Maggots!

July 29, 2006

...homestead, composting requires time and initiative. Unfortunately both our garden and our energy level are at a low point, both sapped by the record breaking heat – anyone see Al Gore’s movie? The result of this lack of effort has been the maggot party currently going on in our compost pile. The best compostin’ revolutionary I ever met, photographer Becky Cohen maintained a three pile system contained in bins she made out of scrap lumber. When the...

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Chicken Coop Deconstructed

Homegrown Neighbor

October 9, 2009

Animals, Chickens

10 Comments

...last public high schools in the area to have space devoted to an orchard, garden and farm. Right now it is home to a goat, a Vietnamese pot bellied pig, dozens of rabbits and two hens. As can be expected, the program hasn’t gotten the respect and resources it deserves in the last few years. Things look a little scraggly, the orchard is filled with weeds and most of the barns haven’t been touched in thirty years, now housing only spiders. This pro...

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The Original L.A. Urban Homestead

Homegrown Neighbor

September 19, 2009

Thoughtstylings

6 Comments

...iving tours featuring the environmentally friendly aspects of her home and garden. Julia is pictured here in front of her Gordon apple tree which bore over 500 lbs. of apples last year. (We counted, seriously.) The Los Angeles Eco-Home Network has been educating Angelenos about simple ways to conserve energy and other resources, grow their own food and live a happier, healthier lifestyle, since 1988. The house is a charming bungalow full of warm d...

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My Big Fat Greek Squash

Mr. Homegrown

September 17, 2009

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

13 Comments

...h. As a result I always have a few mystery Greek vegetables growing in the garden. This spring he gave me a squash seedling he had propagated. It grew into a massive vine and produced two winter squashes whose weight exceeded the capacity of my kitchen scale. I harvested them last month and we’ve been eating a lot of squash! The skin turned a kind of manila envelope color and the flesh was a deep orange. It kind of looks like a butternut squash on...

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Grow Italian!

Mr. Homegrown

September 2, 2006

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

...in the backyard. And look for more root vegetables in our illegal parkway garden. Lest we come across as Eurotrashy, here’s two domestic seed companies that have interesting varieties: Seeds of change. Native Seeds which sells Native American seeds By the way, for us in L.A. the back of the seed packages have no connection with our climate. You need a book like Pat Welsh’s Southern California Gardening to set you straight on what to plant and whe...

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