Behold the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (Homalodisca coagulata)

July 13, 2009

Pests

...r toys, video games and action movies. Barring a GWS blockbuster we can instead offer our fellow plant and insect geeks an industrial film from the University of California that delves into the GWS in pornographic detail. Nice retro voiceover talent on that video UCTV (one of Mr. Homegrown’s former employers, fyi)! If you like that video, you’ll also enjoy UCTV’s 90 minute Home Vineyard lecture. I’ll add one point to that talk: if you’ve got GWS,...

Read…

Digital Farming- What’s The Deal?

Homegrown Neighbor

October 31, 2009

Gardening, Thoughtstylings, Vegetable Gardening

29 Comments

Homegrown Neighbor here: So here in the world of urban homesteading things can get pretty busy. We can become so preoccupied with work, chickens, vegetable gardening, cooking, cleaning, blogging duties and email that we can miss some of the things going on in the world. I do like to occasionally check in with the world at large by reading the newspaper. I just read an article that I have to comment on. A recent New York Times article titled, ‘To...

Read…

Off the charts

Homegrown Neighbor

July 9, 2009

Animals, Chickens

9 Comments

Homegrown Neighbor here. My chicken, Chickenzilla, is at it again, producing several mammoth double-yolked eggs in the past few weeks. The brown egg on the right is more of a normal sized egg, weighing in at extra large on this antique egg scale. Chickenzilla’s egg is way beyond the measure of this scale, weighing in I’d guess at somewhere around extra, extra, extra large. Pretty good for an industrial meat chicken that isn’t supposed to be a goo...

Read…

On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

Mr. Homegrown

July 5, 2009

Gardening, Mistakes

17 Comments

...citrus), not practical for the home gardener and we’re organic around the Homegrown compound anyways. In fact, one of the pesticides used to control shapshooters is Imidacloprid, implicated by many in the recent disappearance of honey bees. Pierce disease resistant Vitus californica attacking our house. The only hope for long term control, as Turney sees it, is by breeding hybrid grape varieties resistant to Pierce’s. Turney strongly advised agai...

Read…

A Cheap Soil Testing Service

Mr. Homegrown

September 22, 2009

Gardening, Soil

7 Comments

...esting done, only to have to correct my response several times. Last week, Homegrown Evolution pal and the editor of Cool Tools, Elon Schoenholz, gave me a definitive answer on where to send soil for testing: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory. A standard soil test is $9, $4 more for the standard test plus organic matter. The standard tests includes heavy metals....

Read…