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Culinary Alchemy: Back in Black - Black Walnut Divinity

http://culinaryalchemist.blogspot.com/2010/12/back-in-black-black-walnut-divinity.html

The science behind the culinary arts. Thursday, December 23, 2010. Back in Black - Black Walnut Divinity. Last year I played around with making Violet flavored divinity for a family friend who adores anything and everything of the violet persuasion. This year I am making divinity for her again, though I am sticking with a flavoring that is reminiscent of her childhood. Enter the Black Walnuts. It's the way her Mom and Grandma made it when she was little. Image Courtesy of Wikipedia. 3 cups ( 21 oz. 1 tsp...

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Cooking Stuff: Go to the New Cooking Stuff!

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Monday, May 20, 2013. Go to the New Cooking Stuff! So I'm mostly settled in in Iowa and I'm going to start posting more regularly over at the new Cooking Stuff. You should be following me, going there frequently and putting links up everywhere. On a chat board? Put a link in your signature! Go ahead and post links everyday! Paint the address on your car, house, children and pets! These are all perfectly reasonable things to do and would make me feel loved. You do. Want me to feel loved, right? MyTaste is...

i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com

Growing Stuff: March 2013

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Tuesday, March 19, 2013. Wiring a Ficus Benjamina for Shape. Ok, first off please note that my wiring method is not. Traditional, elderly asian bonsai artists would probably faint if they saw it. But once again, I don't really care about tradition, I guess I'm iconoclastic like that. Also my pictures are kind of cluttered in the background, I need to set up some kind of area for picture taking that doesn't have all my cds, SNES games and Godzilla for the backdrop. I'm going to post it anyway. Then I just...

i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com

Growing Stuff: Ficus Benjamina On a Skull Update: Named, Repotted and Rewired

http://i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com/2014/03/ficus-benjamina-on-skull-update-named.html

Tuesday, March 25, 2014. Ficus Benjamina On a Skull Update: Named, Repotted and Rewired. This tree now has a name and that name is Skull Master, Master of Skulls. Also, holy crap she's changed since that post, need to write her an update, too) and she's been half wild from the get go but I have serious plans for Skull Master. Works great, though. I just slice it open, wrap it how I want and gently secure it with bonsai training wire. My pets, encourages air roots. They do, however, put out enough heat to...

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Growing Stuff: January 2010

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Saturday, January 30, 2010. This is the Mother Tree. She's about 9" tall and 16" across the long way. My sister in law gave her to me, she had her at work but she just didn't have the environment to let it thrive. That happens sometimes, in offices particularly. She looks like a savanna tree because of the way she's been pruned, it's pretty cool. They look like frog legs. I've taken about eight cuttings from her, all of them were rooting in water as I mentioned in my first post about propagation. Ficus b...

i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com

Growing Stuff: April 2012

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Sunday, April 1, 2012. How to Propagate a Jade Plant. A buddy of mine gave me a little jade plant recently. One of the leaves had fallen off and started putting out roots and leaves all by itself. Really. It's that easy. Take a leaf, lay it on some dirt. Wait Then pretty soon (in plant time) this. Love it. Jade plants are not only wicked easy to propagate, but they are eay to care for and can be turned into bonsai as well. I'll do another post at another time about care for them. Links to this post.

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Growing Stuff: February 2010

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Sunday, February 7, 2010. How to Make a Starter Pot for Cuttings. I like to make my own starter pots. Mostly because I always have little plastic cups around since I use them to freeze chicken stock in when I make that. But they are also good for rooting and starting cuttings. I like that you can see how the roots are doing without having to pull the plant out, possibly damaging them. All you have to do is take one of these 8oz (or so) cups. And cut holes in the bottom. Now it's ready to be used.

i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com

Growing Stuff: The Mother Tree

http://i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/mother-tree.html

Saturday, January 30, 2010. This is the Mother Tree. She's about 9" tall and 16" across the long way. My sister in law gave her to me, she had her at work but she just didn't have the environment to let it thrive. That happens sometimes, in offices particularly. She looks like a savanna tree because of the way she's been pruned, it's pretty cool. They look like frog legs. I've taken about eight cuttings from her, all of them were rooting in water as I mentioned in my first post about propagation. Email m...

i-grow-stuff.blogspot.com

Growing Stuff: April 2010

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Thursday, April 15, 2010. How to Propagate Ficus Benjamina: Part 3. This is it, putting the cutting in soil. After this it's just maintenance, water, food, all that. So here's the cutting that I took about three months ago. Good roots, it's ready to go. Just fill a starter pot. 1/3 full of soil. Put the cutting down carefully, try to get the roots as evenly spread out as possible. Now carefully cover it with more soil, water it well and put it in bright indirect sun. Here are the other ficus benjamina.

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Growing Stuff: May 2012

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Thursday, May 17, 2012. Nothing really exciting is going on with my plants right now, although I'm going to be doing some shaping/training this summer and I'll get pics of that. But I have made some miniatures/decorations for bonsai that I can talk about. I've made three so far, for scale they're on standard 3"x5" index cards. This is a little arch, although it didn't quite come out like I wanted. Here is a section of "field stone" wall. And lastly a slate path. Links to this post. If you're into that.