Planting a Mini-Orchard

March 19, 2008

Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation

...ed in the mulch basin, is to help the greywater infiltrate our heavy clay soil. To use it we simply place the hose coming from the surge tank into the hole in the top of the outlet chamber. We cover this hole with a brick when not in use. The photo below shows the digging of the mulch basin and the installation of the outlet chamber in progress: The completed mulch basin and (hard to see) pomegranate tree to the right. We used straw for mulch We u...

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Primitive Grain Storage Technique

Mrs. Homegrown

November 4, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Food Preservation, How-to, Preparedness

8 Comments

...age style (c. 400 BCE.). Turns out all you need to do is dig a pit in the soil. The pits they dug are circular, and look to be 2 or 3 feet in diameter, and maybe 3 or 4 feet deep. So you may ask, how can you pour grain into a hole in the ground and expect it to keep? The secret is a clay cap on the top. In the screen grab below you can see the cap and some feet for scale: If you go to YouTube, you can watch this sequence starting around 52:36, but...

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Happy Mayan Apocalypse!

Mr. Homegrown

December 21, 2012

Thoughtstylings

9 Comments

...whole 2012 deal? I’m hoping the uneventful passing of this day will mark a peak in interest in apocalyptic scenarios. While I could opinionate about the Apocalypse meme, as John Michael Greer calls doomsday thinking, I think it would be best just to quote Greer from his book Apocalypse Not: there’s at least a chance that the upcoming failure of the 2012 prophecy might encourage people to take a hard and skeptical look at the apocalypse meme itself...

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Essential System #5 – First Aid Kit

Mr. Homegrown

August 31, 2006

Preparedness

2 Comments

...e hospital emergency rooms of Los Angeles or any big city, even during non-peak hours, knows that your sorry ass often ends up on a stretcher parked in a forlorn hallway waiting for hours for a distracted and overworked doctor. Which is why, once again, we’ve relied on the world of mountaineering to inform our choice of first aid supplies. The assumption with a first aid kit in the wilderness is that it will be quite a while before you can be reac...

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Plymouth Rock Monthly

Mr. Homegrown

October 12, 2008

Animals, Chickens

4 Comments

...blisher of the Plymouth Rock Monthly, collapsed down to 200 members from a peak of 2,000. Thankfully, interest in keeping chickens is now on the rise again and an informative magzine, Backyard Poultry has been revived. Plymouth Rock fans can read an artcile about the breed in the latest issue of Backyard Poultry. Speaking of poultry, the American Poultry Association will be holding their annual meet in nearby Ventura, California on October 25th an...

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