Urban Chicken Enthusiasts Unite!

...hicken keepers. And we often meet people who would like to know more about urban poultry. So I’ve decided to create a group of L.A. urban chicken enthusiasts. I used meetup.com to create the L.A. Urban Chicken Enthusiasts group. I like Meetup because the point is to organize face to face meetings. Our group will get together every month or so, eat eggs dishes and talk about raising chickens, local food and sustainability. The L.A. Urban Chicken En...

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Urban Homesteading: What Went Wrong

...es of future posts I’d like to look back at the ideas in our two books The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. I’ll consider both the broader ideas in the books as well as what might have changed in terms of specific methods in subjects such as gardening and beekeeping. First let me peel back the curtain for those of you have have never written a book and describe how awkward and weird it can be to read your o...

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Urban Farm Magazine

...elly Yrarrazaval of Orange County. All of these fine folks have repurposed urban and suburban spaces to grow impressive amounts of food, a common sense trend popular enough to have spawned this new magazine. Editor Karen Keb Acevedo says, “Urban Farm is here to shed a little light on the things we can all do to change our lifestyles, in ways we think are monumental as a whole, yet at the same time, barely noticeable on their own.” The first issue...

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Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

...the overall design. The fruit in the fruitcake are what he calls “primary” plants, “high-impact plants chosen for strong color or structure.” Like the fruit in the fruitcake primary plants repeat in clumps throughout the overall design. He suggests a 70% matrix plant to 30% primary plant ratio. Lastly, Oudolf introduces “scatter” plants, sometimes by literally scattering seeds that will pop up seasonally and introduce spontaneity and wildness. Oud...

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The Original L.A. Urban Homestead

You know that band you saw play at your local dive bar back in the day that is totally popular now and playing in arenas? Well, the L.A. Eco-Home is kind of like that. Long before glossy magazines were doing “Green” issues, before hybrid cars and composting became hip, Julia Russell had been giving tours featuring the environmentally friendly aspects of her home and garden. Julia is pictured here in front of her Gordon apple tree which bore over...

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