Search Results for: label/urban farming/page/4/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

438 results

The High Cost of Golf

Mr. Homegrown
Lawns, Thoughtstylings
14 Comments
le to trace Tiger Woods wannabe. We circled back to the club house to file a report with the manager of the course and begin the long tedious process of settling the insurance claims. So what does this have to do with urban homesteading? A lot. It’s time for another anti-golf rant. Here are my problems with golf (especially municipal golf courses): 1. The colossal mis-allocation of land. Wouldn’t a lot more people benefit from a lar...

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Shamelessly Tooting Our Own Horn

Mr. Homegrown
Fitness
1 Comment
Unfortunately for the sedentary out there this new urban homesteading lifestyle involves a fair amount of physical fitness. We’ve found that the best way to keep up with SurviveLA’s strenuous fitness requirements is to have a goal such as a race, or a particularly difficult hike. This is why we’ve been obsessed over the years with the Ketchum Downtown YMCA’s oddball Stair Climb to the Top which involves a heart-pounding a...

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It’s Elementary

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
4 Comments
I’m writing another article for Urban Farm Magazine, this time on elementary school gardens. If you have a hand in running or organizing an elementary school garden, outside of California, send me an email at [email protected] I need another interview or two, though I can’t guarantee I’ll talk to everyone. I took the picture above at a volunteer work day at the 24th Street Elementary School in the West Adams d...

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Bee Fever in Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
7 Comments
Photo: Honey Love. This week’s LA Weekly has an article, “Could LA Become a Honeybee Mecca” detailing efforts by two groups, Honey Love and the Backwards Beekeepers, to legalize beekeeping in Los Angeles. The process, while slow, looks promising thanks to the hard work of Honey Love and sympathetic city councilman Bill Rosendahl. The article also neatly sums up the radical “backwards” approach to beekeeping advocate...

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EDC Part I: Multi-tool and Knife

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
15 Comments
Photo by Jonas Bergsten Your “everyday carry” or EDC is whatever you always have on hand–everything from your multi-tool to your cellphone to your credit cards. And, as it turns out, entire websites detail the fetishistic search for the Platonic ideal EDC. I especially like the EDC porn on everyday-carry.com. In part I of our EDC review I’m going to describe my multi-tool which I’ve worn on my belt everywhe...

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Birds on a Wire

Mr. Homegrown
Domesticus
10 Comments
A neighbor told me this morning that when the house next door to him was for sale the owners asked him not to hang laundry on his clothesline because it would, “bring down their property value.” And, of course, many housing developments have the same anti-clothesline restriction. Is it some distant cultural memory of 19th century tenement buildings, an id-based Ralph Kramden, an intense fear of anything urban? Maybe this clever desi...

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Five Lessons We Learned About Lead in Soil

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead
18 Comments
As regular followers of this blog may recall, we did some soil tests last year that revealed elevated levels of lead and zinc in our backyard. The cause? Most likely, paint from our 92 year old house and nearly a hundred years of auto exhaust and dust from brake linings. Applying a little alchemy to turn lead to gold, I think the most productive thing I can do is to help get the word out about lead soil and how common this problem is in urban a...

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Keeping Chickens by Ashley English

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens, Reviews
RLeave a comment
It’s about time someone got around to writing this book. The people have been demanding a concise, clearly illustrated guide to raising chickens for eggs in urban and suburban situations and Ashley English has delivered the goods with Keeping Chickens All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock . You may remember Ashley from our first, and so far only, Homegrown Evolution podcast. Keeping Chickens covers breeds, how to get chi...

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Free Permaculture Class

Mr. Homegrown
Permaculture
RLeave a comment
Today SurviveLA passes on an announcement for a free permaculture class taking place tomorrow – hope to see some of you there: The next Free Introduction to Permaculture Class Place: Audubon Center at Debs Park (http://www.audubon-ca.org/debs_park.htm)4700 North Griffin Ave.Los Angeles, CA 90031(323) 221-2255 Date: Sat Dec. 2nd 2006 Time: 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM We are living on a planet in crisis; often individuals feel powerless to effe...

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Why Did We Change Our Name?

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
18 Comments
m. “Everything changes and nothing remains still …. and … you cannot step twice into the same stream.” as Hereclitus says. The publishing and blogging world is getting a bit crowded in the “urban homesteading” category. It’s time to expand the conversation and explore some new home ec related topics. We don’t want to become stale. Having a new book coming out later this spring, Making It: Radical Ho...

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