Non-Toxic Cleaning for the Home

...Bronner’s products, both the soap and Sal Suds, are very concentrated. The label famously says “Dilute! Dilute!” and they aren’t kidding. So while a bottle of Bronner’s might seem pricey, one bottle will last a long time if used properly. Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap is widely distributed, and can be found at Target and Trader Joe’s and some regular grocery stores as well as health food stores. Sal Suds is more likely to be found only at health food...

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SIPS and Kraut at Project Butterfly

...our community and our planet. Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of The Urban Homestead, have become increasingly interested in the concept of urban sustainability since moving to Los Angeles in 1998. In that time, they’ve slowly converted their 1920 hilltop bungalow into a mini-farm, and along the way have explored the traditional home arts of baking, pickling, bicycling and brewing, chronicling all their activities on their blog Homegrown Evo...

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Why Urban Farm?

...r total up to four. Such are the cycles of life and death on the new urban homestead. Bryan Welch, who raises livestock and is also the publisher and editor of the always informative Mother Earth News, wrote an editorial in the February issue called “Why I Farm” in which he says, “There’s a Buddhist wisdom in the stockman’s cool compassion. The best of them seem to understand that our own lives on this Earth are as irrefutably temporary as the liv...

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The Brooklyn Bee

...Pesticides are the crutch of the lazy, and it’s time for us all to figure out better, more enlightened forms of agriculture in order to save the industrious and essential bee. And it’s time for more urban beekeepers like John Howe. Pay a visit to his website and blog and buy a jar of his honey if you find yourself in Brooklyn....

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So Much Poultry, So Little Time

.... -Someone needs to put together an urban version of the 4-H club to bring urban agriculture programs to the inner city. Maybe it’s already been done, but from what I’ve been told urban 4-H clubs are all about nutrition, science fairs, and maybe training guide dogs. Kids desperately need contact with nature and animals. Let’s grow some food! But we may need to hippify the uniforms a bit . . . -When the economy hits the skids people start thinking...

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