Search Results for: label/picture sundays

186 results

Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
1 Comment
...that the plants on the windowsills were violating building codes and that I’d have to remove them all. I wrote him a letter back saying that the plants were supported by steel mesh baskets and lashed to building with 50 lb. picture wire. I never heard back from him and he was replaced by another in a long line of building managers. Several years of walk-through inspections have come and gone, and nobody has mentioned it since. While I still...

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Cleaning the Sink with Baking Soda and Lemons

Mrs. Homegrown
Cleaning, Domesticus
15 Comments
   Our sink, freshly cleaned and so darn photogenic!This is because you can’t see all the clutter just out of view.   A little green cleaning review here. It is possible to keep a sink white and shiny without bleach or other toxic cleansers. I took pictures this week while I was cleaning to prove it. Below is our grungy sink. A photo can’t quite capture that particularly scuzzy quality a dirty sink has, th...

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How to Keep Squirrels and Birds From Eating Your Fruit

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening, Pests
7 Comments
...nt holes, they don’t collect water inside. They can be washed and stored and are durable enough to last several seasons. After they serve their duty, they can be put in the recycling bin. Noel is the person who sent the picture of all the winter fruit he grows in Florida that we put on the blog on Sunday. Judging from that picture he’s got a handle on critters issues. Thanks Noel!...

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Are Raised Beds a Good Idea?

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
44 Comments
...ion that for Southern California and, by extension, any dry climate, raised beds are a bad idea unless, of course, you have any of the issues mentioned above. Particularly in the summer, the raised beds I have in the parkway, pictured above, have performed poorly. So poorly, that I’m going to remove them soon. If a soil test shows high heavy metal levels I’ll just go with some ornamental/insectary plants.  Above, broom corn (Sorghum...

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Indigo 101

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Gardening, Herbs
5 Comments
...Our friend Graham Keegan dyes with indigo and sells his beautiful canvas and leather creations in his own Etsy shop. He kindly invited me to come to his studio and watch him dye some test swatches yesterday. What follows are pictures and notes which I hope will help other indigo beginners sort things out. Here’s a stack of stuff he’s working on : And here’s some silk he dyed with bougainvillaea flowers. The two tone effect is...

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Chickens in the House!

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
15 Comments
...f Discretion (also tm). But the camera crapped out on me. So, until I figure it out (Which means until Erik gets home and I can shove the darn thing at him and say, “Fix your camera!”),  I’m offering up this picture of a home invasion, poultry style. Don’t know about you other chicken keepers, but our ladies are obsessed with the house. If they’re loose, they sit on by the back door and watch us through the glass. An...

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Daikon Radish!

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
4 Comments
We’ve had a crappy vegetable harvest around the Homegrown Evolution compound this winter though, as you can see from the picture above, the artichokes and rosemary in the background are thriving as they always do. Here in Los Angeles, winter is usually the best season for growing things, as perverse as that may sound to folks in the rest of the US. But for us, some combination of bad timing (not getting stuff in early enough), depleted soi...

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Is This Egg Good?

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Domesticus, Food
14 Comments
From left: Very Fresh • Pretty Fresh • Bad • Cat When you’re wondering about the age of an egg, put it in glass of water. Really fresh eggs lie on the bottom the glass, flat. These are the eggs you want for poaching and other dishes where the egg is the star. If one end bobs up a bit, as does the middle egg above, the egg is older, but still good. The upward tilt can be more extreme than it is in this picture. In fact, the egg can...

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Broom Corn–or is it Broomcorn?

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Gardening
18 Comments
...d needs some support if you let it ripen, because the heads get heavy. Where do I get the seeds? A quick search will give you several options. Mine were from Seed Savers Exchange. It’s a variegated color variety. The picture on the seed pack promised a huge variation in color. For the longest time I thought I’d been ripped off, because the tassels came out uniformly green and stayed that way til they ripened. Then they started to t...

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How To Freeze Fruits and Vegetables

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation
11 Comments
...do this you’ll individually quick freeze IQF them. To IQF: Wash, blanch (veggies) and cool . Spread in one layer on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer for four to six hours. Pack in sealed containers or in freezer bags. Label with date to avoid freezer mystery bag phenomenon. Now when the zombie apocalypse arrives and everything goes Beyond Thunderdome, freezing will not be the best option (unless, like Tina Turner, we figure out how to tu...

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