Search Results for: label/solar energy

148 results

Plum Lemon Tomato Power’s Heirloom Tomato

Mr. Homegrown
Vegetable Gardening
1 Comment
...d those loads of melamine laced pet food from China, they did somehow manage to track 1,840 confirmed cases of food-borne illnesses in domestic tomatoes. Again, urban homesteading revolutionaries, GROW YOUR OWN! We found that label and it’s a tomato called “Power’s Heirloom”. Here’s how the Seed Saver’s exchange catalog copy describes it, “First offered in the 1990 SSE Yearbook by Bruce McAllister from Fr...

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Moonshine

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
RLeave a comment
...de 020001″, ship it “Bulk, Truck, Bulk Rail, or Tank” and as Journal reporter Eric Felten concluded, “Cut it with water — preferably from a source that will lend itself to a pretty picture on the label — bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business.” As it turns out there is an art to good homemade moonshine — a far cry from the soulless mouthwash Archer-Daniels-Midlands turns out. Here’s...

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Ridin’ On

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes
RLeave a comment
...al environment.” A bicycle is a great way to save money and true self-sufficiency entails being as economically prudent as possible. We can recommend compact fluorescent bulbs, hand washing clothes and a myriad of other energy saving ideas that will lesson our impact on the environment but at most save a typical household maybe a few hundred dollars a year. On the other hand, getting rid of a car and replacing it with a bike, which we were...

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Urban Foraging with Nance Klehm

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
RLeave a comment
Via The Little Green People Show, a podcast with Chicago’s urban forager Nance Klehm: “We’re not talking gardens or dumpster diving. This is a discussion of the riches that grow in our highway medians, city planters, backyards and rail lines. Expert forager, Nance Klehm, sheds light on the city’s bounty, from medicinal plants to tasty greens. Getting to know the foraging landscape takes some time and energy, but gives bac...

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Revolutionary Rusks

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food
3 Comments
...arb fix, as well as protein and complex carbs. The recipe we use is from the “Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant: Ethnic and Regional Recipes From the Cooks at the Legendary Restaurant” To make the most of your time and maximize energy efficiency, bake two batches and stack them all up together for the 12-hour dry-a-thon following the initial 25-minute bake. You’ll end up with about 20 pieces from a single batch, and they go pretty fast. While rusks...

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UMass Soil Testing

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
1 Comment
...ion. to protect the environment from contamination by runoff and leaching of excess fertilizers. to aid in the diagnosis of plant culture problems. to improve the soil’s nutritional balance. to save money and conserve energy by applying only the amount of fertilizer needed. to identify soils contaminated with lead or other heavy metals. The brochure they send with the results is geared towards New England soils, but begga...

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Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
1 Comment
...lants, sometimes by literally scattering seeds that will pop up seasonally and introduce spontaneity and wildness. Oudolf and Kingsbury favor perennials both for environmental reasons (popping in annuals every year supports a energy intensive nursery industry) and for aesthetics (perennials are more prevalent in the natural landscapes Oudolf is mimicking). Winter on the High Line. The tyranny of the rose Oudolf and Kingsbury stress the importanc...

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Sonora Wheat at the Huasna Valley Farm

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food, Wheat
4 Comments
...ts short varieties and heavy reliance on herbicides. Norman Borlaug, the father of the “green revolution” used Sonora wheat to create Sonora 64, an early green revolution wheat. Ironically, as we face an uncertain energy future, we may have to go back to the original Sonora wheat as it performs better in organic circumstances and needs less water than modern wheat varieties. Ron shows off the combine. One of the challenges th...

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The grape that ate the world

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes
18 Comments
...ing. Oh, and do we at least get fruit from this beast? No, we do not. It has never fruited. Not a single grape. californica does make fruit, supposedly, but we’ve never tasted it. Our vine is too busy putting all of its energy into swamping the world. You may be asking why we don’t plant a Vitis californica on our arbor. The answer is we probably will next year. Erik had his heart set on a tastier grape, so resisted that option, but...

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Gadget Love: The Johnson Temperature Controller

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
10 Comments
...ertime. Now I can make a batch or two without having to worry about the weather.  Use the chest freezer as a backup when I need to repair the gasket on our Scandinavian refrigerator YET AGAIN! Not wanting to be a profligate energy user I only use the chest freezer periodically. Now if only I could lower the temperature of the whole house which, thanks to the first heatwave of the summer, is now warm enough to make yogurt!  ...

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