Search Results for: label/water conservation/page/35/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

802 results

Comopost, Compost, Compost

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
As if I didn’t need a reminder of how important compost is to a vegetable garden, note the tomato above. It’s on its way out, but it grew with no supplemental water in hard-packed clay soil contaminated with lead and zinc in a hot side yard. Why did it do well while the rest of my vegetable garden did not do as so good this summer? Homemade compost. I didn’t have enough compost for the rest of the veggie garden so I bought som...

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Rainwater Harvesting and Beyond

Mr. Homegrown
rainwater harvesting, Water and Power, Water Conservation
4 Comments
If you live in a dry climate like we do here in Los Angeles your bookshelf should have a copy of one of Brad Lancaster’s amazing books. Through very simple techniques, most of which can be executed with a shovel and a free afternoon, Lancaster shows you how to turn a barren landscape into a Garden of Eden. Lancaster empasizes earthworks which capture and channel water where you want it to go, instead of uselessly sending it down the gutter...

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No garden space? Check this out

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening
3 Comments
Follow this link to the Eastsider blog for a little profile piece on a man raising crops in a median strip. This is exactly what we should all be doing. Well, except maybe standing in traffic to water–if at all avoidable–but I do tip my hat to this intrepid fellow gardener. There’s so much wasted space in this city. Yesterday Erik and I were walking down the sidewalk, admiring a flat stretch of dry, weedy ground betwixt sidewal...

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A Tour of the Homegrown Evolution Compound

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
7 Comments
It’s about damn time we gave an overall tour of the Homegrown Evolution digs, at least to dispel some misconceptions out there (more on those at the end of the post). Let’s begin with the front yard, pictured above. Our house sits up about 30 steps from the street level. Running the laundry water out to the front (using Oasis Biocompatible Detergent), has really made the plants happy. The front yard has a mix of prickly pear cactus,...

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Urine as a Fertilizer

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
17 Comments
available (at least after a night of beer drinking) alternative to organic nitrogen fertilizers such as blood meal. We’ve got a perpetual nitrogen deficiency in our vegetable beds and I hate buying industrial ag sourced items like blood meal. Urine is a great alternative. To use urine in the garden you’ve got to dilute it with water, at least ten to one. Straight urine will burn your plants. Thankfully we don’t worry about our s...

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Essential System #5 – First Aid Kit

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
2 Comments
urs for a distracted and overworked doctor. Which is why, once again, we’ve relied on the world of mountaineering to inform our choice of first aid supplies. The assumption with a first aid kit in the wilderness is that it will be quite a while before you can be reached by a paramedic. But first some disclaimers – we are not medical experts here, and this first aid kit is in a “first draft” status. We welcome any suggestio...

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Compost Rebuttal

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Gardening
35 Comments
Kelly’s secret compost pile. I found out via a blog post last week that Kelly had secretly constructed a compost pile to deal with a surplus of kitchen scraps. She knew I’d be unhappy with this due to my anal retentive approach to composting. So why am I unhappy with this pile? The reason is simple: it’s too small and will never generate enough heat to: Kill weed seeds. Kill human and plant pathogens. Kill root nemat...

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A Rocket Stove Made From a Five Gallon Metal Bucket

Mr. Homegrown
Appropriate Technology, Design, How-to, Rocket Stove, Water and Power
83 Comments
The principle behind a rocket stove is simple–rather than cooking on an open fire, you burn wood in an insulated chimney. Rocket stoves are highly efficient and easy to make. They run on twigs, so you can avoid cutting down a whole tree just to cook dinner. We’ve had a rocket stove made out of brick in our backyard for several years. The post we wrote on it in 2007 is–oddly–the most frequently searched post on this site....

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Saturday Linkages: Keeping It Cool

Mr. Homegrown
Saturday Linkages
2 Comments
Watering the roof. One of the low-tech home cooling tips on the Build It Solar Blog. Tiny Home in Italy made out of pallets http:// bit.ly/NGWlPS Build-It-Solar Blog: Cooling Without Power http://www. builditsolarblog.com/2012/07/coolin  … Build-It-Solar Blog: DIY Solar Water Heating for 7 Unit Apartment http://www. builditsolarblog.com/2012/07/diy-so  … Measure for Measure – Beth Schaleben’s Yardstick Table http:// bit.ly...

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Ridiculous New Parkway Planting Rules for Los Angeles

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
7 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...

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