Homegrown Evolution in Chicago

...ter with: [email protected] Erik will lead an informal presentation on Urban Homesteading in Los Angeles – focusing on his and his wife’s homegrown systems of adventurous experimentation of chickens, growing, greywater, brewing and more – some successful, some not so much! Copies of The Urban Homestead will be for sale. Many thanks to Nancy Klehm for arranging these events! See her website Spontaneous Vegetation for more info on other events a...

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It Quacks Like a Duck

...of the line was an old comrade of ours, one of the proprietors of Petaluma Urban Homestead, who we know from Mr. Homegrown Revolution’s post grad school sojourn in the dull city of San Diego. In the ten years since we lost contact it turns out that our lives have taken similar paths, including the appreciation of Xtracycles and poultry. Except that the folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead have had the brilliance of exploring the world of ducks in add...

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Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?

...ikes that coincide with canning at the end of summer. Unsurprisingly, most homesteading topics revolve around seasons. Seasonality, by the way, is one of things I really like about this movement. A digression here–the flatness of time (see Charles Taylor)–is one of the things I don’t like about modernity. “Home canning” searches “Home canning” searches show a more dramatic decline. “Backyard Chickens” searches People research backyard chickens in...

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Looking for Urban Farmers

...e starts on her way to church. Homegrown Evolution is writing a profile of urban farmers for a new magazine. We’ve got the West covered, but we are still looking for some folks to profile who: 1. Live in one of the five boroughs of New York City and grow edibles and/or keep livestock. 2. Live in Detroit. We hear rumors of folks keeping herds of goats in Motown! 3. Have photos of your activities. Send us an email or leave a comment if you fit this...

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The New Urban Forager

...On a hot, humid day along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, in the shadow of four abandoned concrete silos, a maggot infested corpse of a pit bull lies splayed across a sheet of black plastic. Nearby, a pile of asphalt roofing material blocks the path I’m taking down to one of the most polluted waterways in Texas. Not a promising beginning to an urban food foraging expedition. (Read the rest of our foraging essay via Reality Sandwich)...

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