A Plea for Plastic Vegetables

September 22, 2014

...if you carry any of the following: 1. Purple Bulb Shaped Eggplants and Eggplant plants 2. Green and yellow squash (zucchini) 3. Cucumbers 4. Red Hot chilly Pepper Plants 5. Red Cherry Bomb Plants 6. Yellow Banana Pepper Plants 7. Green bean (string bean and lima bean) plant that is vine-like that I can weave onto a trellis or a vine that looks like the leaves of a string bean plant 8. Tomatoes and Tomato plants (All Varieties) 9. Green and Purple...

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The Miraculous Lavender

Mrs. Homegrown

July 25, 2014

Gardening, Herbs

14 Comments

...re getting no irrigation. There’s no plumbing beneath the staircase, either. Yet the lavender keeps getting bigger. I’m going to have to pull it soon, before it ruins our stairs. But I don’t want to, because it’s so determined to live. And this goes to show that when a plant wants to grow somewhere, when it establishes itself according to its own rules, it is unstoppable. Soil type, recommended water, sun exposure– all these things mean little in...

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Can our landscapes model a vibrant future? Not according to the LA DWP.

Mrs. Homegrown

July 7, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening, Lawns, Water and Power

18 Comments

...t with nature to be too much trouble. No doubt they’d replace those sickly plants with synthetics if they didn’t suspect they’d all get stolen in the night. This is not the kind of model we need, DWP. Next time you change up your landscaping, consider consulting one or more of the many brilliant plant people and designers in this city. Call us if you need numbers. Consider using permeable surfaces and contoured landscaping to capture every drop of...

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Is Purslane the New Kale?

Mr. Homegrown

June 27, 2014

Food, Foraging, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

29 Comments

...water than what falls naturally from the sky here). You can eat the whole plant: stems and leaves. It has a salty and slightly lemony flavor reminiscent of New Zealand spinach. There’s always a huge bin of it at Super King, our local Armenian supermarket. In Armenia it’s gathered in the wild and used either raw in salads or lightly sauteed. There’s even a World Cup tie-in. The color of the plant in South America is associated with green/white soc...

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Pakistan Mulberry Fever

Mr. Homegrown

May 26, 2014

Fruit Trees, Gardening

14 Comments

...r the weekend. Now I need a regular Pakistani mulberry fix. If I wanted to plant one Bay Laurel Nursery has several varieties. It’s mostly a warm climate plant but some varieties do better in lower temperatures. Here’s what Steve had to say about his six year old tree which he thinks is the “Cooke” variety: It has totally thrived and become huge. I have to top back huge vertical branches every year after harvest season and tie limbs down laterally...

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