What Will Be the New Kale?

October 31, 2014

Our 2011 crop of spigarello. Since 2011, we’ve been saying that Spigarello is the new kale. Thanks to a tip from the folks at Winnetka Farms, we may need to wait for BroccoLeaf™ to have its fifteen minutes of fame as the new kale. The Salinas, California based Foxy Organic is, quite sensibly, marketing broccoli leaves. Broccoli leaves are indeed edible and tasty. Foxy has the recursive media to prove it, a Facebook photo of someone Instagramming...

Read…

Make a Sourdough Starter

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2007

Bread, Fermentation, Food, Recipes

24 Comments

...feel guilty about pouring off that cup of flour every day, and you aren’t making a loaf of bread, try making some sourdough pancakes. 7. If you aren’t going to bake for a few days put the starter in the fridge. Feed it once a week. To revive it, take it out of the fridge and give it a day or two of feedings before you use it. So how does this work? What you have done is create a hospitable environment for a pair of organisms (wild yeasts and lact...

Read…

Saturday Linkages: Water Shaming, Scotts and Robot Houses

Mr. Homegrown

August 23, 2014

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

Smarter urban water: how Denver turned to ridiculing waste http://gu.com/p/4va3t/tw Grid-It: Knoll your everyday carry http://boingboing.net/2014/08/20/grid-it-knoll-your-edc.html … In Our Garden: Four Surprising Fruits http://thehorticult.com/in-our-garden-four-surprising-fruits-that-are-now-in-full-swing/ … Sneak peak of a LIGHT-UP ROBOT-FACE Tree House http://relaxshacks.blogspot.com/2014/08/sneak-peak-of-light-up-robot-face-tree.html?spref=tw...

Read…

Build a Washing Machine Greywater Surge Tank

Mr. Homegrown

December 28, 2006

Water Conservation

1 Comment

...allon plastic drum is the simplest way to reuse your washing machine waste water. Perfectly good water that would ordinarily just go down the sewer will instead water your plants after first spending a short time in the fifty gallon drum. Temporarily draining your washing machine into a fifty gallon drum has two advantages. First, it allows hot water to cool and secondly it prevents siphoning mishaps and washing machine pump burnouts that can happ...

Read…

Failed Experiment: Bermuda Buttercup or Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae) as Dye

Mrs. Homegrown

January 31, 2013

Domesticus, Herbs, Mistakes

26 Comments

...of chopping them up, as I was supposed to. Then, I covered the greens with water. The instructions didn’t give exact water quantities to match the fabric weight–it only said “cover”–which seems a bit problematic. “Cover with water” is not a helpful instruction, especially when the plant matter you’re working with floats. But I added water as best as I could judge. There were two steeping options–with heat on the stove or by a long sun steep. I opt...

Read…