Loquat Season

April 8, 2007

...ces, the parkway and people’s front yards making them prime candidates for urban foraging i.e. free food. The tree itself has a vaguely tropical appearance with waxy leaves that look like the sort of plastic foliage that used to grace dentist office lobbies back in the 1960s. In short it’s a real tree that looks fake with fruit that nobody seems to care about. The loquat tree invites considerable derision from east coast types. Blogmeister, extrem...

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How Much Can You Carry on a Bicycle?

Mr. Homegrown

July 23, 2013

Bikes, Transportation

52 Comments

...s to climb hills even with heavy groceries. One need not be car-free to enjoy a cargo bike. For many years Kelly and I shared a car. The Xtracycle was a big part of making that car-light arrangement work. When people ask if urban homesteading saves money, the first thing I point to is the cargo bike, not the chicken coop. The problem? Cargo bikes are not nearly as sexy as the Playboy Land Yacht. That’s a problem I’ll get to in a future post....

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A Recipe for Injera

Mr. Homegrown

June 15, 2007

Bread, Fermentation, Food

3 Comments

...ation by Sandor Ellix Katz. This is a life changing recipe book that every urban homesteader should own–so go out and buy a copy! So here’s how we made injera based on Katz’s recipe: Ingredients 2 cups sourdough starter (check out our post on an easy way to keep and maintain a sourdough starter) 5 cups lukewarm water 2 cups whole-wheat flour 2 cups teff flour (an Ethiopian grain available from Bob’s Red Mill at Whole Foods) 1 teaspoon salt 1 teasp...

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The Great Beekeeping Debate

Mr. Homegrown

August 25, 2016

Animals, Bees

13 Comments

...g natural beekeepers, “hippies” and “bee-havers.” I haven’t heard “hippie” used this way since Spiro Agnew left this mortal coil. And Agnew would have been right at home with an organization that still has a ladies auxiliary in 2016 (in contrast to natural beekeeping organizations I’ve seen that are integrated and, in fact, made up of a solid majority of women). The question of how we pollinate millions of acres of monocultured crops in different...

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The High Cost of Golf

Mr. Homegrown

August 13, 2008

Lawns, Thoughtstylings

14 Comments

...of settling the insurance claims. So what does this have to do with urban homesteading? A lot. It’s time for another anti-golf rant. Here are my problems with golf (especially municipal golf courses): 1. The colossal mis-allocation of land. Wouldn’t a lot more people benefit from a large community garden instead of a golf course? Most people in Los Angeles and many other big cities live in apartments and don’t have any space to grow their own foo...

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