Mutant Squash

August 1, 2006

...excellent results–producing some of the best tomatoes we’ve ever eaten, with no work whatsoever on our part. But this summer they seem to have hybridized again and now yield less flavorful fruit. More information on the botany of pollination and advice on saving vegetable seeds can be found in this excellent article. Also of note, the new issue of Make Magazine, the Popular Mechanics of the geeky hipster art school crowd has a story on “hacking y...

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Newspaper Seed Starting Pots

Mr. Homegrown

March 16, 2008

Seeds

3 Comments

...We started our summer herb and vegetable seeds yesterday using the method in this video. It’s labor intensive but it beats having to buy pots. Happy planting . . . UPDATE: We had some problems with these and have shifted back to old plastic pots for starting seeds. Read more here....

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Water Conservation

Mr. Homegrown

December 30, 2006

Water Conservation

...ll describe in detail in a later post. We have no lawn, and other than the vegetable garden, all the other plants are either natives or from the Mediterranean, many of which are also edible. Reusing greywater from your shower and washing machine can also reduce the amount of outdoor water usage. Above all remember that lawns are the wasteful and evil thought-spawn of generations of golf-obsessed Republicans. Replace them with edible landscaping, o...

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Straw Bale Garden Tour Part II

Mr. Homegrown

August 21, 2013

Gardening, Straw Bale Gardening, Vegetable Gardening, Videos

6 Comments

...video we take a tour of our straw bale garden as it appears this week. The vegetables varieties you see growing are Tromboncino squash, Lunga di Napoli squash (growing up into a native bush), Matt’s Wild Cherry tomato, Celebrity tomato, eggplant and Swiss chard. And just to take down my smugness a notch I also included a shot of an unsuccessful cucumber plant. Other than the cucumber, though, this is one of the most productive vegetable gardens I’...

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One Secret for Delicious Soup–A Parmesan Cheese Rind

Mrs. Homegrown

February 27, 2013

Food, How-to

7 Comments

...you are already using meat or bacon fat or the like in your soup, but for vegetable-based dishes, it really adds a nice touch. As to how much rind you should add, it’s kind of hard to say, since rinds vary in thickness. I don’t think it’s necessary to use a whole rind per pot–I usually break my rinds into two halves. The average chunk that goes in my pots is probably less than an inch high by maybe 3 inches long. It doesn’t really matter how much...

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