Search Results for: label/native plants

322 results

Citified Parched Corn

Mrs. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation, How-to, Recipes
7 Comments
Dried corn on the left, parched corn with peas and blueberries on right I was thinking about trail food, and wishing for a portable snack which was not based on nuts and chocolate chips (though there’s nothing wrong with that!) or too sugary, like dried fruit or energy bars. Then I recalled parched corn. Parched corn–dried corn which has been roasted–is one of those legendary Native American foods, like pemmican, which you hear...

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Solitary Bee Nests: Why Having Bare Ground is Good

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
8 Comments
Solitary bee nesting sites? Cat added for scale. Photo by Anne Hars. Just as I was about to arrogantly suggest to my neighbor Anne that she mulch her garden paths, we spotted what I believe to be some sort of ground nesting bee activity. We found neat little holes scattered about the the middle of a dirt path. More appeared today. According to Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and...

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Insect Hotel

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Design, Gardening
3 Comments
This is old news, but we thought it worth repeating in light of last week’s review of Attracting Native Pollinators. Above is a picture of the winning design of a native pollinator habitat built by Arup Associates in response to the Beyond the Hive competition put on by the City of London.  The Core77 post we’re linking to has more views and also some pics of the runners up. It might give you some ideas for building your own habitat...

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The grape that ate the world

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes
18 Comments
...nhappy, meaning that once again we’re experiencing A Summer Without Shade. While our “resistant” varieties are proving not-so-resistant, there is at least one grape that laughs at Pierce’s disease: the native California grape, Vitus californica. I believe this sturdy wild grape provides the root stock for the vineyards up North. We planted one of these near our north side fence maybe five years ago now. While the rest of o...

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Back to the Ranch

Mr. Homegrown
Events
7 Comments
...uded with a dazzling presentation by Rosalind Creasy whose groundbreaking book Edible Landscaping has just been updated. As Mulley’s research proves, if we want to get more folks to replace their lawns with more useful plants we’ve also got to pay attention to aesthetics. Creasy, through her gardens and writing, has proven that useful and beautiful can be one and the same. My other thought on hearing Creasy’s lecture is that pe...

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Your Essential Oil Toolkit

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus
31 Comments
...e essential oil price scale. [Ah! Before I go on, Erik reminds me that not everyone knows what essential oils are. He'd never heard of them before he married me. Essential oils are the distilled, concentrated scent essence of plants: "volatile aroma compounds" according to Wikipedia. They are also called volatile oils. Most are made processing fresh plant matter in a still, though some are made through other extraction processes. As scenting agen...

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Eco Blogging, Tin Foil Hats and Convention Mania

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
7 Comments
...erbaric chamber. 12:15 PM I step into the Inner Traditions book booth which is having a half-off sale and go nuts. I pick up a German herbalism book called Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants and Prickly Pear Cactus Medicine: Treatments for Diabetes, Cholesterol, and the Immune System to add to my collection of prickly pear cactus books. 12:30 I’m still hungry–the bagel and whipped coconut b...

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Moldy Grapes!

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
13 Comments
t, like sauerkraut, you really do have to keep the food below the brine with weight. Recent Failure #2: Moldy Chamomile Tea We had a bumper crop of chamomile this year, due to generous volunteerism on its part. Several large plants sprung up in unlikely spots and thrived with no help at all. I harvested lots of the flowers so I could have chamomile tea in the cupboard until next spring. The mistake I made in this case was not drying the flowers...

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Root Simple Edible Gardening Classes at the Huntington Ranch

Mr. Homegrown
Events
4 Comments
There are still some spots available for our edible gardening class at the Huntington that starts this Saturday. In the course of the three consecutive Saturday sessions, we’ll build a compost pile, dissect soil test reports, make a seed starting mix and discuss incorporating fruit trees and native plants into your edible landscape among many other topics. The class will be held at the Huntington’s spectacular Ranch. Here’s th...

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2011 in Review: The Garden

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
20 Comments
It’s was a difficult year in the garden. A lead and zinc issue screwed up my winter vegetables garden plans. At least we managed to find some river rocks and put in a path. I found this photo from December 2010. I was certainly a lot more organized that year. For 2012, I’m putting in raised beds to deal with the heavy metal issue and we’ve already planted more native plants. But most importantly one of my New Years resolution...

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