Search Results for: label/saturday%20linkages/2010/06/the-urban-homestead/2011/04/making-it

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Block Party Weekend

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Thoughtstylings
...SurviveLA dropped in this weekend on a block party thrown by the apartment homesteading pioneers at the Los Angeles Eco-Village. Founded in 1993, the Los Angeles Eco-Village is a so called “intentional community” of folks who, basically, give a damn and are interested in improving our forlorn, polluted, and abused city. The block party featured ecologically savvy and self-reliant touches such as solar ovens to cook the vegetarian buffet and photov...

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Yucca!

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Foraging
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...ntal irrigation and have multiple uses and the yucca plant, in addition to making rope, can also be used for basket weaving, as a detergent, a white wool dye, a quiver for your arrows, and it also produces edible flowers, seeds, and fruit. Some important distinctions here. First of all we are not talking about “yuca” which is another name for the cassava plant, a tropical shrub of the spurge family. There are also many species in the yucca family,...

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Make an Aluminum Can Lamp

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Preparedness
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...lamps back during the war. You can also use these lamps to heat up water. Making one is easy: 1. Remove the top off a can. We like to do this by scoring the inner ring of the top with a razor blade and then using a pair of pliers to bust it out. The fastidious and safety conscious may want to file down the sharp edge. 2. Cut a 2 1/2 inch square window out of one side of the can with a pair of scissors. 3. Now cut the bottom 1 1/2 inches off of an...

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Showers to Flowers

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Water Conservation
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...any less and you’ll risk a backup. 2. Cut the waste line from your shower, making sure that you are cutting the pipe before the point it meets up with anything coming out of the toilet. Remember you don’t want blackwater in your garden. If possible (i.e. if easily accessible via a trap door or some other configuration), install a three way diverter valve like the one pictured above, so that water can be shifted back to the sewer, if needed, such a...

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Artichoke Season at the Homegrown Revolution Compound

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Vegetable Gardening
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...nd abundant crop starting with the second year. Artichokes are attractive, making an ideal choice for edible landscaping. They spread like crazy. Suckers can be transplanted elsewhere. They’re damn tasty either steamed, combined with pasta or made into an omelet. They do best in foggy coastal places but will also grow in the warmer interior where the Homegrown Revolution compound resides. In cooler locales they will thrive all year round. In warme...

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