Search Results for: label/book%20reviews/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

807 results

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands

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rainwater harvesting
...oleur” and Tucson rainwater harvesting guru Brad Lancaster and his ongoing book series Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands. Volume one is already out and volume two is due out this summer. Landcaster’s ingenious methods involve little more than careful observation and some work with a shovel. He suggests that harvesting rainwater begins with considering the flow of water from the highest point (which for most people will be the roof) to the lowest p...

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Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

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Gardening
10 Comments
...names get so confusing. The back of the Tompson & Morgan seed package mis-labels this plant as the “Cape Gooseberry” (“Cape Gooseberry” is actually the very similar Physalis peruviana). Physalis pruinosa is part of a genus Physalis of the nightshade or Solanaceae family, which includes edible plants such as tomatoes and potatoes, and psychotropic plants such as datura and tobacco. Many plants of the nightshade family combine edibility and toxicit...

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Pooh Power!

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Preparedness
1 Comment
...lowdown on how to humanure see Joseph Jenkin’s compelling and entertaining book which is available free online. For hiking or temporary water outages you can simply pack your crap up for later disposal in a toilet. This is how Homegrown Revolution managed during an arduous snow camping experience last year, with one unfortunate member of our party tasked with carrying a five gallon bucket full of crap through the high Sierras. A more egalitarian a...

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Whole Wheat Sourdough Starter Recipe

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Bread, Food
6 Comments
...ter bubble while geeking out on Cornell Professor Steven Laurence Kaplan’s book Good Bread is Back, which details the revival of sourdough bread making in France in the early 1990s. Kaplan notes that sourdough, “rises less than a dough made with baker’s yeast and also more slowly. Its crust is thicker. It keeps significantly longer. It has greater nutritional value, partly because it is richer in certain vitamins and enzymes that are by-products o...

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