The Practical Side of Philosophy

August 1, 2016

...both weld and understand a logical or ethical argument. Attempting my own self-study program hasn’t been easy. There’s been a whole bunch of $50 words to learn and I can’t say that I’m anywhere near the point where I can explain key concepts. It would have been better to have started this program earlier in my life and integrated with all the other things I had to study in school. But as to how to get that self-study program going, I recently fou...

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Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

Mr. Homegrown

September 24, 2013

Gardening, Seeds, Vegetable Gardening

18 Comments

...Know how the vegetable is pollinated It’s much easier to save the seeds of self-pollinating vegetables such as beans, peas and tomatoes. Remember that bees can fly for miles–anything pollinated by insects have to be isolated or caged to prevent cross-pollination. And many vegetables have weedy cousins. Try to save the seeds of carrots without caging and you may get a carrot/Queen Anne’s lace hybrid that won’t taste good. And some supposedly self-p...

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A Not So Close Shave

Mr. Homegrown

April 25, 2019

Domesticus, Shaving

7 Comments

...e to ask how am I also complicit in the curation of an idealized alternate self via this blog and our books? How many times have I presented some neatly tied up homemaking/gardening tip when the actual results were more ambiguous? Or, to go deeper with this, how often have I presented a “failure” as a kind of false modesty? At the risk of doing the latter, and via a long winded media theory laden introduction, permit me update my ongoing struggle...

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The Sound is Forced, the Notes are Few

Mr. Homegrown

June 22, 2020

Thoughtstylings

8 Comments

...can all just use this time to learn watercolors (while also protecting yourself and others from a potentially deadly disease that is killing people all over the world). As a urban homesteading/DIY blogger and author I’ve attempted a few of those how to “be” under quarantine hot takes and I’ve even spent part of my time making bad watercolors. I even wrote a post about that later effort (part of a longer post about learning old school architectural...

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Mallow (Malva parviflora) an Edible Friend

Mr. Homegrown

February 21, 2008

Food, Foraging

23 Comments

...into a green sauce and use the leaves as a substitute for grape leaves for making dolmas. Modern Mexicans also make a green sauce with the leaves. If any of you readers have recipes, please send them along. If that ain’t enough, the mucilaginous nature of the plant can be exploited by making a decoction of the leaves and roots to use as a shampoo, hair softener, and treatment for dandruff. And yet, like so many other gardening books, the oh-so-bou...

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