Josey Baker on Bread: Whole, Wild, Wet, Slow and Bold

...on at room temperature and proofing in the fridge. Bold One of the biggest mistakes newbie bakers make is puling their loaves out of the oven before the bread is really, truly done. Both Miller and Baker leave their loaves in the oven until they are almost burnt. The reasons are multiple. Take the loaf out too soon and, particularly with whole grain breads, the crust will be too soft. Another reason is that Miller contends that the sort of whole g...

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Our new front yard, part 6: it’s all potential at this point

.... In the meantime, I will update this series if anything comes up– any new mistakes or discoveries or victories on the road to developing a meadow community. Doing this project has made me aware of how often we expect instant results with our landscaping, and how this haste often comes at a price. I don’t mean money, though that is true as well. So often the homeowner or the designer installs way too many plants, and plants them too close to one a...

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087 Foraging Controversy with Lisa Novick

...2016 Theodore Payne garden tour Theodore Payne plant list Native gardening mistakes Edible California natives California natives in pots Hooker’s Evening Primrose in bloom. Photo: Lisa Novick. If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. A downloadable ve...

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Homesteading Disasters: The Skunk Menace

Franky, I think our mistakes are more interesting and educational than the high-horse blog posts we typically churn out. I’m hoping, in fact, to collect our misadventures into a little booklet of homesteading disasters. To that end, I’ll periodically write about the latest problem around the Root Simple Compound starting today with how fun it is to garden with skunks. Angry red arrows mark skunk dig sites in our new keyhole bed. I know that I’ve...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

...6otA What could possibly go wrong? Let’s just say that at Root Simple Labs mistakes were made. The root stock grew a lot faster than the heirloom tomatoes I chose. When you graft you want similarly sized stems. It would have been good to stagger the days I started my seeds rather than planting them all at one time. The healing chamber needs to be a carefully controlled environment. I improvised a greenhouse by putting my seedlings in plastic bags....

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