Anagallis monellii : A New Favorite

April 14, 2014

...rnel” in a bed of mixed flowers and herbs. This plant is neither edible or medicinal, but we hoped the bees would like its many blue flowers. Anagallis monellii is a Mediterranean native, so it is well suited to the California climate, and it follows that it does not need much water. It is perennial in zones 9 to 11 (that’s us), but can be grown as an annual elsewhere. If you see Anagallis monellii without blooms, it is not much to look at. It’s a...

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Matching Your Waste Stream to Your Composting Method

Mr. Homegrown

August 12, 2014

Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture

9 Comments

...s alternative permaculture food crops. In our climate that’s things like prickly pear cactus, pomegranates, certain types of grapes, olives and California natives (many of which are edible or medicinal). These useful plants don’t need compost. They pull up nutrients from the ground and, if you let the leaves fall in place, do their own composting....

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021 The Queen of Quince

Mr. Homegrown

October 15, 2014

Food, Food Preservation, Fruit Trees, Gardening, Podcasts

4 Comments

...uince coring tool (a.k.a. The Fresno Armenian Cooking Widget) Buy it here. Medicinal quince seed tea You can find out much more about quince on Barbara’s website: queenofquince.com. You can connect with Team Quince on Facebook and on Twitter: @gotquince If you’d like to plant a quince tree check out the selection of bare root trees at Bay Laurel Nursery. Order soon as they sell out. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast pleas...

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Saturday Linkages: Garden Hoses, Planners and IKEA Hacks . . .

Mr. Homegrown

January 12, 2013

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

Ikea meets aquaponics. Gardening Finding the Garden Hose of my Dreams Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2013/01/garden-hose-of-my-d1reams.html … Home Ec On Planners, Productivity, and Idle Pleasures http://thetanglednest.com/2013/01/on-planners-productivity-and-idle-pleasures/ … DIY Barn Door Track Tutorail http://shar.es/47h3M How Google Earth Revealed Chicago’s Hidden Farms: http://ow.ly/gJRrS Bad News Department Florida couple may have to give...

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Tracking the Mood of the Gardener

Mr. Homegrown

February 18, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

7 Comments

Swiss chard from the winter of 2010 A Root Simple reader I ran into this weekend took issue with my assertion that fall is the best time to start a vegetable garden in Southern California. Thinking about it some more I think she may have a point. Some of you may have noticed that we have a new feature on the blog–if you click on an individual blog post you’ll see a list of related posts at the bottom. Looking at some of those older posts showed t...

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