Vegetable Gardening for the Lazy

...you know of a good source either local or mail order. We’ll definitely be making some cuttings, as it would be nice to have more than one. 2. Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus). A member of the sunflower family, this North American native produces an edible tuber that, while hard to clean, is worth the effort. It’s invasive which, from the perspective of the martini swilling gardener, is a plus since it means never having to propagate mor...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

...just happen to be very good at taking up nutrients from relatively poor soil. The point here is let your weeds rot in water and you get a nice fertilizer. This is better than water into wine as far as I’m concerned. Which reminds me that I want to try making dandelion wine this spring…. So many of the plants that people consider weeds, like dandelion and nettle, are nutritious and medicinal plants. My favorite part is that they are easy to grow an...

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The Urban Homestead

...n): Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City (Process Self-reliance Series) by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen (Process, 2010) ISBN: 978-1934170106 (The first edition, the one with the “American Gothic” cover, was released by Process on June 1, 2008) Buy it at: Amazon • Abe Books • Barnes & Nobel • Powell’s and your local indie bookstore This celebrated, essential handbook for the urban homesteading movement shows how to grow and...

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On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

...–forgetting that urban homesteading is not about self-sufficiency—to chase self-sufficiency is a fool’s errand. I should be happy just to have a few good salads and be thankful that I can buy good vegetables at a local farmer’s market. I don’t think self-sufficiency is a good goal even on a large piece of land. We humans are meant to work together, hang out in groups and share goods and knowledge. I’ve got some talented vegetable growing neighbors...

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My Morning Routine: Tarrying With the Negative

...lize an inherently unstable system. If you take the brakes off, the system self destructs. My further two cents: because of ecological limits, even with government stabilization, the whole thing self destructs in the end, but I digress. Žižek explains ideological systems via the Lacanian concept of the Big Other, “a hypothetical observer watching our every action and conversation, whose demands we obey and for whom we perform.”(1) This book was wr...

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