City Repair LA

Mark Lakeman stares down the new Bimini Street salamander. Portland architect and activist Mark Lakeman, founder of the City Repair movement, is in Los Angeles for a week of lectures and activities. Lakeman believes in actions that correct what he believes is our disassociation from nature and our alienation from each other. He’s a passionate opponent of the grid, the imposition of street networks and regimented thinking that he traces ba...

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Another Panel Solar Cooker

Poyourow demoing her solar cooker design There’s no one size fits all solution when it comes to the world of solar panel cookers. All have their advantages and disadvantages. I got an email from author Joanne Poyourow, leader of the amazing Los Angeles Environmental Change Makers, with a simple and effective design she came up with. Pouyourow’s cooker comes together much faster than the CooKit design that I blogged about earlier th...

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All is Fire

Photo by Olivier Ffrench Scholar, former Wall Street trader and author Nassim Nicholas Taleb is in his native Lebanon this week shopping for olive groves, according to an article in today’s Wall Street Journal (enter “Taleb’s Pessimism Lures CIC” in Google to get around the pay wall). Taleb explains, “Healthy investments are those that produce goods that humans need to consume, not flat-screen TVs. Sto...

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Events in Los Angeles This Weekend: SIP Workshop and Maria’s Garden

Saturday (i.e. TODAY!) On Saturday November 14th Kelly and I will be doing a Self Irrigating Pot (SIP) workshop in Westchester at 3 p.m. SIPs are a great way for folks in apartments to get into small scale vegetable gardening. Best of all the workshop is FREE FREE FREE! Here’s the location: Playa Del Oro at 8601 Lincoln Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045 Sunday Anne Hars, who lives a few blocks from us, helped save another neighbor’s gar...

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Saturday Linkages: Coop Plans, Moonshine and Mercury in Seafood

...vilion: Eco-Friendly Retreat Meets Regional Style | Designs & Ideas on Dornob http://dornob.com/pastoral-pavilion-eco-friendly-retreat-meets-regional-style/ … Gardening Loving David Culp’s Layered Garden. Scheming to see the garden. | Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2012/12/loving-david-culps-layered-garden-scheming-to-see-the-garden.html … The story of Mission grapes: http://garynabhan.com/i/archives/1942 Signs of the Mayan Apocalypse Ci...

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Saturday Linkages: Tall Bikes, Za’atar and So Much More

Growin’ Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/04/heritage-apples-john-bunker-maine … Taming the Wild Thyme: A Visit to a Za’atar Farm in Lebanon http://ow.ly/kqeoi  New Farmer’s Almanac for 2013: http://boingboing.net/2013/04/21/new-farmers-almanac-for-2013.html … Plants as Education: Kit Brings Gardening Back to the Masses http://dornob.com/37885/  Fortrait #4 “Su...

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Hops in Southern California

From hop rhizome to young vine Several people have asked a question we were curious about: what varieties of hops are best to grow in warm climates such as Southern California? We asked around and the consensus seems to be Cascade and Nugget among others. Greg Beron, one of the co-owners of Culver City Homebrewing Supply Co., has a couple of different hops rhizomes for sale that he says grow well here in Los Angeles. The shop’s parking...

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Homemade Cat Toys

Top to bottom: Trout, palm frond, twine, acorn, plastic strip This is advice for new cat owners coming from relatively new cat owners: don’t waste your money on cat toys. Cats are fickle, ungrateful little creatures. Novelty is more important to them than just about anything else. And I don’t mean genuine novelty–they don’t need newer and stranger toys all the time. Rather, individual toys seem to get stale for t...

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Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

We got a lot of emails after posting the image above of Los Angeles based photographer Helen Kim’s astonishing windowsill garden. It’s a great example of what you can do with a small amount of space, and brings to mind William Morris’ advice, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. Helen graciously sat down for an email interview to talk about her beautiful and useful garden...

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Farm in a Box

Farm in a Box ‘Little Tokyo‘ I never thought I’d see “permaculture” and “Home Depot” in the same sentence, but an article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (For a Green Thumb, Just Add Water) connects the dots between the two with a new product line called Farm in a Box Aquaponics from Earth Solutions. Farm in the Box is a combined fish tank/planter box. Waste from the fish circulates into the p...

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