DIY Outdoor Shower

December 14, 2006

...soon separate your real friends from superficial hangers-on. But we urban homesteaders don’t need to be stinky since it’s possible and easy to build an outdoor solar shower. There are two reasons this makes sense, particularly in a place with as warm a climate as LA. First of all, you can direct the water straight into the garden and in so doing irrigate some plants and keep that water from uselessly running down the sewer line. Secondly, placing...

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Nitrogen Deposition

Mr. Homegrown

January 26, 2007

Vegetable Gardening

...cted by development.” The photo above shows the leaves of some of the bean plants at the SurviveLA compound. We believe that the dark droplets are diesel particulate and other crap that comes out of the tailpipes of all those trucks that lumber through our neighborhood carrying cheap crap from China from the Port of Los Angeles to all the Wal-Marts in flyover country. Thanks must go in part to our new Los Angeles Department of Transportation chief...

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Something for Nothing – Wild Mustard Greens

Mr. Homegrown

March 8, 2008

Food, Foraging

...ave a pleasant and pungent flavor and can be eaten raw or cooked. From the Plants for a Future database entry: “Leaves . . . A hot pungent flavour, especially if eaten raw. Young leaves are used as a flavouring in mixed salads, whilst older leaves are used as a potherb. Seed – sprouted and eaten raw. The seed takes about 4 days to be ready. A hot flavour, it is often used in salads. A nutritional analysis is available. The seed can be ground into...

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An Echo Park Weed Salad

Mr. Homegrown

February 11, 2008

Food, Foraging

1 Comment

There’s nothing like a little urban blight to produce an excellent salad. While not impoverished (not unless you consider dilapidated $600,000 bungalows a sign of destitution), our neighborhood ain’t exactly Beverly Hills, meaning that in terms of landscaping it’s a little rough around the edges. And the edges–parkways, cracks in the asphalt, neglected plantings were, on this warm February day, overflowing with weeds. Edible weeds. We explored th...

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Mulberries

Mr. Homegrown

April 7, 2008

Food, Foraging

8 Comments

...n the internets, as well as Delena Tull’s excellent book Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest warn against consuming the unripe fruit, claiming that doing so produces an unpleasant, mildly psychedelic experience. Apparently you throw up, fall on the ground and become convinced you’re going to croak. We wonder if this is a myth, like the story about boy scouts roasting hot dogs on Oleander sticks (yes, Oleander is very poisonous, but...

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