Search Results for: label/time management

494 results

The Barrier Method

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
6 Comments
Over the years we’ve lost countless plants to digging, chewing, trampling and sucking critters, mammals and insects both. We finally got smart. It makes sense to invest a little extra time and money to protect your crops and your livestock with physical barriers. This practice started sort of piecemeal around here, with us only exerting ourselves over particularly problem-prone situations. Nowadays protection is standard for every bed we p...

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Garden Amendments as Placebos

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil, Thoughtstylings
9 Comments
...s, though by entirely different (Eastern) means. As he put it, “The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.” I think we would do well to spend more time investigating the intersection of human consciousness and ecology in the years ahead. Our survival may depend on it. Now, as Marshall McLuhan was fond of saying, “If you don’t like that idea, I’ve got...

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Deodorizing Wash

Mrs. Homegrown
Body Care, Domesticus
4 Comments
...he shower. This is a little mix I created, a simple blend of water, baking soda and essential oil. It’s something you can splash on and towel off real quick when you’re in a hurry. I use it when I don’t have time to shower, but suspect I’m a little too fragrant. I also bring it camping to help reduce the fugg. The baking soda cuts through body grease and deodorizes. The tea tree oil kills any stinky bacteria that remain. T...

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Los Angeles Bread Bakers Blog

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food
RLeave a comment
Just a short time after planting–a field of wheat sprouts in Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles Bread Bakers, that I helped co-found along with Mark Stambler and Teresa Sitz, now has a blog: losangelesbreadbakers.blogspot.com. A big thanks to Saul Alpert-Abrams for putting it together and to Paul Morgan for blogging! Paul has been writing about the wheat we helped plant at Maggie’s Farm in Agoura Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles on t...

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Making Beer in Plain Language

Mr. Homegrown
Beer, Fermentation, Food
13 Comments
...ncouraging more folks to try this: 1. Slightly sprouted and roasted grains from a home brew shop (they’ve been sprouted and roasted for you) are soaked in hot water. 2. Music, courtesy of Triple Chicken Foot, kills some time while the grain steeps. 3. After soaking, the liquid is drained off and more hot water is added. The liquid pouring into the pot on the ground contains sugar from the grains. 4. The extracted sugars are boiled with some...

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The Perfect Chicken Coop?

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
7 Comments
...nts–I ran hardware cloth under run to keep out burrowing predators. I also extended the run to keep the chickens from pecking at each other (the more room they have the better). To paraphrase Nassim Taleb for the second time in a week, if a given design has been around for at least a hundred years, the odds are it will be around for many more years. While this particular arrangement may not work in all situations (mobile runs or “chic...

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Buddy Burner

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
8 Comments
...eded. To recharge the BB, place chunks of wax on top of the BB while it is burning. The wax will melt down and refuel it. The wax will always burn at a lower temperature than the cardboard, so the cardboard should last a long time. UPDATE – 7/1/08 Reader Michael writes: “Hey! I love your site. But some thoughts on Buddy Burners! I made SOOOO many of these as a kid growing up (Mormon, y’know?), but they are not safe anymore. Most...

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Fading into the Soft White

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Bees, Thoughtstylings
11 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: Honeybees congregate on our floating row covers to die. Every day, two, three, four or five will choose to land one last time on this billowing white fabric that covers one of our garden beds. There they will cling while their strength wanes, until they fall off to be lost in the mulch. I know worker bees don’t live very long. They work so hard that by the end of their lives, their wings hang in shreds. Their little b...

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Pee on your Compost

Mr. Homegrown
Composting
RLeave a comment
Judging from comments and our web statistics you people out there love discussing poo. So it’s about time that we move on to pee. Why waste your perfectly good urine? Indeed, both Ghandi and Jim Morrison drank their own urine for it’s reputed health benefits. But we ain’t gonna go there. Our suggestion for the day is to save that piss for your plants. Urine is a fantastic source of nitrogen and it’s estimated that we all...

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