118 Eric of Garden Fork on Old Houses, Queen Bees and Ramps

May 23, 2018

Animals, Bees, Food, Podcasts, Water and Power

...about the struggle of owning an old house, raising queen bees and the over harvesting of ramps. During the show Eric mentions: His live question and answer session Will of the Weekend Homestead New York City water tower video Raising queen bees Better Bee Pacific Ready Cut catalog New York Times article on the over harvesting of ramps Growing your own ramps Eric’s cornpone disaster If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast plea...

Read…

Gourmet Foraging and Advanced Acorn Processing

Mrs. Homegrown

October 24, 2013

Food, Foraging, How-to, Preparedness

31 Comments

...us know if any of you process acorns, and if you have any tips or recipes! Harvesting Acorns Pascal explained to us that acorn trees don’t bear full crops every year, so you have to keep your eyes open, and scout around to find trees which are in full production. All acorns are edible, they simple vary by size and tannin content. Tannins in the acorns make them bitter, and inedible unless the tannins are leached out. (Theoretically you could ruin...

Read…

Adopt an Indigo Plant in Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown

May 23, 2014

Events, Gardening

6 Comments

...s. You can help out by adopting indigo seedlings and growing them out–then harvesting the leaves and joining the other growers for a couple of indigo dyeing fiestas. We realize this is a highly local post, but it’s a great idea, and we hope it might inspire some of you to do group growing/harvesting projects in your hometowns. Here’s the 411 from his website, grahamkeegan.com: Indigo pigment grows naturally in the leaves of a large number of plant...

Read…

Non-Toxic Cleaning for the Home

Mrs. Homegrown

May 20, 2019

Cleaning, Domesticus, Miscellaneous, Tidying up

11 Comments

...ally not all that safe–there is no regulation of the use of these terms in labeling. (e.g. Simple Green is neither “green” nor simple!) Check all cleaning products against the EWG database, and keep in mind that even within a single brand, some formulations will be well rated and others poorly rated. A good rule of thumb is to seek unscented products, because fragrances and perfumes carry toxins, and are often at the root of a poor EWG rating. Gre...

Read…

Stickers for the Organic Gardener

Mr. Homegrown

May 8, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

6 Comments

...Boing a clever re-purposing: “Evil Mad Scientist Labs wants you to proudly label your organic garden with these handsome “Now Slower and with More Bugs!” stickers, originally produced to adorn software products. The influence of the Slow Food movement is increasing, and gardening is getting ever more popular. Even the tech bloggers are posting about local pollinators and getting beehives. In this environment, it is fitting that a new use has been...

Read…