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Tag: Urban Homestead

An Uncoventional Organic Method for Killing Root Knot Nematodes

An Uncoventional Organic Method for Killing Root Knot Nematodes

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As you may have read in a previous post, root-knot nematodes recently became public enemy number one in the Hanbury House vegetable garden.  I was kind of depressed about it for a few days, struggling to find an Organic treatment to kill root knot nematodes in our garden.  Being a home gardener, especially an organic one, there are few options for dealing with nematodes in the soil. Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. When you click on an affiliate link…

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Spring Garden Gamble: Tomatoes in February

Spring Garden Gamble: Tomatoes in February

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As a seasoned gardener, I should know better than to plant tomatoes at the beginning of February, but H & H Nursery already had tomatoes in, including my favorite cold weather variety, Stupice.  For $1.99, I decided I could take a gamble on the weather on this one variety.  It is one of the few varieties I would call “Ultra Early.”  I can’t always find Stupice, and I don’t bother growing them from seed myself, therefore, I could not resist…

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Our Alternate Bearing Mandarin Orange Tree – Feast or Famine

Our Alternate Bearing Mandarin Orange Tree – Feast or Famine

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Nestled in our backyard micro orchard is one of my favorite winter fruit trees, mandarin, that we planted in 2000.  At the time we planted it, my toddler son and I were going to two different farmers markets a week during peak mandarin season because we both loved them so much, eating as many as 4 or 5 at a time.  Now a days, it is easy to find “Cuties,” in the grocery stores, but they are nothing compared to…

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Frugal Gardening: Strawberry Daughters

Frugal Gardening: Strawberry Daughters

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As most seasoned gardeners know, one of the easiest plants to propagate is the strawberry. It is possible to make only a minimal financial investment and buy just few strawberry plants when getting a bed started, and within a matter of a few short years, have a giant patch of strawberry plants, all clones of the original variety.   This is because strawberries send out runners, or stolons, in order to reproduce. This time of year, at least here in…

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Napoleon Returns from Exile: [Another Update on Our Crowing Hen]

Napoleon Returns from Exile: [Another Update on Our Crowing Hen]

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Remember Penguin?  She remains my favorite hen, even though she briefly went through a hormonal phase where she thought was a rooster.  Because she started crowing early in the morning, last December she was exiled over to my friend’s flock across the street.  Click here to read my post about having to banish her to Elba, I mean the neighbor’s house.  For the last eight months, she has been a model citizen in K’s backyard flock, never once crowing or…

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Jupiter Grapes in SoCal garden, one of the best grape for maritime climates, not just the South East U.S.
Good Grapes for Less than Ideal Climate: Jupiter

Good Grapes for Less than Ideal Climate: Jupiter

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Coastal Southern California, sunset zone 22, is generally not considered an ideal grape growing climate.  Nevertheless, we have had great success with a few grape varieties over the last decade and a half.  Between my friend across the street and I, we have grown Black Monuka, Fantasy, Glendora, Niabell, Eastern Concord, Canadice, Flame, Perlette, Interlaken, Einset, Marquis, Neptune, NY47616, and Jupiter.  More than once during a shift at the CRFG booth at the Green Scene I get asked to recommend…

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Not Breaking My Broody Hen

Not Breaking My Broody Hen

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Just recently my buff bantam Cochin, Daisy, decided it was time try to start another brood of chicks.  Crazy moody hen!  Her chicks from the last batch are only 11 weeks old this week.  She had only been back to laying for about 3 weeks when she started talking broody and staked out her territory in the nest area again.  Lucky for her, my son’s white Cochin, THX1138, also went broody within a day or two of her.  The poor…

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crowing hen how to get her to stop
The Crowing Hen [Update]

The Crowing Hen [Update]

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I felt terrible about it, but in late January, I had to evict Penguin, our 1 1/2 year old black bantam cochin hen.   As I mentioned in a prior post, she started to crow at least 3 to 4 mornings a week, and was spending most nights in the garage to avoid waking anyone in the pre dawn hours.  I figured as long as she remained a “top hen,” she was probably going to keep crowing.  Thanks to my…

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