Permaculture Design Course at the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano

March 14, 2014

Events

...L 12 / WATER – Water in context, water systems, homescale vs. large scale, appropriate scale technologies. Presentation on rainwater and greywater basics, fundamental earthworks basics, observation and mapping water excersize, greywater workshop, rain barrel building demo APRIL 13 / WATER OFF-SITE – including larger scale home systems design, hands-on rain barrel/greywater systems, watershed basics, home install of 1,500 gl tank, tour of home and...

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Saturday Linkages: Murder Hornet Halloween

Mr. Homegrown

October 31, 2020

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

...terdämmerung,” in a Detroit Parking Garage I close with a quote that seems appropriate both for Halloween and for the political crises we’re in. It’s from one of my favorite books, Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism: Is there no alternative? and builds off of Marx’s love of a snarky vampire metaphor: The most Gothic description of Capital is also the most accurate. Capital is an abstract parasite, an insatiable vampire and zombie-maker; but the livi...

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In Praise of the Hedgerow

Mr. Homegrown

November 10, 2014

Gardening

8 Comments

...if we took out all those lawns and planted native and/or flowering climate-appropriate plants instead? In a somewhat rambling lecture I just gave to a group of Master Gardeners, I sang the praises of that UC study and also linked it to another nice resource, the UC Davis Arboretum Allstar list of plants that look good, provide habitat and don’t need a lot of maintenance. Combine these two resources with a third, Piet Oudolf’s magnificent ideas abo...

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Root Simple’s Favorite New Year’s Eve Cocktails

Mr. Homegrown

December 30, 2016

Food

4 Comments

...regions of the world may object that two of these cocktails are considered appropriate only for warm weather. But we do live in Los Angeles where it can be hot in December (though not this year, so far). Personally, I like these cocktails regardless of the outdoor temperature. Here’s my three favorite: The Pegu Club This was the house cocktail in the 1920s at Burma’s Pegu Club, a gentleman’s establishment for British Army officers and government 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

...ers 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 kneading. Very wet doughs have the disadvantage of being diffi...

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