L’hamd markad – Preserved Salted Lemons

March 30, 2007

One of the big problems with citrus trees is that you get a whole lot of fruit all at one time. There are two ways to deal with this–share the harvest and/or preserve it. Homegrown Revolution has done both this week by mooching some lemons off of a friend’s tree and preserving them by making one of the essential ingredients of Moroccan food, L’hamd markad or preserved salted lemons. L’hamd markad is easy to make. Here’s a recipe from Cooking at t...

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Daikon Radish Pickles

Mr. Homegrown

May 3, 2007

Fermentation, Food

13 Comments

...We fished out the first slice, sniffed it and eyeballed it like curious but frightened monkeys. An uninformed and vague discussion of botulism followed. Finally the gauntlet was thrown down, and the challenge could not be ignored: are we wimps or are we homesteaders? So we ate of the fruit. Or one of us did. The other stood by ready to dial 911. Yum! Our pickled daikons are salty and garlic-y and firm, and taste a lot like a good garlic dill, only...

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Plantain!

Mr. Homegrown

August 10, 2007

Food, Foraging, Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation

...there’s a lot of banana trees in Los Angeles they tend not to yield edible fruit since our climate is not quite hot and humid enough. But plantains, judging from the delicious taste of the ones we fried up, are a different story. They do require a lot of water to grow, but greywater expert Art Ludwig calls bananas (the same family as plantain) “the premiere plant for greywater in warm climates”. You can bet that as soon as the building inspectors...

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Washing Machine Greywater Resources

Mr. Homegrown

May 26, 2009

Water and Power, Water Conservation

5 Comments

...also turn a surge tank into a rain barrel. A description of our greywater fruit mini-orchard. Our greywater surge tank version 1.0. We’ve since added a pantyhose filter as seen above to catch lint that can clog the tank and garden hose. It’s just some threaded ABS waste pipe fittings screwed together with used pantyhose. A liquid fertilizer of the type that you could add to your greywater surge tank during a wash cycle to fertilize your garden. Y...

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Mahonia gracilis – Mexican Barberry

Mr. Homegrown

November 7, 2007

Gardening

5 Comments

...about this medium sized shrub, native to Mexico (or China depending on which source you believe). The Plants for a Future database report states that the plant grows in dry ravines of pine forests and produces an edible berry. But as usual most other sources don’t comment on the edibility of the fruit. To add to the paucity of information and general confusion, some botanists argue that the family name is incorrect and that it should be called Ber...

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