Mulch, mulch, mulch!

May 14, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Soil

...ood mulch. In addition, she ran drip lines beneath the mulch to bring some water into the picture. (That is necessary here, as we get so little rain–it wouldn’t be necessary everywhere.) She let that stew for a couple of months, and then checked back in. As if by magic, the soil beneath the mulch had come to life. The water and the insulation called to the worms. They came from…somewhere. (The ways of worms are mysterious!) And they went to work o...

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Josey Baker on Bread: Whole, Wild, Wet, Slow and Bold

Mr. Homegrown

November 23, 2015

Bread, Fermentation, Food

4 Comments

...tion if you’re keeping score. (N.B. Hydration level refers to the ratio of water to flour by weight: 100 grams of flour mixed with 100 grams of water = 100% hydration) A big advantage of wet dough is that you don’t need to knead it. The gluten strands align on their own in the wet dough matrix. You still have to do some stretching and folding to help the gluten alignment process along, but you don’t have anything that resembles traditional kneadin...

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On the Safety of Cleaning Products

Mr. Homegrown

May 15, 2019

Domesticus, Tidying up

8 Comments

...cleaning products consist of detergents that lower the surface tension of water and/or acids or bases that dissolve calcium and fatty substances. Some acids act as disinfectants and bases also inhibit the corrosion of metal. Solvents (such as alcohol) also dissolve fatty substances. Other chemicals are added to cleaning products such as water softeners, to help dissolve certain minerals, as well as fragrances and preservatives. Commercial cleanin...

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Timing Sourdough Feeding

Mr. Homegrown

April 6, 2020

Bread, Food

12 Comments

...e I’m sleeping the sourdough culture is growing exponentially in the flour/water mixture. I need to make my dough within 8 to 12 hours of that feeding. If I wait too long the sourdough starter will lose its vigor. How do I know the starter is ready to use? I do a float test. If you gently spoon the culture into some water it should float, an indication that it’s active and full of CO2 bubbles. One of the most common mistakes with beginning sourdou...

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How To Manage a Compost Pile Using Temperature

Mr. Homegrown

February 22, 2013

Composting, Gardening, How-to

7 Comments

...get high temperatures can be an indication of too much carbon or a lack of water. To correct, add more nitrogen and water and turn. A loss of temperature could indicate that the pile is going anaerobic. The solution is to add more carbon material and turn. Once the pile has had 15 complete days over 131° F you just let it sit. Compost is done when it is dark, smells like earth and you can’t recognize the original ingredients. It will likely be sev...

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