Search Results for: label/community/page/5/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

454 results

Whiteflies

Mr. Homegrown
Pests
2 Comments
c zones, numbered one through five, with the first zone being our house and kitchen gardens and the outer zones being less cultivated and more wild spaces. Mollison and Holmgren’s zones are easily miniaturized for small urban yards. Trees that don’t need much attention can go towards the back, the chickens a little closer and the vegetables and herbs can benefit from being close at hand. For additional information on whiteflys see the...

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Essential System #3 – Sew Your Own Damn Clothes

Mr. Homegrown
Domesticus
RLeave a comment
you have second-hand slave laborer blood and sewing your own clothes. The big problem with the latter solution is that sewing is a bitch — it’s time consuming and at times incredibly frustrating. Nevertheless this homesteading revolution we propose won’t be a cake walk, and will be as much about rediscovering old techniques as it will be about new technologies. Fellow crackpot Daniel Pinchbeck in his funky new book The Return of...

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Far Side of the Stairs

Mr. Homegrown
Fitness
2 Comments
ncy-room”. But the brave folks at SoapboxLA were clearly up to the challenge and took first place in the categories of non-crocodile wrestling Australian and fiery high-horse Hungarian. But seriously, part of this urban homesteading thing is about whipping our communities into shape and LA needs a serious thrashing, and I don’t mean the sort delivered by the ladies in the back of the LA Weekly. We need to make LA a walkable, bike-able...

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The Boy Scouts Suck

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
24 Comments
t the girls have got to whore themselves selling cookies. 2. Let’s teach our kids to make the world a better place without the Norman Rockwell fascist veneer. 3. Hipper uniforms. We suggest something like this. 4. An urban cycling merit badge. 5. All activities are outdoors. Lots of nature experiences. No computer merit badges and certainly no copyright merit badges. 6. Lastly, the SurviveLA Scout mission statement, borrowed from Edward...

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Mistakes we have made . . .

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Permaculture, Thoughtstylings
13 Comments
reliably every year while growing in terrible alkaline soil with no added water or fertilizer. The problem with the prickly pear is that it is too prodigious, and that’s the kind of problem you can hope for as an urban homesteader. 3. Newspaper seed pots Those newspaper seed starting pots we linked to earlier this year . . . well, there seems to be a problem with them. I think the newspaper is wicking the water away from the soil. While in...

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Eat This City

Mr. Homegrown
Foraging
1 Comment
From the Sky Full of Bacon podcast, a video on Chicago urban foragers Art Jackson and Nance Klehm: Sky Full of Bacon 07: Eat This City from Michael Gebert on Vimeo. Be sure to check Nancy’s website Spontaneous Vegetation for information on her projects and upcoming foraging classes in the spring....

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Waking up on New Year’s Day with the world of long crowing roosters

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
9 Comments
Now I’m not suggesting these guys for urban situations, but New Year’s Day seems an appropriate moment to survey the world of long crowing roosters. According to poultry expert Gail Damerow, writing in the current issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine, long crowers probably have their origins in Japan and have spread throughout the world through deliberate selection. Here’s a play list for your listening pleasure, consisting of a...

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SoilWeb: An Online Soil Survey Resource

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
5 Comments
s isn’t included for some reason). While highly technical, terms are explained via hyperlinks. You click on the table to the right of the map for more detailed information including suitability for farming. Of course in urban areas you never know what unpleasant surprises lurk beneath the surface such as concrete chunks and lead. SoilWeb won’t tip you off to those things, but it does give a good overall picture of the kind of soil you...

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Your Opinions Please

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
So what does seafood, terrible graphic design and urban homesteading have in common? Absolutely nothing, but we got your attention which we will now direct to the poll we are conducting on the right. Please take a moment to render your opinion, so that we can better serve you with a delicately balanced nori roll of information and helpful tips. Please note that you can vote for more than one topic....

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Hay Hooks–The New Hipster Accessory?

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Composting, Gardening
8 Comments
With so many city chickens I predict that hay hooks will become just as indispensable to the urban hipster as is the fixed gear bicycle. After years of hauling staw bales up the 30 steps to our house (to use as bedding for the chickens) I just broke down and bought a pair. A vaquero at the feed store intervened with a neat tip when he saw me struggling to use my new hay hooks to load some bales into a friend’s truck. Here’s what he...

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