Looking for the Union Label

September 12, 2007

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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Feral Tomatoes on the Bayou

Mr. Homegrown

February 29, 2008

Food, Foraging

5 Comments

...just next to a concrete plant and under a bridge we stumbled on some feral tomatoes. We theorized that some fast food meal pitched in the gutter found it’s way into this meandering, heavily industrialized waterway. The tomatoes separated from the cheeseburger, floated to the surface of the water and were deposited on the muddy banks of the bayou. Houston’s hot and humid climate sprouted the seeds and the result is the plant below. Back with more f...

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How’s that Tomato Grafting Project Going?

Mr. Homegrown

July 21, 2016

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...ssity. We haven’t had the sort of soil problems that might require grafted tomatoes but I thought it would be fun to try. To graft tomatoes you grow a hardy root stock (I chose Maxifort) and the tomatoes you want to graft them on to. You then make the graft and secure it with a grafting clip. For the grafting process I used the directions in the following video from Cornell University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08YfqCpL3po&index=66&list=FLsd...

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Tomato Grafting Fail

Mr. Homegrown

September 26, 2016

Gardening, Tomatoes

7 Comments

...ing. A better project, for our climate, would be to figure out how to grow tomatoes with little or no supplemental water. The feral tomatoes on the side of my mom’s house prove this is possible. For years, we also used to have volunteer cherry tomatoes along a wall now dominated by a massive Vitus californica vine. Next year I’m going to keep things simple, choose a drought tolerant tomato from Native Seed Search and plant it directly in the groun...

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How to Stake Tomatoes

Mr. Homegrown

April 5, 2007

Gardening, How-to, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening

5 Comments

...d around the Homegrown Evolution compound is simple and lazy. We plant our tomatoes and then surround them with rolled up concrete reinforcing wire. Normally used to reinforce concrete slabs, reinforcing wire comes in 3 1/2′ by 7′ sections. We use a circular saw with a metal blade on it to cut off the bottom rung, so as to leave spiky wires with which to stick the reinforcing wire tubes into the ground, but this is not absolutely necessary. Once i...

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