Ways to Critter Proof Your Vegetable Beds: A Competition

October 16, 2014

...F.A., and is a blistering in-house art and design critic around our little homestead. Participants can leave a comment on this post linking to an image, or send us an email at [email protected]. The winner will get a package of our newest publication–a series of booklets we wrote in collaboration with the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano. I will also be participating in this competition which does seem unfair, but we’ll let Mrs. Homegrown...

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133 Trees of Power with Akiva Silver

Mr. Homegrown

September 18, 2019

Food, Foraging, Gardening, Podcasts, Trees

3 Comments

...lk to Akiva Silver of Twisted Tree Farm, described in his author bio as a “homestead, nut orchard and nursery located in Spencer, New York where he grows around 20,000 trees a year using practices that go beyond organic.” Akiva’s background is in “foraging, wilderness survival and primitive skills.” He is also the author of Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies (Amazon, library) just published by Chelsea Green. In our conversation we discu...

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Saturday Tweets: Counting Poultry, Cocktails and Homesteading Without a Garden

Mr. Homegrown

March 11, 2017

Saturday Linkages

80 Ways to Homestead Without a Garden https://t.co/aoBY3uLJT7 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 10, 2017 R-PiAlerts: Build a WiFi Based Security System With Raspberry Pis https://t.co/fO1wOgEfFr — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 9, 2017 Poultry census results: https://t.co/bu2q0xOrgp — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 10, 2017 L.A. keeps building near freeways, even though living there makes people sick https://t.co/TlKPhiSWeQ — Root Simple (@root...

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When the Cat’s Away the Mice Will Play

Mr. Homegrown

May 22, 2014

Thoughtstylings

8 Comments

...mple compound. I took the opportunity to make a slight modification to the homestead. I don’t think she’s noticed yet. Consider this post an inside challenge. Kelly–I dare you to find what I did. No hints yet. Readers–have you done any projects while your significant other is out of town? Kelly’s Response: So no, I did not notice his “intervention.” Worse, I didn’t even see this post. Bad blogger, bad. He had to call my attention to it. Then I sea...

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Build a Ghetto Solar Cooker

Mr. Homegrown

September 29, 2006

Preparedness, Solar, Water and Power

Using crap we had laying around the homestead, SurviveLA fashioned a solar cooker based on plans from Backwoods Home Magazine, the Dwell of the Ted Kaczynski set. We just substituted an old cooler for the cardboard boxes, and we finished it off by using one of Los Angeles’ ubiquitous abandoned car tires as a cradle to keep the cooker oriented towards the sun. It ain’t pretty but it works. In our first test we reached 160º inside the oven, but we...

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