Search Results for: label/fruit

187 results

Capparis spinosa – Capers

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
6 Comments
...s bad soil and dry conditions, in short perfect for the front slope of our little hilltop compound. But nature could still screw with us. Capers are notoriously difficult to start from seeds (which we ordered from Trade Winds Fruit). According to Purdue University’s Center for New Crops and Plant Products, “Caper seeds are minuscule and are slow to nurture into transplantable seedlings. Fresh caper seeds germinate readily – but...

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Book Review: A Feast of Weeds by Luigi Ballerini

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
7 Comments
...is is an understandable mistake for an Italian to make. For some odd reason only the people of the New World eat the pads of prickly pear–in the Mediterranean and Middle-East, where the plant has been imported, only the fruit is consumed. I’m looking forward to cooking up some of the recipes, which were contributed by Ada De Santis, who runs a farm on the Salentine peninsula of southern Puglia. Thanks to A Feast of Weeds, there will b...

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Greywater Precautions

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
2 Comments
...o not apply greywater to crops that you will eat raw, such as strawberries, carrots or lettuce. Using greywater on any vegetables is somewhat dodgy in general for heath reasons, but greywater is fine for edible plants such as fruit trees where the crop is far from the ground and the risk of direct contamination by contact with contaminated water is low. Do not apply greywater to lawns (lawns are evil anyways) or to the foliage of any plant as thi...

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Tomato Review #2 Banana Legs – it don’t look like a banana and it don’t got legs

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
...texture. Not bad, not thrilling, not nearly is as good as a similar looking tomato we grew last year, Power’s Heirloom. We grew our Banana Legs in a self watering container (SWC) and it produced a respectable amount of fruit. With a sunny balcony, folks in apartments could do the same. For our container we used a repurposed storage bin and we’d recommend the largest container you can find for tomatoes or sticking to tomato varieties...

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Resilient Gardens

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
17 Comments
...r yard. Cherry tomatoes. Cherries don’t seem to be nearly as susceptible to the various tomato maladies. Climate change or no, they are an important backup to big tomatoes. Swiss chard. The most amiable of all greens. Fruit trees. They aren’t bothered by much here in this mild climate–but this wouldn’t be true somewhere where, say, a late frost could wipe out a crop. However, I think our chill hours are dropping in So...

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Seed Mania

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Seeds
7 Comments
...;Rare, fine old European strain of Swiss Chard. Smaller smooth dark-green leaves, small mid-ribs. Frost and bolt resistant, needs water in a dry spell.” Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) from Bountiful Gardens. The fruit of this berry producing shrub can be found in Armenian and Russian markets here in LA. I was introduced to it by my friends at Tularosa Farms. It’s difficult to germinate so that plan is to gift the seeds to the...

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My Sooper Seekrit Compost Pile

Mrs. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
43 Comments
...in the trash never crossed our minds. At this point, it’s unthinkable, like driving around without a seat belt. “This can’t go on,” I said, when a second mixing bowl of scraps joined the first, and the fruit flies started passing out party fliers to the whole neighborhood. “It will have to go in the green bin,” he said with an air of grim decision. The green bin is the dedicated wheelie bin given us by the cit...

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Loofah Sponges

Mrs. Homegrown
Cleaning, Domesticus, Gardening
14 Comments
...actually members of the cucumber family and grow on vines. With their skins on, they look like zucchini sized cukes. They’re quite attractive and fast growing. The vines can reach 20 feet if they’re happy, and the fruits form on big yellow flowers. They are so prolific and easy to grow (given the right conditions) that you only need a crop every few years to keep you in sponges. We’ve never tried to eat loofah, mostly because w...

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La Alternativa

Mr. Homegrown
Resources
RLeave a comment
...Wall Street Journal article notes, Gálvez’s advice has included everything from salad dressing that doubles as hair conditioner, beauty treatments that consist of soaking in bread crumbs and warm milk, a flan made with fruit or vegetables rather than scarce corn starch and eggs, and laundry soap made from the jaboncillo tree. What we like most about Gálvez is that she is a strong proponent of urban gardening, maximizing every available spa...

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