Search Results for: label/trees/page/4/2011/04/making-it

456 results

About Us

Root Simple is Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, authors of The Urban Homestead (Expanded and Revised Edition): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (2008) and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (2011).  They live in the heart of Los Angeles, in a little bungalow set on a 1/12 acre lot where almost all of their land is devoted to growing edible or otherwise useful plants and trees. Their obsessions include...

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Press

...m in the heart of Los Angeles. They are the keepers of the popular DIY blog, Root Simple, and the authors of The Urban Homestead (2008), which the New York Times calls “…the contemporary bible on the subject” and Making It (2011) a project book for post-consumer society. In addition to their writing and blogging, Kelly and Erik teach and speak on the topics of self-reliance, urban gardening and sustainability. Other Info: Contact us: roots...

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Introducing Lora Hall

Mr. Homegrown
Events
4 Comments
...at Cal Poly Pomona. Her master’s work involves the use of vermicomposting to break down a variety of materials (maybe we can get her to explain this!). You can meet Lora in person and pick up some seedlings and fruit trees at the Highland Park farmer’s market (map) where she runs a booth with Trisha Mazure every Tuesday from 3 to 8 pm. When we visited her at the market last week Lora had a bunch of interesting plants including purs...

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Urban Homesteading Thing Catching On

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
25 Comments
I have a Google alert set up for the phrase “urban homestead”. Lately I’ve noticed more real estate and apartment listings using this phrase. Our neighbors Anne and Bill even used it to rent out their duplex. A rental listing that includes the photos in this post came from a real estate concern renting out an apartment in Edmonton, Canada. For $1,600 Canadian dollars a month you get:  hot water on demand system.  sunroom has...

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Coffee Chaff Chickens

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Composting
14 Comments
A hen checks out her fluffy new digs: coffee chaff bedding Image shamelessly stolen from Lyanda Haupt’s Tangled Nest blog Mrs. Homegrown here: Deep litter in the chicken coop is good for chicken health, general aesthetics and good neighbor relations. Chickens need to scratch, so giving them lots of stuff to scratch is kind. It also absorbs odor and protects stray eggs from breakage. Even better, their constant scratching combines their...

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The CDFA’s Pesticide Theater

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests, Thoughtstylings
13 Comments
In the fall of 2009 a citrus pest called the Asian Citrus Psylid showed up in our neighborhood. It’s a major concern to commercial citrus growers since the pest spreads an incurable and fatal plant disease called huanglongbing (HLB). The California Department of Food and Agriculture commenced a futile effort to suppress the psylid by hiring a contractor, TruGreen, to spray residential backyards in Southern California with a combination o...

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Resilient Gardens

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
17 Comments
The other day I was reading a message board where people from all over were talking about how their gardens had done this year. Most of them had trouble, and most of them blamed the strange weather. Now, of course, we can’t know the weather was truly to blame in each and every failure–but temperature shifts, unseasonable heat and cool do play havoc in the garden.  It got me to thinking about climate change and how gardeners mi...

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Sources for Interesting Perennial Crops

Mr. Homegrown
Fruit Trees, Gardening, Permaculture
17 Comments
...ennials, this would be the place to start. Hop Roots – where to get them…  Hoptacular! A list of hops nurseries from the Oregon State Hops Commision. Also note that the USDA maintains a huge collection of fruit trees, nut trees and many other crops at thirty-two federally funded repositories around the United States. At least one of those facilities, the National Clonal Germplasm Repository for Fruit and Nut Crops in Davis, CA, wil...

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Let’s Democratize Permaculture

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
9 Comments
When I heard that Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) has the number one country album, I fell into a dark spiral of despair. Isn’t this a clear sign of the end of the American empire? But wait, won’t permaculture save us from this petrochemical fueled Miley Cyrus soundtracked nightmare? Don’t hold your breath. It might be awhile before everyone’s front yard is full of perennial vegetables and Merle Haggard is back on FM rad...

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December Homegrown Evolution Events

Mr. Homegrown
Events
2 Comments
Bread Making If you’re in the Southern California area, come on down to Good Magazine’s splashy digs for a bread making demo we’ll be doing on Monday December 15th at 12:30 p.m. We’ll be showing how to bake our favorite wild yeast bread (in our book and on our website here). Come at 11:30 a.m. and catch our organic gardening pals at Silver Lake Farms do a talk on winter vegetable crops. Stick around for puppets! Good Mag...

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