My Big Fat Worm Bin

These worms are fat and happy

Some of you may remember that Earth Goddess Nancy Klehm taught a vermicomposting class at our house in October. Some of you reading this may have even attended!

That day, Nancy and the class foraged and gathered materials to fill a bin and worked together to chop, moisten and prep the materials. The materials included our own kitchen scraps, farmers market trimmings, cardboard and newspaper gathered from neighborhood recycling bins, chunks of our infamous prickly pear cactus, a "nitrogen contribution" from one of the more intrepid class members, some well aged humanure compost and some of the aged cat compost from our kitty litter compost barrel. (More on that later.) We didn't have our final worm bin built at that time, so the materials were layered like a lasagne in a 50 gallon drum. When introduced the worms from our sad little kitchen bin into this pile of goodness, the worms thought they had landed in nirvana.

Since then, Erik has built a giant wooden bin for us following Nancy's plans. It's a simple thing, very like a toy chest. Nancy's plans called for it to be 4 feet long, but Erik built the chest 5 feet long because he was working with 10 foot boards (less waste that way, you see). The result is a long pine box that looks disturbingly like a coffin! But that's okay. Really, what better than a pine box full of worms staring us in the face to remind us all that we have to seize the day? 

Why do we have a coffin on our back porch, you ask?

The inside view, proving it is not a coffin. We're going to decorate this somehow--which might help, or it might just look like we have a decorated coffin on our back porch. Right now the process is stalled because we are bickering over which pretentious Latin motto to paint on the side.

I transferred all the contents into the coffin box. What was interesting about Nancy's mix is that it is much more like an active compost pile than the traditional newspaper shreds + scraps that make up a typical worm bin. The materials had heated up while sitting. Heat isn't good for worms--they like to occupy cool compost piles--but I figured in a box of that size they could find cool pockets and edges to hang out in until it cooled off.  And that's exactly what they did. There weren't so many of them to begin with, and they were happy to hang out on the top layer until the rest cooled.

Since then, a wormy miracle has taken place. First, given the space and resources, they've started breeding like crazy. That's to be expected. More interestingly, they've grown. The worms are getting super big and fat. I figure they're like goldfish, adapting to fit their space. I think they really like the diversity of materials they're living with, both in terms of habitat and nutrients.

The surface of the bin as of today. You'll see it looks a lot like a compost pile, as opposed to a bunch of newspaper.

For my part, I love, love, love having a huge worm bin because it can easily absorb all of our kitchen waste. I can take my entire one gallon scrap pail, dig a hole in the bin, and dump it all in. When we had the small worm bin--which was made of a plastic storage bin--I could only add a cup or two of scraps at a time. This made the bin more of a hobby than a convenience. What's extra cool is that those huge scrap loads vanish really fast in the new bin, whereas scraps tended to linger in the small bin.

Here's a morbid question for you all: Whenever I add new scraps and see the old ones broken down so quickly, I recall something about an old cemetery in France, I believe, which was known for breaking down bodies extra fast, due to the composition of the soil. Mr. Google isn't helping me recover this lost information, but I believe the cemetery was nicknamed "the man eater" or the "bone eater" or something like that. Does anyone with similarly Gothic tendencies happen to know what I'm talking about?

On outdoor worms:

Outdoor worm bins do have to be protected from worm predators--lots of critters like to eat worms, even dogs--either by weighing down the lid or latching it somehow. For now, we're just keeping a big chunk of broken concrete on top. (Uhh...do I hear banjo music?)

Extreme temperature fluctuations are a problem outdoors. Worms like the temperatures we humans prefer, essentially. If it's broiling out and they can't find cool ground, they'll die. When their bin freezes, they'll die. Freezing is not an issue for us, but Nancy, being from Chicago, is an authority on cold. She says what happens with outdoor bins there is that when the deep freeze comes, the adult worms will die off, but the eggs will overwinter, and the bin will rebuild itself in the spring. Obviously, if you want your worm bin to function year-round in a cold climate it will have to be kept in a basement or a mudroom or somewhere where the temperatures are a little more moderate.

On the flip side, the mass of a big bin helps insulate the worms from the heat. They can dive deep, or hang out on the shady side of the bin. But it helps quite a bit if you can give the worms some shade during the summer, either by moving the bin under a tree or setting up some kind of screen to block the worst of the sun. 

Managing the waste stream:

Diverting all kitchen waste to the worm bin works well with our waste stream because of late, Erik has preferred to build his compost piles all at once--usually when we clear out our garden when the seasons change. The piecemeal additions of food scraps interferes with the timing of his compost harvest. See, if you build a pile all at once, you get finished compost much more quickly than if you add material a bit at a time. This is not to say that "bit at a time" piles are bad, they're just slower. Now we have the best of both worlds.

