How To Make Hoshigaki (Dried Persimmons)

...hat they will hang from. Note the knife trick you use to do this. Turn the fruit, not the knife: Next you peel the skin off the fruit: Hanging Cut a 24 inch length of string and tie it into a loop. Take two similarly sized fruit and tie their stems together with the string: A 2 inch diameter bamboo pole is just about right to keep the persimmons separated. A sunny window is a good place to hang the persimmons. The curtain, in the photo above, was...

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Book Review: The Urban Bestiary

...estiary is an exploration of the intimate intersection of humans and other urban animals, such as coyotes and raccoons and opossums and squirrels. In The Urban Bestiary, Haupt introduces us to our close neighbors, the animals which share our land, and sometimes even our homes. She gives us a naturalist’s overview of their behaviors, physiology and life cycles, interspersed with personal anecdotes and interviews with wildlife experts. The resulting...

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Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe

...d beer of the Papagos Indians of central Mexico (usually made with saguaro fruit but prickly pear fruit will do in a pinch). This August we’re making jelly. Here’s how to do it: 1. Taking reader Steven’s (of the fine blog Dirt Sun Rain) suggestion, burn off the nasty spines by holding the fruit over a burner on the stove for a few seconds. Using the non-cutting edge of a knife held at a 90º angle to the fruit, scrape off what remains of the spines...

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Welcome to the Summer Fruit Season

...I am very happy to begin the summer fruit season. I will continue to gorge myself on these sweet treats while they are at their peak over the next few months. And now for the shameless plugs- I’ll be at the Old L.A. Farmer’s Market in Highland Park this afternoon selling veggie seedlings and fruit trees. So come and visit and pick up your very own peach tree and some growing tips. And did you know fruit trees are excellent for irrigating with gre...

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How to Deal With Thrips on Stone Fruit

...to our thrip problem. And perhaps some mulch and weeding around the base of the tree is in order. UC Davis goes on to suggest monitoring methods as well as organic controls if that’s your cup of tea. The scarred fruit gets rotten on the tree and is unappetizing. We did get some unblemished fruit, but there was enough of a thrip problem to warrant monitoring next year. Did you have thrip problems this season?...

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