Butterfly Barrier Failure

November 21, 2012

...ption the best. Planting a bunch of brassicas is like opening an all you can eat buffet for cabbage leaf worms. Our backyard has more biodiversity and fewer problems with pests. I used better (homemade) compost in the raised beds in the backyard, thus the soil in these beds also has greater microbial biodiversity...

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Nasturtium Leaf Pesto

Mr. Homegrown

February 20, 2013

Food, Foraging, Recipes

9 Comments

...choked with nasturtium and I’ve never made good use of the leaves. I have used the flowers for a pesto, but it’s kinda labor intensive. Nancy made a pesto with the leaves and I had to try my own version: Nasturtium leaf pesto 2 fistfuls of nasturtium leaves 1 fistful of nuts–pistachios preferred but any will do a half fistful of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano olive oil salt pepper Roast nuts in a pan. Let them cool and add to a food processor with th...

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Why You Should Avoid Staking Trees

Mr. Homegrown

November 26, 2012

Fruit Trees, Gardening, Miscellaneous, Trees

6 Comments

...low as possible but no higher than 2/3 the height of the tree. • Materials used to tie the tree to the stake should be flexible and allow for movement all the way down to the ground so that trunk taper develops correctly. • Remove all staking material after roots have established. This can be as early as a few months, but should be no longer than one growing season Now, back to the philosophical: Seneca’s tree analogy is a good example of a system...

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What To Do With Old Vegetable Seeds

Mr. Homegrown

November 27, 2012

Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening

15 Comments

...e tips in his book The Natural Way of Farming for creating a semi-wild vegetable garden: Include nitrogen fixers (in my case some clover seeds) Use daikon and other radishes to break up hard soil Sow before weeds emerge Scott Kleinrock has used the same strategy at the Huntington Gardens. Here’s what his semi-wild vegetable garden, growing in the understory of some small fruit trees, looked like in January of this year: And there you have it–veget...

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The Perfect Chicken Coop?

Mr. Homegrown

November 28, 2012

Animals, Chickens

8 Comments

...t has a roof over the run to keep your chickens dry. It’s the basic form I used for our coop with a few refinements–I ran hardware cloth under run to keep out burrowing predators. I also extended the run to keep the chickens from pecking at each other (the more room they have the better). To paraphrase Nassim Taleb for the second time in a week, if a given design has been around for at least a hundred years, the odds are it will be around for many...

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