Artichoke Season at the Homegrown Revolution Compound

...ike crazy in the early spring. We just cut them to the ground when the leaves die off. It’s a huge plant so make sure you give them plenty of room–at least a six foot diameter circle, preferably more, for each plant. The only drawback is that aphids love them, so they require constant spraying down with a hose to blow off the damn things, not to mention thorough cleaning in the kitchen. Our love of artichokes means that we’ve gotten used to eating...

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On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce’s Disease

...of the sparpshooter, one of the main carriers of Pierce’s, who spread the diesase by feeding off the sap of infected plants. Sharpshooters live in riparian areas and when a stream goes dry they fly off in search of irrigated plants to feed on. Sharpshooters also like to spend the winter in citrus groves which, while not susceptible to Pierce’s, provide habitat. Our hot dry summers, which dry out local streams and rivers, and abundant citrus trees...

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A Visit to the Reversible Destiny Lofts

...cts with what he terms the “late stage capitalist” system that we all live under (whose qualities are multinational, post-Fordist and radically disruptive and complex). This hyperspacial character is echoed in the Loft itself and its surroundings. The urban hyperspacial maze that is Tokyo makes both the Bonaventure and the Reversible Destiny Lofts seem comprehensible by comparison. The Shinjuku train station, to take just one example, contains a d...

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Composting the Deceased/ My DIY Funeral Fantasies

...rient value going to waste. This obsession has led to several funeral fantasies, which I like share with Erik spontaneously, usually while we’re grocery shopping or something, much to his dismay. I think he’s pretty much praying statistics will hold true and he’ll predecease me. Fantasy 1: A longstanding fantasy is that I be disposed of “Viking style”, i.e., being laid out in a boat (a rowboat would do, seeing as Viking longboats are hard to come...

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Your Open Floor Plan is a Death Trap

...they made our homes vastly safer. How much safer? According to research by Underwriters Laboratories (“Analysis of Changing Residential Fire Dynamics and its Implications on Firefighter Operational Timeframes“), in a small, traditional house with individual rooms you’ve got almost thirty minutes to get out before a fire flashes over. In an open floor plan house you have under five minutes, which means that firefighters probably won’t even get to y...

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