Apron Contest Winner

November 8, 2009

Homegrown Neighbor here: We have a winner for our apron giveaway. I received a lot of great entries. It was fun to hear what each of you would do in an apron. I’m happy to say that we have a lot of interesting, witty and crafty readers. I even received some international entries. I wish we could give you all aprons. But Katie Presley made me laugh, so I had to choose her as our winner. Lots of people cook and craft, but Katie cooks and crafts wit...

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Swedish Shack Attack

Mr. Homegrown

March 22, 2009

Design, Thoughtstylings

3 Comments

...ry David Thoreau, the Unabomber, the bloggers over at Ramshackle Solid and Homegrown Evolution all have one thing in common. We’re all proud owners of shacks. We’ve posted before about the wonderful Tiny House Company and the virtues of actually living in your shack. Today we share a photo of a lovely Swedish shack we spotted in the arctic town of Kiruna. A family of five used to live in it in the early 20th century and it can’t be much more than...

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A Cheap Soil Testing Service

Mr. Homegrown

September 22, 2009

Gardening, Soil

7 Comments

...esting done, only to have to correct my response several times. Last week, Homegrown Evolution pal and the editor of Cool Tools, Elon Schoenholz, gave me a definitive answer on where to send soil for testing: the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Laboratory. A standard soil test is $9, $4 more for the standard test plus organic matter. The standard tests includes heavy metals....

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On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

Mr. Homegrown

July 5, 2009

Gardening, Mistakes

17 Comments

...citrus), not practical for the home gardener and we’re organic around the Homegrown compound anyways. In fact, one of the pesticides used to control shapshooters is Imidacloprid, implicated by many in the recent disappearance of honey bees. Pierce disease resistant Vitus californica attacking our house. The only hope for long term control, as Turney sees it, is by breeding hybrid grape varieties resistant to Pierce’s. Turney strongly advised agai...

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Off the charts

Homegrown Neighbor

July 9, 2009

Animals, Chickens

9 Comments

Homegrown Neighbor here. My chicken, Chickenzilla, is at it again, producing several mammoth double-yolked eggs in the past few weeks. The brown egg on the right is more of a normal sized egg, weighing in at extra large on this antique egg scale. Chickenzilla’s egg is way beyond the measure of this scale, weighing in I’d guess at somewhere around extra, extra, extra large. Pretty good for an industrial meat chicken that isn’t supposed to be a goo...

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