Search Results for: label/urban farming/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

386 results

The Sacred Chickens of Ancient Rome

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
6 Comments
overboard saying, “Let them drink, since they won’t eat.” Elektra Tig also found a drawing of a sacred chicken coop just in case some of you are looking for coopatecture inspiration: Maybe some of us urban homesteader types can put together a flock of sacred chickens for the US senate. By Jove, it would probably work better than whatever means of projection they are currently using. Update: Michael Pigneguy left a link on Face...

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The Three Sisters

Mr. Homegrown
Permaculture, Vegetable Gardening
3 Comments
Due to the rigors of finishing our book The Urban Homesteader due out from Process Media next spring we were late getting around to planting our parkway vegetable garden. To review, the parkway is that space between the sidewalk and the street that belongs to the city but is the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain. The city, of course, wants us all to plant a lawn so that fat people can easily plop out of their Escalades unimpeded. We de...

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We’ve taken the flowers out of our hair

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bikes, Chickens, Thoughtstylings
4 Comments
Homegrown Revolution is back from San Francisco with a couple of random observations from our trip: 1. The picture above of a gas cap spotted in the Mission District demonstrates, that even in a bike and mass transit friendly city many folks take their cars a little too seriously. Let’s remember folks, we suspect that Jesus rides two wheels and takes the bus and does indeed look anguished every time we open the gas cap. 2. We took our bike...

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

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil
9 Comments
When you write a book you get questions. In our case, due to the sinking economy in California, they are delivered by Kevin Costner on horseback rather than by email or regular federal postal trucks. No problem, we like questions. A caveat here: like Nancy Klehm, the Green Roof Growers and Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, we prefer the term “practitioner” to describe what we do as opposed to “expert”. We favor experience o...

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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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On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
36 Comments
sign help. Oh, the humanity Fatigue and frustration–the double knockout punch of skunks and the hot weather left me on the ropes with little enthusiasm for ongoing gardening maintenance. Ego–forgetting that urban homesteading is not about self-sufficiency—to chase self-sufficiency is a fool’s errand. I should be happy just to have a few good salads and be thankful that I can buy good vegetables at a local farmer’s market. I don...

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On Living in Los Angeles Without a Car: A Debate

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, Transportation
30 Comments
Photo by Sarah Sulaiman LAStreetsblog.org. Walkin’ in L.A., nobody walks in L.A. Walkin’ in L.A. Walkin’ in L.A., only a nobody walks in L.A. - Missing Persons Erik: It’s been nearly two months since a texting video producer totaled the car that Kelly and I shared: a 1993 teal Acura Integra hatchback. Except for a few car rentals, we haven’t been doing much driving. In short, we get to claim the olive wreath of...

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Homegrown Revolution at the Alt-Car Expo

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes
RLeave a comment
Homegrown Revolution will be making an appearance at the Alt-Car expo this Saturday October 20th at 10:30 a.m. to pimp for the bicycle as an alternative to the electric and ethanol cars crowding the improvised showroom at the Santa Monica Airport. We’ll be joined on a panel discussion by Jennifer Klausner of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition and Joseph Linton of Livable Places. The panel is entitled “Getting out of the BoxR...

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Aerated Compost Tea: Does it Work?

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
15 Comments
There’s a lot aerated compost tea brewers on the interwebs! I’ve been asked by Urban Farm Magazine to write a short piece on the pros and cons of aerated compost tea (ACT for short). I’ve been sifting through the peer reviewed literature on the subject. Most of the studies show, at best, mixed results. And, honestly, my bias is against gardening techniques that require gadgets or novel techniques with no analog in nature. I...

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Till vs. No-Till

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil, Vegetable Gardening
31 Comments
A 3-D view of tilling in Russia c1915 My post on lasagna gardening, which linked to a brief article by horticulture professor Linda Chalker-Scott seems to have opened a can of worms, so to speak.  Two issues came up in the comments on my post: the wisdom of using cardboard in a lasagna mulch and the pros and cons of double digging/tilling. Let’s address them in separate blog posts, beginning here with double digging/tilling. Ther...

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