

6 Comments

...to go a lot more smoothly. In the past few months I’ve decided to focus on making my tiny workshop both useful and pleasant. The challenge has been that our 1920s garage is tiny–sized for two Model-Ts–and must also accommodate our Honda Fit. At the risk of seeming like I’ve come down from the mountaintop with stone tablets, permit me to share a few things I’ve learned about tiny workshop design: Put everything on wheels. Get some locking wheels at...

Read…