Search Results for: label/seeds

180 results

Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
9 Comments
...hundred jars of what he called “Inca Conserve” which “met with universal favor.” Our package of Physalis pruinosa was priced at a staggering $3.99–a lot considering the package only contained 12 seeds. You can be certain that we’ll be doing some seed saving on this one if we get a successful crop! The googling required to sort out the many common names of Physalis pruinosa revealed an intriguing source of seed...

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Advances in Gardening Series: The Fan

Mrs. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening, Herbal Medicine, Herbs
6 Comments
...bread seed poppies. I started the Calendula and chamomile in flats ahead of time, simply to get a head start, then transplanted them into their wedges this week. Poppies don’t like to be transplanted, so I sowed those seeds today. The original herb garden was a rough quarter circle. We kept that footprint, but used spare bricks to divide the shape into 3 smaller wedges. The bricks give me a way to walk between the wedges without compactin...

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A Hairy Cucumber: Mezzo Lungo di Polignano

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Gardening
3 Comments
There’s a crass joke or limerick to be made here but I’ll leave that up to you, our dear readers. I’ll just say that this cucumber, an Italian heirloom called Mezzo Lungo di Polignano, has done well for us this summer. No powdery mildew and it’s tasty. I got the seeds from Craig Ruggless at www.gardenedibles.com. I wrote Craig to ask him about it and he replied, “This is one of my favorites. They are also very good...

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Tomato Report II: Franchi Red Pear

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Tomatoes
12 Comments
Franchi’s Red Pear tomato is a beefsteak variety we’ve grown for several years. It tastes phenomenal either fresh or cooked. From the Seeds from Italy website: This is an old North Italian variety specially selected by Franchi Sementi. It is an indeterminate red, pear-shaped beefsteak. An outstanding producer of huge (as in 8-18 ounce) very tasty fruit. Great fresh eating. Early for such a large plant (70-75 days).  This is no...

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Spigarello: Nature’s way of saying that broccoli is so over

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
22 Comments
...be has a more aggressive flavor than either broccoli or spigarello, while spigarello has that true broccoli mildness. We’ve been growing this as a winter crop in our southern California climate (I believe we planted the seeds back in November, and it’s still going strong).  Fundamentally, Spigarello is a cool season vegetable that can take some frost. That means it’s suited to be a spring or fall crop in 4-season climates. All i...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
12 Comments
Every time I visit my mom, her Greek neighbor pops over the fence to offer me seeds 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 capacit...

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The modern woman-things to put in your apron pocket

Homegrown Neighbor
Thoughtstylings
11 Comments
...ether I am at the farmer’s market, pulling weeds in the backyard or at the chicken coop, here are the top things you are likely to find in the pocket of my apron: 5. Money- small bills for the farmer’s market. 4. Seeds. I tend to collect seeds in my pockets. 3. My keys. 2. An egg. I certainly can’t put an egg in my jeans pocket. 1. My iphone. Very convenient place for this indispensable item....

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Hippie Heart Horizontal

Mrs. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
10 Comments
  Mrs. Homegrown here: So I was wrong about the rains in that self-pitying post I wrote a week or two ago. They came again. (But this time, I really do think this is our last spate of rain.) It was a strong, blustery storm and it laid our flax flat. The poor hippie heart. It had just started to bloom. Those little blue flowers turn to pods. Each pod holds a few seeds. That’s where flax seeds come from. As a city girl, I find t...

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Homesteading Disasters: The Skunk Menace

Mr. Homegrown
Mistakes
16 Comments
...Root Simple Compound starting today with how fun it is to garden with skunks. Angry red arrows mark skunk dig sites in our new keyhole bed. I know that I’ve got a skunk problem. Yet each year when I sow lettuce seeds I get lazy about putting up the required bird net barrier over the beds. Or I haphazardly put it up, thinking that the skunks aren’t smart enough to squeeze through any gaps. And each year I wake up the morning a...

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