Eight Things to Consider When Saving Vegetable Seeds

...Know how the vegetable is pollinated It’s much easier to save the seeds of self-pollinating vegetables such as beans, peas and tomatoes. Remember that bees can fly for miles–anything pollinated by insects have to be isolated or caged to prevent cross-pollination. And many vegetables have weedy cousins. Try to save the seeds of carrots without caging and you may get a carrot/Queen Anne’s lace hybrid that won’t taste good. And some supposedly self-p...

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Make Your Own Furniture

...aven’t included in this list. He refers to his collection of books as “The Self Determination Library.” The plan is to keep adding to this post. If you know of books and resources for cheap, easy to make, well designed furniture leave a comment. For every resource that I’ve mentioned there’s probably a dozen more. When possible I’ve linked to free pdfs or books you can borrow at the Internet Archive. Gerritt Rietveld I built a set of Gerritt Rietv...

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A Not So Close Shave

...most about social media is the pressure to curate an idealized, alternate self. These alternate selves remind me of the Jewish legend of the Golem, a kind of medieval robot made of mud and conjured into consciousness. Initially protective the Golem, in some versions of the story, ends up going on a murder spree. I’m worried that our online, alternate selves are forming a kind of Golem army. We can thank our Silicon Valley overlords for making an...

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The Art and Architecture of C.F.A. Voysey

...pent every spare moment of his life obsessively drawing. C.F.A. Voysey: Birds of Many Climes c.1900. Voysey’s work points to an alternate trajectory in which our art and our cities are entwined with a reverence for nature instead being at the service of machines. Instead we have the cynicism, self absorption and nihilism of Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. And all we have to look forward to are cites soon to be clogged with self driving cars. C.F.A. V...

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How Much Can You Carry on a Bicycle?

...s to climb hills even with heavy groceries. One need not be car-free to enjoy a cargo bike. For many years Kelly and I shared a car. The Xtracycle was a big part of making that car-light arrangement work. When people ask if urban homesteading saves money, the first thing I point to is the cargo bike, not the chicken coop. The problem? Cargo bikes are not nearly as sexy as the Playboy Land Yacht. That’s a problem I’ll get to in a future post....

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