Tippy Tap, Beta Version

June 26, 2014

Domesticus, Water and Power, Water Conservation

...I gave the bottle a quick coat of paint because I couldn’t scrape off the label and couldn’t stand to wash my hands while that psychotic, chemical peddling teddy bear stared up at me. The mechanics of building a tippy tap are quite simple, but fairly situational, so you’ll have to improvise around the shape of the water bottle you choose, and decide on a hanging method which fits your needs. Some basics: You need support The bottle has to hang fr...

Read…

More on our gardening disasters

Mrs. Homegrown

January 21, 2013

Gardening, Mistakes, Thoughtstylings

15 Comments

...nd wanted to plant cabbages in our first proper vegetable bed because storybook gardens always grew cabbages. I’m glad I did. It was so much fun to watch the cabbages grow. I’d just hang out with them, watching their huge, gorgeous purple, blue and green leaves unfold (and dutifully picking the slugs off said leaves). I’d never seen cabbages in their natural state before, and they were a wonder and a marvel to me. Somewhere we have a fourteen year...

Read…

What Will Be the New Kale?

Mr. Homegrown

October 31, 2014

Food, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

9 Comments

...ve its fifteen minutes of fame as the new kale. The Salinas, California based Foxy Organic is, quite sensibly, marketing broccoli leaves. Broccoli leaves are indeed edible and tasty. Foxy has the recursive media to prove it, a Facebook photo of someone Instagramming Broccoli leaves: Now I’ve just blogged about someone Facebooking about someone Instagramming Broccoli leaves. How far can we take this? Will broccoli leaves act as the gateway vegetabl...

Read…

Cutting Dovetail Joints With a Router Jig

Mr. Homegrown

January 5, 2018

Design

3 Comments

...at I needed to cut some dovetails. Dovetail joints are used most often for making drawers. The arrangement of the joint makes for a drawer that resists racking. Dovetail joints also prevent the front from coming off with repeated use. Even without glue the joint wants to stay together. It’s also, I think, very attractive. The two most common dovetail joints are through dovetails: Image: Wikipedia. And half-blind dovetails: Image: Wikipedia. Since...

Read…

End of Season Tomato Review

Mr. Homegrown

November 26, 2008

Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening

7 Comments

...al partial shade conditions, they weren’t that tasty. See also our earlier reviews of Banana Leg and Red Currant varieties. Most of the tomatoes were grown in cages made from concrete reinforcing wire (instructions on making tomato cages here) in raised beds with a drip irrigation system as pictured above. As an experiment for folks in apartments or with limited space, we grew a bunch of tomatoes in self watering containers on a strip of concrete...

Read…