A Year after The Age of Limits: 5 Responses to the End Times

...quo as a given. This is what I call The Crappening. Which is not to be confused with a Happening, which would be more fun. I’m a child of the 70’s. I graduated college during the last recession. I’ve always been aware of the downward slide, and suspicious of the various booms and bubbles which have sustained the economy throughout my adult life. I feel that we as a nation have overdrawn our account in so many ways–financial, social, environmental,...

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The High Cost of Golf

...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 large community garden instead of a golf course? Most people in Los Angeles and many other big cities live in apartments and don’t have any space to grow their own foo...

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Toggler Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty Toggle Bolts

...screen TV so large that you have to strap it to the top of the car. Urban homesteady types would never do this as we prefer to spend our evenings spinning wool while reading Cicero to each other, of course. But let’s just say (again, hypothetically), that you want to mount that flat screen TV to the wall so that the cats can’t knock it over. This is where the Toggler Snaptoggle® bolts come in. To use them you drill a 1/2″ hole and insert the meta...

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Native Plant Workshop

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

...garden in my side yard and it just occurred to me that it is where people used to park their cars. I’m concerned about Oil or other pollutants from the cars that might still be in the soil. Any experience with this? Can I test without it costing an arm and leg? J.R., Los Angeles A: See my updated response here. [Note update at bottom of this post!] There’s basically two groups of things to test for: contaminants and soil nutrient levels. There ar...

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