Easy Scandinavian-Style Bread

October 8, 2015

...ough starter, take on the mantle (or apron?) of Household Baker, and start making these loaves myself, but I’m already taking on extra chores with him off his feet, so I’m not inclined to take up this one as well. Yet we can’t live two months without good bread. What to do? Fortunately, I’ve found a solution to our bread crisis: a perfectly good yeasted recipe which makes a dense whole grain loaf with minimal effort. No starter. No kneading. No ri...

Read…

When it’s time to remove a tree

Mrs. Homegrown

October 22, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening

11 Comments

...ing two shrubs too close together, so now they’re crowding one another and making a sort of Frankenstein hedge, you have to correct it. Gardening has a huge learning curve. You’re going to make mistakes. It’s inevitable. You have to fix the problem. If the plant in question is thriving, full of rude health, not poorly placed but not fitting into your future plans, meditate on that. A thriving plant–the kind that doesn’t seem to need any care at al...

Read…

Our new front yard: history

Mrs. Homegrown

November 11, 2015

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening

19 Comments

...We studied books about organic orcharding for clues, without results. The soil on the slope had been mulched since we’d done our first plantings, and the soil had a nice organic layer from that mulch breaking down over many years. We had a good drip irrigation system, and we gave the trees compost and even resorted to amendments, but the trees never seemed happy. Some produced fruit for a year or two, then ominously stopped. Others never produced...

Read…

How to Make Your Own DIY Instant Oatmeal

Mrs. Homegrown

March 24, 2016

Food, How-to, Recipes

6 Comments

...e serving bags. To use, just scoop out what you need into a bowl and pour boiling water over the top until it’s as moist as you want it to be (It’s a good idea to give your storage container a shake or stir before using to make sure stuff hasn’t settled out). Let the oats sit for a minute or so to soften up before you tuck in. Add a little more water if it stiffens up too much. I’m sure you could microwave this, I just don’t know how. I like to pu...

Read…

Root Simple Reader Survey Results

Mr. Homegrown

May 10, 2016

Thoughtstylings

6 Comments

...a paradoxical problem with a DIY blog. If we’re gardening or in the garage making something we’re not writing and vice versa. It’s been difficult to find the right balance. Looks like you’re all good with where we are. When we first began this blog ten years ago the standard advice was along the lines of, “people are distracted so make your posts short.” Lately, the common wisdom is that blog posts should be long and footnoted. We decided to split...

Read…