Plymouth Rock Monthly

What magazine had 40,000 subscribers in 1920? Answer: the Plymouth Rock Monthly, a periodical devoted to our favorite chicken breed. We have two “production” Barred Plymouth Rocks in our small flock of four hens, and we’ve found them to be productive, friendly and, with their striped plumage, an attractive sight in our garden. While the internet is an amazing resource for the urban homesteader, there are a few holes in this el...

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Friday Afternoon Linkages–Some Fun, Some Scary

Life is like a seesaw with a rusty bolt–a good kid on one end and a bad kid on the other and no way to tell whose ass is gonna hit the ground hardest. On the fun side of life’s pesky algebra equation this week: Mark Frauenfelder is experimenting with a unique way of drying persimmons using a traditional Japanese method as pictured on the left. Meanwhile, in a busy month of blogging, the intrepid urban homesteaders over at Ramshackle...

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Looking for a Hardware Store Interview Subject

Image from the new CLUI Morgan Cowles Archive Hey all, I’m working on an article for the May issue of Urban Farm magazine on the subject of businesses to patronize before they disappear. One of those businesses is your local independent hardware store. If you either own or work at a hardware store and have opinions, I’d like to interview you. Send me an email at [email protected] For the rest of you, if you...

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DIY Outdoor Shower

is equipped with a low-flow shower head. Not only will you be saving water and burning less fossil fuels to heat that water, but your body odor will soon separate your real friends from superficial hangers-on. But we urban homesteaders don’t need to be stinky since it’s possible and easy to build an outdoor solar shower. There are two reasons this makes sense, particularly in a place with as warm a climate as LA. First of all, you...

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Update on the Food and Flowers Freedom Act

Some thirty people showed up today for a Planning Commission meeting in support of the Food and Flowers Freedom Act. The commissioners loved us and approved the Planning Departments suggestions that the code be amended to allow “truck gardening” and off-site resale of produce and flowers grown in residential zones in the City of Los Angeles. The tide is turning. Once the poster child for urban blight and bad planning, Los Angeles ma...

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Saturday Linkages: From Plastic Bottle Kayaks to Canine Staircases

...Stings. – http://www. backyardecosystem.com/backwards-beek eeping/happy-bees-equals-happy-beekeeper-how-treat-bee-stings/  … Whatever happened to common sense?  Not to be outdone by Canada, another city wants to ruin an urban garden. Please help! http:// chn.ge/RimMiZ   What do USDA inspectors do? Undercover video shutters another dairy cull slaughterhouse in Calif. | barfblog http:// barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/155879/12 /08/21/what-d...

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Backwoods Home Magazine

Imagine Martha Stewart as a gun-toting radical libertarian and you’ll have some idea what the always informative and entertaining Backwoods Home Magazine is like. Even though its primary emphasis is rural off-grid living, every issue has something to offer for the urban homesteader. The current January/February issue features a detailed article on how city dwellers can maximize their vegetable production in small spaces. Even the article on runn...

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Whiteflies

c zones, numbered one through five, with the first zone being our house and kitchen gardens and the outer zones being less cultivated and more wild spaces. Mollison and Holmgren’s zones are easily miniaturized for small urban yards. Trees that don’t need much attention can go towards the back, the chickens a little closer and the vegetables and herbs can benefit from being close at hand. For additional information on whiteflys see the...

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