Cichorium intybus a.k.a. Italian Dandelion

December 26, 2007

...bitter taste that 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 balsami...

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Butterfly Barrier Failure

Mr. Homegrown

November 21, 2012

Gardening, Pests

21 Comments

...ption the best. Planting a bunch of brassicas is like opening an all you can eat buffet for cabbage leaf worms. Our backyard has more biodiversity and fewer problems with pests. I used better (homemade) compost in the raised beds in the backyard, thus the soil in these beds also has greater microbial biodiversity...

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What To Do With Old Vegetable Seeds

Mr. Homegrown

November 27, 2012

Gardening, Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening

15 Comments

...e tips in his book The Natural Way of Farming for creating a semi-wild vegetable garden: Include nitrogen fixers (in my case some clover seeds) Use daikon and other radishes to break up hard soil Sow before weeds emerge Scott Kleinrock has used the same strategy at the Huntington Gardens. Here’s what his semi-wild vegetable garden, growing in the understory of some small fruit trees, looked like in January of this year: And there you have it–veget...

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All Natural No-Treatment Beekeeping Class at the Ecology Center

Mr. Homegrown

July 25, 2014

Events

4 Comments

...d. It’s said that beekeeping, or apiculture, began with the Egyptians whom used logs, boxes, and pottery vessels to make their own bee hives. Today, the practice of beekeeping lives on. Help save a dying species, encourage pollination in your garden, and enjoy raw, organic honey! In this workshop, come together with Erik Knutzen of Root Simple to learn the basics of bees. Explore the all natural, no treatment method of beekeeping, plus, visit a wo...

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Decomposed Granite as Mulch: A very bad idea

Mr. Homegrown

April 30, 2014

Gardening, Native Plants

36 Comments

...vorite tools in the flipper landscaping toolbox is decomposed granite (DG) used as a mulch. Put some plastic landscape fabric down (blocks rainwater in our climate, fyi) and top that plastic with DG. They then punch some holes in the DG/plastic and pop in succulents and maybe a rosemary bush or two. By the time the yard becomes a sad, desertified tangle of unhappy succulents and crabgrass, the flippers are long gone. I’ve got a big issue with DG a...

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