Search Results for: label/rooftop gardening/page/2/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

553 results

All Politics Are Local

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
8 Comments
I thought it appropriate on election day to repeat one of my favorite equations for happiness–a stoic flowchart that comes via Mark Fraenfelder of BoingBoing.  At the end of the day, about half of America will be happy, and half will be dismayed. All we can do is remember that beyond voting, we cannot control the outcome of the election. So a stoic would advise us to not to rail against what we cannot change or affect, but to focus on wha...

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca on Living Within Limits

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
3 Comments
Writing in the 1st century AD, Seneca makes a good case for common sense limits: Is it not living unnaturally to hanker after roses during the winter, and to force lilies in midwinter by taking the requisite steps to change their environment and keeping up the temperature with hot water heating? Is it not living unnaturally to plant orchards on top of towers, or to have a forest of trees waving in the wind on the roofs and ridges of one’s...

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Saturday Linkages: From The Woodsman Workout to Crafting With Your Cat

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
3 Comments
Yes, it’s the woodsman workout. Via the Art of Manliness. Gardening My new favorite botanic garden – in Mexico! | Garden Rant http:// gardenrant.com/2012/09/new-fa vorite-botanic-garden-in-mexico.html  … Deconstructing the cornmeal myth: http:// ow.ly/1Owd1F DIY Build-It-Solar Blog: DIY Solar Water Heating System in Southeastern Pen… http://www. builditsolarblog.com/2012/09/diy-so lar-hot-water-heating-system-in.html?spref=...

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Made By Hand

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
7 Comments
Jungian analyst James Hollis speaks of two gremlins that meet us at the foot of the bed each day: fear and lethargy. As DIYers, gardeners, poultry keepers and fermentation fetishists, our worst enemy is a crippling fear of failure and the lethargy that results when we try to avoid challenges by surfing the Internet, watching TV, or just staring into space. To embrace failure is the only way to learn. Hollis quotes Rainer Maria Rilke, “our...

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When It Gets Hot in Chicago: Make Tempeh!

Nancy Klehm
Fermentation, Food, Recipes
4 Comments
Tempeh image from Wikipedia. Today, a guest post from Nancy Klehm, writing to us from Chicago, in the midst of an epic drought and heat wave. Here’s Nancy: A Drought of Inspiration Until last week, we were at 12% of our normal precipitation for our eight month growing season. This, plus extreme temperatures, made us delirious when some humidity blew south from Canada and was sticky enough to grab ahold of some clouds and build th...

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The Practical Beekeeper by Michael Bush

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees, Reviews
13 Comments
“There are a few rules of thumb that are useful guides. One is that when you are confronted with some problem in the apiary and you do not know what to do, then do nothing. Matters are seldom made worse by doing nothing and are often made much worse by inept intervention.”-Richard Taylor Michael Bush, in his new book on natural beekeeping, The Practical Beekeeper Beekeeping Naturally, begins with Taylor’s quote, which could just as eas...

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A Grand Tour

Mr. Homegrown
Resources, Urban Farming
2 Comments
Say howdy to Wendy and Mikey, intrepid homesteaders from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Thanks to the wonders of internet video we can all see what they’ve been up to: a long list of activities that includes, papercrete, oyster mushroom cultivation, DIY drip irrigation, vegetable gardening, rainwater harvesting, dome building and more. The Grand Tour from Mikey Sklar on Vimeo. Wendy and Mickey blog about their activities at blog.holy...

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Homegrown Evolution in the LA Times

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
11 Comments
Today’s Los Angeles Times Home and Garden section has a story on Guerrilla gardening, “Guerrilla gardener movement takes root in L.A. area”. The article mentions our parkway vegetable garden, which consists of two 6-foot square raised beds with two wire obelisks to support beans and tomatoes. We constructed it in October of 2005 and have grown a few season’s worth of crops. Here’s our parkway garden just after putti...

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Compost Rebuttal

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
35 Comments
Kelly’s secret compost pile. I found out via a blog post last week that Kelly had secretly constructed a compost pile to deal with a surplus of kitchen scraps. She knew I’d be unhappy with this due to my anal retentive approach to composting. So why am I unhappy with this pile? The reason is simple: it’s too small and will never generate enough heat to: Kill weed seeds. Kill human and plant pathogens. Kill root nemat...

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