Greywater Guerrillas in LA this Weekend

...Greywater Design Workshop. Location: 3983 East Blvd. Mar Vista, CA 90066Time: 7-9pmCost: $25To register: email Ray Cirino 818-834-7074 Greywater Design Workshop; Interested in reusing your greywater? Want to learn more about it and how to build your own system? Come to our design workshop. We’ll present you with information on the most common, low-tech, low-cost, effective, residential greywater systems. Then we’ll break into groups...

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Revolution: A New TV Series About Extreme Suburban Homesteading

...ly fashion models (with perhaps the exception of one Falstafian ex-Google employee). They have smashing wardrobes, too.4 And America’s long lost archery skills have apparently been miraculously revived. Come to think of it, Hollywood seems to be having a love affair with archery of late. Is the javelin next? Put down those Xboxes kids and start practicing! In Revolution it’s also revealed that people suddenly know the names of plants...

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Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

e the use and availability of public space. LOVE APPLES is an experiment in public space in the city of Los Angeles, imagining new ways in which such spaces could be utilized to make our communities more livable and engaged. It promotes community awareness, sharing, food safety, public resources, and organic gardening. LOVE APPLES is also a celebration of public art and of activated citizen artists. The festival doubles as a thank you to the ra...

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Laundry to Landscape 2.0

I just installed a “laundry to landscape” greywater system at the house of Lora “Homegrown Neighbor” Hall using greywater guru Art Ludwig’s free open-source plans. It was a cinch. And, thanks to a revision in the California plumbing code last year, it’s legal with no permit required. I started in the laundry room by rigging up a three way diverter valve so that Lora can route the greywater back to the sew...

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Saturday Linkages: Hiding Spots, Bedbugs and Rodents of Unusual Size

...opped Bedbugs in Their Tracks http://nyti.ms/12H9HDI Gardening All About Gabions : Cheap Retaining and Other Garden Features http://shar.es/JHCQS  New killer compost problem–Imprelis: http://ow.ly/1UWcBj How to protect plants from frost: http://ow.ly/1UMWLG Farmers tackle pests with colas: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3977351.stm … Rodents of Unusual Size – a documentary about 20-lb rats in Louisiana – Boing Boing http...

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Mistakes we have made . . .

There’s a kind of boastful blogging style that, I’m afraid, we here at Homegrown Evolution have been guilty of. Simply put, we’ve failed to detail all our blunders. These mistakes and accidents, some funny, others painfully disappointing, have more instructional value than our successes. And oh, how many blunders there have been in the past ten years. It’s about time to round up the top 6. I’m sure there are many mo...

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Are Raised Beds a Good Idea?

...orn (Sorghum bicolor ) doing just fine straight in the ground. A partially sunken bed. Extra points for finding the stinkhorn mushroom. This bed is somewhat of a compromise. I cut the bed in half lengthwise to make it half as tall as it used to be thus getting two beds for the price of one. Then I sunk it into the ground In effect, the veggies are in the ground but I still have the neatness and defined borders of a raised bed. Again,...

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Garden Design Trends: Interplanting and Plant Communities

The Daily Telegraph garden designed by Sarah Price. Landscape architect Thomas Rainer has a new post on his blog looking at some current garden design trends. Two of these trends intrigued me: what Rainer calls “interplanted everything” and another he calls “community gardens” (by which he means plant communities not allotments). Rainer says, “Massing is out.  Highly interplanted, mixed schemes are in.”  It...

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Hornworm meets alien!

...parasitic wasps devour their host but in order to overcome the caterpillar’s defenses, mama wasp injects a virus before laying her eggs. How do you create habitat for Cotesia congregata? Adults feed on nectar producing plants and, of course, you need to make sure you keep a few hornworms on hand! Thanks to Jeff Spurrier for posting this video in Facebook....

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It’s Official: Erik is Insane

Our parkway garden It’s true. Erik has gone insane trying to protect his baby. His squash baby. A little background: We’ve long gardened in two raised beds in the parkway in front our house (the parkway being the space between the sidewalk and the street). This is officially city property, though we are responsible for maintaining it. It gets great morning light, so it’s a valuable growing space. It’s also fun to garden...

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