Search Results for: label/trees

141 results

Backyard Orchard Culture

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
7 Comments
How small can you go? An image from the Dave Wilson website demonstrating one way to keep a fruit tree a manageable size. Damn. I wish I had heard this lecture twelve years ago when we bought our house. “Rock star orchardist” Tom Spellman, a sales manager with Dave Wilson nursery, gave a remarkable talk last night on how to create your own backyard orchard. He began by dismissing most advice on growing fruit trees, noting t...

Continue reading…

How to Order Bare Root Fruit Trees

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening
4 Comments
The trees we planted in 2011–all doing well now. Ladies and gentleman, it’s time to get your bare root fruit tree orders in! The massive wave of common sense that’s swept over the world since the 2008 econopocolypse has got people thinking about planting trees that provide more than just shade. Last year many nurseries ran out of stock. And bare root trees are a great way to save money. The time to order, for delivery...

Continue reading…

Remember to Label Those Jars!

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation
10 Comments
“Label, label, label!” This was one of the most important lessons I learned in my Master Food Preserver training. You’ll note, from the jars above, that I’m not very good about this. When were those jars canned and what’s in them? I have no idea. They were probably the result of some late night canning frenzy two years ago. At the time I probably thought to myself, “I’ll label them in the morning.”...

Continue reading…

Rubber Sidewalks Rescue Trees

Homegrown Neighbor
Thoughtstylings
2 Comments
Homegrown Neighbor here: I love trees and all of the things they do for us. They shade us, feed us, house us. Trees are something we just need more of here in Southern California. I used to work at an urban forestry non-profit, TreePeople. So I am familiar with the challenges of the tree/sidewalk interface. I have fielded calls from people frantically trying to save trees that are being ripped out because they are lifting the sidewalk. I hav...

Continue reading…

Dave Wilson’s Top 21 Fruit Trees for the Southwest US

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening
11 Comments
...Delight nectarine Snow Queen nectarine Spice Zee Necta-Plum August Pride peach Donut peach Eva’s Pride peach Red Baron peach Burgundy plum Emerald Drop pluot Flavor Grenade pluot Flavor King pluot Splash pluot Of the trees on this list, we’ve got the Spice Zee Necta-Plum, a beautiful tree with pink blossoms and  red leaves in the spring that produces a super sweet fruit. It’s still too young to evaluate it’s performance...

Continue reading…

Why You Should Avoid Staking Trees

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening, Miscellaneous, Trees
6 Comments
The correct way to stake a tree. Image from the Vacaville Tree Foundation To answer the question of why tree staking should be avoided, one can turn to the latest Extension Service advice or to the nearly 2000 year old words of Seneca: No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. It...

Continue reading…

Looking for the Union Label

Mr. Homegrown
Domesticus
3 Comments
We’ve got a bad case of Ohrwurm, a German expression translated as “earworm” and used to describe a song stuck in your head. Our earworm came after a search for union made socks and underwear on the internets recalled 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 c...

Continue reading…

Fallen Fruit

Mr. Homegrown
Events, Food, Foraging, Gardening
2 Comments
Homegrown Revolution tagged along on a neighborhood tour with the beige jump-suit clad fruit foraging collective known as Fallen Fruit. Our capable guides, David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, led a group of well over fifty folks through a hilly part of Silver Lake just above the 99 cent store in search of street grown loquats, (in great abundance right now) kumquats, oranges, lemons, bananas, carob trees and more. We all ended up bac...

Continue reading…

Growing Greens Under Fruit Trees

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening
9 Comments
In the photo above is Scott Kleinrock showing off a section of the edible garden he designed at the Huntington Gardens. At first glace it looks like a lot of weeds, but it’s a clever idea: growing greens in the understory of fruit trees. In this picture, which was taken last weekend, you see a field of: mallow daikon radish arugula mustard  vetch calendula cabbage Except for the vetch, which helps build soil, all are edible and nutrit...

Continue reading…

Tree Care Disasters

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Trees
16 Comments
...any homeowners, landlords and municipalities go the cheap route and hire the first idiot with a chainsaw they can find. A local blog I just discovered Weeding Wild Suburbia, has a nice summary of things you can do to prevent trees from falling down in the next storm. See her posts, Cleaning Up After the Storm, Tree Care Part 2, and Selecting and Planting Trees for Long Term Success. One things I noticed after the storm were huge trees with shall...

Continue reading…