Regarding the cat poop compost:

This should probably be a whole other post. But the short version is that I've been composting our cat litter in its own separate pile. This works pretty well, but with two indoor cats (aka pooping machines) the bin fills up fast. When we built the worm bin, Nancy had us harvest some of the older, more finished kitty litter compost from the bottom of the cat pile to mix into the worm pile as a base material, and I will continue to do this whenever our cat bin overfloweth. The ability to transfer some of the mature material to the worm bin will function as sort of a pressure release valve on our cat pile, allowing the whole system to work better.

Is this safe? I'm not going to say it is. I'm not going to recommend that any of you do this. When it comes to composting pet or human poo, we believe good composting technique, worms and time make all things well. But obviously if this is done badly, it could be quite dangerous. If you're interested in extreme composting, as always, I recommend you visit Joe Jenkins' site--he's the author of The Humaure Handbook.

So from Erik, me and the worms: A huge and hearty thank you to Nancy and to all the class attendees who helped us make this wonderful bin!

Gifts for the Holidays Food Crafting Workshop

One way to avoid the consumerism of the holiday season is to make your own gifts. And if you live in our hometown you can learn how to make edible gifts while supporting the recently revived Los Angeles Master Food Preserver program. From their announcement:

Join the Master Food Preservers of Los Angeles County and Homegirl Cafe for a special workshop and fundraiser on Sunday December 4th from 1 to 4 pm.

Master Food Preservers Ernest Miller, Felicia Friesema, Joseph Shuldiner, Amy Goldman, Roshni Divate and Craig Ruggless.

Learn how to make truly unique and special home crafted food gifts for the holiday season! Topic include food ornaments, elegant liqueurs, gourmet mustards, seasonal spiced jams and candied fruits.

Guests will take home samples and recipes, knowledge and a healthy dose of holiday cheer.

Proceeds benefit the Master Food Preserver program, a volunteer community education group of the University of California Cooperative Extension.

The cost is $45 and you can get your reservation here.

The workshop will take place at the Homegirl Cafe which is located at: 130 West Bruno Street, Los Angeles 90012. 

Meet the Good Guys: Beneficial Insect Poster

 The good folks at the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program (IPM) have created a handy little poster featuring some of our best insect friends--the natural enemies of garden pests.

They want it spread far and wide, so they're promoting this link to a downloadable PDF fit for printing. This is a great resource for home gardeners, but also for teachers, schools and community gardens. Laminate it and pass it around! And please feel free to share the PDF link with your circles:

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/FAQ/natural-enemies-poster.pdf

(The UC Statewide IPM website is a great resource, even if you don't live in California. Go there and you'll find fact sheets on residential pests and advice on how to deal with them.)

Two Vegetable Gardening Commandments

Two of our vegetable beds looking kinda shabby.

I spent the Thanksgiving weekend up on the vegetable gardening equivalent of Mount Sinai receiving a set of revelations. Someday I'll have Mrs. Homegrown transcribe the complete stone tablets (urbanite rather than stone, technically) I received in their entirety. In the meantime, I'll share two of the commandments:

1. Thou shalt not have more vegetable beds than thou canst maintain in a worthy condition.

We've already reduced the amount of vegetable space in our garden and replaced it with native perennials. I'm considering cutting more vegetable space. Having a lot of poorly maintained vegetable beds sends out a big invitation to the sorts of insect visitors we don't want in our gardens. Better to have one well maintained and productive vegetable bed than ten poorly maintained beds. And right now I've got a few less than optimal beds.

Light row cover stretched over hoops protects the bed from cabbage moths

2. Thou shalt secure thy vegetable beds with bird netting or row cover material even if thou thinkest "I'll get lucky this time."

I do this every year even though I know that if I leave a newly planted bed unprotected it will be visited by a clumsy skunk or a cat looking for a place to poop. I hate bird netting--it inevitably gets tangled and is a pain to work with--but the fact is that if I don't use it I don't get any vegetables. And, if I plant any brassicas at this time of the year without first covering them with row cover material, they will get munched to the ground by cabbage leaf caterpillars.  I've found that once the plants gets established I can pull off the row cover or bird netting and enjoy a season of un-munched veggies.

Kelly Speaketh on this Issue:

Erik seems to need to get this off his chest--he gets dramatic when garden disasters occur, and we've been hard hit by the skunk and cutworm brigades this week-- but I'd say he's being way too hard on himself.

First and foremost, we learned about the possibly high levels of lead in our soil, just when we were at the critical transition stage between the summer and winter garden.The whole yard became off-limits at that point. We just let things go until we knew what we were going to do--and we're still figuring that out. So yup, the two beds in the top pic look like crap, because they are completely untended beds--beds that have been waiting around for us to figure things out. They don't look that way because we have too many beds.

We've had fallow beds, and cover cropped beds, beds gone a little wild, and beds full of things going to seed, but I've never thought our beds poorly maintained--except in the last two months. So I think Erik just needs a glass of scotch or something tonight.
 
Just to be factual, we have four vegetable beds. We used to have more ground space where we could plant food, which helped with rotation, but we'll be doing all our veg growing in our four raised beds from now on out, and dedicating the ground space to natives and other perennials. We had planned to do this prior to the lead thing, coincidentally--to save labor. We figure four beds is plenty for the two of us.

