How to Make a Hexagonal Raised Bed

...is project requires a compound miter saw, a tool on my list of recommended homestead accessories. Mine has gotten a lot of use over the years for everything from gardening projects to building furniture. The angle at the corners of a hexagon are 60º. Therefore, you will need to set your saw to 30º (90º-60º=30º). With the saw set, you just need to cut 12 sections, each 2’6″ long, with that 30º angle at each end. Secure the pieces together with scre...

Read…

Talkin’ Chicken

...today “clucking” about chickens. We share mention with fellow Los Angeles urban homesteading bloggists Dakota Witzenburg and Audrey Diehl, who write Green Frieda. Witzenburg designed an amazing coop, complete with a green roof planted with succulents that you can see on Green Frieda here. In other chicken related news, the December/January issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine is hot off the presses with a provocative article by permaculturist Harve...

Read…

Adam Parfrey, RIP

Our first book, The Urban Homestead, was published by Process Media which was, at the time, a collaboration between Jodi Willie and Adam Parfrey (who founded Feral House). I was deeply saddened to hear of Adam’s passing yesterday at the age of 61. Jodi and Adam took a big chance on us as new authors when they commissioned our book back in 2006. Most publishers are unoriginal and afraid to take chances. Not Adam and Jodi. It was a great pleasure t...

Read…

Homegrown REvolution

...d and creative Process Media, spotted us and asked us to write a book, The Urban Homestead, thus beginning an unexpected course, which has forced us to consider things such as branding and marketing. Like all children of the late 20th century we’re inescapably linked to a “mediated” culture, to a world of appearances defined by mass media in all its many forms. In the midst of having to figure out a new name for ourselves, along with the incredibl...

Read…

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…