Salted Spruce Tips and Pine Infused Garlic Salt

July 1, 2016

...and see how it goes, because you can always add more. Feline assistance in making the pine garlic salt. A Tale of Two Salts To give you some concrete examples, I made two small batches of salt today. I often make herbed salt in tiny batches that get used up quickly, because I like to experiment. The first one I made was with spruce tips. These are the fresh spring growth of a fir tree, the tender chartreuse tips which stand out in such brilliant c...

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Help! I’ve got Paper Wasps

Mr. Homegrown

August 2, 2016

Animals, Insects

9 Comments

...beneficial insect. They eat beetle larvae, caterpillars, flies and nectar (making them pollinators). They are your friends in the garden. Right now I have a large colony living in the eave of our front porch right over my favorite chair. I’ve sat in that chair, with my head a mere four feet from my paper wasp buddies, for many hours and have never once been bothered. Biology Like honeybees, paper wasp are social insects. A mated queen lays eggs. B...

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Black Friday Book Suggestions

Mr. Homegrown

November 27, 2015

Reviews

1 Comment

...strike me as books for a craftsperson ready to take that next step toward making these products as a home business. Malle and Schmickl are scientists–stern Austrian scientists, no less– and they are all about consistency and professional practice. So these books mean to take you from being someone a casual dabbler to a home chemist who could make batches of vinegar or essential oil with consistent, predictable –saleable–results. I’d say the vineg...

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Haint Blue

Mrs. Homegrown

June 5, 2015

Design, Insects

14 Comments

...sting insects — and restless spirits (“haint” derives from “haunt”) — from making themselves at home in our living spaces. Haint blue is not a single shade of blue, but refers rather to a blue used for this purpose. The actual color could run from soft powder blue to true sky blue to bright teal. While the cool, airy white porch with a blue ceiling speaks to elegant Victoriana, I’ll note that the practice probably does originate in the traditions...

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Saturday Tweets: Beet Raisins, Seed Libraries and a Pepperoni Disaster

Mr. Homegrown

April 7, 2018

Saturday Linkages

...elSurls) April 6, 2018 Eric Garcetti can’t be a ‘climate mayor’ while he’s making more room for cars https://t.co/sg9Uf83izf — BikeLA (@Bike_LA) April 6, 2018 "Our national flower is the concrete cloverleaf." — Lewis Mumford pic.twitter.com/7yd0JGil4B — Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) May 4, 2016 Waze has turned the nearly undriveable, fifth-steepest hill in America into a disaster-strewn major thoroughfare https://t.co/OogoX0a5cb — Root Simple (@roo...

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