Saturday Linkages: Will Your Next House Be Built With Mushrooms?

...talog.lapl.org/carlweb/jsp/DoSearch?databaseID=965&terms=5013187&index=z … Garden planter turns out to be Roman antique: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/12/garden-planter-turns-out-to-be.html … DIY North House Folk School http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2012/10/north-house-folk-school.html#.UHTSPhsTC2o.twitter … HOWTO make a sandwich caddy out of a milk jug: http://boingboing.net/2012/10/08/howto-make-a-sandwich-caddy-ou.html … Preparedness Te...

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Grow Italian!

...in the backyard. And look for more root vegetables in our illegal parkway garden. Lest we come across as Eurotrashy, here’s two domestic seed companies that have interesting varieties: Seeds of change. Native Seeds which sells Native American seeds By the way, for us in L.A. the back of the seed packages have no connection with our climate. You need a book like Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening to set you straight on what to plant and whe...

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Daikon Radish!

...epleted soil and cold temperatures have contributed to a less than stellar garden. But in the midst of this failure we’ve had a few successes. Last year we made daikon radish pickles from radishes we picked up at our local farmer’s market. (see here for our post and a recipe). This year we grew our own daikon radishes. Like all radishes, daikons grow fast and are as hardy as weeds. Radishes are defiantly the “gateway drug” of vegetable gardening....

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Moldy Grapes!

...ape (Vitus californica) has taken over the entire south facing wall of our garden, and is threatening the neighbor’s house. The chickens like grape leaves, fortunately, so I have something to do with the prunings, but I wanted to do more. I’m a big fan of dolmas, so thought I’d try to pickle some grape leaves. Skimming the internet for recipes, I saw, as usual, many contradictions [Mr. Homegrown’s editorial note here–first mistake–internet recipes...

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Failed Experiment: Bermuda Buttercup or Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae) as Dye

..., sing some folk songs, dance a dance, compost the solids and acidify your garden soil.with the spent dye. It sent me into fantasies of living in some groovy Sonoma-Portlandish nirvana where my house is clean and has plaster walls and wood beams in the ceiling (the wood beams are always in the fantasy) and a fire in the grate. I’d watch the goats graze in the back yard while I cheerfully sip tea and knit something marvelous out of hand spun angora...

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