The Other Kind of Fencing

June 6, 2014

That’s Mrs. Homegrown on the left back in 2005. It was with great sadness that we got the news of the passing of our fencing coach Amy Fortune in April. Both Kelly and I were lucky to have taken many lessons with Amy. She was one of those teachers that bring unexpected and valuable life lessons far beyond the topic at hand. She was patient, encouraging and always positive. We miss her very much and send our condolences to her husband Geoff, also...

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Picture Sundays: Homebrew Birthday Cards

Mr. Homegrown

August 17, 2014

Picture Sundays

4 Comments

...a personalized birthday greeting (I’m getting near the half century mark). The card depicts the inside of my brain which has been contaminated by toxoplasmosis and is thus full of cats. Lora Hall, a.k.a. Homegrown Neighbor took a craft class recently and made a bunch of cards including this Star Wars mashup that she gave me: It depictis what happens when you hit 50 with toxoplasmosis....

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Viewpoints in the Garden

Mr. Homegrown

March 13, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening

18 Comments

Mrs. Homegrown put a lot of hard work this past fall into some new plantings for the backyard. As a result there’s some nice viewpoints developing. I thought I’d take a few random pictures to highlight what’s working and what isn’t. I took a seat on the worm bin and discovered this nice vista. It’s the view from where I’m planning a new seating area. Of course photography is a kind of lie. Taking a picture is as much about what we frame out as wh...

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Growing Your Own Soapnut Tree

Mr. Homegrown

September 30, 2013

Gardening, Trees

21 Comments

...ou can use as a greywater safe laundry detergent, dish and hand soap. Mrs. Homegrown wants to rip out my beloved Mission Fig tree to plant the one that Craig at Winnetka Farms gave us last year. I’m going to chain myself to the fig. That being said, I wish we had more room to plant our soapnut tree. Sapindus Mukorossi requires a fertile soil and a frost free climate. It’s a tall tree that can take as long as ten years to begin fruiting. A friend o...

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Defining a Garden’s Purpose

Mr. Homegrown

July 8, 2013

Garden Design, Gardening

13 Comments

...UCLA study do serve a purpose. They are the legacy of mid 20th century suburbanization–the idea of combining country and city in a fantasy of being a petty king and queen of your own mini-real estate empire. Wouldn’t it be nice to give a better purpose to these spaces rather than their merely symbolic role? The space is there, shouldn’t we use it? Growing food would certainly be one option that we’ve talked a lot about on this blog. But what abou...

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