Search Results for: label/fruits and veg/2011/04/making-it/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

859 results

The recyclable/compostable Christmas tree

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Domesticus
25 Comments
...inexpensively made, and don’t have to be stored from year to year. Sturdy fruits and berries Popcorn/cranberry strings Paper chains Dried herbs and flowers Moss Feathers Cool looking seed pods Nuts Origami Paper snowflakes Homemade rock candy Gingerbread figures There’s tons more possibilities. What have I forgotten? Some of my ornaments This is a sugared white sage leaf. I added sugar because I decided the tree needed a little bling. Ditto with...

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A NSFW Mushroom

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Gardening, Mushrooms
8 Comments
...t enjoy looking at them (and occasionally eating chicken of the woods, the only one I feel confident enough to identity). This weekend in Pomona I spotted the notoriously NSFW stinkhorn mushroom which I’m pretty sure is Phallus hadriani. It fruits quickly with the tip oozing a slimy substance attractive to insects. I witnessed a pill bug and some gnats circling the morel-like tip. Stinkhorns use these insects to distribute spores. In short, a very...

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Rats

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Pests
...post). As far as rat prevention goes, it’s really important to harvest all fruits from the garden before they drop on the ground. Our rat problem this winter may be due, in part, from our laziness and failure to harvest the fruit of our prodigious fig tree in addition to the foundation work we’re having done (thanks again to those realtors we want to sick the rats on). Other deterrents include not leaving food around and getting rid of wood piles....

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We All Have Our Triggers

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Thoughtstylings
11 Comments
...ews, in today’s New York Times, that executives at Amazon are unaware that vegetables and fruits have seasons, The former head of a major produce company said Amazon told him it wanted to sell marquee fresh items at low prices every day. The executive said he had to explain that certain products, like berries or lettuce, may be available all year thanks to global supply chains, but that they cost more in the off-season. Forcing flat, low prices wo...

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