Search Results for: label/food/page/40/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

677 results

A Close Shave

Mr. Homegrown
Body Care, Domesticus, Shaving
1 Comment
Author and fellow revolutionary Nicholas Sammond is visiting the Homegrown Revolution compound this week and he really knows how to stick it to the Man! You see the Man wants to sell us gentleman cheap shaving implements that just happen to need expensive replacement blades, a business strategy called a “loss leader” pioneered by American Safety Razor Company founder King Camp Gillette that has since been applied to everything from i...

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More on that nice rooftop garden . . .

Mr. Homegrown
Rooftop Gardening, Self Watering Containers
RLeave a comment
Bruce F. the creator of that nice rooftop garden we featured last week dropped us a note to say that he kept a diary about the process that you can read here, via the Daily Kos. Bruce also mentioned a few other interesting links: Humanure Composting via Feral Scholar A fiery essay, The Politics of Food is Politics via Counterpunch and A 35-Point Practical Guide for Action by Bruce himself Thanks Bruce F! And we’ll be back soon after we rec...

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One Craptacular Week

Mr. Homegrown
Events
18 Comments
It’s been one hell of a week. First we find out, via a soil test, that our backyard may have high levels of lead and zinc. We’ll write a lot more about this once I confirm the results–I’ve sent in another sample to a different lab. And my doctor has agreed to give me a blood test. Whatever the results, I want to help get out the word about this serious issue–ironically, next week is National Lead Poisoning Preve...

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Cargo Bike Roundup

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, Transportation
9 Comments
With May official bike month in the U.S., we’ll begin the festivities with a roundup of cargo bikes and trikes courtesy of Berlin corespondent Steve Rowell. These puppies answer the common objection to biking, “but I’ve got shit to carry!” We imagine this sturdy old model, pictured above, delivering barrels of sauerkraut, blood sausage and hefeweisen to the local Bier Garten. The bike equivalent of the sturdy old Frau beh...

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How to Store Canned Goods: Take the Screw Band Off!

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation, How-to
12 Comments
Right in the center, wrong on the left. Bungee cord ’cause we’re in earthquake country. Another quick tip from the Los Angeles Master Food Preservers: you should store your canned goods with the screw bands off. Why? So you can clean underneath the band to prevent spoilage and bugs. The screw band can create a false seal. Leaving the screw bands on can cause corrosion.  The only time to have the screw bands on is if you...

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Nasturtium “Capers”

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
1 Comment
Nasturtium grows like a weed here at the SurviveLA compound. We don’t water it, though if we did we might have a larger crop. The nice thing about Nasturtium is that the entire plant is edible – both the leaves and flowers have a strong peppery flavor and the flowers brighten up the Spartan salads we chow down on in the late spring. Once you plant this stuff, at least here in Los Angeles, the thousands of seeds it produces guarantee...

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Lead Update

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead
8 Comments
This week I thought I’d do a series of posts about soil and heavy metals beginning with a few more details about the possible lead contamination situation in our backyard. Two weeks ago Darren Butler, who is teaching a vegetable gardening series at our house, led a class project where we took four samples from different locations in the backyard, mixed them together and sent them off to Wallace Laboratories, a local soil testing lab with...

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Worm Composting

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening, Vermiculture
2 Comments
Today’s tip comes from neo-country singer and South Pasadena-by-way-of-Texas resident Corey Travis (web site under development). Corey brings up the topic of worm composting, suggesting a book called “Worms Eat My Garbage” by Mary “Worm Woman” Applehof. Now we haven’t read this book, but having tried worm composting you will definitely need some advice either from the “internets” or from a book. We...

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Return of Recipe Friday! Carrot Soup

Mrs. Homegrown
Food, Recipes
12 Comments
We had a party at our house last week and lots of people brought baby carrots. And no one took their baby carrots home with them when they left. So I took the pile of baby carrots and made a pureed carrot soup with them–one of my all-time favorite soups, in fact. Working with baby carrots was kind of fantastic. No chopping! No peeling! Doing this reminded me that I haven’t shared this recipe on the blog, so I dug up the original re...

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A Lacto Fermentation Kit Made With a Canning Jar

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
15 Comments
Chef Ernest Miller gave all of us in the Master Food Preserver class a very clever lacto-fermentation kit he designed and sells at the Farmer’s Kitchen in Hollywood. As a class, we’re all making a batch of sauerkraut. Made out of a Le Parfait canning jar with a hole drilled in the lid to fit a fermentation lock, I already know this handy device will replace the large ceramic crock we have used in the past for pickle and kraut makin...

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