The Strange World of Artificial Plants

February 8, 2013

...n have a very large (and suspiciously shiny) fake zucchini: But I think my favorite fake plants come from a company called New Image Plants, providers of “The World’s Best Artificial Marijuana.” Customers? Marijuana dispensaries, the set decorator for Weeds and law enforcement! From their website: Across the world law enforcement finds itself with the continuous dilemma of having to train new recruits to identify and find illegal marijuana plants...

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Borlotto Bean Lingua di Fuoco

Mr. Homegrown

January 6, 2008

Vegetable Gardening

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One of our favorite vegetables, Borlotto Bean Lingua di Fuoco, is once again growing in our garden from seeds we saved from last year. We usually eat our Lingua di Fuoco (tongue of fire) beans young in the pod, but they can also be shelled and eaten fresh or dried. The handsome red speckling, which gives the bean its name, disappears when you cook them. The plant comes in both pole and bush versions. Borlotto beans are basically the Italian versi...

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Straw Bale Gardens

Mr. Homegrown

March 25, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

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...can linger in organic matter for a year or two, stunting the growth garden plants. (See Killer Compost). Despite this risk, we’re going to go ahead and grow some food in bales anyway and see what happens. We’ll also be testing our straw. So, off we go into another gardening adventure/research pit! So have any of you tried, or are considering trying, straw bale gardening? How did it work? Some resources on the topic: strawbalegardens.com–the websit...

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Tolosna Bean

Mr. Homegrown

February 2, 2008

Miscellaneous

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...seed archive, along with a few other remarkable seeds we’ll profile as we plant them over the next few months. We’ve promised to save some of the seeds we harvest to return to her archive. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to find any information on this variety of bean other than a brief mention on a crappy ad-packed website: “Introduced in the late 1920’s, a beautiful wine red and cinnamon in color. Similar in flavor to the White Aztec bean. A fa...

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Behold the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (Homalodisca coagulata)

Mr. Homegrown

July 13, 2009

Pests

4 Comments

...rpshooter pee. Sharpshooters feed on the xylem, the water bearing veins of plants. As the xylem contains mostly water, the sharpshooter must process large quantities of material in order to survive. Excess water is puffed out their rear ends, a fascinating thing to see close up. The constant water puffing combined with their fast side to side movements make GWS seem more like machines than insects. Perhaps we could “monetize” this blog by teaming...

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