I Made a Coffee Sandwich

April 30, 2024

...raffic sewer in Silver Lake. Their sign promised “Coffee-Sandwich Drinking Water.” A friend and I used to speculate about what a “coffee sandwich” would consist of every time we went past the place. It took may years but I decided this month to bring some closure to this idle speculation. I based my prompt on the dessert sandwiches I ate on our recent trip to Japan. Typically, those sandwiches consist of a fruit and whipped cream filling served on...

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Quick Tip: DIY Decaf Tea

Mrs. Homegrown

August 5, 2014

Domesticus, Food, How-to

16 Comments

...tea as you normally would, but start counting as soon as you pour the hot water. After at least 30 seconds but no more than 1 minute you pour off all of what has brewed so far. And yes, that’s all the good stuff. It’s sad, but being all headachey and jittery is sad too, so I do it. Then you top off the tea leaves with fresh hot water and start the brew again. This one you drink. Commercially decaf tea is lower in caffeine than this homebrew–just...

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Compost Piles on Fire!

Mr. Homegrown

October 2, 2014

Composting, Gardening

8 Comments

...en with a low moisture, large pile with little air exchange, combined with water getting into the pile in a place where there is enough air to support biological activity and chemical oxidation, but not enough to cool the pile. An old, dry compost pile, or a pile of overs screened out of the finished product, is a case in point. Water seeping into the dry compost can restart microbial activity and initiate reheating. A “macropore” or crack from th...

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Saturday Linkages: Mobile Pods, Soil Erosion and Getting Doored by a Porta-Potty

Mr. Homegrown

June 14, 2014

Saturday Linkages

2 Comments

...IMEHealth Maybe there’s hope? Report Offers a Way For California to Become Water-Sustainable http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/commentary/report-offers-a-way-for-california-to-become-water-sustainable.html … Man on bike strikes porta-potty door; two hurt: http://bit.ly/1pisQdq Could a medicine used to treat gout also save our citrus? http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/could-a-medicine-used-to-treat-gout-also-save-...

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Growing Your Own Soapnut Tree

Mr. Homegrown

September 30, 2013

Gardening, Trees

21 Comments

...nd a frost free climate. It’s a tall tree that can take as long as ten years to begin fruiting. A friend of mine has one growing in Altadena. Sapindus Mukorossi needs lots of water. Craig has pointed out the perfect permacultural pairing for our dry climate–use the greywater from your washing machine to water your soap nut tree. It can be a bit tough to get the seeds to germinate. Here’s some instructions on how to grow Sapindus Mukorossi from see...

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