Flowers from Vegetables

July 22, 2014

Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening

...fun to show them a carrot flower, a squash blossom, a bean flower. My new favorite garden flower comes off an old Italian chicory plant left to go riot. I’m not sure which chicory it is, but it’s one of those long-leaved, bitter greens beloved in Italy and sold by Franchi seeds. It’s easy to grow, pest proof, and we like the strong, bitter flavor. The flowers, though, are amazing. The greens send up narrow stalks 8′ tall or more (approx. 2.5 mete...

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Rucola Selvatica A Foglia D’ulivo: the arugula you’ve never heard of

Mr. Homegrown

March 7, 2016

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...rding to some sources, you have to cut the arugula with lettuce (a calming plant) so that the salad bowl doesn’t lead too directly to the bedroom. Find more arugula varieties at growitalian.com. Do you have a favorite arugula? As usual, I love hearing from our Italian readers about the special culinary uses of specific varieties. And, in this election year here in the US, I’m a little surprised that arugula has not come up as a campaign issue like...

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Book Review: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Mrs. Homegrown

May 23, 2016

Gardening, Nature Awareness, Reviews

6 Comments

...ts shower us with abundance. They give us food, medicine, textiles building materials, and less material gifts like beauty and solace. They even give us oxygen: their love for us fills our lungs with every breath. Plants are the basis of the food chain, so at the root of things, our lives are wholly sustained by and dependent on the beneficence of the plant world, and yet we so rarely take a moment say thank you....

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The Root Simple 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

Mr. Homegrown

November 23, 2016

Thoughtstylings

1 Comment

...want healthy, sourdough fermented wholegrain breads, this book is for you. Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes Planting in a Post-Wild World came out last year, but I think it’s still the most interesting new book on gardening and landscape architecture. Rainer and West describe a difficult to summarize philosophy that bridges the “wild” and human constructed landscapes. Along with Taleb and Kat Ande...

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Growing Chayote

Mr. Homegrown

June 2, 2007

Gardening

16 Comments

...so edible and the tough stalks can be made into rope. We started a chayote plant a few months ago by simply buying a few at our local market, letting it sprout on our counter top and then planting it in the ground. Since the fruit contains only one seed you don’t need to extract it–you plant the whole thing. They are very susceptible to rotting when first planted so that may explain why we got only one out of three to grow. Chayote is traditionall...

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