Search Results for: label/uses for used tires/page/4/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

696 results

Testing the Lead Testers

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Lead, Soil
8 Comments
d us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment. We’re attempting to reconcile slightly different lead results from three different labs and I’d like to be able to write about soil testing methods. Two of the labs we sent samples off to (UMass and Timberleaf Soil Testing) use inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP) to test for lead. Wallace labs uses an extractant, AB-DTPA (ammonium bicarbonate Diethylene Triamine...

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Growing Strawberries in a Self Irrigating Gutter (SIG).

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Self Watering Containers
12 Comments
I got this idea from Larry Hall, who made a video showing how he uses gutters as self watering containers. In the first part of the video Larry shows how to use a gutter to supply water to a row of pots. In the second part he shows a two gutter strawberry growing system. I decided to build Hall’s self-irrigating gutter (let’s call it a SIG) to grow strawberries. Here’s how I did it: With some scrap wood I made a support system...

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The Vermont Sail Freight Project

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings, Transportation
7 Comments
Vermont farmer and baker Erik Andrus not only uses draft horses on his farm and to deliver baked goods, but also plans on reviving the lost art of shipping freight under sail power. Andrus has a Kickstarter going to fund the the consturction of a 39 foot sailing vesel, the “Ceres” which will carry 12 tons of rice and other shelf-stable goods from Ferrisburgh, Vermont to New York City. The Ceres is already under construction and is...

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Advances in Gardening Series: Thoughts on The Fan, and the problems of overabudance

Mrs. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
10 Comments
The Fan late in the season, about to be pulled out. See earlier photos of The Fan here. Mrs. Homegrown here: Last fall we dug up a sort of feral herb bed and replaced it with a more formal, three-part bed that I call The Fan. The idea is to use this bed to plant annual herbs and flowers. While some of these plants are medicinal, it is also a bed dedicated more to aesthetics than the rest of our garden, so it’s also a place where I...

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The Great Greywater Debate- PVC or Polyethylene?

Homegrown Neighbor
Water and Power, Water Conservation
18 Comments
PVC v. Polyethylene Homegrown Neighbor here. I’ve been wanting a greywater system for a long time. My old house does not exactly make access to the pipes easy, so I’m starting with just the washing machine. The neighbor, Mr. Homegrown, is anxious to try out a new design from Oasis. So we have been trying to get all the pieces and get it done- and here is where we get stuck. The system can either use polyethylene tubing or pvc. PVC...

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Gideon Lincecum Virtual Herbarium

Mrs. Homegrown
Herbs
1 Comment
–click to biggify– (If you still can’t read it, it says “Erigeron canadensis, the common hogsweed, bruise and press out the juice from the green plant and take it in tablespoonful dose as often as the stomach will bear, for bleeding lungs, bleeding from the stomach, bowels or womb. It is a powerful agent in stopping hemorrhage from any organ.”) Mrs. Homegrown here: Our friend Nancy gave us some salve made up o...

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Doing the doo-doo with you

Mr. Homegrown
Composting
4 Comments
Tim Dundon, also known as the “King of Compost” and “Guru of Doo-Doo”, dropped off a three cubic yard load of what he calls a “weapon of mass creation”–a fragrant mass of horse dropings and stable bedding. Dundon, who has a tendency to speak in rhymes and spontaneously break out into song, also left us with quite a load of his philosophy, spending an hour on our porch weaving a stream of consciousness r...

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Nasturtium Powder

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation, Foraging
15 Comments
Around this time of year Nasturtium becomes a kind of massive monocrop in our yard. We’re always trying to figure out uses for it. Of course it does well in salads, both the greens and the flowers, and we’ve made capers of the pods. Also, the flowers make a particularly beautiful pesto. But this year, inspired by the culinary experiments of forager Pascal Baudar and his partner Mia Wasilevich (friend them in Facebook if you want a d...

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Seltzer Works Doc Screens on PBS

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
5 Comments
Photo by Film First Co/ Ben Wolf Seltzer Works, a seven minute mini-documentary about one of the last seltzer fillers, Kenny Gomberg of Brooklyn, will screen Tuesday August 24th at 10 p.m. (check local listings) on PBS’s Point of View series. Filmmaker Jessica Edwards, directed this engaging short. Photo by Film First Co/ Ben Wolf The thick glass bottles Gomberg uses allow him to carbonate at much greater pressure than ei...

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