Hops in Containers

August 2, 2009

Beer, Gardening, Herbs, Hops, Self Watering Containers

...? I’m anxious to swing a scythe again. Stay tuned for info on a hops growing workshop with Boris Price and the folks at Silver Lake Farms to be hosted at the Homegrown Evolution compound this month. Look for the announcement on our blog this week....

Read…

Author and Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter Rocks Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown

July 24, 2009

Resources, Urban Farming

3 Comments

Yesterday, Homegrown Evolution had the great privilege of meeting urban farmer and author Novella Carpenter who was in Los Angeles to deliver a lecture and sign her new book Farm City. She’s a phenomenal speaker, both hilarious and inspiring. What we like most about Carpenter is her honesty in describing the ups and downs of raising pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and more on squatted land next to her apartment in Oakland. As she put it,...

Read…

Behold the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (Homalodisca coagulata)

Mr. Homegrown

July 13, 2009

Pests

4 Comments

...r toys, video games and action movies. Barring a GWS blockbuster we can instead offer our fellow plant and insect geeks an industrial film from the University of California that delves into the GWS in pornographic detail. Nice retro voiceover talent on that video UCTV (one of Mr. Homegrown’s former employers, fyi)! If you like that video, you’ll also enjoy UCTV’s 90 minute Home Vineyard lecture. I’ll add one point to that talk: if you’ve got GWS,...

Read…

Off the charts

Homegrown Neighbor

July 9, 2009

Animals, Chickens

9 Comments

Homegrown Neighbor here. My chicken, Chickenzilla, is at it again, producing several mammoth double-yolked eggs in the past few weeks. The brown egg on the right is more of a normal sized egg, weighing in at extra large on this antique egg scale. Chickenzilla’s egg is way beyond the measure of this scale, weighing in I’d guess at somewhere around extra, extra, extra large. Pretty good for an industrial meat chicken that isn’t supposed to be a goo...

Read…

On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

Mr. Homegrown

July 5, 2009

Gardening, Mistakes

17 Comments

...citrus), not practical for the home gardener and we’re organic around the Homegrown compound anyways. In fact, one of the pesticides used to control shapshooters is Imidacloprid, implicated by many in the recent disappearance of honey bees. Pierce disease resistant Vitus californica attacking our house. The only hope for long term control, as Turney sees it, is by breeding hybrid grape varieties resistant to Pierce’s. Turney strongly advised agai...

Read…