How to Search for Science-Based Gardening Advice

February 24, 2014

...ave access to tools beyond Google. Hot Topics To that end, I’m thinking of making the trek to UCLA this year to look into a number of controversial horticultural and homesteading questions that have come up in the course of writing posts on Root Simple. Some topics I’m interested in: The effect of chloramine on soil health/human health. The temperament of Africanized bees. Hugelkultur in dry climates. Compost tea. Phytoremediation of lead and/or z...

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Our New Open Floor Plan

Mr. Homegrown

May 7, 2018

Design

18 Comments

...cast to gently defend open floor plans. Naturally, I’m spending this month making our house, gasp, more open. Let me explain. When I installed the floor in the living room in the aughts I discovered an opening that used to exist between our living room and what we use as our bedroom. Back in 1920 this house was a one bedroom with a kind of sitting room open to the living room. I’ve also long know that the closet used to have a window in it that wa...

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Hollywood always gets gardens wrong (I’m talking to you, Maze Runner)

Mrs. Homegrown

September 25, 2014

Thoughtstylings

19 Comments

...rn, and are usually quite bad, technically speaking. They look like thrift store paintings, or the work left forgotten in the art department hallways after the school term has ended. Ghastly. The statues are always hyper-realistic, created perhaps by casting someone’s face, or modeling them in CG. The result is dang creepy, and not at all historically accurate. As far as sketching goes, drawing styles change over time. It’s really interesting, act...

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Essential System #3 – Sew Your Own Damn Clothes

Mr. Homegrown

October 6, 2006

Domesticus

1 Comment

...tart spinning and weaving your own fabric). Some recommendations for brave urban homesteaders who want to take up sewing. Don’t start with stretchy fabric. Don’t even think of using velvet (we learned this the hard way). Choose patterns carefully so you don’t end up looking like, well, folks who sew their own clothes. Consider purchasing a used serger, which cuts the fabric and finishes the seam all at once, which folks in the know tell us makes l...

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Age of Apocalypse

Mr. Homegrown

May 31, 2013

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

41 Comments

...ion that seems beyond the capacity of humans at this stage in our cultural evolution, anyway. So in lieu of doing the actual hard work of fixing these problems in the present, we fantasize instead about life afterward. The crisis of global warming morphs into the fantasy of living off the grid. The treat of a terrorist attack on our office tower leads us to purchase an emergency personal parachute for easy egress, and to wonder how far up the org...

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