Gardening Classes at Silver Lake Farms

...Local gardening guru Tara Kolla, who we met in the course of writing our book the Urban Homestead, will be hosting a series of very reasonably priced classes at her beautiful urban farm in Silver Lake beginning in March. Topics include vermicomposting, organic gardening and more. Full information on the Silver Lake Farms website. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, we highly recommend taking a class or two, and sign up early as space is limited....

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Homegrown San Francisco Events

...ood when you don’t have any dirt to call your own. The Studio for Urban Projects is located at 3579 17th St., San Francisco (between Dolores & Guerrero). Also, in San Francisco this coming weekend make sure to catch the folks at How To Homestead on Saturday, April 4 at the Other Cinema at 8:30 PM for some brand new homesteading movies, homebrew tastings, and the “butt-shaking musical antics of the Goat Family.” The Other Cinema is located at ATA G...

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Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

...shed mint. The okra plants are going great guns and I’m looking forward to cooking something non-slimy with them! … but I still haven’t gotten around to making any tea with the lemon verbena… HE: We heard that some of the plants have a special significance for you HK: Yeah, shortly after I moved in, my grandmother died and I inherited some of her plants–mostly succulents. So when the building manager told me I’d have to remove all the plants, I ki...

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George Rector: M.F.K. Fisher’s Dirty Old Uncle

...ver a double boiler (“that’s the dingus Junior’s cereal is cooked in…”) to making “that noble experiment known as Rum-Tum Ditty” for the boys when they come over for cards. Rum-Tum-Ditty, I have to say, defies explanation. Let’s just say the ingredients include whipped egg whites, a pound of cheese and a can of tomato soup. Speaking of befuddled menfolk, Erik is quite fond of this passage about making Hollandaise sauce (from the chapter titled “A...

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The Known Unknown

...and about. The answer was, universally, no. As for life here at the urban homestead, we get avocados and eggs from our yard but we get most of our food from our local Vons via their pickup service. You do your order with an app and head to their parking lot when the order is filled and they load the groceries into your car. It’s not perfect but it works. I made one trip to a local lumber yard to get some wood for some bookshelves I’m making for K...

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