Visit the Eco-Home

Julia Russell is Los Angeles’ original urban homesteader. If you haven’t visited her beautiful “Eco-Home”, now is the time. She’s a pioneer in edible landscaping, solar power, and many other things we all now take for granted. Best of all, you can take a tour: “Since the 1970’s, April has been home to Earth Day. The theme for this year’s Earth Day is “the Green Generation,” and what better way to strengthen your role as part of this movement than...

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Hipster Compost

An updated, urban version of the soil food web. In the nearly sixteen years we’ve lived here we’ve seen our local stretch of Sunset Boulevard go from boarded up storefronts and auto body shops to restaurants, bars and cafes. Along with those new businesses and artisinal facial hair, comes a great new set of compost sources. Some of my enterprising neighbors, one in particular, have been creating what could be called hipster compost or, at least,...

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Got a Critter Question?

...Our guest on the next episode of the Root Simple Podcast will be Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild. We’re interviewing her tomorrow (Thursday) so if you have a question about coyotes, moles, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rats or any of the other creatures that visit our urban backyards, leave a comment....

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End of Season Tomato Review

...nefit of being fusarium wilt and verticillium resistant. It may be organic gardening heresy to say this, but hybrid tomatoes such as Roma are the best varieties for beginning gardeners to grow due to their trouble free and disease resistant qualities. The down side is that you can’t save the seeds. We also grew Syrian Giants, but unfortunately our Doberman Pincher ate most of them on late night raids. Perhaps because the Syrians grew in less than...

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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

...which you were paid to do the things you like to read about on this blog: gardening, beer brewing, jam making, beekeeping etc. Or how about a world in which teachers, nurses and caregivers made more money than tech CEOs? Sadly, we don’t live in that utopia. Instead we have an economy that often rewards people who either do nothing all day or whose work degrades our lives. Anthropologist David Graeber takes up these questions in his book Bullshit...

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