Search Results for: label/water conservation/page/30/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

677 results

More Thoughts on Garlic

Homegrown Neighbor
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
12 Comments
Homegrown Neighbor here: So Mrs. Homegrown’s post the other day about their not so successful garlic season this year inspired me to weigh in with some of my own garlic observations. I recall having a conversation with Mr. Homegrown around the time we both planted our garlic in November. I selected three heirloom varieties to grow at a job site and I plopped a few extra cloves into my own garden. Mr. Homegrown said, “You can’...

Continue reading…

Advances in Gardening Series: The Fan

Mrs. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening, Herbal Medicine, Herbs
6 Comments
Yet another heat wave slowed our backyard redesign project, but the weather is looking more cooperative at last and things are coming along. What we thought we might do over the next few days is share some of the new things we’ve put in, and how/why we built them, just in case any of it might be useful to you. Everything is pretty rough and ragged right now, but it will be fun to report back in a couple months and do a compare/contrast. T...

Continue reading…

Supper for a buck?

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food
16 Comments
Recently someone asked me how much it cost us to make a loaf of no-knead bread. I had no idea, but was intrigued by the question, so I went home and did the math on the flour. We buy our flour in bulk from fine company called Central Milling through the Los Angeles Bread Baker’s Club. A 50lb bag of general purpose flour costs $30.00. This works out less per pound than the cheap-0 flour at the supermarket. We actually go through so much fl...

Continue reading…

Fallen Fruit

Mr. Homegrown
Events, Food, Foraging, Gardening
2 Comments
Homegrown Revolution tagged along on a neighborhood tour with the beige jump-suit clad fruit foraging collective known as Fallen Fruit. Our capable guides, David Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young, led a group of well over fifty folks through a hilly part of Silver Lake just above the 99 cent store in search of street grown loquats, (in great abundance right now) kumquats, oranges, lemons, bananas, carob trees and more. We all ended up bac...

Continue reading…

Greeks Go Back to the Land

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Thoughtstylings
11 Comments
In today’s New York Times there’s an article about Greeks returning to the land and reclaiming practical skills in the wake of their financial crisis. Well worth a read: With Work Scarce in Athens, Greeks Go Back to the Land “I will take the rock in my hand and squeeze it, and with the water that comes out of it, I’ll make pilaf to feed my daughter. We’ll manage.”...

Continue reading…

Ridiculous New Parkway Planting Rules for Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
6 Comments
Neatly mowed bermuda grass and weeds–no permit required! The city of Los Angeles just announced new guidelines for parkway plantings. The new rules allow residents can plant ten different species of drought tolerant turf alternatives in addition to approved street trees and drought tolerant turf species. It sounds great . . . until you read the fine print. Those drought tolerant turf alternatives, which include chamomile, yarrow...

Continue reading…

Growing Chayote

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening
11 Comments
On our morning dog walk Giovanni, one of our neighbors, kindly gave us a pair of fresh chayote off of his backyard vine which covers a trellis over his carport. Giovanni has wisely intertwined the chayote with an equally prodigious passion fruit vine making for a combo that produces many pounds of fruit all summer long. Chayote (Sechium edule), for those not in the know, is a wonder plant of the gourd family hailing from Mexico and Central Ameri...

Continue reading…

More Nettle Love: Nettle Infusion

Mrs. Homegrown
Foraging, Herbal Medicine, Herbs
3 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: It’s nettle appreciation week here at Homegrown Evolution. Inspired by Homegrown Neighbor’s post, I thought I’d throw in my own two cents about nettles. First, it’s one of my favorite plants. Its nutritional profile is outstanding. In fact, it’s one of the most nutritionally dense foods available. It’s a rich source of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, vitamins, chlorophyll–the...

Continue reading…

Dr. Chase, 19th Century Mixologist

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food, Recipes
1 Comment
flammation of the Lungs, and other Inflammatory Diseases, and also for General Female Debility and Irregularities: All arranged in their Appropriate Departments. There’s certainly many recipes of interest to the modern homesteader, not to mention artisinal mixologists, in this book: rhubarb wine, bitters, spruce beers and “Lemonade–To Carry in the Pocket”: Loaf sugar1lb.; rub it down finely in a mortar, and add citric aci...

Continue reading…

Shiitake Happens

Mr. Homegrown
Mushrooms
11 Comments
Well, actually, shiitake doesn’t happen. It’s back to the drawing board for our first experiment in mushroom growing. We ordered a kit and dutifully followed the directions, but a combination of high temperatures and too much or too little water resulted in the result you see above, what looks like a cake with a skin disease. And even if we got a crop the cost of the kit was too high to make the process economical. The kit came pre-...

Continue reading…