De-Cluttering the Garden

...s. This makes deferred de-cluttering even more curse-worthy. Addendum Mrs. Homegrown chimes in: Erik spoke of some topics of marital discord in the garden, and yet none of those hold a candle to our perpetual debate about installing some kind of garden shed or storage system in our back yard. It’s shocking, really, that we don’t have such a thing, but he is very resistant to the idea, for reasons of time, effort, money and aesthetics. All good obj...

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The tale of the worm bin celery

...er grown it intentionally. The celery in this post looks very much like my homegrown “cutting celery.” Perhaps commercial celery wants to revert to this? Months later, the hot weather arrived, the celery started to bolt (that is, send up flower stalks). When a plant bolts, it puts all its energy into flowering. At that point, its not much use to us as food. I was sad to lose my bottomless celery supply, but I was excited about the flowers. Pollina...

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The canning lid conundrum

..., leftovers, food-to-go, body care, etc. My collection is driving me crazy. Never was there a set of more awkward objects than a pile of slippery, jangly rings and lids. Ideas? [Mr. Homegrown in my Master Food Preserver mode chiming in here–as per USDA advice we use two piece canning lids only once for actual canning]...

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Pakistan Mulberry Fever

...et made into delicious juice for jellies and my Jamalade with cumquats and/or habanero. So it would probably maybe still be worth it to you but know what you are maybe getting into! Again, the taste is so amazing that if I had the room I’d say it’s worth the hassle of harvesting. Note from Mrs. Homegrown: I wanted to add that the odd things about these mulberries is that they have a green stem which runs all the way through the center of the fruit...

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