Search Results for: label/food/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

774 results

We Grow Houses

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Gardening, Pests
2 Comments
...species within two generations. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture the attractant is species-specific and won’t attract beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies. Public information officer Ken Pellman, on the scene to deal with NBC, assured me that I wouldn’t have any trouble unless I “licked the utility poles” and went on to say that the Naled application would prevent larger applications of pesticides should o...

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So Wrong it’s Right

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Thoughtstylings
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...so, our poll results are in and you all want more info on growing your own food! We note with some dismay the low rating of the harangue, the popularity of which is a minority view not surprisingly expressed by two friends and professional harangists, one an attorney and the other LA bike activist extraordinaire SoapBoxLA. Homegrown Revolution will be heading up to San Francisco for a week and we’re not sure the natives up there have internet acce...

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Plantain!

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Food, Foraging, Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation
...neighbor’s tree. It’s exactly what we’d like to see more of–folks growing food instead of lawns and everyone sharing the abundance. While there’s a lot of banana trees in Los Angeles they tend not to yield edible fruit since our climate is not quite hot and humid enough. But plantains, judging from the delicious taste of the ones we fried up, are a different story. They do require a lot of water to grow, but greywater expert Art Ludwig calls bana...

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Tree Spinach – Chenopodium giganteum

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Food, Foraging, Vegetable Gardening
.... The billowing clouds of apocalyptic smoke from the fires ravaging the suburban fringes of our disaster prone megalopolis are the only thing that keeps us inside today, giving us time to contemplate one of the seed packets that has crossed our desk, Chenopodium giganteum a.k.a “tree spinach”. The Chenopodium family encompasses what less enlightened folks call “weeds” such as lambs quarters (also edible we’ll note), but also contains cultivated cr...

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Nopales Season

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Food, Foraging, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening
6 Comments
...ide dish. One of the charms of the prickly pear cactus, in addition to the food it provides, is its ability to survive drought and fend off pests. Sadly, it’s not as indestructible as it seems. The cactus moth, Cactoblastis cactorum was introduced into the Caribbean in the 1950s and has slowly worked its way to Florida and Mexico. It may soon reach Texas and California. The USDA is hoping to halt the spread by releasing sterile moths. And speaking...

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