The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping

We’re very lucky, here in Los Angeles, to have the Backwards Beekeepers whose meetings are led by beekeeper Kirk Anderson, who teaches a radical form of beekeeping that includes: Letting the bees form their own comb (most beekeepers use pre-made foundation). Capturing feral swarms, rather than ordering bees. Using no treatments of any kind. The result is healthier bees with much more robust immune systems than their over-bred and drugg...

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Recipe for Raising Chickens

Mrs. Homegrown here: We were sent Minnie Rose Lovgreen’s Recipe for Raising Chickens for review, and have been enjoying it so much we thought we’d tell you about it. It was first released in 1975, and this 2009 version is the 3rd edition. It’s a charming little book, paper covered and staple bound, totaling only 31 pages. In fine 70s style, it is handwritten (in neat calligraphy) rather than typeset, and copiously illustrated...

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Revolution: A New TV Series About Extreme Suburban Homesteading

adinnerjacket causes a big electro-magnetic pulse.2 Said EMP knocks out all the power, iPhones, cars and jumbo jets in the entire world. Fifteen years pass, civilization reverts to an approximation of our first book The Urban Homestead, and we pick up the story with the now grown-up daughter of the dude with the flash drive. One groovy HOA The daughter lives in a suburban development. All the home owner’s association rules have bee...

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Austin’s Rhizome Collective Evicted

Buy our book The Urban Homestead on Amazon and you’ll get a message that you may also enjoy the Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guide by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. I own a copy of this wonderful book and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topics on this blog or in our book. Kellogg and Pettigrew are co-founders of the Rhizome Collective, an innovative intentional community in Austin, T...

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Urban Foraging with Nance Klehm

Via The Little Green People Show, a podcast with Chicago’s urban forager Nance Klehm: “We’re not talking gardens or dumpster diving. This is a discussion of the riches that grow in our highway medians, city planters, backyards and rail lines. Expert forager, Nance Klehm, sheds light on the city’s bounty, from medicinal plants to tasty greens. Getting to know the foraging landscape takes some time and energy, but gives bac...

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Urban Chickens and Lead

From the One More Thing To Worry About department, the New York Times has an article on lead levels in eggs laid by urban chickens “Worries About Lead for New York City’s Garden-Fresh Eggs.” According to the article, the lead levels found in New York City’s home grown eggs ranged from none to over a 100 parts per billion. Since the FDA does not have an acceptable lead level in eggs it’s difficult to interpret the results...

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Saturday Linkages: Off-Grid Living, Urban Velo, Meat Glue, Home Depot and Dandelions

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Amazing photos of people living off-the-grid in the United States: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/03/photos-of-people-living-off-th.html This week in TSA awfulness: a recap of recent American airport atrocities: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/02/this-week-in-tsa-awfulness-a.html New issue of Urban Velo: http://www.urbanvelo.org/issue31/index.html Meat Glue (not to be confused with pink slime): http://boingboing.net/2...

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The New Urban Forager

On a hot, humid day along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, in the shadow of four abandoned concrete silos, a maggot infested corpse of a pit bull lies splayed across a sheet of black plastic. Nearby, a pile of asphalt roofing material blocks the path I’m taking down to one of the most polluted waterways in Texas. Not a promising beginning to an urban food foraging expedition.(Read the rest of our foraging essay via Reality Sandwich)...

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Chicago’s Urban Bees

Founded in 2004, the Chicago Honey Co-op tends over a hundred hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there. In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping,...

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