How to Make a Hexagonal Raised Bed

...race our backyard. The area in which they resided became too shady to grow vegetables in and also became the strip mine that supplied the clay for our adobe oven. Our landscaper has proposed making this part of our yard a rain garden. More on that project later in the year. One disadvantage of beds with this odd shape is that they are harder to critter-proof. I don’t consider this a deal killer, but it’s something to think about if you have the ho...

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Self Irrigating Planter Resources

...st night we went to a wonderful screening organized by the folks at How to Homestead. They have an interesting SIP variation made with milk crates profiled in a how-to video by Mariana Lopez. She also offers a recipe for a DIY potting mix in that same video. Ohio State University Extension Service’s list of vegetable varieties for container gardening. These are varieties with smaller root systems that do well in small pots. Lastly, all of Homegrow...

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Bisphenol-A

...the early onset of puberty in girls. We’ve done our best around our little urban homestead to eliminate plastics from our lives, but where we still encounter BPA is in canned foods which we like to have on hand. Next time you pop open a can take a look at the inside–odds are there is a nearly invisible clear plastic lining which is where you’ll find the BPA. So with BPA we have yet another one of those throw up your hands in disgust, anger and des...

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Moonlight Medicine Foraging Expedition!

...rience of a place. She grows and forages much of her own food in a densely urban area. She actively composts food, landscape and human waste. She only uses a flush toilet when no other option is available. She designed and currently manages a large scale, closed-loop vermicompost project at a downtown homeless shelter where cafeteria food waste becomes 4 tons of worm castings a year which in turn is used as the soil that grows food to return to th...

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Nance Klemn is in Los Angeles and She’s Teaching Classes!

..., and teacher. Based in the Midwest, she lives and works in a diverse neighborhood in the heart of Chicago, and is developing a farm on her land outside the city. She is founder of Social Ecologies, a nonprofit that focuses on system regenerating projects, including The Ground Rules, an urban soil- and community-building initiative using local green and food waste. Nance has worked internationally, lectured at art museums (including MOCA and the H...

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