For the Locals . . .

On that foot sign Alissa Walker, one of my favorite journalists, covers urban design here in Los Angeles. She wrote a great piece on our nieghborhood’s iconic podiatrist sign. Walker agrees with me that we need much more than kitschy signs to mark our neighborhoods. She concludes, We need more reminders of what history predates our presence. We need more streets that are designed to connect us instead of being fast-forwarded through in cars. We n...

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Problems Part I

The road to urban homesteading ain’t smooth and involves more than a few potholes along the way. Some of those potholes will swallow a bike tire while others are big enough for a Hummer. But with persistence it becomes easier to deal with the occasional bump, lessons can be learned and future mistakes avoided. With the popularity of our earlier blunders post, I’d like to begin regularly sharing problems as they develop. Here’s problem #1 for this...

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Moringa!

...by Harvey McDaniel One of the big inspirations for starting our front yard urban farming efforts at the SurviveLA compound is a Philippino neighbor of ours who has turned his entire front yard and even the parkway into an edible garden featuring fruits and vegetables from his native land, most of which we have never seen before. This morning, while walking the dog, I found him cutting hundreds of long seed pods off of a small attractive tree. He d...

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Saturday Tweets: Goodbye 2017

...u pic.twitter.com/oqlHpv0rsd — Peter Flax (@Pflax1) December 27, 2017 "Holypager", an artwork that eavedrops on unecrypted pager messages https://t.co/kZJLZrUT0y — Root Simple (@rootsimple) December 29, 2017 Typeface reviews https://t.co/70pwkf0KLC — Root Simple (@rootsimple) December 26, 2017 this is so great pic.twitter.com/jHiMMmRgqj — Cats (@SpaceCatPics) December 27, 2017 "Hedgehogs are doin it for themselves / Rolling on their prickly backs...

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Apartment Parking Lot Gardening in East Hollywood

...he 1 x 6, though, and fill the soil about an inch below the boards so when watering the water doesn’t spill over the sides as is the case with my 1 x 6 boards. One of the advantages of having my garden space in the parking lot is that when I leave in the morning I can spend a few moments watering and pruning and picking some delicious tomatoes for lunch and when I come home at night I can repeat the same process . This routine has turned out to be...

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