As to the lead thing (that's what I call it--"the lead thing"), we are still getting conflicting tests from different services. One testing service even insists we don't have a problem at all! Until we sort this out, we've decided to "Keep Calm and Carry On" and plant in raised beds.

As to Commandment #2: I agree entirely! The beds must be protected. Otherwise husbands have breakdowns.

How to Build an Igloo

TRANSA | Iglu Bauanleitung from Sooli Entertainment on Vimeo.

Paul Overton over at Dude Craft (a great website, by the way) described this slick video as "Swiss hipsters build an igloo." Sure looks like fun. Instructions are in German, but I think the process is pretty self explanatory. Makes me want to head up into the mountains and give this a try.

Netafim Tiran, a Greywater Dripline

In a lecture I heard recently, Leigh Jerrard of the Greywater Corp mentioned an intriguing product from Australia: a dripline compatible with greywater. Now, if you tried to push gunky greywater through conventional dripline it would clog in seconds. According to the manufacturer, Netafim Tiran Greywater Dripline gets around this problem because,

Each dripper has its own mini filter. When a contaminant attempts to enter the emmitter, it is rejected by the emitter and simply remains in the tube. The irrigation system should be flushed once a year, however anecdotal evidence indicates that flushing may only be required every 5 years.

100 meters of Netafim costs 100 Australian dollars excluding tax, or about .30 USD a foot. Not a bad price if it performs as advertised. Some quick Googling failed to turn up a US distributor. Root Simple reader Rachel wrote to point out Netafim's distributor locatoer: http://www.netafimusa.com/wastewater/support/locator.

To use Netafim you need to add a filter as you do with every drip system. I could see this product working nicely with Art Ludwig's Laundry to Landscape system.

If any of you have worked with Netafim, leave a comment.

I'm Thankful for Lemmon's Marigold

Spotted at the Huntington Ranch: Lemmon's Marigold (Tagetes lemmoni), a four to six foot wide schrub native to Arizona and northern Mexico. More info on this beautiful plant here. I want one in my garden!

The Holiday Gift Truce

One of the traditions my family has experimented with in the past few years is the holiday gift truce. At Thanksgiving we agree to terms. In the past we've exchanged names and given one gift per person or we've just agreed to not do any gift giving or shopping (kids are exempt). Though we haven't tried it, another option would be to contribute to a favorite charity, say Heifer International, in lieu of gifts.

Economics professor Joel Waldfogel has studied the inefficiencies of gift giving and calls Christmas, "an orgy of value destruction." The problem? When it comes to gift giving we're not very good at guessing what people actually want. In a Bloomberg article Waldfogel says, “People value the items they receive as gifts 20 percent less per dollar spent than the items they purchase for themselves. These are items that are not well-suited for their tastes.”

Particularly in challenging economic times it's hard to justify this orgy of value destruction, not to mention the stress and time spent in mall parking lots. I'm interested in how readers of this blog navigate the holiday season. Do you make your own gifts? Do you think gift giving is important? Do you give cash or savings bonds? Or do you avoid gift giving altogether?

What Do You Love?

A very talented filmmaker named Alex Gorosh did this superbly shot little mini-doc about little old me for Good Magazine. It's part of a series of videos entitled "What Do You Love?" Thanks Alex!

If you want, leave a comment telling us what you love!

Meet the Gophinator

The Gophinator

Thankfully, we don't have gophers, but dealing with them is one of the first questions we get when teaching vegetable gardening classes.  You can use raised beds lined with hardware cloth. But, other than target practice (a no-no in urban areas), most people I know with gopher problems end up using traps or zealous cats.

Several sources have told me about the Cadillac of gopher traps, the aptly named "Gophinator". Scott Kleinrock of the Huntington Ranch is one of those Gophinator fans, who stressed avoiding the cheap traps available at big box stores. The Gophinator is sturdy, easy to set and made out of stainless steel that lasts much longer than cheaper traps.

To use it you need to dig around and find the main subway line the gophers ride. Scott hooks up a wire and a stake to the traps to remember where they are placed.

The Gophinator is manufactured by Trapline products and you can order one and view some instructional videos here.

How do you deal with gophers? Leave some comments!

Urban Homesteading Thing Catching On

I have a Google alert set up for the phrase "urban homestead". Lately I've noticed more real estate and apartment listings using this phrase. Our neighbors Anne and Bill even used it to rent out their duplex. A rental listing that includes the photos in this post came from a real estate concern renting out an apartment in Edmonton, Canada. For $1,600 Canadian dollars a month you get:

•  hot water on demand system. 
• sunroom has a high efficiency wood burning fireplace that helps keep house warm and cozy in the winter.
• fenced back yard is an urban oasis with three apple trees, three plum trees, eight choke cherry bushes, a grape vine, covered deck, and enclosed fire pit with a private seating area. A perennial flower garden lines the path to the front yard. Three rain barrels provide ample water for large vegetable and flower gardens.
• get to know your neighbours at the nearby community hall and rink. The hall holds a variety of children, youth, and adult-focussed classes, programs, and events, such as free dog training; playgroups; skating, yoga, and dance classes; children's Halloween and Christmas parties; community bbqs; collective kitchen; and more! 
• trained dogs welcome; absolutely no cats.

