Karp’s Sweet Quince Update

August 22, 2013

...ou can, indeed, eat the fruit fresh. The texture was not the best, but the fruit I ate was damaged and immature so it was not exactly a fair sample. Quince is not the only tree I’ve been having trouble with. Thrips took out our crop of nectaplums and damaged our nectarines. I’ve vowed this winter to pay more attention to the needs of our fruit trees. Towards that end I’m reading Michael Phillip’s book The Holistic Orchard. If you have an idea what...

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Saturday Linkages: Yet More Potty Talk

Mr. Homegrown

August 10, 2013

Saturday Linkages

10 Comments

...ith My 3 Sons As promised . . . Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons: Potty Training Fruit Snack & Other Potty Treats! http://kitchenfunwithmy3sons.blogspot.com/2013/07/potty-training-fruit-snack-other-potty.html?spref=tw … Can diapers really control Salmonella in lap chickens? http://barfblog.com/2013/08/can-diapers-really-control-salmonella-in-lap-chickens/ … Food Issues Cylindrical, quivering, gelatinous, tinned 12-course meal – Boing Boing http://boingb...

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Cat Litter Compost, Installment #3

Mrs. Homegrown

August 12, 2013

Animals, Cats, Composting, Gardening

29 Comments

...efore you spread it. And then spread it around non-edible plants, or under fruit trees. The fruit trees won’t uptake anything nasty. It’s totally do-able and I’d do it again. But I’d rather do it again in a larger yard, where I could have a big, accessible compost bin. So now I’m doing something new. The New Paradigm I heard about a new kind of litter tray made specifically to work with pine pellets. I hate to be advertising–I get nothing out of t...

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Maintaining a Worm Bin

Mrs. Homegrown

July 19, 2013

Composting, Miscellaneous, Vermiculture

31 Comments

...retty worm castings–say if I were selling them–I wouldn’t put eggshells or fruit pits or pumpkin seeds into my bin at all. These things just linger and are hard to sift out. Harvesting the Castings Harvesting castings is the only hard part about keeping a bin–and it’s not even hard, it’s just somewhat less than convenient. No matter how long you rest one side of the bin, there will always be a few confused worms living in the finished castings. If...

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Seed Review: Thompson & Morgan Golden Berry

Mr. Homegrown

September 5, 2007

Gardening

6 Comments

...t that the flavor is not as pronounced as some would have you believe. The fruit tastes like a slightly sweet tomato with, sad to say, a slight hint of gastric reflux. Perhaps it would be tastier cooked down into a jam but we don’t have enough of a crop to make more than one small jar. The plant itself grew easily with no pest problems, but did start to look unhappy in the heat of the summer. We probably won’t grow it again, but will let the plant...

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