Search Results for: label/mistakes/2011/04/making-it/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

851 results

A Tour of the Homegrown Evolution Compound

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
7 Comments
...cine or habitat for birds and beneficial insects. But we’ve made plenty of mistakes, and continue to do so. We’re survivalists. Can we live off our yard? No. Can we make a meal with stuff from the yard? Yes, but we go to the supermarket just like everybody else–there’s no room for a wheat field after all, nor do we grow coffee or a host of other necessary staples. But, we seldom buy greens at the store, and almost never buy herbs or eggs–we’ve got...

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Using a Whirley-Pop to Roast Coffee

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Food, Mistakes
8 Comments
...reader suggested. I could also have just ended up with a bad popper. Apologies to anyone who rushed out to get an air popper. Maybe it will work better than mine did. At least with our high tech blog I can correct mistakes. It would be harder if Root Simple was a mimeographed newsletter–the Whirley-Pop of information delivery methods. But we’ll see what format the blog is in after this week’s Mayan apocalypse . . ....

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There she goes, my beautiful world

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Design
6 Comments
...used to, are just as precise if not more so and lead to fewer catastrophic mistakes. Lastly, I can’t minimize how important it is to have a proper workbench. Other crafts such as sewing, metal work, electronics etc. are greatly facilitated by a proper and dedicated work surface as well. While expensive to set up, the workshop has paid for itself many times over. I’ve used it to make reproductions of furniture that would cost tens of thousand of do...

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Our new front yard, part 6: it’s all potential at this point

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Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening
6 Comments
.... In the meantime, I will update this series if anything comes up– any new mistakes or discoveries or victories on the road to developing a meadow community. Doing this project has made me aware of how often we expect instant results with our landscaping, and how this haste often comes at a price. I don’t mean money, though that is true as well. So often the homeowner or the designer installs way too many plants, and plants them too close to one a...

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Our Keyhole Vegetable Bed: What Worked and What Didn’t Work

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
10 Comments
...d did well and produced some pretty spring flowers. Conclusions Despite my mistakes, I heartily endorse the keyhole bed concept. I’d just make the sides higher and take more time putting the bed together. My neighbor Anne Hars layed her keyhole bed out more carefully and, as a result, it was more productive and more aesthetically pleasing. Part of the problem for us is that the keyhole shape, from a design perspective, didn’t work in the space we...

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