California Agriculture Journal Online

July 19, 2009

...s for the home gardener between the pages of this scientific journal. Make sure to check out the article and video of UC Berkeley entomologist Gordon Frankie explaining what kinds of plants are best for attracting bees in your urban garden. Thanks to Los Angeles County Master Gardener Coordinator Yvonne Savio for the tip....

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Something for Nothing – Wild Mustard Greens

Mr. Homegrown

March 8, 2008

Food, Foraging

...ave a pleasant and pungent flavor and can be eaten raw or cooked. From the Plants for a Future database entry: “Leaves . . . A hot pungent flavour, especially if eaten raw. Young leaves are used as a flavouring in mixed salads, whilst older leaves are used as a potherb. Seed – sprouted and eaten raw. The seed takes about 4 days to be ready. A hot flavour, it is often used in salads. A nutritional analysis is available. The seed can be ground into...

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Whiteflies

Mr. Homegrown

July 18, 2008

Pests

2 Comments

...eeding. What we could have done better is to have kept a closer eye on our plants. Daily inspection of more sensitive vegetables is always a good idea, but something we’ve been lax about lately. Keeping intensively planted annual vegetable beds close to places of daily activity means being able to stay on top of pest and disease problems. Raised beds we recently installed by the front door are on the path of our early morning amble down to the str...

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Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

Mr. Homegrown

August 14, 2008

Events

1 Comment

...ic space and the culmination of the LOVE APPLES project in which 72 tomato plants were installed on 12 traffic islands in LA and carefully tracked to see which thrive and which perish, à la Survivor. LOVE APPLES is a collaboration between the art collective Fallen Fruit (www.fallenfruit.org) and Islands of LA (www.islandsofla.org). The artists of Fallen Fruit investigate urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and c...

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DIY Outdoor Shower

Mr. Homegrown

December 14, 2006

Water Conservation

6 Comments

...soon separate your real friends from superficial hangers-on. But we urban homesteaders don’t need to be stinky since it’s possible and easy to build an outdoor solar shower. There are two reasons this makes sense, particularly in a place with as warm a climate as LA. First of all, you can direct the water straight into the garden and in so doing irrigate some plants and keep that water from uselessly running down the sewer line. Secondly, placing...

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