Author and Urban Farmer Novella Carpenter Rocks Los Angeles

Yesterday, Homegrown Evolution had the great privilege of meeting urban farmer and author Novella Carpenter who was in Los Angeles to deliver a lecture and sign her new book Farm City. She’s a phenomenal speaker, both hilarious and inspiring. What we like most about Carpenter is her honesty in describing the ups and downs of raising pigs, goats, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and more on squatted land next to her apartment in Oakland. As she put it,...

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Chicago’s Urban Bees

...hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there. In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping, as many agricultural areas are contaminated with pesticides. Keeping bees i...

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Your Urban Homesteading Vocabulary Word of the Day: Slumgum

...of slumgum. Don’t leave your slumgum outside like I did. It turns out that urban night critters such as skunks and raccoons also love slumgum. Some mammal dragged mine off and ate it! Side note: check your library’s online digital resources. The Los Angeles Public Library offers the Oxford English Dictionary, and many more online reference resources, for free to anyone with a LA library card. Stay tuned for a longer post on beeswax processing in t...

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Saturday Tweets: Compacted Soil, Bikes and Mirrored Headboards

New research on how to treat compacted urban #soil to help trees thrive https://t.co/tzhvk3pisZ @vtnews pic.twitter.com/x3QwSpKEgS — Thomas Rainer (@ThomasRainerDC) February 24, 2016 The Free Rider myth flipped: Are cyclists actually subsidising car drivers? https://t.co/qQaRd5eubE via @MomentumMag pic.twitter.com/fehEMXKh7B — Darren Davis (@DarrenDavis10) March 25, 2016 11-year-old's LA Times op-ed "My vision of a livable city is one where k...

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Saturday Tweets: Cast Iron, Astroturf and Testing Your Microclimates

.../t.co/qj0S6jL5Z2 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 10, 2014 Silver Lake urban farmers get into turf war over artificial grass http://t.co/7Ce8xODsTK via @TheEastsiderLA — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 14, 2014 From Farm to Patient Tray: Retrofitting the supply chain to meet hospitals’ demand for local food https://t.co/aPU7iE7ewJ — Rachel Surls (@RachelSurls) October 24, 2014 Drought: Beverly Hills is big water user; East L.A. is the lowes...

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