Bubble Wrap Your Windows

December 16, 2006

...windows. Simply cut sheets of bubble wrap to fit your windows, apply some water with a spray bottle and before it dries stick the bubble wrap on the glass. While you can buy special bubble wrap designed for greenhouses, according to Build It Solar, regular bubble wrap will probably work just as well. If you number the pieces you use, you can stick it up again next year. Bubble wrapping the windows cuts down on visibility, so it’s a strategy best...

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California Buckwheat

Mr. Homegrown

December 20, 2006

Food, Foraging

...ltiple uses–it provides cover and nectar for animals, grows with almost no water, and best of all it produces edible seeds. We’ve gathered the seeds we’ve found in fields and baked it into bread and added it to cereal to both boost nutritional value and to add a nutty flavor. The local and resourceful Tongva Indians used the roots and leaves for headaches and stomach problems, among many other uses including using the stems to pierce ears. Califor...

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Clever Canadian Shitter

Mr. Homegrown

January 6, 2007

Design

1 Comment

...Way back in 1998 the Canada Mortgage and Housing association sponsored a “Healthy Housing Design Competition“. The winning house included this novel waste composting system as shown in this thrilling video. OK, so SurviveLA has a weakness for industrial video, but you just can’t beat the combination of rotating shit and peppy music–we just wish he’d drink the water in that glass....

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Kent’s Composting Tips and Secret Weapon

Mr. Homegrown

October 27, 2006

Composting, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

...me I add new kitchen scraps, I add 1-2 shovels-full of dry leaves and some water if needed, turning and mixing the old and new stuff with a cultivator or shovel to aerate the pile. The proportion of dry to wet material is important. There should be enough dry leaves so the compost is kinda’ fluffy and moist, not soggy, but the dry material shouldn’t overwhelm the wet either. Now the secret. I cut a piece of black 6 mil vinyl to approximately cover...

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Hexayurt

Mr. Homegrown

October 31, 2006

Preparedness

2 Comments

...l time, the “Hexayurt” costs somewhere between $200 and $500 to build, and requires only six cuts for each unit. The Hexayurt stacks flat for easy deployment in emergencies. Gupta has a suggested “Infrastructure Package” which includes heat, lights, water purification, and a composting toilet bringing the cost up somewhat, but still much less than FEMA’s $30,000 trailers. While not the most thrilling video (at least as compared to this), thanks to...

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