Other than that last bit (Dogs but not cats? Someone please explain the logic.) I'm happy to see fruit trees, rain barrels and community activities listed as an asset. Maybe that common sense thing is catching on.

The Whip: A Homemade Moisturizer How-To from Making It

A quick little project: lavender infused moisturizer, two Calendula/plantain salves and a chamomile infused lip balm. Enough unguents to see me through Christmas.

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Confession: I can't live without my homemade moisturizer. This is not true of all things. I like take-out food sometimes, and I prefer Ibuprofen to willow bark tea. However, I'll never go back to store bought lotion.

This recipe appears in Making It as Olive Oil Whip. It's my every day body lotion/face cream and I figured it was about time to share it with you. It only has three ingredients. It's safe and wholesome and very effective. Heck, you could eat it!

You might find it heavier than what you're used to, because it doesn't contain all the chemical dryers that store-bought stuff has (see the Skin Deep database for the scoop on what's in your favorite moisturizer). But I promise you that if you use it for a week you'll get used to the difference--and then you'll get hooked. My skin has never been so happy as it has since I started using this stuff, and I'm saving tons of money.

The Whip

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil  (It's particularly nice to make this with herb-infused oils, but it's also very good with plain oil. I just made a batch with oil infused with lavender buds. Heavenly!)

2 tablespoons (.5 oz) of organic beeswax, either in bead form or grated and packed into the spoons. (You can use vegan waxes instead. I specify organic because beeswax really concentrates pesticides and herbicides.)*

1 cup of tepid water, filtered or bottled or distilled is best.

Optional: Essential of your choice for scent, about 10 drops

*I know, I know, you have to buy wax, which is sort of a pain, but it's very worth it because if you do, you can make salves and lip balm, too. If you have a honey person at your local farmer's market, you might ask them. I also like the pastille (bead form) beeswax that they sell at Mountain Rose Herbs. It's very convenient. If you get a block of wax, you'll have to grate it. The charm of that wears off fast.

Equipment:

You need a double boiler, an improvised double boiler--which would be a heat proof bowl balanced over a saucepan--or my favorite method, a Pyrex measuring cup sitting in a small saucepan.

You will also need a countertop blender or a powerful stick blender. A weak stick blender may not be up to the task.

A couple of clean and dry jars to store your lotion in. This recipe makes about a 1 1/2 cups.

Wax and oil heat up in Pyrex measuring cup in a saucepan. Our grimy stove is now immortalized on the Interwebs.

The Procedure:

Put the olive oil in your double boiler setup and add the wax. Heat over gently simmering water until the wax vanishes into the oil.

Meanwhile, measure out your tepid water. Cold water will make the lotion seize up too fast. Hot water makes the texture strange. Tepid water is what you want.

Optional step: I find it helps to pre-warm the blender jar by filling it with hot water prior to blending. See, some of the liquid wax will solidify when it hits the cool glass of the jar. This isn't a huge problem, but you might scrape some of those chunky bits of wax into your finished lotion when you're emptying out the blender. Heating it first minimizes the problem. So just fill it with hot water and let it sit until you're ready to blend. Empty it out at the last second. You don't have to dry it.

Get your blender or your stick blender all ready to go. Do a pre-flight on the blender. Make sure the ring at the bottom is tight. If you're using a stick blender, you can actually blend the lotion in the jar you're going to keep it in, which eliminates a lot of clean up.

With a stick blender you can make the lotion right in the jar.

Take the oil off the stove. Now is the time to stir in the essential oil if you're using it. Don't dink around and let it oil/wax moisture cool. Move promptly to the blender site and pour the oil into the blender or the container you're using with the stick. Start your engines. Pour the tepid water in steady stream into the whirling oil. It will start coming together immediately. If the blender chokes, stop it, scrape down the sides and start it again. Incorporation should only take a few seconds. Look for unincorporated pockets of water and keep blending until they're gone.

(Once in a rare while I'll end up with a little water that just won't incorporate because the emulsification process finishes and for whatever reason, it didn't get included. If this happens, just pour it off. But generally you should be able to get the whole cup mixed in. You can experiment with using less water if you want. As you reduce the amount of water, the moisturizer will become more like a butter and less like a lotion. A ratio of equal parts water and oil makes a butter that is a really dense weather barrier, good for extreme conditions and outdoor activities.)

While the lotion is still warm, pour it into your chosen vessels. Leave the lids off until it cools. It will thicken some on cooling.

Storage:

This keeps at room temperature for at least a month or two. Signs of decay include texture changes, color changes and outright mold. I've only seen this happen in little jars of the stuff that I've used for travel and have forgotten about. I might go through my usual supply too fast for it to go bad. This is a natural product, though, so you should make it as you need it, rather than making it in bulk and expecting it to keep for a year.

