Search Results for: label/weeds/page/7/2011/04/making-it

388 results

Mandrake!

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
2 Comments
grown Revolution suffered through the first film based on these kid̵7;s books on a transatlantic flight a few years ago, finally falling asleep during an endless video game inspired broom chase scene). Apparently wherever it appears in the world, mandrake (Atropa mandragora) has always inspired unusual beliefs. Buhner says, Though all indigenous cultures know that plants can speak with humankind, mandrake is almost the only plant from indige...

Continue reading…

Shameless Self Promotion, With Kitten

Mr. Homegrown
Events
12 Comments
We̵7;ve heard from several people that Making It is an excellent sleep aid. Just a reminder that our two books, Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World and The Urban Homestead make great holiday gifts. There̵7;s also a Kindle edition of both Making It andThe Urban Homestead if you̵7;re e-inclined. Even if you just click through our Amazon bookstore (on the right column) and don̵7;t buy any of our books, we...

Continue reading…

Bushcraft Video

Mrs. Homegrown
Appropriate Technology, Preparedness
21 Comments
...e other, ready to share their knowledge with you. And they are almost all men. I̵7;ve only found a couple of women who put their adventures on video. I̵7;m not sure why this is such a male dominated field, except that it is greatly fueled by the love of pointy implements and the display and discussion of such implements–which seems a very masculine past time. But that̵7;s generalizing, because I can attest that around our house,...

Continue reading…

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. It̵7;s easy and here̵7;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. Don̵7;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....

Continue reading…

Stirred, Not Shaken

Mr. Homegrown
Biodynamics, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
27 Comments
“Matter is never without spirit and spirit is never without matter.” – Rudolf Steiner This past weekend I had the good fortune of attending an amazing workshop in biodynamic gardening taught by master gardener Dory Rindge. For those of you unfamiliar with biodynamics, it̵7;s a system of agriculture based on the work of early 20th century philosopher and mystic Rudolf Steiner. In the 1920s, at just the point when chemical f...

Continue reading…

Doomsday Preppers: Exploitative, Uninteresting, Unreal “Reality”

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness, Thoughtstylings
25 Comments
Doomsday Preppers, a series on the National Geographic channel, is part of a cloud of meaningless cable drivel that envelopes our national psyche like the smog that hangs over Los Angeles. In many ways Doomsday Preppers is indistinguishable from countless other low rent reality TV shows. Does anyone really sit down and watch this endless parade of house flippers, dance moms and custom motorcycle enthusiasts? Or is it all a kind of background, t...

Continue reading…

How to Cycle Safely

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, How-to, Transportation
2 Comments
have a plan to either turn quickly or slam on the brakes. Avoid the door zone. There are rare exceptions when I will dip into the door zone briefly (only while going very slowly). But for the most part you should stay out of it. It is impossible to predict if a door will open. Lane positioning is an art not a science. It comes with experience. At any given spot on a road I might be further to the left or right depending on what time of day it is...

Continue reading…

Build Your Own Furniture

Mr. Homegrown
Design
5 Comments
We live in a 4 by 8 world. This is why we can̵7;t get all that excited about things like geodesic domes, straw bale and rammed earth houses. All of these innovative architectural ideas may have great potential, but when it comes time to buy supplies at the lumber yard, the overly creative builder will soon realize the difficulty of utopian designs in a world of 4 by 8 sheets of plywood and drywall. That geodesic shape is hip, but what do you...

Continue reading…

Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
1 Comment
We got a lot of emails after posting the image above of Los Angeles based photographer Helen Kim̵7;s astonishing windowsill garden. It̵7;s a great example of what you can do with a small amount of space, and brings to mind William Morris̵7; advice, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. Helen graciously sat down for an email interview to talk about her beautiful and useful garden...

Continue reading…

Be a question. Be an answer.

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
44 Comments
Kotex Ad from 1971. Is that Susan Dey Cybill Shepherd? And what̵7;s that oddly eroticized blur in the foreground? Okay, time to wrest the blog out of Erik̵7;s hands. He̵7;s gone crazy with the geek-boy subject matter of late. I̵7;m going to bring this baby down to earth with a resounding thud. Let̵7;s talk menstruation. We̵7;re writing a new book, as we may have mentioned. It̵7;s a project book focused on making som...

Continue reading…