A Tour of the Homegrown Evolution Compound

April 13, 2008

...extreme right is another raised bed with strawberries, garlic, mint and a native grape vine, just about to leaf out. Now to correct some misconceptions: Our place looks like Versailles. Truth is, at some times, our garden looks terrible. It depends on the season, and the amount of time we have to put into it. It looks good now, but in December it looked like crap. We try to plant things that do well in our climate and provide food, medicine or ha...

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Moldy Grapes!

Mr. Homegrown

June 24, 2008

Fermentation, Food

13 Comments

...ur two table grape vines are a little hesitant to really bust out, but our native grape (Vitus californica) has taken over the entire south facing wall of our garden, and is threatening the neighbor’s house. The chickens like grape leaves, fortunately, so I have something to do with the prunings, but I wanted to do more. I’m a big fan of dolmas, so thought I’d try to pickle some grape leaves. Skimming the internet for recipes, I saw, as usual, man...

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Fruitacular!

Mr. Homegrown

October 10, 2008

Food, Gardening

2 Comments

...wers which strives to preserve and explore the mind boggling biodiversity of fruit trees. And speaking of biodiversity take a look at Noel holding a Rollinia or Biriba, a fruit tree native to the Amazon region that also grows in Florida. Some have described the taste of this fruit as like that of a lemon meringue pie....

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Spreadin’ Seed

Mr. Homegrown

February 2, 2009

Seeds

4 Comments

...ll. The Neighbors My mom’s elderly neighbor, who spends each summer in his native Greece, loves to garden and grows, among many other things, at least four different kinds of arugula, which he calls, “the Greek Viagra”. He gave us seeds for two different arugulas, some basil from the northern mountains of Greece and countless other untranslatable plants, and packed them up for us in blue medicine bottles. We’ve grown his vegetables before and, whi...

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Karp’s Sweet Quince

Mr. Homegrown

March 13, 2009

Food, Gardening

15 Comments

...hoto above it’s just started to leaf out. Quince (Cydonia oblonga), a tree native to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, has rich, symbolic meanings to cultures in these parts of the world. Biblical and classical references translated in English as “apples”, in most cases, most likely refer to quince (it was probably a quince and not an apple or Cheeto that Adam tempted Eve Eve tempted Adam with). Most quince must be cooked to render it edible...

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