Jujube and Goji Fever

January 26, 2009

...st read list). Creek Freak detailed his experience here on the Eco-village garden blog, and came back from Papaya Tree with an unique variety of jujube (Zyzyphus jujuba) which Alex Silber calls the Chang Jujube. Alex’s father got the original Chang tree as a gift from a friend in Asia. For those of you who have never had a jujube, it has a flavor somewhat like a date, (hence the popular name “Chinese date”). Most of the jujubes I’ve sampled at far...

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How to Deal with Extremely Root Bound Plants

Mrs. Homegrown

April 11, 2014

Gardening, How-to, Mistakes

22 Comments

...ts are often dehydrated plants, because the pots are mostly full of roots, making the soil hard and water repellent. If this is so, it helps to give the plants a good soaking before you un-pot them by placing them in a bucket of water for a few minutes. Method A) Mildly root bound plants can be helped along by gently massaging the root ball with your hands just before planting to loosen the roots and open the ball if it has become hard-packed. If...

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A Year after The Age of Limits: 5 Responses to the End Times

Mrs. Homegrown

May 5, 2014

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

54 Comments

...ble, bikeable cities and locally grown food via farmers markets, community gardens, cottage food co-ops, etc. • Learn skills. Basic carpentry, plumbing, electronic repair, gardening, animal husbandry, sewing/knitting/weaving, home cooking, food preservation, simple medicine, brewing, baking… You don’t have to do all these thing, only some of them. Or just one of them, if you can do it really, really well. Teach what you know to others. Raise kids...

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An Echo Park Weed Salad

Mr. Homegrown

February 11, 2008

Food, Foraging

1 Comment

...more information). It’s a relative of sorrel, which we have growing in our garden and has a similar taste. Oxalis contains vitamin C, but also contains oxalic acid which can interfere with calcium absorption, though you’d have to eat vast quantities to have an ill effect. As Klehm pointed out, these weeds know no boundaries or borders. Like all of us in North America, they are interlopers, trespassers and immigrants. At the end of the walk the cla...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

Mr. Homegrown

September 17, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...h. As a result I always have a few mystery Greek vegetables growing in the garden. This spring he gave me a squash seedling he had propagated. It grew into a massive vine and produced two winter squashes whose weight exceeded the capacity of my kitchen scale. I harvested them last month and we’ve been eating a lot of squash! The skin turned a kind of manila envelope color and the flesh was a deep orange. It kind of looks like a butternut squash on...

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