Introducing Lora Hall

...e runs a booth with Trisha Mazure every Tuesday from 3 to 8 pm. When we visited her at the market last week Lora had a bunch of interesting plants including purslane, tomatoes, tomatillos as well as a selection of fruit trees appropriate for our warm climate. In the LA area and want some fruit trees for your backyard? Some gardening advice? Contact Lora at fullcirclegardening@gmail.com. Lora will be posting as Homegrown Neighbor....

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Let’s Democratize Permaculture

...ld a better place. I’ve also witnessed the same skewed proportion of apple trees to thoughts about apple trees. At the same time, not a day goes by when I don’t think about, learn from or apply some of the principles of permaculture as described by Mollison and Holmgren. In fact my biggest failures have come from not following permaculture’s language of common sense. Maybe it’s time to put down the pen and graph paper and pick up a shovel. It’s de...

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Sources for Interesting Perennial Crops

...n. Also note that the USDA maintains a huge collection of fruit trees, nut trees and many other crops at thirty-two federally funded repositories around the United States. At least one of those facilities, the National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Fruit and Nut Crops in Davis, CA, will send out scion wood when available (researchers get first dibs). They appreciate a Fed Ex number so they don’t have to pay for shipping. Of course you have to kn...

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How to kill your palm tree

...s. So these are 4 good ways to try to kill your tree: Never Water It. Palm trees grow in the desert, yes, but they are oasis plants. They grow by open water, or above underground water. They are tough, but tough is not the same as invincible, and they don’t show stress as clearly as other trees do, so you may not know that it is thirsty until it is too late. If it gets no water, one day your palm may just droop over, like a spent flower, and that...

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Gourmet Foraging and Advanced Acorn Processing

...s every year, so you have to keep your eyes open, and scout around to find trees which are in full production. All acorns are edible, they simple vary by size and tannin content. Tannins in the acorns make them bitter, and inedible unless the tannins are leached out. (Theoretically you could ruin your kidneys by eating unprocessed acorns, but the tannins make them so nasty that you’d be hard pressed to eat enough to do yourself harm.) So find your...

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