Root Simple: 2015 in Review

December 29, 2015

...p. I’m not optimistic about this but I hope to be proved wrong. Honesty in Urban Homesteading We don’t do nearly enough blogging about the many hair brained notions and failed projects that transpire here at the Root Simple Compound and Labs. We did mange to chronicle a few of our shortcomings, such as our lack of a clothes line (Busted: Drying Racks, Clothes Lines and Cheese Puffs), the train wreck that was our summer garden (Our Disasterous Summ...

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The Root Simple 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

Mr. Homegrown

November 23, 2016

Thoughtstylings

1 Comment

...ed to get through school without a shred of philosophical training, do yourself a favor and take a stab at this book. Kenny writes clearly, though I won’t say that the whole book is easy going. But just grasp a fraction of the content of this book and you’ll understand how $50 concepts like epistemology and ontology underlie assumptions about everything. Yes, such seemingly mundane things like gardening and construction work take on a whole new me...

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Climate Change and Personal Responsibility

Mrs. Homegrown

June 28, 2013

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

63 Comments

...en so much positive change on this front, even just in the last few years. Urban homesteading, slow food, organics, bikes, car share, DIY, all of it — it’s blossoming. It’s very hopeful. I’m going to put the next part in italics because it’s so important: The pleasure and satisfaction that we all receive from living this way is the positive counterspell to the dark enchantment of consumer culture. When we live this way, we become positive examples...

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RIP Michael Brooks

Mr. Homegrown

July 24, 2020

Thoughtstylings

5 Comments

...now in. My writing beat, what has, for lack of a better term, been called “urban homesteading” is poisoned by that individualism which manifests in a concept of self sufficiency whose ultimate destination is a lonely existence in a doomstead bunker. I’ve always tried to point out that we’re all in this together, that we need to build up our households and our communities. It’s not one or the other. Michael was just beginning to formulate a strateg...

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How to Deal with Extremely Root Bound Plants

Mrs. Homegrown

April 11, 2014

Gardening, How-to, Mistakes

22 Comments

...r pseudo-pot of themselves. In this case, you have to be ruthless. Get yourself a sharp knife and make long vertical cuts down the sides of the root ball–how many depends on the size of plant, and what you think is best, but I find I usually make 3 to 5 cuts. These cuts do violence to the roots, but will allow new root growth at the cut sites, giving the plant a chance to spread its roots out in your garden’s soil, instead of trying to live within...

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