Our new front yard, part 3: design

...and soil and water requirements. But the most difficult, is the factor of time. No other designer has to deal with that, except filmmakers, and they only have to do it once. Gardens are time based installations which are always changing. You have to account for both plant growth and seasonal change. Some plants are longer lived than others. Some are summer or winter dormant. Plants flower and they stop flowering. They lose their leaves. Weather d...

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010 Erica Strauss of Northwest Edible Life

...post, The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater Meal planning for families Time management on the homestead Getting up early to get things done Irresponsible chicken keeping Livestock vs. pets Ducks vs. chickens Slugs and snails Lining a duck pond with clumping cat litter Duck housing Selecting and preserving avocados Erica’s book project You can also find Erica on Facebook. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (...

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Homegrown Evolution in Chicago

...ter with: nettlesting@yahoo.com Erik will lead an informal presentation on Urban Homesteading in Los Angeles – focusing on his and his wife’s homegrown systems of adventurous experimentation of chickens, growing, greywater, brewing and more – some successful, some not so much! Copies of The Urban Homestead will be for sale. