Search Results for: label/fruits and veg/2011/04/making-it

347 results

Urine as a Fertilizer

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
17 Comments
available (at least after a night of beer drinking) alternative to organic nitrogen fertilizers such as blood meal. We’ve got a perpetual nitrogen deficiency in our vegetable beds and I hate buying industrial ag sourced items like blood meal. Urine is a great alternative. To use urine in the garden you’ve got to dilute it with water, at least ten to one. Straight urine will burn your plants. Thankfully we don’t worry about our s...

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Back on the Yogurt Train: How to Make Yogurt

Mrs. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food, Recipes
16 Comments
what I can. Lately I’ve realized that one consistent source of waste plastic in our kitchen comes in the form of yogurt tubs. This is a little silly, because we know how to make yogurt. In fact, I do believe we covered it in our book. Thing is, back in the day when we made yogurt, it was Erik’s job. When he slacked on it, I didn’t even consider picking it up. Chalk it up to the mysteries of division of labor in a household. An...

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A Homemade Mattress?

Mrs. Homegrown
Design, Domesticus, Miscellaneous
68 Comments
The Princess and the Pea by Edmund Dulac This is the story of my life. I read about some old domestic technology or product that makes a lot of sense. Perhaps it is obsolete. Or perhaps it is only done/made in more enlightened countries. Nonetheless, I want it. So I have to make from scratch. Yesterday we met a great couple, Renae and Dimitri. Renae mentioned she was thinking about making her own mattress. I was intrigued because just that morni...

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Making It e-Book Corrected

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
RLeave a comment
To those of you who purchased an e-version of our book Making It and had trouble reading it, I just received a note from our publisher Rodale: The “disappearing words” are actually words that appear in a faint gray color that was hard or impossible to see over light background color settings on some devices, especially the Kindle from Amazon. We have corrected the e-book files and re-released them to all retailers. The corrected vers...

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2011 in Review: The Garden

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
20 Comments
It’s was a difficult year in the garden. A lead and zinc issue screwed up my winter vegetables garden plans. At least we managed to find some river rocks and put in a path. I found this photo from December 2010. I was certainly a lot more organized that year. For 2012, I’m putting in raised beds to deal with the heavy metal issue and we’ve already planted more native plants. But most importantly one of my New Years resolution...

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2011 in Review: Urban Homestead Trademark Dispute

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
15 Comments
As the year draws to a close I thought I’d review some of our posts from the previous year starting with an update on the trademark dispute over the terms “urban homestead” and “urban homesteading”. In February of this year the Dervaes Institute (DI) sent a cease and desist letter to over a dozen different individuals and organizations including our publisher Feral House/Process Media, public radio station KCRW, De...

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What’s the dirt on soap nuts?

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
46 Comments
Sapindus mukorossi fruits , image from Wikimedia Commons Mrs. Homegrown here: I’m trying to take a temperature reading on soap nuts. Have you used them? Did you like them? How do you use them–as laundry detergent, shampoo, soap? Do you use whole nuts or make a liquid? How long have you been using them? Do you find a big difference between brands? If you could shoot me a comment, I’d really appreciate it. On a more advanced...

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The Making of a Great Olive Oil

Mr. Homegrown
Food
4 Comments
e At the end of all this machinery the oil pours out of a spigot and into a steel drum: We all had the great privilege of tasting the freshly squeezed oil. I won’t soon forget that heavenly flavor. Matt told us that it takes around a ton of olives to make 25 to 30 gallons of oil. The olives come from a thousand trees that are tucked around the vineyards. If you’re ever in Northern California the Preston Vineyard is well worth a v...

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Our Books

Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World , by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen This book, written by a husband-and-wife team of die-hard DIYers, will leave you thinking you can take on the world and win. –Milwaukee Journal Sentinal My favorite of all these recent books by far… — Kirkus Reviews A how-to book providing you with all of the tools you need to become a producer instead of a consumer and transform your h...

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