Gardening in an Apartment Windowsill

July 12, 2008

...controls or the weight of the food harvested. It’s about a love for beauty, an attention to detail and an appreciation of good food. Imagine if all our unused or neglected urban spaces were as beautiful and useful as Helen’s garden. We’d live in a world transformed, one windowsill at a time....

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Native Plant Workshop

Mr. Homegrown

February 4, 2009

Events, Native Plants

3 Comments

...birds, butterflies and hummingbirds. With only 4% of our wild lands left, urban and suburban native plant gardens will be the “make or break” difference to the support and preservation of bio-diversity. Lisa will show and tell you about several varieties of native plants as well as provide samples for sale. Immediately after the lecture in the garden we will be conducting a tour of the house to show and tell you about green products and renovatio...

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In Praise of Disorder

Mr. Homegrown

March 29, 2008

Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

...club presents just the right level of civic inattention to allow the urban homesteader to get away with many of the illegal projects profiled in this blog: greywater, backyard poultry, and front yard vegetable gardening, to mention just a few. Ideally you have a balance between order and disorder–neither gunfire nor the prying eyes of city inspectors. Where I’m staying in Houston, with its flocks of loose chickens, packs of feral dogs, and broken...

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Waking up on New Year’s Day with the world of long crowing roosters

Mr. Homegrown

January 1, 2009

Animals, Chickens

9 Comments

Now I’m not suggesting these guys for urban situations, but New Year’s Day seems an appropriate moment to survey the world of long crowing roosters. According to poultry expert Gail Damerow, writing in the current issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine, long crowers probably have their origins in Japan and have spread throughout the world through deliberate selection. Here’s a play list for your listening pleasure, consisting of a Turkish long crowin...

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Make Your Own Damn Cheese

Mr. Homegrown

February 7, 2007

Food, Recipes

10 Comments

...tried using regular milk and it’s a crap shoot–sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t even with the calcium chloride. Milk labeled “ultra-pasteurized” will definitely not work. Now pasteurization is for wimps and worry warts. All of the tainted milk scares in the past few years have been with pasteurized milk. Those factory farm dairy cow concentration camps out there that produce most of the milk in this country figure that they don’t have...

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