Clean up:

Oil and wax can be tricky to clean off glass, and hard on your pipes, too. The secret, I've discovered, is baking soda. Shake some in and wipe it around. It picks up grease just like sawdust picks up vomit on a fairground midway. Dump the greasy soda lumps in the trash. Boiling hot water rinses help, too.

Last note:

This lotion and even more so the Silky Cream in Making It are good make-up removers/cold cream substitutes. You can slather this on and tissue it off to clean your face, or for a light moisture treatment.

Dutch Edition of The Urban Homestead!

The Dutch edition of our book The Urban Homestead is out! How cool is that? More info here.

Today is American Censorship Day

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.


This sort of advocacy is unusual for this blog, but we believe a free Internet is essential for both cultural innovation and democracy. Sure, the Internet is mostly made of porn and kittens, but we like it as it is. What we don't want to see is it being unduly controlled by either the government or corporate interests, so we're participating in American Censorship Day by offering up this information to our readers.

Today, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is headed to the House Judiciary Committee. The purported purpose of this bill, and its counterpart in the Senate, is to stop infringement on copyrighted material, but the scope of the proposed law is way too broad and vague, and if you spin out the implications, downright scary. It has has the power to censor the Internet. It can blacklist or bankrupt sites on whisper-thin grounds, it will impede small businesses and new start-ups, and even punish individuals with jail time for infringing copyright in smalls ways, like, for instance, posting a family video in which copyrighted music is playing in the background.

This bill is likely to pass, and it will happen soon.

It's hard to summarize all the nasty pointy prongs of this legislation in a few words. The video above does an brief overview--be sure to watch to the end for last second updates. Our smart friends at the EFF, who are helping us with the whole Urban Homestead trademark thing, have written several cogent, lawyerly pieces about this legislation:

Disastrous IP Legislation Back and It's Worse than Ever 

SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets a Chance to Break the Internet

American Censorship Wednesday

Today there is a call for mass action. You may have noticed some of your favorite sites have blacked themselves out in protest.

If you'd like to take action, the EFF has provided a page that helps you shoot a pithy email to your own congresspeople. It only takes a couple of seconds and feels really good:

Take Action

Grassfed Turkey Cooking Tips from Shannon Hayes

Thinking of cooking a grass-fed turkey for Thanksgiving?

Just in time for the holidays, grassfed cooking expert and farmer Shannon Hayes has a blog post with pastured turkey cooking and purchasing tips that you can read on her blog grassfedcooking.com. We're honored to have been included in Shannon's book Radical Homemakers.

One of her most important tips is to know what you are buying,

"If you don’t personally know the farmer who is growing your turkey, take the time to know what you are buying! “Pastured” is not necessarily the same as “free-range.” Some grass-based farmers use the word “free-range” to describe their pasture-raised birds, but any conventional factory farm can also label their birds “free-range” if they are not in individual cages, and if they have “access” to the outdoors – even if the “outdoors” happens to be feces-laden penned-in concrete pads outside the barn door, with no access to grass. “Pastured” implies that the bird was out on grass for most of its life, where it ate grass and foraged for bugs, in addition to receiving some grain"

Wishing all of you a happy, pastured holiday season.

Only at Home: Huntington Ranch Symposium Nov. 18

Not to be missed: the Huntington is putting on an exciting program this Friday November 18. I'm going and hope to see some of you there. If you're interested in growing edibles in Southern California, this is the place to be!

Only at Home: 2011 Huntington Ranch Symposium
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
San Marino, CA

Marking the second year of Ranch operations, this one-day symposium focuses on aspects of urban agriculture that can't be duplicated in commercial settings. From the use of gray water irrigation systems to growing offbeat edibles, learn how to harvest the unique potential from your home garden. From 8:30am to 5:00pm.

Featuring: Master gardener Yvonne Savio, native plant specialist Lili Singer, the greywater expertise of Leigh Jerrard, garden designer John Lyons, master preserver Ernest Miller and soil expert Corey Wells. Delicious continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon refreshments provided by Little Flower Candy Company. The daytime event will close with an open tour of the Ranch.

When the symposium draws to a close please decide to stay for more fun with a local beer tasting and farm dinner.  Keynote speaker Dr. Robert Wallace will present on the botany of beer.  Featuring local artisans Craftsman Brewing Company, Eagle Rock Brewery and Little Flower Candy Company.  From 5:30pm to 8:30pm.

All-day event - $40
All-day event plus additional beer tasting, dinner and lecture - $65

Tickets available at: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/204977

Erik's EDC

It's about time I listed my "everyday carry" or "EDC" for short. For those of you not familiar with the EDC subculture, there are entire websites devoted to posting, critiquing and obsessing over the items you carry every singe day (not, say, just when going on a hike). I went through somewhat of an EDC mid-life crisis last month and emerged on the other side with the following items:

1. A nice Saddleback Leather Wallet that Mrs. Homegrown bought for me after she got sick of my ugly overstuffed old wallet.

