Search Results for: label/seeds/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/page/6/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

651 results

On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

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Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
37 Comments
...h little enthusiasm for ongoing gardening maintenance. Ego–forgetting that urban homesteading is not about self-sufficiency—to chase self-sufficiency is a fool’s errand. I should be happy just to have a few good salads and be thankful that I can buy good vegetables at a local farmer’s market. I don’t think self-sufficiency is a good goal even on a large piece of land. We humans are meant to work together, hang out in groups and share goods and kno...

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On Living in Los Angeles Without a Car: A Debate

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Bikes, Transportation
41 Comments
...elters here. Bus stops are ill-marked afterthoughts in an already unlovely urban landscape. I stand in the pole shade, wondering if the bus will ever come, and I seethe about the way this city treats its pedestrians. Erik: It’s a stereotype that LA is car-centric. If I had a dollar for every time some out of town journalist drops in here for a weekend and files a report repeating the “nobody uses public transit in LA” mantra I’d be a millionaire....

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Bee Fever in Los Angeles

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Animals, Bees
8 Comments
...the radical “backwards” approach to beekeeping advocated by LA’s maverick urban beekeeper Kirk Anderson, Anderson learned from apiarist Charles Martin Simon, who invented the concept of “beekeeping backwards.” Simon’s approach was stupidly simple: Give the bees a clean box, put them in it and leave them alone. If they get sick? Don’t medicate them. Let them die. Then get some more bees. Amen. Selecting for strong bees is an approach that, in my o...

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Picture Sundays: Do You Believe In Magic?

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Picture Sundays
14 Comments
...I really like this mural that just appeared in our neighborhood near the corner of Sunset and Coronado. Bunnies tumble out of a magic hat and there’s a silhouette of a coyote and crow (common urban wildlife here). The text, “do you beleav [sic] in magic” brought a smile to my face as I waited for the bus. My day had been re-enchanted by this symbolic bit of street art....

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