Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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KRAUT FEST!!!!

...ature dish of Alsace (described to us as a ridiculous meat fiesta). 11am – Making Sauerkraut – click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring! 12pm – Making Kimchi – click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring! 1pm – Choucroute Garni presentation & sampling Participants will need to bring their own ingredients (shopping lists are linked above). You can register to make either kimchi or sauerkraut for $10, or both for $15. Registration gets you a...

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Quick Breads

...olution has changed our minds on the previous paragraph, and we’re back to making sourdough. That being said, an occasional quick bread ain’t a bad thing: Quick breads are easy, involve no yeast or rising times, and are nearly foolproof, . [Erik here speaking in 2020: This is an incredibly offensive and stupid remark. I apologize. It’s the worst kind of cheap humor. It’s a humor not based on experience but, instead, just making fun of other people...

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Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe

...of cactus fruit to deal with this season. Next year we’ll take a crack at making a batch of Tiswin, the sacred beer of the Papagos Indians of central Mexico (usually made with saguaro fruit but prickly pear fruit will do in a pinch). This August we’re making jelly. Here’s how to do it: 1. Taking reader Steven’s (of the fine blog Dirt Sun Rain) suggestion, burn off the nasty spines by holding the fruit over a burner on the stove for a few seconds....

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So Wrong it’s Right

...st post a few corrections this morning. Please note our corrected posts on making prickly pear cactus jelly and on our tomatoes. Also, our poll results are in and you all want more info on growing your own food! We note with some dismay the low rating of the harangue, the popularity of which is a minority view not surprisingly expressed by two friends and professional harangists, one an attorney and the other LA bike activist extraordinaire SoapBo...

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