Timing Sourdough Feeding

April 6, 2020

...e I’m sleeping the sourdough culture is growing exponentially in the flour/water mixture. I need to make my dough within 8 to 12 hours of that feeding. If I wait too long the sourdough starter will lose its vigor. How do I know the starter is ready to use? I do a float test. If you gently spoon the culture into some water it should float, an indication that it’s active and full of CO2 bubbles. One of the most common mistakes with beginning sourdou...

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How To Manage a Compost Pile Using Temperature

Mr. Homegrown

February 22, 2013

Composting, Gardening, How-to

7 Comments

...get high temperatures can be an indication of too much carbon or a lack of water. To correct, add more nitrogen and water and turn. A loss of temperature could indicate that the pile is going anaerobic. The solution is to add more carbon material and turn. Once the pile has had 15 complete days over 131° F you just let it sit. Compost is done when it is dark, smells like earth and you can’t recognize the original ingredients. It will likely be sev...

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Self-Irrigating Gutter Update

Mr. Homegrown

June 5, 2013

Gardening, Self Watering Containers

4 Comments

...rel. Unfortunately the lower gutter leaked around 50 gallons of stored rainwater down into the garage below (our house is on a hill and the garage is at street level). To prevent this problem in the future I put a manual irrigation timer on the barrel so that if there is a leak, I won’t lose all the water at once. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEeCgGAbvwk If I were to do this project again, I’d also use a refinement that Larry Hall just posted in...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

Homegrown Neighbor

January 18, 2010

Gardening

22 Comments

...trients from relatively poor soil. The point here is let your weeds rot in water and you get a nice fertilizer. This is better than water into wine as far as I’m concerned. Which reminds me that I want to try making dandelion wine this spring…. So many of the plants that people consider weeds, like dandelion and nettle, are nutritious and medicinal plants. My favorite part is that they are easy to grow and don’t need good soil, need no fertilizer...

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Capparis spinosa – Capers

Mr. Homegrown

October 30, 2007

Gardening

6 Comments

...e extra measures to grow. Dried seeds should be initially immersed in warm water (40°C or 105°F ) and then let soak for 1 day. Seeds should be wrapped in a moist cloth, placed in a sealed glass jar and kept in the refrigerator for 2 – 3 months. After refrigeration, soak the seeds again in warm water overnight.” We’ll also need to wait a few years before we have a crop. But if our capers manage to establish we’ll be letting nature work for us. UPDA...

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