Our New Home Economics

April 3, 2020

...sound economic sense and cooking from scratch is a worthwhile pursuit in itself. Friend of Root Simple Michael asked Johnny on his blog about what food preservation appliances he should get. Johnny replied, “Storage containers – filled with food you already enjoy and cook on a regular basis – would be my first choice.” The sorts of appliances and food preservation techniques you use depends on what you like to eat and what bulk items you have acce...

Read…

Can our landscapes model a vibrant future? Not according to the LA DWP.

Mrs. Homegrown

July 7, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening, Lawns, Water and Power

18 Comments

...se it seems to be a placeholder for better days when we can all go back to watering our lawns into emerald brilliance. We need to say goodbye to the lawn for good, write it off like a bad boyfriend. And the purple gravel… I just don’t know what to say. Note that the design consists of a lawn and foundation plantings. It’s the same old uninspired model, repeated on the institutional scale. I suspect this landscaping will have some fans because it i...

Read…

California’s Drought and What To Do About It

Mr. Homegrown

February 6, 2014

Thoughtstylings, Water and Power

33 Comments

...he desert planet Arakis in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune. Not only will we be watering our lawns less, we’ll be drinking our own urine. Knife fights with a bikini clad Sting will break out and we’ll be trading our bikes for rides on the over-sized worms emerging from our compost bins. But I digress. Let’s cover what we’re doing at the Root Simple compound. We’ve expanded our drought tolerant plantings over the past few years. These plants use less wa...

Read…

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands

Mr. Homegrown

June 5, 2007

rainwater harvesting

...We’re especially fond of his method of hijacking street gutter runoff and directing it with a small improvised check dam into a dug out basin in the parkway. We’ve watched our neighbor’s lawn watering runoff for years and wondered if we could find a way to use that water. You can watch two videos showing Lancaster at work here. And a podcast here....

Read…

Favorite Plants- New Zealand Spinach

Homegrown Neighbor

October 13, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

15 Comments

...l. My front garden be is pretty much all New Zealand spinach now. The drip watering system broke and most of the plants withered and died or were mercilessly attacked by bugs. But this plant kept on going strong. I have been growing it for many years and find it a reliable plant. In The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, Rosalind Creasy writes, “New Zealand spinach makes a marvelous temporary ground cover, is good in hanging baskets, and will ca...

Read…