Search Results for: label/least favorite plant

426 results

Broom Corn–or is it Broomcorn?

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Gardening
18 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: This summer I suggested we plant broom corn for no other good reason than I saw the seed pack at the nursery and thought it would be fun to make a broom. (This sort of temporary insanity often overtakes me in the seed aisle.) So without knowing anything at all about broom corn or broom making we planted a block of the stuff. Maybe I should have done a little research into broom making before planting, but I let it slide ...

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Three Events Coming Up: Ciclovia, Huntington Plant Sale and Homegrown

Mr. Homegrown
Events
1 Comment
...’ll be there along with Homegrown Neighbor and Mrs. Homegrown More information at http://ciclavia.wordpress.com. Also this weekend October 9th through the 11th the Huntington Library and Gardens will host their annual plant sale. More information here in their events listings. I’d like to go but Mrs. Homegrown is worried I’ll drag weird plants home that we have no space for. But that shouldn’t stop all of you from going!...

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Capparis spinosa – Capers

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
6 Comments
...we had one big challenge. While Mrs. Homegrown Revolution hails from the snowy mountains of Colorado, Mr. Homegrown Revolution has never lived anywhere else other than sunny Southern California. And neither of us have tended plants outside of this Mediterranean climate, one of the rarest types of climatic zones on the planet. But if we’ve learned anything universal about growing food it has been to work with nature rather than against her,...

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Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Mr. Homegrown
Herbal Medicine, Herbs
10 Comments
Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus). Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medic...

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Backyard Orchard Culture

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
7 Comments
...l choice of varieties you can create a mini orchard that produces consistently throughout the year (or growing season in colder climates). You don’t want a bunch of trees that all ripen in July. In his own yard Spellman planted four varieties of avocados, each of which produce fruit at different times, so that he can have a crop year round. You could also, say, plant three kinds of peaces that each mature successively. Or, plant a fig, an a...

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Mandrake!

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
2 Comments
...ts of beer making which used to be, he claims, the duty of women, not men. His chapter, “Psychotropic and Highly Inebriating Beers” contains a number of recipes, including one making use of the mysterious mandrake plant, a member of the nightshade family and popularized lately in a certain series of books about a wizard school (Homegrown Revolution suffered through the first film based on these kid’s books on a transatlantic fli...

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I like my chamomile stressed

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs, Mistakes
22 Comments
...set aside space for The Phan of Pharmacy ™ my goal was to maximize the production of herbs and flowers.  I prepped the ground in the fan like a fine flower or veg bed: double dug and richly amended. It was only after I planted my chamomile starts in it that I realized the soil was way too rich for chamomile. Not that it wouldn’t grow, but it wouldn’t grow the way I wanted it to grow. See, chamomile is a tough, scrappy plant. In...

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Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
1 Comment
A garden designer has the difficult task of balancing texture, color, and space while simultaneously dealing with the unpredictability of nature. Long ago I gave up on the idea of ever being good at garden design. But help has come from an unlikely source, Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury’s revolutionary book Planting A New Perspective. High Line Park. Piet Oudolf is probably best known in the US as the plant designer for the High Line park...

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Chumash Plant Wisdom

Mrs. Homegrown
Herbal Medicine, Herbs
2 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: Great news for our readers in Southern California (and parts near)! I’ve just found the holy grail of local plant guides: Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West. It’s co-authored by a Chumash healer, Cecilia Garcia and a USC pharmacology prof., James David Adams, Jr., both of whom write for Wilderness Way magazine. It features full-color pictures of plants familiar to you from hikes in the desert and the chap...

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California poppy tea

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Herbal Medicine, Herbs
22 Comments
  Mrs. Homegrown here: Where we live, this is the poppy time of year. California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) are blooming all over our neighborhood, and most especially in our yard. I have to admit I have a mercenary attitude toward plants, my main thought on meeting one being, “What can you do for me?” California poppies, lovely as they are, have become more interesting to me since I’ve started consuming them. Now, don...

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