2. My old Leatherman that I use every single day.

3. A mini pen--I got a box of 12 from an office supply place. It fits nicely in a pocket and I don't have to worry about losing it.

4. Ferrocerium Fire Starter "nanoSTRIKER" --this neat little tool has a blade and a ferrocerium rod. You strike the blade against the rod and you get a shower of sparks.

5. Small keychain pill holders--the red one contains a cotton ball soaked in Vaseline to use as kindling with the fire starter. The blue one contains ibuprofen (I'm a runner) and Benadryl (for insect stings).

6. MAGLITE K3A016 AAA Solitaire Flashlight. I had tried a smaller flashlight that used watch batteries, but it had a tendency to open up in my pocket and those watch batteries are expensive. This one has not turned on accidentally or opened up.

You'll notice that I don't have a cellphone--Mrs. Homegrown and I share an old one with next to no battery life and I don't have it with me everyday. That may change soon when we switch plans. And I'll admit I have yet to use the fero rod for anything other than a bizarre time killer when I deliver lectures to college students.

What's your EDC? Comments . . . 

Many thanks to Jack Spirko of the Survival Podcast for the handy EDC list he put together that turned me on to those pill holders and fero rods. And read an interesting interview with Bernard Capulong, founder of EDC.com, here.

The Pressure is On

My pressure cooker is my new best friend. Especially when I'm not in the mood for cooking, I can toss a few ingredients in, lock the lid down and come back to a healthy, nutritious supper in just a few minutes.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a pressure cooker cookbook up to my standards. All of the ones I checked out from the library, even those newly published, seemed stuck in the 1950s tuna noodle casserole era, when pressure cooking was last popular. Thankfully, a friend sent us a copy of Pressure Cooking for Everyone by Rick Rogers and Arlene Ward. The recipes are simple and I'm especially fond of the squash risotto and vegetarian chili.

Speaking of vegetarian, the recipes in this book are on the meaty side (Kelly is a "fishatarian" and I simply don't buy supermarket meat). Someone does need to do a good vegetarian pressure cooker cookbook as the only one I could find was stuck in a kind of brown rice and bean sprouts 1970s style vegetarian groove.

Pressure cooking saves energy, a real plus during tough economic times. And with this cookbook our great recession era meals need not be bland.

Cargo Bike Roundup

First, thanks all, for your help with my cargo bike review that I'm writing for Urban Farm Magazine. For those of you not familiar with the new crop of cargo bikes here's what I'm writing about:

Longtail Bikes

Xtracycle FreeRadical

The "longtail" revolution began with the invention of the Xtracycle "FreeRadical" back in 1998. The FreeRadical extends the back wheel and allows for the installation of two huge pannier bags and a seat. You provide the bike--I used a cheap 1980s era hardtail mountain bike. I've had my FreeRadical since 2006 and can't say enough good things about it. I can easily pack four bags of groceriesin the generously sized bags and still easily glide through traffic in Los Angeles. And I've used it to go bike camping.

A few years ago Xtracycle teamed with Surley to make the "Big Dummy" a bike frame with a FreeRadical welded in. This reduces the shimmy under load that happens sometimes with a DIY FreeRadical/bike combo. Xtracycle also started producing their own bike/Free Radical combo called the Radish.

Yuba Mundo 21 Speed

Some other companies have since introduced products very similar to the Big Dummy and Radish. One that I really like is the Yuba Mundo. It'a a very sturdy bike with fenders and a two-legged kickstand.

Kona Ute

There's also the Kona Ute.

Trek Transport

And, in this now crowded longtail market, the Trek Transport.


Bike Trucks

Cetma Cargo

If you can afford one, these are probably the best option for hauling kids. Your cargo or passengers have a lower center of gravity (important especially as those kids grow). Plus, with the passenger seat up front, you can keep an eye on them!

Other Options I'm not Reviewing

When I visited Copenhagen a few years ago I saw a lot of big cargo trikes like the Christiania Trike above. I'm not looking at these because I have my doubts about how practical they are in most US cities. We just don't have the kind of bike infrastructure they have in Northern Europe. Plus, a lot of Root Simple readers wrote to tell me they don't handle well on turns. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong. I'm also not considering trailers, because that would be another article.

While not cheap, all of these bikes are less spendy than a fancy carbon fiber racing bike and a lot more useful. My Xtracycle has allowed us to get by with just one car between me and Kelly. While I realize that cargo bikes aren't practical for everyone, I suspect we'll be seeing more of these beasts on the road soon.

And, a bit of a tangent here, but if you don't know the story of Freetown Christiania, where the Christiania bike is made, it's entertaining.

Lead Update

Our post about a high soil lead level needs an update. I asked my doctor do a blood test to check for lead levels since we've eaten plants grown in the backyard and done a whole lot of digging over the past 13 years. The good news is that no lead showed up in my blood.

In the interest of "testing the testers," I took one soil sample and split it in three, sending one sample to Wallace Labs, one to the University of Massachusetts and the other to Timberleaf Soil Testing. I'll report back on what those tests come up with.

