Making It e-Book Corrected

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

It̵7;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, I̵7;m putting in raised beds to deal with the heavy metal issue and we̵7;ve already planted more native plants. But most importantly one of my New Years resolution...

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The glass is half full–even if it’s full of greywater

Mrs. Homegrown here: In this blog and in our books, we̵7;ve talked a lot about the importance of accepting failure as part of the process of living a more homegrown lifestyle. Disasters of different sorts are inevitable. Sometimes they̵7;re part of the learning process. Other times they̵7;re acts of nature that you just have to shrug off. This year we̵7;ve had lots of failures in the agricultural line. It̵7;s been the theme...

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Rain Barrels

Constructing a cistern large enough to supply potable indoor water is an ambitious project involving pumps, filters, UV purifiers, and very large and expensive tanks. We don̵7;t want to discourage anyone from making an attempt at it, but for most urban homesteaders it won̵7;t be economical or practical given the space requirements and weight of thousands of gallons of stored water. Thankfully, there are simpler strategies for harvesting...

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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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Saturday Linkages: Making Things and Herding Ducks

...// lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2012/08/inspir ed-by-sunray-kelley.html#.UCwiEif7Ek0.twitter  … Cooking and Preserving Canning 101: Learning to be Flexible http://www. foodinjars.com/2012/08/cannin Step Up the S̵7;more: 7 Ideas for Campfire Treats by Chris Rochelle: Chocolate Cake Baked in an Orange http://www. chow.com/galleries/315/ step-up-the-smore-7-ideas-for-campfire-treats-by-chris-rochelle/7324/chocolate-cake-baked-in-an-orange  …...

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Using Kosher Salt for Making Pickles

...t for fermented pickles, you must weigh out the proper amount.Weigh out 73⁄4 ounces (220 grams) of flaked salt, and you will have the equivalent of 1 cup of canning and pickling salt. This same publication also notes how easy it is to find pickling salt and how hard it is to find kosher salt. It̵7;s just the opposite here in Los Angeles. So what kind of salt do you use for pickling and fermenting? What̵7;s the easiest to find where you l...

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Resources

These are our favorite web resources on various topics, and books which you̵7;ll find on our bookshelves: General Home Ec/Appropriate Tech/DIY Living Mother Earth News How to Homestead Backwoods Home Magazine  AfriGadget  The Urban Homestead Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World Radical Homemakers The Integral Urban House Made by Hand Farm City The Natural Kitchen Country Wisdom and Know-How Wendell Berry̵7;s ess...

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Harvesting and Drying Calendula

Mrs. Homegrown here: Okay, so in a previous post I talked about growing Calendula. This post I̵7;m going to talk about harvesting and drying it. The next post I̵7;ll do on the topic will be about making a skin-healing salve from the dried petals, olive oil and beeswax. When to harvest:  Start harvesting your Calendula as soon as the first flush of flowers is in full bloom. Don̵7;t try to “save” the flowers. The more you...

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