Speakeasy – this Sunday

Just a reminder that Homegrown Evolution will be speaking at the Smart Gals Speakeasy this Sunday August, 17th at 7 p.m. in Los Feliz. We’ll do some hands-on apartment gardening, play some games and listen to the music of our friends Triple Chicken Foot, who will bring their brand of foot stomping roots music to what will be a fun evening. Location and details:Mt. Hollywood Underground4607 Prospect Avenue, Los FelizAdmission: $15.00Informa...

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Author and Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter Rocks Los Angeles

ing her lecture. We could have listened for hours to her stories of dumpster diving for pig feed, gardening in a neighborhood where “crack zombies” and prostitutes come out at night and how the local Yemeni liquor store owner came over to show her how to slaughter her mean goat. If you have a chance to hear her speak, make sure to go! We’ve read excerpts from Farm City and Carpenter is a terrific writer. In addition to her books...

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Grow Italian!

everal years now and have enjoyed everything from sweet beans to powerfully bitter weed-like greens. The purple Sicilian Cauliflower we grew last year was a revelation – fresh cauliflower is a billion times better than store bought cauliflower though, along with broccoli, it can be challenging to grow and it takes up a lot of room. It was still worth it, as was the somewhat less difficult to grow quick maturing broccoli rabe Seeds from It...

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Humanure Dry Toilet Made From a Milk Crate

...te scavenger the officer placed the paperwork in . . . a scavenged beer crate doubling as an in box! Attaching the Toilet Seat to the Crate Next, find a toilet seat. Forage one or pick up a cheap seat at your local hardware store. In an emergency situation, you could also use the one on your regular toilet and simply bolt it back on when the zombie threat has passed and the sewage pipes are flowing again. To attach the seat to the milk crate s...

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Plantasia: Music for Plants Part II

hropologist Wade Davis, “The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World” that you can listen to via the always excellent Long Now Foundation’s lecture series and available as a free podcast in the Itunes store. Davis eloquently describes the Anaconda people’s intricate botanical knowledge and how they came to concoct ayahuasca.The plants, it turned out, talked to them. Though, after listening to Plantasia, I’m ho...

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Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

...lized the screens were impossible to remove (to water, etc…) without mangling. The building manager at the time told me that the screens were non-removable (what?!). So I measured all the windows, went to the hardware store, and had them make removable screens, voila. Maybe I should mention, too, that the management recently ripped out all the shrubbery in front of the building. I assumed they were going to put in something else in immi...

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Scott’s Pepsi-G Stove

...a 12 oz Pepsi can and the bottom of a Guinness Draught can and, after a series of precise cuts and pin pricks you end up with a nifty cooking stove that uses denatured alcohol or methanol (both easily obtained at any hardware store) as fuel. Efficiency-wise, if you consider the ratio of weight to heat output, you’re better off with a commercial backpacking stove and fuel canisters. But such stoves are expensive and the fuel canisters are o...

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Nuts!

ted story is the dirty secret of how Trader Joe’s is able to offer cheap nuts. According to D & S Ranches, which runs a group of orchards in California’s San Joaquin Valley, The Almonds that you see in retail stores, particularly the big chains, and membership stores, are usually very inferior for a number of reasons. First, they are almost never a single variety, but rather a “mix” of many different Almonds. They are...

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Moldy Grapes!

We had a nice conversation with BoingBoing blogger and Make Magazine editor Mark Frauenfelder about how important mistakes are in the DIY life, so here’s two more recent blunders for ya’ll, courtesy of Mrs. Homegrown Evolution. Recent failure #1: Inedible Pickled Grape Leaves We have grape leaves. Lots of them. Our two table grape vines are a little hesitant to really bust out, but our native grape (Vitus californica) has taken over...

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Introducing Lora Hall

Please put your hands together and welcome Homegrown Evolution guest blogger Lora Hall. Lora is a neighbor, owns Los Angeles’ largest hen, Southern California’s largest rhubarb plant and is currently finishing a graduate degree at Cal Poly Pomona. Her master’s work involves the use of vermicomposting to break down a variety of materials (maybe we can get her to explain this!). You can meet Lora in person and pick up some seed...

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