Airing Our Dirty Laundry

November 5, 2006

...touch with the natural world i.e. the weather. For those folks pressed for time and unable to enjoy the blessed idleness that pervades the SurviveLA compound, another drying alternative exists — the Spin X dryer. Made by the Krauts, this thing is sort of like those small spinning machines you stick your bathing suit into at the swimming pool. The Spin X spins at 3,300 rpm, and according to the manufacturer will remove 50% of the moisture of a ten...

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Growing Watermelons

Mr. Homegrown

September 4, 2008

Gardening

10 Comments

...uit, early watermelon varieties get you to harvest faster. This means less time for pest and disease problems to develop. While we’ve got a very long season here in Southern California for summer vegetables, with almost no chance of a fall freeze, I’ve begun in the past year to plant early varieties of most vegetables simply because there is less time for bad things to happen. 3. Watermelon is a living mulch. Watermelon, an enormous vine, makes an...

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Polyculture

Mr. Homegrown

December 7, 2006

Permaculture

14 Comments

...fresh and tender–once you grow your own salad, you will feel cheated each time you have to eat salad from a bag. In the photo you will see how tight the planting is in the bed. It is perhaps a tad too tight. We are eating as fast as we can, pulling whole plants for the most part, shooting for the ideal of giving each remaining lettuce and chicory a space about the diameter of a cereal bowl for itself. When the lettuces are full grown, you can har...

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We Grow Houses

Mr. Homegrown

September 27, 2007

Gardening, Pests

2 Comments

The last time a television news crew showed up near our domicile we were living in San Diego for a brief stint in grad school and those dozens of microwave relay trucks that showed up were beaming vital information about the former apartment of Gianni Versace assassin and spree killer Andrew Cunanan. So when we spotted a NBC news truck near the Homegrown Revolution compound we assumed our Los Angeles neighborhood had produced a new celebrity kill...

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Cichorium intybus a.k.a. Italian Dandelion

Mr. Homegrown

December 26, 2007

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

3 Comments

...took our supermarket weaned taste buds some time to get used to the first time we tasted this plant. Changing the cooking water a few times if you boil Italian dandelion is one way to deal with the bitterness, but we prefer to just throw it together with some fat in a frying pan, such as olive oil and/or pancetta. We also add some hot pepper flakes for a nice hot counter-punch. Italian dandelion makes a good companion to balsamic vinegar marinate...

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