Search Results for: label/coffee/page/7/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

450 results

How To Design a Garden Step IV: Clues to Care

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
6 Comments
s to keeping the neighbors happy. Dr. Susan J. Mulley, a landscape architecture professor at Cal Poly Pomona is doing some interesting research on how people react to alternative forms of landscaping such as native plants and urban vegetable gardens. She̵7;s doing opinion polls using Photoshopped mock-ups of residential, academic and commercial landscapes with food crops, native plantings and more conventional landscaping. The conclusion I to...

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Make a Sourdough Starter

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Fermentation, Food, Recipes
24 Comments
Every damn urban homesteader ought to have a sourdough starter living on their countertop. It̵7;s easy and here̵7;s how we do it around the Homegrown Evolution compound: 1. Get yourself a glass or ceramic container with a lid. It should be able to hold at least three to four cups of starter. Don̵7;t use metal. 2. Put into this container one cup of white flour and one cup of lukewarm water and stir until mixed. Put it in a warm place....

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Tell the Bees

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
5 Comments
Anderson removing a hive from a fence. Photo from the Backwards Beekeepers. Urban beekeeper Kirk Anderson has a vision: bees, kept without the use of chemicals, in backyards all over Los Angeles. Homegrown Evolution was lucky to be able to attend a beekeeping class taught by the very knowledgeable and entertaining Anderson, who has a theory: “There has been a lot of news stories about the bees dying. They became infested with a parasitic...

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Silver Lake Farms

Mr. Homegrown
Urban Farming
RLeave a comment
ls them at the Echo Park, Silver Lake, Atwater Village, and Los Angeles Arts District farmer̵7;s markets. Kolla believes in the power of the local, and only sells at farmers markets within a five mile radius of her unique urban farm. But best of all Kolla will be sharing her gardening knowledge with a new class she will be offering: “Organic Gardening: Introduction” takes place at Silver Lake Farms on Sunday, March 18 from 1pm-3pm...

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Are Raised Beds a Good Idea?

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
44 Comments
Raised bed fail. Our appalling parkway beds. Extra demerits for having used treated lumber! * Raised beds have some pluses and minuses. Lately I̵7;ve been thinking about their drawbacks. Namely: Cost How fast they dry out in a hot climate. Now I can also think of a few reasons one might want to grow vegetables in a raised bed: You do a soil test (and you should do a soil test, especially if you live in an urban area) and the res...

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Least Favorite Plant: Ficus benjamina

Mr. Homegrown
Least Favorite Plant
7 Comments
, unheralded, unfavorite curbside flora. I have no real love for these trees, per se, no sentimental attachment. They just express form and mass and scale and human intervention in a way that I enjoy, like nothing else in the urban landscape as I encounter it.” He̵7;s wise to be neutral. A civil insurection broke out in Santa Monica over plans to replace ficus trees with ginko trees in the downtown area. Hunger strikes were threatened...

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Loquat Season

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging, Gardening
3 Comments
For some mysterious reason our corner of Los Angeles has an abundance of loquat trees (Eriobotrya japonica) that, at this time of year, produce prodigious amounts of fruit that mostly goes to waste. Many of these trees live in public spaces, the parkway and people̵7;s front yards making them prime candidates for urban foraging i.e. free food. The tree itself has a vaguely tropical appearance with waxy leaves that look like the sort of plasti...

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Texas Town Outlaws Common Sense

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Thoughtstylings
16 Comments
oldest son is in Iraq currently, for his second tour of duty. And this afternoon, as I shut the door, in tears, I wondered…This is what we served for?” To add to the indignities, Audet is not some tight quarters urban chicken enthusiast. She and her family live on 2 1/2 acres. Read more about her dilemma in her article City of Lancaster bans sustainable living…more or less. How will we know when our country has climbed out of...

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Red Cabbage Kraut

Homegrown Neighbor
Fermentation, Food
11 Comments
this case. I had never liked the sauerkraut I tried as a child. But now I am converted. I think if the kraut on my hot dog when I was a kid was bright pink, I would have liked it a lot better. This is my weird and wonderful urban farmer breakfast: raw kale, pinto beans, a spoonful of homemade pesto, eggs and kraut. Trust me, its delicious. I need a nutrition packed breakfast to go clean the chicken coop and garden all day. I got my kraut makin...

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