What I’m Growing this Winter

October 23, 2013

...n the recommendation of Franchi’s West Coast distributor The Heirloom Seed Store, who had a booth at this year’s Heirloom Exposition. The owners of the Heirloom Seed Store, who run a farm in the Santa Cruz area, raved about this particular chicory. It’s a large-leafed variety that can be used in a salad or cooked. Radicchio and Chicory Mix: “Misticanza di Radicchi” I’ve never gone wrong with Franchi’s salad mixes. The best damn salads I’ve ever ha...

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Of Gnomes and Peak Oil

Mr. Homegrown

April 2, 2013

Thoughtstylings

...of canned tomatoes. At any given moment, there may be a dozen cases in the store, but that inventory is constantly being replenished with the money the customers pay for the cans they remove, and the more tomatoes that customers buy, the bigger an inventory the store will carry. Paracelsus uses a more poetic metaphor. Instead of ordering shipments of tomatoes, it’s our task to command gnomes, The earth is filled by gnomes even to its center, creat...

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Hay Hooks–The New Hipster Accessory?

Mr. Homegrown

January 14, 2013

Animals, Chickens, Composting, Gardening

9 Comments

...r the chickens) I just broke down and bought a pair. A vaquero at the feed store intervened with a neat tip when he saw me struggling to use my new hay hooks to load some bales into a friend’s truck. Here’s what he showed me. Note the red arrow in the photo above. Odds are with new hooks that this distance needs to be shortened a bit. My hay hooks were much easier to use after the feed store guy bent them using one of the anchor points in the truc...

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Make a Rain Barrel

Mr. Homegrown

October 8, 2008

Design, rainwater harvesting, Water and Power, Water Conservation

11 Comments

...fitting. A few more PVC parts from the sprinkler section of your hardware store, a brass hose fitting with a valve, and you’ll have this: Glue that up with some PVC cement, wrap the threads with teflon tape, and you’re almost ready to collect rainwater. But first, turn the barrel upside down, drill a hole for the down spout another hole to insert an overflow pipe made out of a threaded 3″ waste pipe fitting: The last step is to prop the barrel up...

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Garlic!

Mr. Homegrown

June 2, 2008

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

9 Comments

...in Southern California. You just take the large, outer ring of cloves from store-bought garlic and stick them in the ground with the pointed side up interspersed throughout your other plantings–wherever you have some room. We plant them around Thanksgiving and harvest in late May/early June when the stalks begin to turn brown and fall over. After you harvest your garlic, don’t wash it just knock the dirt off, then let it “cure” with the stalks and...

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