Soil Positive or just Soil Curious? Join Nancy Klehm For a Workshop on Soils

January 11, 2016

Events

...including compost, mulch and working with fungi Participants should: Bring food to share at the potluck and their own water bottle Wear work clothes and bring a pair of gloves, a notebook and a pen Registration Information Register via Paypal using “Register” button below. Your payment is registration. First come, first serve: 15 people maximum Refunds and cancellation: Full refunds available up to 48 hours prior to class, 50% refund within 48 hou...

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Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?

Mr. Homegrown

December 14, 2015

Thoughtstylings

26 Comments

“Bread Recipe” searches In a segment on KCRW’s Good Food, host Evan Kleiman interviewed Celia Sack, the owner of Omnivore Books on Food in San Francisco. Sack noted a trend this year: fewer books on baking, bread and beer, which she linked to a rising economy. As she put it, people don’t have to make their own jam anymore, they can just buy it at the store. She is correct that interest in DIY homesteading books wane during good economic times. Bu...

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I’ve Flown the Coop

Mr. Homegrown

June 26, 2015

Animals, Chickens

...I’m at a two day poultry seminar sponsored by the California Department of Food & Agriculture. The point of my attendance is to learn good husbandry practices and share them with you, our dear readers. I’ll break down the voluminous information into a series of future blog posts. The takeaways from yesterday’s session: Buy chickens that have been vaccinated for Marek’s disease. This is the most common problem with backyard chickens and it’s entire...

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Best Practices for Gardening in Contaminated Soil

Mr. Homegrown

February 8, 2016

Gardening, Lead

3 Comments

File this ad under “bad ideas.” The benefits of growing food in cities (nutrition, exposure to nature) outweigh the very low risks of lead contamination. This is the conclusion of a recent University of Washington study: It is highly unlikely that urban agriculture will increase incidences of elevated blood Pb for children in urban areas. This is due to the high likelihood that agriculture will improve soils in urban areas, resulting in reduced b...

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What does the loving landscape look like?

Mrs. Homegrown

April 16, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening

18 Comments

...“less attractive” life stages of plants, we also deny our fellow creatures food and habitat in the form of seeds, stems and roots. And, of course, Oudolf is well known for doing the planting design at the High Line park in New York, a mile and half long section of abandoned elevated train track which first, was transformed by nature into a sort of secret park known only to urban explorers–and then, beginning in 2006, was refashioned into a much lo...

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