Hopefully that first test with the high lead level was a mistake. I've realized that one small lead paint chip in a soil sample could easily throw off the test since we're checking for something that is measured in parts per million. I'll admit that this lead issue is definitely a complicated problem that is at the limits of my grasp of scientific methods. I appreciate all of you who have chimed in with advice, prayers and good wishes.

Video Thursday: A Houseboat, Tomatoes and Tiny House Living

One way to live cheap in expensive Northern California. Via Lloyd's blog.



Growing tomatoes in Brooklyn. Via BoingBoing.



Wish I had seen this before I went to college.

Don't Cut Down Those Sunflower Stalks!

I learned a neat gardening trick at the Huntington Ranch this weekend:

1. Grow tall sunflowers.
2. Harvest the heads but don't cut down the stalk.
3. Use the decapitated stalk as a trellis for beans, peas etc.

Depending on your climate, they could last a couple of seasons. As simple as lather, rinse repeat. 

Seeking Opinions for a Cargo Bike Review

A Christiania trike

I'm reviewing a few cargo bikes for Urban Farm Magazine and I'm interested in hearing opinions from you, our dear readers. Leave a comment or send me an email. Let me know what cargo bike you have and what you think about it. What do you haul? Did you give up a car? Note: I'm not reviewing trailers, just cargo bikes.

I have an Xtracycle that I've used for years and am very happy with. But there's a lot of new options out there.

Mud for the People! Building an Adobe Garden Wall

This weekend Kelly and I had our first adobe encounter. We were lucky to have been invited to attend a workshop led by Kurt Gardella and Ben Loescher. Kurt also teaches both live and online classes that you can find out about on his website, www.kurtgardella.com. We'll post announcements for future classes, because I haven't had so much fun in a long time! This past weekend's workshop focused on making bricks and building an adobe garden wall. If you want to learn about adobe, Kurt and Ben are the folks to go to. And, lest we forget, adobe is the traditional building material of the Southwest United States and many other parts of the world. Adobe needs just people power and locally available materials.

What follows, after the jump, is a pictorial essay of our adobe experience.

Shameless Self Promotion, With Kitten

We've heard from several people that Making It is an excellent sleep aid.

Just a reminder that our two books, Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World and The Urban Homestead make great holiday gifts. There's also a Kindle edition of both Making It and
The Urban Homestead if you're e-inclined.

Even if you just click through our Amazon bookstore (on the right column) and don't buy any of our books, we get a cut of any subsequent Amazon purchases you do make. Really! Strange but true. All proceeds go towards kibble and cat litter.

Deadly Nightshade vs. Black Nightshade

I spotted the sign above at the Heirloom Festival in Sonoma. The sign made the claim that "deadly nightshade" is actually a choice edible. Unfortunately, there's considerable confusion over the popular name "deadly nightshade."  The plant most commonly referred to as "deadly nightshade," is Atropa belladonna, which is a highly unpleasant and toxic hallucinogen. "Black nightshade," Solanum nigrum, on the other hand, is edible. The potted plant below the sign was Solanum nigrum not Atropa belladonna. One must be careful when using the popular names for plants!

Solanum nigrum

To add to the confusion, Solanum nigrum is eaten and used as animal fodder all over the world, though many sources continue to describe it as toxic. As with all members of the Solanum family there's still a great deal of superstition when it comes to toxicity. Remember that many Europeans considered tomatoes to be poisonous well into the 18th century. Even today tomato leaves, used by my Filipino neighbors as a seasoning, are still labeled by many as poisonous. An interesting article in the New York Times "Accused, Yes, but Probably Not a Killer" busts the tomato leaf toxicity myth.

Atropa belladonna - don't munch on this one!

The confusion over the case of the alleged toxicity of Solanum nigrum may stem from our lack of  intimacy with plants in the West. The use of Solanum nigrum by indigenous peoples is actually a bit complicated. Different soil conditions can, it turns out, produce some toxic alkaloids in Solanum nigrum. Cooking eliminates the alkaloids.  Jennifer M. Edmonds and  James A. Chweya, writing for the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute, describe the uses of Solanum nigrum and end up advocating for its widespread use as a cultivated food source. Here's what they say about it's toxicity in their book, Black nightshades, Solanum nigrum L. and related species, which you can read in Google Books,

. . . the comparable number of accounts reporting that these species [Solanum nigrum] are harmless as food and fodder sources suggest that this toxicity is variable. Indeed a chemical suvey of various members of the section Solanum reported the presence of potentially toxic alkaloids only in unripe fruits, with ripe berries and vegetative parts tacking these compounds. Shilling et al. (1992) therefore concluded that the plants are probably only poisonous to indiscriminate feeders such as livestock who might consume the whole plant. However, these plants are browsed and used as fodder for animals without any detrimental effect in some areas, and Rogers and Ogg (1981) suggested that the development of toxic levels of these alkaloids is dependent on their growth under certain conditions or in certain localities, and even on the age of the plants concerned. Other reports suggest that the amounts of poisonous 'princinples' vary greatly with climate, season and soil type (Cooper and Johnson 1984). It is highly probable that boiling destroys any toxicity inherent in these species; most ethonobotanical reports of their use as vegetables refer to cooking, boiling and even repeated boiling with the liquid being discarded; similar reports of the use of berries also refer to their being poisonous when uncooked or unripe. Drying, however, does not destroy the toxicity of the solamine-type alkaloids (Everist 1974). It is these glycosidal alkaloids which are responsible for the bitter taste often associated with the Solanums. 

