Mulberries

...to croak. We wonder if this is a myth, like the story about boy scouts roasting hot dogs on Oleander sticks (yes, Oleander is very poisonous, but apparently the boy scout story is an urban legend). We found the Mulberries sweet and delicious. It’s a fruit that doesn’t ship well, hence its absence in our crummy supermarkets....

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Whiteflies

...spaces in a series of concentric zones, numbered one through five, with the first zone being our house and kitchen gardens and the outer zones being less cultivated and more wild spaces. Mollison and Holmgren’s zones are easily miniaturized for small urban yards. Trees that don’t need much attention can go towards the back, the chickens a little closer and the vegetables and herbs can benefit from being close at hand. For additional information on...

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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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The High Cost of Golf

...rocess 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 o...

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Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

...lands of LA (www.islandsofla.org). The artists of Fallen Fruit investigate urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and community all through the lens of fruit. Islands of LA is an art project that is turning traffic islands into territories of art to create community, foster discussion and explore the use and availability of public space. LOVE APPLES is an experiment in public space in the city of Los Angeles, imagi...

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