Lord of the Flies Inspired Bike Rack

Homegrown Neighbor here. When I saw this unique piece of public art/functional bike rack I just had to stop and take a picture to share.  I was on my way home from the Central Library, where I had checked out some books on Belgian beer for a project I’m working on. I walked up Broadway to catch the bus home, stopping at Grand Central Market on the way. But outside the market I saw this truly strange sculpture with many bikes locked to it....

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One of our favorite activities: Depaving

Taking out concrete with a sledgehammer may not be everyone’s idea of a great time, but believe me, Erik is having a great time in this picture. Any opportunity to get rid of a few feet of ugly concrete or asphalt,  and replace it with soil and plants, is not an opportunity to be missed. Depaving increases growing room for green things and it also gives more points of access for rain to enter the ground and renew the water tables–ra...

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A Mason Jar Camping Lantern

...le allows you to carry it around or hang it. Headlamps are all very convenient, but little candles make a campsite feel like home. And yep, it works well in the backyard too.  There’s nothing to it, but just in case the picture makes it look more complicated than it is, all I do is wrap a piece of scrap wire around the mouth of the jar, twisting it closed. The ridges at the top of the jar hold it in place. Then I make a handle by twisting a...

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Pop Quiz Answer: Pineapple Guava

Fruit forming. photo credit: Kurt Stüber, via Wikimedia Commons Yes indeed, as so many of you guessed, that was a picture of our pineapple guava. For those of you who haven’t seen one, meet the pineapple guava, aka feijoa or Acca sellowiana: a small, evergreen tree or shrub that bears tasty green fruits which have a Jolly Rancher-like flavor. The fruit form off of flowers that taste like cotton candy. The trick is not to eat too m...

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It’s Official: The End is Near

...up the morning’s paper and pointed out that separate stories on childhood obesity, air pollution and suburbanization are all related. Today’s WSJ is a reminder of how this associational game increasingly paints a picture of a mad and dystopic science fiction reality. Along with the story on feeding livestock junk food, we have a story on Fermat Capital Management L.L.C., a money management firm led by a biophysicist that sells bonds,...

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Sunday Spam: Automatic Chicken Cage

We interrupt the usual picture Sunday feature to bring you the best and most misdirected spam email that has ever graced the Root Simple in-box: Dear Sir or Madam, Liaocheng Dongying Hengtong Metal Manufacturing Co.,Ltd here. Glad to hear that you are on the market for Automatic chicken cage. We are a professional producer of the complete sets of equipment for raising birds. At present, it is an enterprise which has the import-export license an...

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Make a Garden Work Table from a Pallet

Pallets are a ubiquitous building material, your free lumber yard in tough times. Homegrown Evolution patched together the garden work table above for use with seedlings and storing pots and watering cans. Hopefully the picture is all you need to put one together yourself. Some tips for working with pallets: 1. We prefer projects that don’t involve disassembling the pallet. The nails in pallets aren’t meant to be removed. Trying to t...

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Front Yard Vegetable Garden Update

One advantage of living in a slightly rough-around-the-edges Los Angeles neighborhood is that nobody gets bent out of shape about front yard vegetable gardens. Indeed, they are  a tradition in immigrant neighborhoods. The picture above is an update of one of the front yard gardens Kelly blogged about back in May. It looked like this when she first blogged about it. Not sure exactly what’s growing here. It looks like beans from a distanc...

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Plantain for rashes

It’s hard to take a decent picture when both of your hands are covered in green slime!  Mrs. Homegrown here: A couple of days ago I made a mistake: I attacked a stand of rogue borage without gloves. You know how it is when you think you’re just going to make one pruning cut, and then end up hacking for an hour in a mindless frenzy? Borage is covered with irritating little hairs which made my hands and forearms itch and burn....

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