Search Results for: label/peak oil/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

448 results

Start Your Urban Homestead for One Dollar

Mr. Homegrown
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–you’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...

Continue reading…

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

Mr. Homegrown
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]. Bloggin’ 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 I’ve thought about reminding people that my phone number connects you to this device: I may have to...

Continue reading…

Urban Chicken Enthusiasts Unite!

Homegrown Neighbor
Animals, Chickens
4 Comments
Creating community is a vital part of the urban homesteading movement. For why should one make jam or grow zucchini without people to share it with? In a big, crazy city like L.A. there are lots of interesting people doing inspiring things, you just have to find them. I’m always excited to meet new people who are interested in all the things we write about here at Homegrown Evolution. I was lucky to move a block away from Mr. and Mrs. Home...

Continue reading…

The Making of a Great Olive Oil

Mr. Homegrown
Food
4 Comments
Kelly admires the olives Thanks to our good friend Dale Benson, Kelly and I got to see how a really high quality olive oil is made. Dale knows Matt Norelli, the wine and olive oil maker at Preston Vineyards of Dry Creek, an organic family farm near Healdsburg in Northern California. Matt was nice enough to let us watch the complicated olive oil machinery in action. First the freshly picked olives go into a big hopper (above). They are...

Continue reading…

Urban Farm Magazine

Mr. Homegrown
Events, Resources, Urban Farming
4 Comments
We have a article on urban farmers across America in the premiere issue of a magazine bound to appeal to readers of this blog, Urban Farm. Our article, Where Urban Meets Farm, profiles the efforts of our friends the Green Roof Growers of Chicago, Em Jacoby of Detroit and Kelly 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...

Continue reading…

Bean Fest, Episode 2: Falafel and Babaganoush Recipes

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
6 Comments
Welcome back to Bean Fest 2010, our ongoing celebration of the humble dried bean. Last week we got a lot of great tips and hints in the comments. If you haven’t read those, I’d encourage you to take a peek. We also got a couple of recipes via email that we’re going to test out. Thanks, ya’ll! Again, if anyone has a favorite bean recipe, please send it this way ([email protected]). One lesson to take away...

Continue reading…

The Original L.A. Urban Homestead

Homegrown Neighbor
Thoughtstylings
6 Comments
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 wh...

Continue reading…

Summer Urban Homestead Failures: Exploding Beer Bottles

Mr. Homegrown
Beer, Fermentation, Food, Thoughtstylings
14 Comments
Somehow in last week’s roundup of the summer’s failures I blocked out of my memory the most exasperating: exploding beer bottles. I think I may have had a contaminated siphon hose which passed on some nasty, yeasty bacterial bug to every single bottle of two batches of beer I had made this summer. Three of those bottles over-carbonated to the point that they became beer grenades and exploded. One blew up on the kitchen counter and...

Continue reading…

Deodorizing Wash

Mrs. Homegrown
Body Care, Domesticus
4 Comments
Deodorizing wash? Freshening wash? In Making It we called it cleansing spray. I’ve never been quite sure what to call this. It’s not a deodorant, in that it doesn’t really stay on you, deodorizing continuously. It’s not a body wash in that you don’t use it in the shower. This is a little mix I created, a simple blend of water, baking soda and essential oil. It’s something you can splash on and towel off real...

Continue reading…