Guyaba Guayabas (Psidium guajava)

October 3, 2008

...e tropical flavor, and according to creekfreak, some varieties have edible seeds. The fruit off creekfreak’s tree rots really quickly, so don’t look for him to be opening a booth at your local farmer’s market. The tree seems fairly drought tolerant, but more productive with water. Guava expert Leslie Landrum notes that the guava is a “weedy tree, a tree that likes disturbance. It likes to grow along roads and in pastures. Animals eat the fruit and...

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Rainwater Harvesting and Beyond

Mr. Homegrown

September 11, 2008

rainwater harvesting, Water and Power, Water Conservation

4 Comments

...a Garden of Eden. Lancaster empasizes earthworks which capture and channel water where you want it to go, instead of uselessly sending it down the gutter. For those of you in Southern California, Lancaster will be delivering a free talk at the Santa Monica Public Library Monday September 15th at 6:30 p.m. More info via Westside Permaculture Gatherings. If you’re not in SoCal, you can get more information about Lancaster’s work and order a copy of...

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Tomato Review #1 Red Currant–The World’s Smallest Tomato

Mr. Homegrown

July 7, 2008

Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening

5 Comments

...icated version of wild tomato plants originating in Mexico, and produces fruit measuring about one centimeter across. Red Currant is an indeterminate tomato, with a delicious, sweet taste. A malfunctioning drip line has has meant that our specimen probably did not get enough water, but nevertheless it has managed to produce fruit despite looking unhappy. If we had more than the paltry number we’ve produced, they’d make for a tasty addition to a sa...

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Terror of Tiny Town

Mr. Homegrown

July 9, 2008

Animals, Chickens, Gardening, Self Watering Containers, Vegetable Gardening

4 Comments

...ners made with old pop bottles (more info on how to make a pop bottle self-watering container here and here). These pop bottle containers look like they’d work well for starting seeds, as they provide a constant source of water. Nance Klehm, another intrepid Chicago resident, informed us that someone just gave her two bantam chickens for her backyard, the perfect compliment to her chihuahuas. Some say that bantams are better for smaller backyards...

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Tomato Review #2 Banana Legs – it don’t look like a banana and it don’t got legs

Mr. Homegrown

August 4, 2008

Gardening, Tomatoes, Vegetable Gardening

6 Comments

...ato we grew last year, Power’s Heirloom. We grew our Banana Legs in a self watering container (SWC) and it produced a respectable amount of fruit. With a sunny balcony, folks in apartments could do the same. For our container we used a repurposed storage bin and we’d recommend the largest container you can find for tomatoes or sticking to tomato varieties specifically bred for containers. As soon as the large root system of a tomato plant gets dow...

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