Search Results for: label/solar cooking/page/2/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

703 results

Book Review: My Side of the Mountain

Mrs. Homegrown
Reviews
20 Comments
Illustration from the book: Sam Gribley and his falcon, Frightful. And his homemade shirt with extra large pockets. Naturalist and author Jean Craigshead George wrote My Side of the Mountain –the story of a boy from New York City who runs away to live on his own in the Catskill Mountains–in 1959.  Since then, it has won the Newbery Medal and been consistently ranked high in recommended reading lists for children. Recently I...

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Kelly’s Shibori Challenge

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus
20 Comments
like red cabbage and sour grass, following the instructions in The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes: Personalize Your Craft with Organic Colors from Acorns, Blackberries, Coffee, and Other Everyday Ingredients by Sasha Duerr. It’s a gorgeous little book and very inspirational–we’ll see if the instructions work. Part the Second: I will apply these dyes to fabric using shibori techniques. Shibori is the art of dying fabric using p...

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Saturday Linkages: Naked Gardening, Ticks, Walking in LA and Eating Giant Rats

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
7 Comments
Couple gets booted out of the first world naked gardening day. Watch out for the nettles . . . World naked gardening day–May 4: http://www.wngd.org [Editors note: NSFW and no we won't be participating in WNGD, but I once saw a neighbor doing so while I was walking our dog a few years ago.] Making Things Paul Elkin, Maker of Many Things http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/04/paul-elkin-maker-of-many-things.html#.UYSMGz1dyX8.twitter...

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Grow the Soil

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
3 Comments
and soil-busting mix of clovers and legumes. Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply has a nice selection of annual cover crops here. We used their dryland mix to deal with the bad soil in our front yard and we’ll re-sow it again this fall. Cover crops send down roots that break up soil, with the legumes used to fix nitrogen–it’s a great way to amend a large area with almost no work involved. Here at Homegrown Evolution we don...

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Straw Bale Gardens

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
20 Comments
Tasha Via’s straw bale garden. Michael Tortorello (who profiled us when Making It came out) is one of my favorite writers covering the home ec/gardening subjects we discuss on this blog. He had an article last week in the New York Times, “Grasping at Straw” on straw bale gardening. We’ve very tempted to give the practice a try in our backyard. Why? We have lead and zinc contaminated soil so growing veggies in the ground...

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Allium ursinum

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
1 Comment
thrives in moist, acidic soil–forest conditions, in other words. In short, not appropriate for our climate in Los Angeles, but folks in the northwest might consider planting some. Like all members of the Allium species it’s toxic to dogs, but we’ve never had a problem with our dog eating onions (he prefers raiding our avocado tree and tomato bushes for illicit snacks). Special thanks to Steve Rowell of the Center for Land Use I...

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Photo Tour of the Root Simple Compound

Mr. Homegrown
Design
16 Comments
New, as yet unnamed, kitten enjoying homebrew. Photo by Emily Ho for re-nest. In case you’ve tired of the continuous coverage of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, how about a look at ours? Writer and photographer Emily Ho sure did a nice job putting together a photo tour of our crib over at re-nest in a post entitled “Kelly and Erik’s Urban Farm.” Funny, when I look at our house I see all the work I have left to...

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A Declaration of Independence

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract What follows will be a practical guide to urban homesteading. In our troubled times, it would seem prudent to have a “plan B” in the event our modern conveniences should temporarily cease. Besides, by learning to “DIY”, you’ll cease to be part of the fat, pathetic, SUV driving, “American Idol”...

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The Homegrown Mailbox: How and Where Do I Get My Soil Tested?

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
9 Comments
appy to take the letters from Kevin, the horse poop for compost and try our best. Here’s one question we get a lot: Q: Y’all know where I can get my soil tested? I’ve started HUGE garden in my side yard and it just occurred to me that it is where people used to park their cars. I’m concerned about Oil or other pollutants from the cars that might still be in the soil. Any experience with this? Can I test without it costing...

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The Three Sisters

Mr. Homegrown
Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening
3 Comments
lding inspectors reviewing our expensive foundation work nobody seems to care about the two large raised beds we installed. In fact one of our neighbors has planted her own parkway vegetable garden just down the street. Since it was so late (July) we decided to cultivate heat tolerant vegetables and upped the ante by planting the Native American three sisters–corn, beans and squash. The three sisters are textbook permaculture, the idea bein...

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