Our Disastrous Summer Garden

September 15, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

...ed by climate change. Drought, of course, made everything worse. We had to water our already alkaline soil with alkaline water. Only the native plants and what we call the Biblical plants seem happy (e.g. the fig and the pomegranate). The drought and an extreme heat wave pushed everything in the garden to the edge–and a few over the edge: in the last month we abruptly lost some garden stalwarts, including a rosemary bush and a culinary sage. Despi...

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So Cal Alert: Polyphagus Shot Hole Borer

Mrs. Homegrown

June 15, 2015

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Insects, Trees

10 Comments

...The Shot Hole Borer is merely upping the stakes. Keep in mind that a mature tree needs to be watered such that the water penetrates to a depth of two or three feet. That’s no quick sprinkle with a hose! Visit the Inland Urban Forest Council to download a PDF about how to properly water your trees. Also, we might suggest that this is a great time to install a laundry to landscape graywater system. Many thanks to our excellent arborist, Nick Araya...

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Will the Lawn Rebate Turn LA into a Gravel Moonscape?

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2015

Gardening

14 Comments

...nintended consequences! Drought conditions here in California prompted our water utilities to offer rebates for ripping out water hungry lawns. Unfortunately, as Ivette Soler has pointed out in a blog post, “The Road to Hell is Paved with Chunky Gravel and Indifferently Chosen Plants,” unscrupulous “landscapers” are taking those rebates and installing gravel and mulch moonscapes. It’s an education problem. For most people plants are a sort of gree...

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Maintaining a Worm Bin

Mrs. Homegrown

July 19, 2013

Composting, Miscellaneous, Vermiculture

31 Comments

...in, nothing goes into the resting side while it’s resting, unless it needs water to keep it from drying out. Below is how it looks with the hay scraped off. See? Nice and dark And here it is close up. The pale things are mostly eggshells, along with a few wood shavings that drifted over from the working side. There’s a soldier fly carapace on the far left, dead center. I ignore those. Eggshells never really break down in a worm bin, but I don’t mi...

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An Ancient Quince Recipe

Mr. Homegrown

September 26, 2014

Food, Food Preservation, Fruit Trees, Gardening

16 Comments

...website, but to summarize you simply cook quince in equal parts honey and water until it turns red. The addition of a small amount of cracked pepper cuts the sweetness ever so slightly. You can then process the jars in a hot water bath. The end result is quince slices preserved in honey. It turned out great and, without having to worry about the jell point, reduced the anxiety level associated with preserving my entire harvest at once. Do you hav...

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