Mr. Homegrown contemplates his many writing tasks.

Mr. Homegrown needs your help with two topics. First, for our second book, I’d like to talk to someone who has successfully grown oyster mushrooms from spawn. I’m looking for advice on preparing and inoculating the growing medium. I’m not looking for folks who have grown oyster mushrooms from kits which, in my humble opinion, are not cost effective. If anyone knows of well written step by step directions somewhere on the interwebs, please let me know, or better yet if you’ve done it yourself send me an email. And yes, there is Paul Stamets, but some psilocybin freak stole all his books out of the LA library.

Secondly, I’m writing another article for Urban Farm Magazine and I’d like to speak to anyone who has set up or been a part of a yard sharing program. You get extra points if you are in New Jersey or Philadelphia. I’m not looking for my fellow Californians, as there have been too many Golden State types in my previous articles.

Contact me at homegrownevolution(at)sbcglobal.net or leave a comment. Thanks!

We’re kidding. Well, sort of. Hopefully you’ll negotiate a truce with your family today to forgo expensive and wasteful holiday gift giving. Like us, you probably are also heavy users of the public library. But just in case you need to find the right gift for the fanatical urban homesteader in your life we’ve opened a Homegrown Evolution Amazon Store which contains books and tools that we actually own and use around our humble compound. Purchases made through the store and even other items you click through to will help support this website.

A few items in I’d like to call attention to:

Novella Carpenter’s Farm City
Carpenter is a phenomenal writer and anyone who’s involved in the activities profiled on this blog will love this book. The concluding section, where Carpenter describes raising two enormous pigs in the ghetto is both amusing and profound.

John Jeavons How To Grow More Vegetables
It’s the vegetable gardening bible around here. Since we started using Jeavons’ methods this fall I’ve noticed a significant improvement in the health of our garden. The only book on vegetables you need to own.

Haws Watering Can
Jeavons turned me on to this. The can produces a gentle spray that is perfect for watering flats of seedlings. I can’t believe I lived without this thing. It’s expensive but worth it.

The Urban Homestead
And, of course, there’s our own book. If you order directly from us on the right side of this page, we make a few more pennies then when you buy on Amazon. But either way, pick up a copy for the whole family! Help keep our doberman in kibble!

Homegrown Neighbor here:

Homegrown Evolution reader Pam Neuendorf has offered fellow readers a chance to win one of her handmade aprons. She sells her wares through Etsy, a website where crafters and artisans can sell their goods. You can see more of her aprons here. She has an ordinary day job but is a maven of craft by night. Pam says, “I love making aprons. They make me happy.” I am a big fan of aprons. They are useful for cooking, gardening or just looking darn cute. I am also a big supporter of all things handmade. So I love this handcrafted apron.

I also hope our readers will appreciate this reminiscence of mine. -When I was in college I lived in a house with a lot of people. There were about 50 of us and we took turns cooking and cleaning. Every Friday we celebrated ‘Naked Pizza Fridays.’ Only the men would cook on Fridays. They would wear aprons and nothing else. Just the apron. Oh, the good old college days. Perhaps this is why I see aprons as slightly subversive and rather sexy.

Dear readers, if you would like to have this apron, send me an email and tell me what activity you would use your apron for. I want to hear about your hobbies and how this apron would help your creative energies. I will pick a winner by Sunday night. Send your entries to [email protected].

A depression ear local currency

The Wall Street Journal had a fascinating article, Cash-Strapped California’s IOUs: Just the Latest Sub for Dollars on the history of IOUs and local currencies. It seems that Depression 1.0 spurred quite a few improvised currencies, including the “Minneapolis Sauerkraut Note”, for a good reason. Just as today, a lot of people want the rewards for our labor tied to tangibles rather than monetizing it and sending it off to Wall Street’s abstract financial casino. Mutual fund or sauerkraut? I’ll take the kraut, please.

Several years ago I attempted to float the “Edendale Dinar” in our annual Christmas mailing. The front depicted a common scene here in Los Angeles, an abandoned mattress (could old mattresses be the new gold standard?). The back showed where you could spend one of your Dinars: at your local taco wagon. The Edendale Dinar failed to catch on, spoiling my fantasy of becoming a ghetto Ben Bernanke with the power to manipulate the carne asada rate.

Writer Douglas Rushkoff has been talking a lot about local economies in his new book, Life Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back and on his radio show The Media Squat. One of the topics Rushkoff mentions often is time banking, an alternative to currency and bartering where hours are exchanged instead of money or goods. I’ve joined up with our local Echo Park Time Bank and in the past month have moved a heavy tree sculpture, had my portrait taken and unsuccessfully attempted to unclog a tub. Not only did I participate in useful activities (except for the botched tub snaking), but I got to connect with some great folks. If you don’t have a time bank near you you can start one via timebanks.org.

Now that I’ve switched to time banking, Goldman Sachs has kindly agreed to take all my extra Edendale Dinars.