Arundo dorax

...nt book, Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest, Arundo dorax seeds can be ground into a flour, the young shoots are edible and a kind of candy can be made from the stems. Just like bamboo, the tough stems make excellent building materials, which is why the plant was originally imported to California in the early 19th century. Arudo dorax often finds a home alongside river banks, and in Los Angeles massive amounts of it wash up on the...

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Mandrake!

...hetic, and Buhner offers a beer recipe using a 1/2 once of the dried root. Seeds for mandrake, an endangered plant in many places, are available from Horizon Herbs, a company trying to revive cultivation of the plant. This summer season we’re surrounded by nightshade plants, tomatoes, ground cherries and eggplant. These common nightshade family members, as well as mandrake and the datura that the local Native Americans used for there spirit journe...

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Harvest TIme

...Despite a terrible infestation of corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea) Homegrown Revolution harvested our first ear of corn from our illegal street garden. It’s a variety from Seeds of Change but the package is lost in the appalling mess of our office. More on the corn when we get back from a junket to Houston Texas later this week....

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The Chicken and the Egg

...h the four chickens that populate our backyard in their ongoing search for seeds, bugs and the need to sort out the pecking order. After many hours of poultry behavior viewing it’s no surprise to us that some anthropologists believe that the chicken was first domesticated to provide entertainment (through cock fighting) rather than eggs or meat. But more important than the entertainment value backyard chickens provide is the far superior taste and...

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Seed Review: Thompson & Morgan Golden Berry

....a ground cherry, husk cherry, or strawberry tomato. When we planted these seeds we posted on the confusing array of names that this neglected branch of the nightshade family has gathered over the years–we’ll use the scientific name in the interest of precision. Our Physalis pruinosa, planted in April has born fruit for the past two months and seems to be nearing its end of production. We agree with Steven’s comment on our original post that the f...

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