The Three Sisters

August 31, 2007

...d to cultivate heat tolerant vegetables and upped the ante by planting the Native American three sisters–corn, beans and squash. The three sisters are textbook permaculture, the idea being that the beans nitrogenate the soil and climb up the corn while the squash provides mulch. All plants are useful and you end up with an interdependent, self-sustaining beneficial feedback loop. Some people add a fourth sister, Rocky Mountain bee plant (Cleome se...

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Saturday Linkages: And So On . . .

Mr. Homegrown

November 16, 2019

Saturday Linkages

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...e woods mushroom–more on this in a future post. Florence Caulfield and ‘The Illustrated Needlework Book’ This might be the most 2019 thing I’ve seen Sasquatch or Wendigo? Mysterious howls in Canadian wilderness spark confusion (Mini editorial: I think the native spirits are angry with us) Slavoj Žižek on recycling ecology and consumerism Bikelash’s Latest Tactics: Pedophile Smears and Conspiracy Theories Credit Card Skimmers Evolved: Shimming Faki...

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Mahonia gracilis – Mexican Barberry

Mr. Homegrown

November 7, 2007

Gardening

5 Comments

...rberry, but there’s very little information about this medium sized shrub, native to Mexico (or China depending on which source you believe). The Plants for a Future database report states that the plant grows in dry ravines of pine forests and produces an edible berry. But as usual most other sources don’t comment on the edibility of the fruit. To add to the paucity of information and general confusion, some botanists argue that the family name i...

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Capparis spinosa – Capers

Mr. Homegrown

October 30, 2007

Gardening

6 Comments

...ants that belong in a climate similar to your part of the world. We’re not native plant fascists and will gladly source plants from other similar climates, but we don’t believe in nursing sickly plants that can’t take our heat, or need lots of water. This season we’ve pledge not to be tempted by the allure of the seed catalogs. We’re going to grow edible and useful plants that thrive in Mediterranean places. Thankfully that includes a lot of inter...

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The Horror

Mr. Homegrown

January 8, 2008

Bikes

1 Comment

...sociate with crazy people and goats, had hacked off half the length of the native grape vine that we had counted on covering an ugly chain link fence. An innocent mistake, but evidence that some folks apparently don’t know what grape vines look like and that they loose their leaves in the winter. So what does this have to do with man bras? Nothing, but both make us cranky. Our crankiness leaves us at a loss for words, so instead of a lengthy post...

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