Water Conservation

December 30, 2006

...oes this waste water, but it puts an additional burden on sewage treatment plants. Having visited a sewage plant in person, SurviveLA can personally attest to the depressing sight of witnessing hundreds of plastic tampon applicators afloat in a vast sea of poo. 8.7% Clothes Washer Wash only a full load. Run the waste water outside to irrigate your landscaping using either a surge tank, or directly. Adventurous homesteaders, willing to put in the e...

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A Prickly Situation

Mr. Homegrown

July 17, 2006

Food, Foraging

...thick gloves and scooping out the flesh with a spoon. This is one of those plants that should be everywhere here in Los Angeles. Propagate the plant by cutting off a leaf and sticking it in the ground – it’s simple – no fuss, no pesticides, no watering once established. And note that not all prickly pear varieties produce edible fruit so when you look for cuttings seek out plants that are productive and tasty. It’s the ideal plant for what we call...

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Will the Lawn Rebate Turn LA into a Gravel Moonscape?

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2015

Gardening

14 Comments

...ng gravel and mulch moonscapes. It’s an education problem. For most people plants are a sort of green background material. Our ancestors could distinguish between hundreds of plants, but that ancestral memory has been hijacked by commercial interests. Now, instead of plant identification skills, we name and distinguish things like cars and mobile devices. If there was a kind of car rebate program that inadvertently replaced BMWs with Pontiac Aztek...

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Supper for a buck?

Mrs. Homegrown

February 25, 2013

Bean Fest, Food

16 Comments

...just a handful of leaves 2) I could forage it, and 3) plenty of the salad plants in our yard are volunteers anyway. It sounds Spartan, but the beans were really good, silky and filling, and the salad had little flowers from our arugula and mustard plants. The bread sopped up the juice in the bottom of the bowl. It was enough. It was a good way to end the day–not too heavy, and easy to pull together. Cheap eating can be good eating. I’m going to p...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

Mr. Homegrown

September 17, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...eds and plants. He visits Greece each summer and comes back with seeds for plants whose names he can’t translate into English. As a result I always have a few mystery Greek vegetables growing in the garden. This spring he gave me a squash seedling he had propagated. It grew into a massive vine and produced two winter squashes whose weight exceeded the capacity of my kitchen scale. I harvested them last month and we’ve been eating a lot of squash!...

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