Let’s Talk About the Holidays

...s season in the US presents challenges to folks who are on the radical homemaking path. One action that’s helped around our household was to cut off commercial television, something we did many years ago. A number of people mentioned that they really enjoyed hearing Shannon Hayes on our podcast talking about how her family celebrates the holidays. She has also written a blog post on the subject, “Murdering Santa and Other Tips for Enjoying the Hol...

Read…

Tracking the Mood of the Gardener

Swiss chard from the winter of 2010 A Root Simple reader I ran into this weekend took issue with my assertion that fall is the best time to start a vegetable garden in Southern California. Thinking about it some more I think she may have a point. Some of you may have noticed that we have a new feature on the blog–if you click on an individual blog post you’ll see a list of related posts at the bottom. Looking at some of those older posts showed t...

Read…

Two apps for choosing bike routes: one good, one bad

...anes and paths were. Now, there are apps for that. The Good: Google Maps In 2010, a bike option was added to Google Maps. While not perfect, it works surprisingly well. Combined with a little familiarity with what streets are good and bad to ride on, I now find that I rarely look at the city’s bike maps anymore. Here’s an example: one weekend this month, Kelly needed the car and I had to across town, from the La Brea Expo line station to the new W...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Two Weeks of Tweets for the Price of One

...zLhNoP — Medieval Manuscripts (@BLMedieval) December 7, 2016 LA’s traffic is so bad people have to deliver their babies in cars now https://t.co/xmQtGVd1NC — Alissa Walker (@awalkerinLA) December 6, 2016 Is Community Composting an Emerging Economic Opportunity? https://t.co/6FLmb8RiOr — UCUrbanAg (@UCUrbanAg) December 6, 2016 Grow Vegetables In Winter With A Mini Greenhouse – GardenFork https://t.co/enhfGpgaEz — Root Simple (@rootsimple) December...

Read…

Mutant Squash

Today’s incredible picture comes from photographer, bike cultist, and composting Culver-Town revolutionary Elon Schoenholz. It’s a freak squash that grew out of his regular old household compost. The funny thing is that nobody at the Shoenholz Compound – neither Elon, wife Bryn nor new bambina Nusia eat squash – so the origin of this new hybrid compost squash is a mystery. This brings up a bit of botany. Plants “do the deed” with flowers which co...

Read…