Fading into the Soft White

December 8, 2010

Mrs. Homegrown here: Honeybees congregate on our floating row covers to die. Every day, two, three, four or five will choose to land one last time on this billowing white fabric that covers one of our garden beds. There they will cling while their strength wanes, until they fall off to be lost in the mulch. I know worker bees don’t live very long. They work so hard that by the end of their lives, their wings hang in shreds. Their little b...

Denver and Los Angeles Experience Crowds Staring at Chicken Coops

Mr. Homegrown

March 3, 2009

Animals, Chickens, Events

5 Comments

...ng at a chicken coop. Photo by Elon Schoenholz In a strikingly similar photo, our urban livestock workshop that we hosted yesterday featuring us talking about chickens, Leonardo Chalupawicz (from the Backwards Beekeepers) on bees and Joan Stevens introducing rabbits. We had to turn away quite a few folks, so watch this blog for news of more workshops soon....

Digger Bee Video

Mr. Homegrown

August 13, 2012

Animals, Bees

1 Comment

This beautifully shot video shows why it’s important to leave some of your land open as habitat for solitary bees like the digger bee. Via Bug Girl’s Blog....

Erik’s Boots

Mrs. Homegrown

December 23, 2010

Thoughtstylings

9 Comments

Why the duct tape? Erik says: “It keeps the bees out.”...

What Do Microbes Have To Do With Homesteading?

Mr. Homegrown

August 22, 2012

Animals, Bees, Fermentation, Food, Gardening, Soil, Thoughtstylings

4 Comments

...l Robespierres believe these should count, too; that humans are not single organisms, but superorganisms made up of lots of smaller organisms working together. Natural beekeeper Michael Bush has made the same argument about bees. Elaine Ingham has emphasized the importance of microbes in soil. Mess with the complex interdependent relationships between microbes and people, soil etc. and you’re asking for trouble. This, for me, is the argu...

Picture Sundays: Bike Rack With Bee Smoker

Mr. Homegrown

August 19, 2012

Animals, Bees, Bikes, Picture Sundays

2 Comments

Bike Snob NYC predicted back in 2010 that beekeeping would be the new fixed-gear. Don’t know where I found this picture (Facebook?) but it looks like bikes and bees are achieving a kind of synergy. I think this is a custom rack just for that handsome Dadant smoker, which like the design of the bicycle, has not changed much in a hundred years: Dadant smoker in 1910. Does this mean that Dadant will come out with a titanium smoker?...

How To Design a Garden Step I: Identifying Goals

Mr. Homegrown

January 24, 2012

Garden Design, Gardening

6 Comments

...at our garden should provide: solace and comfort a place to meditate food habitat for insects and birds beauty a place to sit and hang out with friends a place to sit and work with a laptop space for our chickens flowers for bees space for native plants areas that are semi-wild and not often visited space for the composting Think and meditate on your goals before drawing up a plan. And for those of us in the urban homesteading movement, I t...