Ten Uses for Palm Fronds

April 7, 2014

...nds can be made into creepy masks. Get good at this craft and open an Etsy store. 2. Make a roof. Weave them together and you’ve got the perfect roof for your tiki hut. Warning: you’ll need a lot. 3. Make a low quality mulch. Using palm fronds as mulch is somewhat controversial. The stuff takes forever to break down. Our arborist told me that some conventional citrus growers use palm frond mulch specifically because it takes forever to break down....

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Make a Rain Barrel

Mr. Homegrown

October 8, 2008

Design, rainwater harvesting, Water and Power, Water Conservation

11 Comments

...fitting. A few more PVC parts from the sprinkler section of your hardware store, a brass hose fitting with a valve, and you’ll have this: Glue that up with some PVC cement, wrap the threads with teflon tape, and you’re almost ready to collect rainwater. But first, turn the barrel upside down, drill a hole for the down spout another hole to insert an overflow pipe made out of a threaded 3″ waste pipe fitting: The last step is to prop the barrel up...

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What I’m Growing this Winter

Mr. Homegrown

October 23, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

11 Comments

...n the recommendation of Franchi’s West Coast distributor The Heirloom Seed Store, who had a booth at this year’s Heirloom Exposition. The owners of the Heirloom Seed Store, who run a farm in the Santa Cruz area, raved about this particular chicory. It’s a large-leafed variety that can be used in a salad or cooked. Radicchio and Chicory Mix: “Misticanza di Radicchi” I’ve never gone wrong with Franchi’s salad mixes. The best damn salads I’ve ever ha...

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Garlic!

Mr. Homegrown

June 2, 2008

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

9 Comments

...in Southern California. You just take the large, outer ring of cloves from store-bought garlic and stick them in the ground with the pointed side up interspersed throughout your other plantings–wherever you have some room. We plant them around Thanksgiving and harvest in late May/early June when the stalks begin to turn brown and fall over. After you harvest your garlic, don’t wash it just knock the dirt off, then let it “cure” with the stalks and...

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Thankfullness

Mr. Homegrown

November 28, 2016

Miscellaneous

102 Comments

...end of a routine day that included such dull tasks as going to the grocery store, the hardware store and a stop by our local Indian buffet, Kelly suddenly felt one of her legs go numb. Thankfully she had the good sense to know that she needed to get to the emergency room. By 9 p.m. she was being prepped for open heart surgery. She pulled through the surgery and her prognosis is good, but she is in incredible pain and is still in the hospital. We t...

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