Saturday Linkages: Fueling Up

October 27, 2012

DIY
Six ways to reuse plastic mesh bags: http://collectedquotidian.com/2012/10/21/six-ways-to-reuse-plastic-mesh-produce-bags/ …

How I Work: I’m Mark Frauenfelder, Editor-In-Chief of MAKE Magazine, and This Is How I Work – http://lifehacker.com/5954275/im-mark-frauenfelder-editor+in+chief-of-make-magazine-and-this-is-how-i-work …

Free Heat for Your Home: Homemade Briquettes and Logs http://naturalbuildingblog.com/free-heat-for-your-home-homemade-briquettes-and-logs/ …

Thoughtstylings
Mark Bittman: A Simple Fix for Farming http://nyti.ms/VjNlZb

Fueling up: http://we2our2.blogspot.com/2012/10/fueling-up.html …

Health
The Island Where People Forget to Die http://nyti.ms/S3Mitk

Bikes
Nice graphic showing why taking the lane is a good idea. http://ow.ly/eIgHH (via Commute Orlando)

From the Root Simple Archive
Appletastic Apple Cake http://www.rootsimple.com/2010/12/applet

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Pomegranate Factoids

Mr. Homegrown

October 26, 2012

Fruit Trees, Gardening

36 Comments

Our pomegranate tree this morning.

Since we’ve had a few pomegrante questions coming in in the past week (it’s the tail end of harvest time) I thought I’d provide a link to more information on growing pomegranates than you’ll ever need to know courtesy of UC Davis.

If you live in a hot, dry climate that doesn’t freeze much you should get yourself a pomegranate tree. They’ll grow in more humid climates but may not produce much fruit. Ours took five years, from planting as a bare root tree, to get the modest crop you see in the picture.

It’s one of my favorite trees–delicious fruit, a red flowers in the spring and a gorgeous display of yellow leaves in the fall–what more could you ask for?

If you’ve been successful growing pomegranates outside of California (and worldwide) leave a comment letting us know where you live. I’m curious about the range of this tree.

Chicken Nipple Waterering Systems

Mr. Homegrown

October 25, 2012

Chickens

15 Comments

A question came in this week from a reader who has tried our deep bedding suggestion but is having trouble keeping the chicken waterer clean as a result. Chickens are certainly expert at fouling (fowling?) their water source. Which is why many people use nipple waterers like the one above. Chickens learn to use them quickly (they like to peck at things, after all).

Plants: When to Hold Them, When to Fold Them

Mr. Homegrown

October 24, 2012

Gardening

17 Comments

One of the most difficult lessons to learn about gardens is that they are not permanent. As Heraclitus says, “all things are flowing.”

The best gardeners I know don’t suffer the attachments to plants that I do. They are much more ruthless. If a tree is in the wrong place it gets cut down. If two plants are too close together, one gets ripped out.

Steve Solomon’s Soil and Health e-Library

Mr. Homegrown

October 23, 2012

Resources

1 Comment

I’m really enjoying the incredible variety of obscure old books being scanned and put up on the interwebs. Of interest to readers of this blog will be the archive of free e-books maintained by gardening author Steve Solomon. His Soil and Health e-library contains books on “holistic agriculture, holistic health and self-sufficient homestead living” You can download the books for free, but Solomon requests a modest $13 donation. You can find this amazing resource at: www.soilandhealth.org.

The “Radical Agriculture” part of the archive contains many early organic ag classics by authors such as Sir Albert Howard, J.I. Rodale and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer. The “Homesteading” part of the library contains tomes dating from the 1700s (William Ellis’ The Country Housewife’s Family Companion), all the way to the appropriate technology movement of the 1970s (Gene Logsdon’s Getting Food From Water: A guide to Backyard Aquaculture).

So go load up those e-readers. Or maybe print them out in case we have a revolution.