Steve Solomon’s Soil and Health e-Library

October 23, 2012

...ing from the 1700s (William Ellis’ The Country Housewife’s Family Companion), all the way to the appropriate technology movement of the 1970s (Gene Logsdon’s Getting Food From Water: A guide to Backyard Aquaculture). So go load up those e-readers. Or maybe print them out in case we have a revolution....

Read…

A New and Improved Self Irrigating Pot System

Mr. Homegrown

October 19, 2012

Self Watering Containers

11 Comments

...on the self irrigating pot (SIP) idea from Larry Hall of Minnesota. Rather than the two bucket system we’ve blogged about in the past (see a roundup of our SIP resources here), Hall uses one long rain gutter to supply water. He’s even got a clever double rain gutter system for growing strawberries that I’m tempted to try on our back patio. I spotted this video on Inside Urban Green always a good source for SIP related news....

Read…

Bird Netting as a Cabbage Leaf Caterpillar Barrier

Mr. Homegrown

November 15, 2012

Gardening, Pests, Vegetable Gardening

19 Comments

...s can’t lay eggs through it. The best way to do this is by planting arches of wire or tubing over your garden bed, and stretching the cover material over those arches– like a covered wagon. Netting has advantages over row cover: you can see and water through it and it’s more readily available. I’m curious what you, our dear readers, think of the idea? Mrs. Homegrown chimes in: I’ll add that in the past readers have said they use tulle material as...

Read…

How to Cook Perfect Scrambled Eggs

Mr. Homegrown

January 4, 2013

Food, Recipes

3 Comments

...enty: 20 Techniques 100 Recipes A Cook’s Manifesto . I can’t say that I read the rest of the book, but the double boiler egg method sure works well. You melt some butter in a double boiler first to help keep the eggs from sticking. You can also use a pan held over (but not in) a pot of boiling water if you don’t have a double boiler (and I don’t have a double boiler). It takes longer to cook eggs this way, of course, but you get nice soft and fluf...

Read…

Radish Surprise

Mrs. Homegrown

July 1, 2013

Gardening, Miscellaneous, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening

15 Comments

...he radish plant really is quite pretty, the equal of any ornamental flowering shrub–but as bad is the picture is, it gives you some scale. See the bales of our straw bale garden behind it? I think it must be pulling water from there, which accounts for its size and longevity. It’s gone a little past its prime now– a couple of weeks ago the blooms were thicker. By the way, radish blossoms are tasty food for people, too....

Read…