Let’s Pedal Together in this New Year

...lane. A journalist called me on Tuesday to interview me for an article on urban homesteading in a pandemic. She asked me what I thought of as the most important activity in the homesteading tool basket. I said that it’s not growing vegetables or canning things it’s getting to know your neighbors and forming communities of mutual support. I am very thankful that our neighbor Jennie, several years ago, started a monthly neighborhood happy hour. Whe...

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How to make your soup wonderful: Wild food soup stock

We’ve mentioned urban foragers and foodie extraordinaires Pascal Baudard and Mia Wasilevic before. They not only forage food, but go on to make really good stuff with it. One of their websites is Urban Outdoor Skills, and I like to go there to check out a section called the Food Lab, where they talk about food products they’re experimenting with, and give how-to’s. A few months ago Erik brought home a beautiful bouquet of nettles. I decided to tr...

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Saturday Tweets: Thanksgiving Weekend Edition

...ned – Urban Digs Farm https://t.co/8HWF4jgCVL pic.twitter.com/826NcJzCe2 — Urban Agriculture (@UrbanAgRRicult) November 28, 2015 HGVs: designed for the open motorway & inexplicably now commonplace on crowded city streets. pic.twitter.com/DqpIhb3F7o HT @Cycle_Kix — KarlOnSea (@KarlOnSea) November 28, 2015 How do I get my agapanthus to flower? @AlysFowler has the answer #askalys https://t.co/hBbUMnainM pic.twitter.com/y4KdI1toNB — Guardian gardening...

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Got a Critter Question?

...Our guest on the next episode of the Root Simple Podcast will be Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild. We’re interviewing her tomorrow (Thursday) so if you have a question about coyotes, moles, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rats or any of the other creatures that visit our urban backyards, leave a comment....

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Hipster Compost

An updated, urban version of the soil food web. In the nearly sixteen years we’ve lived here we’ve seen our local stretch of Sunset Boulevard go from boarded up storefronts and auto body shops to restaurants, bars and cafes. Along with those new businesses and artisinal facial hair, comes a great new set of compost sources. Some of my enterprising neighbors, one in particular, have been creating what could be called hipster compost or, at least,...

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