Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?

December 14, 2015

...ikes that coincide with canning at the end of summer. Unsurprisingly, most homesteading topics revolve around seasons. Seasonality, by the way, is one of things I really like about this movement. A digression here–the flatness of time (see Charles Taylor)–is one of the things I don’t like about modernity. “Home canning” searches “Home canning” searches show a more dramatic decline. “Backyard Chickens” searches People research backyard chickens in...

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Front Yard Update: Welcome to Crazy Town

Mrs. Homegrown

May 20, 2016

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Gardening

22 Comments

...an their peers above. And no wonder–they’re underwatered. The cure for bad soil is, as always, compost and mulch and worm poo. I need to add a lot of that stuff to this poor terrace, but I have a problem. The soil is already up to the top of the retaining wall–if I add more, it will spill all over the sidewalk. So I have a choice. I can add edging to give me a few more inches of depth for amendments, or I can dig up that terrace, pulling up the pl...

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We are all gardeners

Mrs. Homegrown

April 2, 2015

Back to the Garden, Gardening, Thoughtstylings

13 Comments

...t on the invisible, but critical aspects of the landscape: the life of the soil and the path of the water. The active soil ecology supports the surface plants without need for store-bought inputs. Rain water is captured and channeled through a variety of means to both irrigate the garden and charge the groundwater. The plants in the loving landscape promote biodiversity and the local ecology. They are largely native, but not dogmatically so. The l...

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Growing Strawberries in a Self Irrigating Gutter (SIG).

Mr. Homegrown

March 19, 2013

Gardening, Self Watering Containers

15 Comments

...esh pots. These hang down into the lower gutter and wick water up into the soil. I cut circular holes in the upper gutter using a hole saw, and fit the mesh cups into the holes. Next I filled the upper gutter with potting mix (note that with self watering containers you have to use potting mix, not regular soil). And all self watering containers need mulch of some kind–I just happened to have a roll of vinyl billboard material that my neighbor Ray...

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Urban Farming in Oakland

Mr. Homegrown

September 14, 2008

Urban Farming

Public radio station KCRW has an excellent interview with urban farmer and writer Novella Carpenter. Carpenter has pigs, goats, ducks, chickens and more all on a small lot in Oakland, California. You can listen to the radio interview here (along with some other interesting segments on hunting caribou, cooking pasta, roasting peppers, and more) on chef Evan Kleiman’s show Good Food. You can also check out Carpenter’s blog, meaningfulpursuit.com. W...

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