Shoemaking Advice?

...ave any of you made your own shoes? I’m looking for good resources on shoe making: books, videos, etc. I’d also love to hear stories of successes or failures or lessons learned. I’d like to make leather, soft-soled shoes as first project perhaps moccasins, perhaps something more structured. I have two books right now. One is Shoes for Free People, by David & Inger Runk, published in 1976 in Santa Cruz. As you might expect, it is highly groovy. And...

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Vegetable Gardening for the Lazy

...n’t natter on about this one, as we’ve covered the edible leaves here, jam making with the fruit here, avoiding the spines here and penned a very early potty-mouthed love letter to the plant here. Needless to say, a plant that needs no added water or fertilizer and grows in dismal, alkaline soil while producing an abundant crop is a plant that allows more time to get the perfect vermouth/gin ratio for those late afternoon cocktail sessions on the...

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Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

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Nance Klemn is in Los Angeles and She’s Teaching Classes!

...er. Based in the Midwest, she lives and works in a diverse neighborhood in the heart of Chicago, and is developing a farm on her land outside the city. She is founder of Social Ecologies, a nonprofit that focuses on system regenerating projects, including The Ground Rules, an urban soil- and community-building initiative using local green and food waste. Nance has worked internationally, lectured at art museums (including MOCA and the Hammer Museu...

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