Mistakes we have made . . .

...t is too prodigious, and that’s the kind of problem you can hope for as an urban homesteader. 3. Newspaper seed pots Those newspaper seed starting pots we linked to earlier this year . . . well, there seems to be a problem with them. I think the newspaper is wicking the water away from the soil. While in Houston recently, I took a class from a master gardener in plant propagation and we used regular plastic pots, a thin layer of vermiculite over t...

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016 The Urban Bestiary with Lyanda Lynn Haupt

...nary Birds. During the podcast Lyanda covers: The effect of the drought on urban wildlife Invasive species How to get along with wildlife such as skunks, possums, raccoons and coytes The problem with relocating animals (except rats!) Moles and gophers Seeing raccoons during the day Root Simple’s CritterCam Possums! Preventative measures How to encourage wild animals and increase diversity by planting native plants and trees Lyanda also answers lis...

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Is Urban Homesteading Over With?

...t Topic anytime soon. So I thought I’d plug a few search terms relating to urban homesteading into Google Trends to see what is going on. This is, of course, highly unscientific–Google Trends may just reflect media generated interest, not what people are actually doing. Here’s what I found: Backyard Chickens Many urban homesteading activities are seasonal–in spring people start searching for information on chickens and vegetable gardens, so you’ll...

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A Year After the Age of Limits: Mr. Homegrown’s Take

...l or half empty?” So I drank the water. No more problem.” In her post Mrs. Homegrown mentioned that I had more to say about last year’s Age of Limits Conference. I don’t have much. She’s is a much better writer than I and she said pretty much everything I would have said. Not to minimize the challenges we all face from resource limits or climate change, but we humans are very bad at predicting the future. And we have a tendency to turn our desires...

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