Search Results for: label/water conservation

360 results

Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
7 Comments
Via Afrigadget, a visual explanation of how to disinfect water with just a PET plastic bottle. The diagram, developed by Unicef, pretty much speaks for itself. Too much gunk in the water? Let it settle and filter through some cloth. At least six hours of sunlight will be enough UV to kill bad buggies. Using solar water disinfection, or “SODIS”, replaces the need to boil water, thus reducing deforestation to supply fire wood. Obviousl...

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Dry Farming

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation
19 Comments
Jethro Tull–the agriculturalist not the rock flutist According to a 2010 report by Ceres “Water Risk in the Municipal Bond Market,” Los Angeles ranks number one in water supply risk. But we’re not alone. Many other US cities including Atlanta, Phoenix and Dallas also face a future of water insecurity. Due to these water risks we’d all do well to consider ways to grow edibles without supplemental irrigation....

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Salvia Means Salvation: White Sage

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs, Native Plants
18 Comments
...r the smoke, you should burn a single leaf, and pray while you do it. She said that white sage should never be burned thoughtlessly, like incense, because it is their most sacred plant. A better use for white sage is in your water bottle.  Cecilia recommended that we (the class, aka people with interest in plant healing) drop a single white sage leaf (dry or fresh) into our water bottles and so drink a bit of its essence every day. She uses does...

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Bucket Flushing

Mr. Homegrown
Water Conservation
4 Comments
SurviveLA is researching greywater systems and today we’ve got our first tip on recycling your water. First a definition. Greywater is the waste water that comes out of your shower, sinks, and washing machine. Blackwater is the icky stuff that comes out of your toilet and because of the risk of contamination it should not be reused. For now we’ll lump the kitchen sink in with the toilet since food scraps, particularly for meat eaters...

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Make a Sourdough Starter

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Fermentation, Food, Recipes
24 Comments
Every damn urban homesteader ought to have a sourdough starter living on their countertop. It’s easy and here’s how we do it around the Homegrown Evolution compound: 1. Get yourself a glass or ceramic container with a lid. It should be able to hold at least three to four cups of starter. Don’t use metal. 2. Put into this container one cup of white flour and one cup of lukewarm water and stir until mixed. Put it in a warm place....

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A Fast Bean Friday: Khichdi

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
6 Comments
...our go-to “fast foods” around here. It cooks up in about a half hour, and you don’t even have to stand by the stove for that half hour. You just saute up the spices, add the rice, lentils chopped veggies and water, put a lid on the skillet and walk away. It’s also a great way to use up vegetable odds-and-ends. You can throw just about anything in there, and the great khichdi magic will make it all work, somehow or another....

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Strange brew: herbal steam for a chest cold and sinus pain

Mrs. Homegrown
Domesticus, Herbal Medicine, Herbs
13 Comments
...ience. My new best friend in this experience is my steaming pot-o-herbs. Most folks know that you can inhale steam to ease congestion, whether that be in a hot shower, a steam room or by tenting a towel over a bowl of boiling water. What I’m going to talk about here is the bowl technique, tricked up by spiking the water with powerful healing herbs. My inspiration came from the book by well-known herb expert, Stephen Harrod Buhner called He...

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Hay Boxes or Fireless Cookers

Mrs. Homegrown
Appropriate Technology, Food, Preparedness, Water and Power
23 Comments
...food into, and leave it all day (or all night) to finish cooking. It’s the forerunner of the crockpot. This cooking technique isn’t limited to hay boxes. The same concept is used by people who put oats and boiling water into a Thermos at bedtime and enjoy the finished oatmeal in the morning, or by campers who wrap their sleeping bags around a cooking pot so they’ll have hot food when they get back to camp. As far as I can tell,...

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No-Knead Artisinal Bread Part I

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food, Recipes
11 Comments
...ore. In the meantime, this is the general way I’ve been baking. All the mixing and first fermentation can take place in a plastic tub or large bowl. 1. The night before I mix my dough I take some starter, add flour and water to create the “levain”. Starter is made by mixing dough and water and letting nature do her thing. I’ll blog about the process in detail in a future post. Right now I’m working with a starter t...

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Planting a Mini-Orchard

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation
2 Comments
...as also an unnecessary step. While I have a clay soil, the hillside drains fairly well. A properly sized mulch basin should suffice to allow greywater to infiltrate. Also, the new generation of washing machines use a lot less water than the old one that I still have. Other than the unnecessary bucket and the persimmon tree (died, for some unknown reason) this greywater application has worked very well. Our fruit trees are lush and happy. With th...

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