Capparis spinosa – Capers

...lution to make it more national, as the publisher of our upcoming book the Urban Homestead requested, we had one big challenge. While Mrs. Homegrown Revolution hails from the snowy mountains of Colorado, Mr. Homegrown Revolution has never lived anywhere else other than sunny Southern California. And neither of us have tended plants outside of this Mediterranean climate, one of the rarest types of climatic zones on the planet. But if we’ve learned...

Read…

The Survivor

...of articles about rainwater harvesting for important breaking news at our urban homestead–the development of the SurviveLA signature cocktail–the Survivor. For a long time we’ve cursed the previous owners of our compound for their useless, inedible landscaping. One of the plants they left us that we’ve lived with for all these years is an ornamental pomegranate tree (Punica granatum) that, while attractive, we had previously assumed was useless d...

Read…

Street Signs and Solar Ovens

...stunning knitted clothing of Lisa Auerbach, items from the Path to Freedom urban homestead and contributions from the fine folks at C.I.C.L.E. So, get on your bike, head down to the Craft and Folk Art Museum, and see this provocative show! Craft and Folk Art Museum Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 11am – 5pm Thursday 11am – 7pm Saturday-Sunday 12pm – 6pm Museum Admissions: $5.00 adults $3.00 students/seniors Free for children 12 and under Free ad...

Read…

Edible Gardening Lecture at the Descanso Gardens

...ens. Here’s the description: Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of “The Urban Homestead” and the blog rootsimple.com, discuss creating a garden that is not only beautiful but delicious! Part of “Get Dirty: A Garden Series by Descanso” on Third Tuesdays. Public admission to the Gardens and the lecture is free of charge the third Tuesday of the month. Hope to see some blog readers there–perhaps we can walk around the garden after the lecture. For...

Read…

Be Idle

...Vivre and Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life. Part of the Urban Homesteadin’ thing involves simplifying one’s life, but we just can’t get behind the all the deprivation and mortification that often goes with American’s puritanical approach to the new simplicity. A compelling speaker, Andrews echoed our wariness and used the Slow Food movement as an counter-example to the pitfalls of the simplicity movement. The Slow Food movement began...

Read…