Search Results for: label/appropriate technology

103 results

Moonshine

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
RLeave a comment
...de 020001″, ship it “Bulk, Truck, Bulk Rail, or Tank” and as Journal reporter Eric Felten concluded, “Cut it with water — preferably from a source that will lend itself to a pretty picture on the label — bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business.” As it turns out there is an art to good homemade moonshine — a far cry from the soulless mouthwash Archer-Daniels-Midlands turns out. Here’s...

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More on our gardening disasters

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Mistakes, Thoughtstylings
14 Comments
...egetables I ever planted in our garden was cabbage. I don’t know why I planted cabbage. Now I’d recommend that newbie gardeners in this climate plant start with something a little less risky, a little more climate appropriate, a little less time invested. Like arugula! But back then, I was blissfully ignorant and wanted to plant cabbages in our first proper vegetable bed because storybook gardens always grew cabbages. I’m glad I...

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When It Gets Hot in Chicago: Make Tempeh!

Nancy Klehm
Fermentation, Food, Recipes
4 Comments
...door gardening. And the biggest benefit: No Mosquitos. Put this in your bookmarks: US Drought Monitor droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ The rough side of our weather is obvious. Due to July temperatures in March immediately followed by appropriate, but ultimately harming coolness, we lost most of our tree fruit production. Local orchardists turned to growing supplemental vegetable crops. There are none or not many apples, Asian pears, peaches, cherries or...

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Erik Speaking at Maker Faire

Mr. Homegrown
Events
5 Comments
I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Bay Area Maker Faire on Saturday May 19 at 6:30 pm on the Maker Square Stage (located in the Homegrown Village). The talk I’m giving will be about the appropriate tech projects we’ve been up to around the Root Simple compound–our new chicken run, greywater, solar cooking and Mediterranean edible gardening. I’d love to hang out, after the talk, with any...

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Roundup

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
...ly there are alternatives. First of all we are mulching much more than we used to. Newspaper topped with leaves and twigs seems to work great, and the newspaper takes much longer than one might expect to break down. While not appropriate for our dry climate and incendiary native plants, it’s possible in wetter climes to burn weeds with a propane tool such as these. Ultimately, SurviveLA has replaced Roundup with a zen expression, “If...

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The Vertical Gardens of Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vertical Farming
17 Comments
...yesterday. The plant you see above is growing through a drainage hole (the level of the ground behind the wall is where you see the plant growing). Makes me wonder if this particular design could be done on purpose, given the appropriate context. The plants, in this hypothetical drainage hole garden, could act as biofilters, absorbing excess nutrients and toxins. Slap a trademark on it, form a non-profit and Bob’s your uncle. Extra points...

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June: National Bathroom Reading Month

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
2 Comments
...bike gears are too complicated for Americans to figure out, or folks want to do what they do while driving: talk on cell phones. But why do Sid and Nancy have gears at all? Wouldn’t brake-less fixed gear bikes be more appropriate given the punk rock (not to mention murder/suicide) reference? Arthur Magazine. Homegrown Evolution, being cheap, can never pass up a free publication when we see one though we usually skip stooping to pick up t...

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What’s Your Personal Food Policy?

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Thoughtstylings
13 Comments
...ference. We all have to eat and we vote with our supermarket dollars. Just as our Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack helps craft our nation’s schizophrenic food policies, I thought the Thanksgiving holiday would be an appropriate moment to define my own personal food policy. But as I started to write down my personal food policy I discovered so many contradictions and exceptions that I just stopped. My own personal food policy, when consi...

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A Tensegrity Table

Mr. Homegrown
Design
3 Comments
Tensegrities are an attractive structure that can be built with rods and string or wire. The term is Buckminster Fuller’s combination of “tension” and “integrity”, though Fuller probably did not invent the concept. Having seen a coffee table that used a tensegrity as a base, I decided to see if I could make a similar table, only out of scavenged materials (scavenging seems appropriate in these crummy economic times!...

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