What Vegetables Are You Growing This Winter?

September 19, 2014

...beautiful and much stronger tasting than the stuff at the supermarket. And store bought lettuce wilts instantly. What are you growing this winter? If you’re in a cold climate, do you grow year round? Note: if you’re in the US, Franchi has several distributors. I got my seeds from the Heirloom Seed Store, run by a very nice family that has a farm in Half Moon Bay in Northern California. The seeds I bought are not listed on their website, so you may...

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Everything Must Go: Tidying Up at the Root Simple Compound

Mrs. Homegrown

January 9, 2015

Cleaning, Domesticus, Tidying up

36 Comments

...n of stuff. And we’re not talking about sending a bag or two to the thrift store every now and then, mind you. Her private clients typically pare their possessions down by two-thirds or even three-quarters over the course of one intense purge. KonMari’s philosophy is that you only keep those things that bring you joy and resonate with you, so wherever you look in your newly-purged house, you feel and sense of peace and well-being, as opposed to th...

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Everything Must Go Part 5: The nitty gritty

Mrs. Homegrown

January 21, 2015

Domesticus, Tidying up

34 Comments

...ral dusty old 12 oz bottles of homemade mead–a few of which were helpfully labeled, “Bad Mead?”–which have sat on a back shelf unloved and undrunk for many years, for so long the printer ink on the labels was fading. Far longer than any aging period. Erik caught me draining the bottles and just about had kittens. He’d planned on carbonating these bottles…someday…to see if that would improve the flavor and now I’d gone and ruined all of his work. H...

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Day to day, our decisions count

Mrs. Homegrown

April 30, 2015

Back to the Garden

6 Comments

...unity doesn’t have a food co-op of any other sort, or a decent health food store with a good bulk bin selection, this might be a good way to buy cereals and oils and cleaning supplies at all those other sorts of things you can’t get at a farmers’ market. In the kitchen We can commit to not wasting food. We waste about 1/3 of the food calories we grow, worldwide. Not only is that a waste of our soil wealth, water, money and fuel–not to mention a hu...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

Mrs. Homegrown

May 14, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Soil

11 Comments

...n leaves. Get your neighbor’s leaves, if you can. Spread them in place, or store them in bags until you need them. Pine needles work, too. Pull weeds before they go to seed and leave them on the ground to dry up and vanish into the mulch layer. I swear, it might look strange to see them laying there at first, all green and bright, but they’ll be pretty much invisible in a few days. Practice “chop n’ drop”. When you’re pruning bushes or trees, chop...

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