Book Review: Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat

February 21, 2012

How can we save the world? Simple. Get everyone to read and understand the contents of a new book, Attracting Native Pollinators: The Xerces Society Guide to Conserving North American Bees and Butterflies and Their Habitat. Why? There̵7;s the obvious–pollinating insects provide a huge amount of our food–but they also have a few unappreciated roles. Without pollinators, plant communities that stabilize river banks disappear. Ma...

Plantasia: Music for Plants Part II

Mr. Homegrown

March 17, 2010

Thoughtstylings

4 Comments

Not only did Homegrown Evolution reader Avi, track down a downloadable copy of Dr. George Milstein̵7;s 1970 album Music to Grow Plants, but he also suggested two more cultural landmarks of the 1970s “chattin̵7; with plants” period. Mort Garson̵7;s Moog generated album Plantasia: Warm Earth Music for Plants and the People Who Love Them is pretty much what I would imagine a macramé suspended spider plant wanting to listen...

Tame the Email Beast and Have Time To Run Your Urban Homestead

Mr. Homegrown

January 23, 2012

Thoughtstylings

19 Comments

ck your email. Mine reads, I check my email at noon and after the sun sets. If your needs are more urgent please give me a call at [HOME NUMBER]. Bloggin̵7; at www.rootsimple.com. Co-author (with Kelly Coyne) of the Urban Homestead (Process Media) and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (Rodale). It would be cranky, but I̵7;ve thought about reminding people that my phone number connects you to this device: I may have to...

Advances in Gardening Series: The Perennial Herb Bed, Patience and Plant Spacing and Breaking Your Own Rules

Mrs. Homegrown

January 24, 2011

Garden Design, Gardening, Herbs

4 Comments

No, this is not a pile of weeds. Someday it̵7;s going to look good. Mrs. Homegrown here: One of the big lessons of gardening is patience. One way gardening patience is expressed is in planting perennials: buying leeetle teeny plants and planting them vast distances apart and then waiting with your hands politely folded until they grow to full size. A very common landscaping mistake is to go out and buy a bunch of gallon-sized land...

The Strange World of Artificial Plants

Mr. Homegrown

February 8, 2013

Gardening, Thoughtstylings

10 Comments

Ikea̵7;s Fejka. On a recent pilgrimage to Ikea, I ended up staring at a large display of fake plants while Mrs. Root Simple found a replacement for our kitten-shredded drapes. Viewed from a distance Ikea̵7;s plastic plants were realistic, though seemingly outside of any known plant genus. I found myself pondering the question of what permacultural context in which these plastic plants would be an appropriate design solution. I couldnR...

The Food and Flowers Freedom Act

Mr. Homegrown

August 10, 2009

Events

9 Comments

Local food is coming back to Los Angeles. Homegrown Evolution is proud to be a part of a new group, the Urban Farming Advocates (UFA). Not in LA? Start your own UFA branch. City codes need to be changed everywhere! UFA activist Glen Dake posted the following notice on the Garden Council website: Problem: In 1946, a Los Angeles municipal code known as the Truck Gardening Ordinance was written to allow the growing of vegetables in a residentia...

Remember to Label Those Jars!

Mr. Homegrown

June 13, 2012

Food, Food Preservation

10 Comments

“Label, label, label!” This was one of the most important lessons I learned in my Master Food Preserver training. You̵7;ll note, from the jars above, that I̵7;m not very good about this. When were those jars canned and what̵7;s in them? I have no idea. They were probably the result of some late night canning frenzy two years ago. At the time I probably thought to myself, “I̵7;ll label them in the morning.”...

Urban Homestead Wins Book Award

Mr. Homegrown

April 22, 2009

Events

11 Comments

Our book, The Urban Homestead just won a gold medal in the Independent Publisher Awards. To celebrate we̵7;ll throw in a back issue of Ripples magazine for the first twenty folks who buy a copy of our book off of this website. Ripples is, “A Revolutionary Journal of Seasonal Delight” published by the nice folks at www.dailyacts.org. Now that̵7;s enough tooting our own horn. We̵7;ll get back to posting when the dust settle...

Start Your Urban Homestead for One Dollar

Mr. Homegrown

May 16, 2013

Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

The Lyth Cottage in Buffalo, purchased for $1. Photo: Buffalo Rising. Want to move to Buffalo, New York? If so the city has an Urban Homestead Program where you can get a house for a $1 plus closing costs. The rules–you̵7;ve got to: Fix code violations. Live in the house for at least three years. Have $5,000 in the bank for repairs. Too cold a climate for me, but you can read more about the program and see some success stories at Buf...