Search Results for: label/lead/page/8/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

453 results

Countdown

Mrs. Homegrown
Events
24 Comments
Our new book comes out just about a month–April 26th–and today two super-advance copies came to us by mail. Believe me, it’s awfully strange to see something that has existed only as computer files suddenly materialize on your porch! We realize we haven’t given our new book a formal introduction yet, so here goes.  Making It: Radical Home-Ec for a Post Consumer World is our follow up to The Urban Homestead . The...

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Comrades

AfriGadget Alt Building Blog Another Roadside Attraction Autonomy Acres Avi Solomon Back to Basics Homestead Backwards Beekeepers Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Blog Bikejuju BLD in MT Build It Solar Blog ClubOrlov Coco’s Variety Store Collected Quotidian CoMo Homestead Deaf Dogs and Gnomes Dinosaurs and Robots Dirt Time DIY From Scratch Dornob Dough on the Go! Dude Craft Elon Schoenholz Faultline Farm Five Gallon Ideas Food in Jars Garden R...

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Press

e and Erik Knutzen grow food, keep chickens, brew, bike, bake, and plot revolution from their 1/12-acre farm in the heart of Los Angeles. They are the keepers of the popular DIY blog, Root Simple, and the authors of The Urban Homestead (2008), which the New York Times calls “…the contemporary bible on the subject” and Making It (2011) a project book for post-consumer society. In addition to their writing and blogging, Kelly and Erik teach a...

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Casting out the lawn

Mr. Homegrown
Lawns, Thoughtstylings
4 Comments
and our general unhappiness. But a consciousness shift is underway led by forward thinking folks like the parishioners of Holy Nativity Episcopal Church in West Los Angeles who have teamed up with the non-profit organization Urban Farming to rip up their entire 1,200 square foot south lawn to plant vegetables for the congregation and the LAX Food Pantry. From their press release: “Holy Nativity is a strong community center with focus on...

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Urban Homesteading Mistakes: Landscape Fabric

Mr. Homegrown
Mistakes
32 Comments
Since you all seem to enjoy accounts of our many failures around the Root Simple compound, I thought I’d share what must be one of the worst mistakes I’ve made. It’s a error up in our great chandelier of failures along with buying a 91 year old house on a hill with a bad foundation. Two words for you: landscape fabric–that plastic stuff sold in rolls at big box stores that allegedly blocks out weeds. Just after we bough...

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Roundin’ up the Summer Urban Homesteading Disasters

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food, Gardening, Mistakes, Vegetable Gardening
16 Comments
Everyday loaf on the left, “charity” loaf on the right. As we’ve noted in our books, part of the deal with this lifestyle is persevering through the inevitable disasters. Which means it’s time for a regular blog feature, the disaster roundup.   Loafing Around I agreed to bake a few baguettes for a charity function this evening. Problem #1 is that I can’t do baguettes in my small oven so I decided to do a s...

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Three Power Tools Every Urban Homesteader Should Own

Mr. Homegrown
Tools
21 Comments
On nearly all the work I’ve done on our house, everything from chicken coops to wood floors I’ve used just three power tools: corded drill circular saw sabre sawjig saw While I also own a router, a miter saw, a sander and a few other miscellaneous power tools, the three tools above I consider essential. Even if you don’t own a house, but would like to build some furniture or help a friend or relative with a repair project,...

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Google Sketchup as an Urban Homesteading Tool

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Design
21 Comments
I just completed a new chicken run, greatly assisted by an amazing and free 3d design program: Trimble SketchUp (formerly Google SketchUp). While it takes some time to learn (I’m still learning!), this program helped me visualize the chicken run as well as estimate the amount of materials I’d need to buy. Here’s how I used it to create the run: Previous runs either did not work (chickens squeezed out and flew over) or were hid...

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Help Us Find the Ideal Urban Chicken Breed

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
40 Comments
Townes Van Zandt with chicken We are in the market for new hens and lately it has occurred to us that the best breed criteria for our situation is not a breed which lays most frequently, but a breed which maintains its egg production as it matures–even if that means that it doesn’t produce as many eggs per week as a typical high production hen. Does that make sense? Because Erik is such a soft touch, we have to maintain a nu...

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Denver and Los Angeles Experience Crowds Staring at Chicken Coops

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Events
5 Comments
Denver Urban Homesteaders looking at a chicken coop Judging from the phone calls and emails coming into the Homegrown Evolution compound, America has discovered that it just might be a good idea to grow some vegetables and keep some chickens. There’s lots of motivating factors, no doubt. A bad economy and dissatisfaction with factory farming to start. But we also suspect that folks have discovered that it’s just plain fun to do all...

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