Lessons from the 2018 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

April 16, 2018

...ticket contest winner (who gave us the most beautiful basket of home grown fruits and preserves ever–thank you Donna!) came to the same conclusion. We’ve hired a designer, which is why our backyard looks like a strip mine: A crew took out an ugly concrete patio last week and has been digging down to lower the level of the new patio they will install. The old patio was above the level of the sill plate and was causing the back part of the house to...

Read…

There is Something Beyond the Straw Bale

Mr. Homegrown

May 31, 2019

Fruit Trees, Garden Design, Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

2 Comments

...icial wildlife. We’re also fans of hardy and climate appropriate perennial fruits and vegetables–beyond that solitary straw bale we have a lot of edible perennial plants and a bunch of work to do to straighten out the yard after years of other priorities. Site of future seasonal rain garden. Towards that end, our landscaper, Laramee Haynes and crew are coming next week to clean things up, install a kind of seasonal rain garden fed by a downspout,...

Read…

We All Have Our Triggers

Mr. Homegrown

July 29, 2019

Thoughtstylings

11 Comments

...New York Times, that executives at Amazon are unaware that vegetables and fruits have seasons, The former head of a major produce company said Amazon told him it wanted to sell marquee fresh items at low prices every day. The executive said he had to explain that certain products, like berries or lettuce, may be available all year thanks to global supply chains, but that they cost more in the off-season. Forcing flat, low prices would put too muc...

Read…

Go Plant a Million Trees

Mr. Homegrown

September 13, 2019

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Reviews

1 Comment

...and wild stories.” In our own small urban yard, we’re beginning to see the fruits, literally, of our own small-scale arboreal efforts that we began over ten years ago. This month we had a abundant crop of Mission figs, avocados, olives and pomegranates. And that pathetic vegetable garden I blogged about? My heretical thinking is to give up annual vegetables entirely and use the space to plant two small citrus trees. If I want vegetables I’ll put i...

Read…

On Moldy Jam

Mr. Homegrown

July 27, 2020

Food, Food Preservation

2 Comments

...be processed 10 minutes. Use of sterile jars is preferred, especially when fruits are low in pectin, since the added 5-minute process time may cause weak gels. One additional tip: remove the rings once you’re done canning. Jam that leaks out during processing can creep under the ring and go moldy. The rings are just for processing and transport. Once the jars are on the shelf you don’t need them. Initially, the restaurant in this scandal took to I...

Read…