Saturday Linkages: Let’s Make Chickens Legal in Pasadena!

Let’s really make backyard hens legal in Pasadena CA!  Gardening Preventing the heartbreak of splayage: http://ow.ly/1RN6pB Uli Westphal’s Ripening Tomatoes http://greenroofgrowers.blogspot.com/2013/01/uli-westphals-ripening-tomatoes.html#.UQxX3qqq5vY.twitter … The Wild, the Domesticated, and the Coyote-Tainted http://j.mp/14EAlz6  Design Tiny Apartment in Soho/Insanely Well Designed http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/01/t...

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Mosaics

Above is a table the Kelly and I made many years ago with glass mosaic tile. We copied a portion of an ancient Roman mosaic depicting sea life. It took about 40 hours of painstaking work. We still have a box of glass tile sitting in the garage and I’m thinking about breaking up the ugly concrete patio in the back yard and doing some mosaics. Kelly is less than enthused about this for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it will...

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Lady Urine, Water Conservation and Halfway Humanure

I approve of the oval shape of the opening of this funnel– and the sporty color. Fact 1: Human urine is an excellent source of nitrogen for your garden. It can be applied directly to a compost pile, or diluted 10:1 and used on plants. Fact 2: Nature has equipped the male of the species in such a manner that it is easy for him to contribute nitrogen to the compost pile. For women, it’s a bit more tricky. So, how do ladies give back to...

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Basil all winter long

Mrs. Homegrown here: Basil is a summer plant. When the nights get cold, basil turns unhappy. It yellows and loses flavor. Here in LA that doesn’t happen until quite late in the year. Erik just pulled out our summer basil a couple of days ago to make room for winter plants. I’m replacing it–in a culinary sense–with Italian parsley, which loves cool weather, but hates the heat. It seems our gardening year swings between...

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Introducing Lora Hall

...s (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 purslane, tomatoes, tomatillos as well as a selection of fruit trees appropriate for our warm climate. In the LA area an...

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Comrades

AfriGadget Alt Building Blog Another Roadside Attraction Autonomy Acres Avi Solomon Back to Basics Homestead Backwards Beekeepers Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Blog Bikejuju BLD in MT Build It Solar Blog ClubOrlov Coco’s Variety Store Collected Quotidian CoMo Homestead Deaf Dogs and Gnomes Dinosaurs and Robots Dirt Time DIY From Scratch Dornob Dough on the Go! Dude Craft Elon Schoenholz Faultline Farm Five Gallon Ideas Food in Jars Garden R...

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Saturday Linkages: Tall Bikes, Za’atar and So Much More

, a yard in Africa: # JoeMinter and 400 years of African-American history: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/garden/joe-minters-african-village-in-america.html?ref=garden … pic.twitter.com/qx07xlvDa4 Bikin’ Here’s what it feels like to ride a 14.5-foot-tall bike http://grist.org/list/heres-what-it-feels-like-to-ride-a-14-5-foot-tall-bike/#.UXl2JmJoeY0.twitter … Bikesnob on self driving cars: http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2013/04/this-jus...

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SUSTAINABLE LA @ Farmlab/Under Spring

...omething from the Wolfpack Hustle kids. From the announcement: Sustainable LA is a celebration of Angelinos engaged in the green revolution. The one-hour program consists of short films on a variety of topics including urban gardening, environmental awareness and community activism. In keeping with the grassroots nature of many of these organizations, emphasis is on issues awareness, practical information exchange and hands-on participation....

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Homemade Cat Toys

...hing else. And I don’t mean genuine novelty–they don’t need newer and stranger toys all the time. Rather, individual toys seem to get stale for them. A fresh paper bag is thrilling, but by the end of the day it’s old news. However, if you put another paper bag down, even the exact same kind of bag, the thrills will start all over again. If you try to fulfill their whims by buying them new toys all the time, soon your pocke...

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