The Solanum nigrum growing in our backyard.

A few Solanum nigrum plants popped up in the yard last month and I've let them grow. While I can't say that I'm a big fan of the berries, I've tasted them raw and lived to tell the tale.

The Secret to Barefoot Running

Born to Run author Christopher McDougall had a provocative piece in yesterday's New York Times, "The Once and Future Way to Run" about a simple 19th century technique for teaching good running form. The "100-up" drill McDougall describes forces a runner to land on the ball of the foot rather than the heel. Even though I've switched to barefoot running I still heel strike occasionally, a habit caused by a lifetime of wearing cushy shoes. I'm gong to make this drill a regular part of my fitness program. 

The article also takes a jab at Rodale's Runner's World magazine which, apparently, hasn't ever seen a shoe it didn't like. Multi-million dollar advertising contracts with shoe companies just might be the reason why. This is a common ethical lapse in fitness journalism. A local free running rag I picked up had a cover story on barefoot running which was all about . . . minimalist shoes! In two years of running with no shoes at all (i.e. barefoot) I have yet to get even a scratch.

Click on the article link above to see a helpful video showing the 100-up drill.

Too Much Phosphate

Symptoms of chlorosis. Image from the Washington State University

Our possible backyard lead situation is a good reason to get a soil test, but if that didn't convince you the Garden Professors at Washington State University just blogged about another important motivation: the bad effects of too much phosphate.

An overabundance of phosphate can interfere with a plant's ability to uptake iron resulting in interveinal chlorosis, a yellowing of the leaves between the veins. So adding fertilizer that contains phosphate to soil that doesn't need it is a waste of money, damages the environment and can kill your plants. Of all the soils I've tested in Los Angeles, all are already high in phosphate, meaning that most fertilizers, both organic and chemical are both unnecessary and potentially toxic to plants.

As the Garden Professors also note in another post, it can be very difficult to diagnose problems just with visual cues. Chlorosis, for instance, can also be caused by other factors.  As Garden Professor Linda Chalker-Scott puts it, "You can't fly by the seat of your pants on this one, folks." While I'm probably a bigger proponent of intuition and "woo-woo" than Chalker-Scott, I think it's a good idea to balance our left and right brains. No reason you can't get a soil test and talk to those plant Devas.

Thoughts on Samhain

Image from the beautiful book, Haunted Air by Ossian Brown

 Mrs. Homegrown here:

I celebrate Samhain on November 1st because I enjoy marking the changing seasons of the year by making these old festivals my own. It's so easy to lose track of time in an electronic culture. It's even easier to lose track when you live in Los Angeles, land of the perpetual sunshine.

Samhain marks the last harvest of the year. The weather is cold enough to keep meat, so it is also the time when all non-breeding livestock was slaughtered and cured--otherwise they'd have to be fed through the winter. It also is the start of the dark half of the year, a time of long nights and introspection.

This is a time of transition, and the air is alive with the excitement of it. The leaves are bright, the branches bare and stark against the sky. The days are blue, but the nights are cold and black. The wind kicks up. Dead leaves skitter and bolt across the asphalt. The crows come back to our neighborhood around this time of year and caw in the palms: southern California Gothic. It's my favorite season here.

The Celts believed places and times of transition--dawn, dusk, midnight, crossroads, lakes and streams, caves, etc.--held supernatural energy. These were places and times where the boundaries between our world and the other world was very thin. Samhain was one of those transition periods, and coming as it did at the last harvest, at the beginning of winter, it was associated with the dead.

And of course, within the Catholic Church November 1st is also marked as All Saint's Day and the 2nd as All Soul's Day, both of which honor the dead, the sainted dead and the faithful departed, respectively. And All Soul's Day is better known around here as Dia de los Muertos (and celebrated in style).

Face it, this is the time of year to deal with mortality and memory.

Halloween is lots of fun. (I love the genial anarchy of both Halloween and Fourth of July--they're my favorite holidays.) So I save Oct. 31st for trick o' treaters and parties and celebrate Samhain on the 1st, quietly, with a just a few simple gestures. I don't plan on slaughtering any animals (Did I just hear our chickens breath a sigh of relief?) so I clean the house instead, and attack one drawer or closet, and shed things I don't need anymore, both as sort of a psychological purge and in preparation for the busy holiday season to come. I like to make a nice meal, too, something celebratory, and burn candles on the table against the darkness. Then I round up Erik and we toast our dead.

Do you do anything special this time of year?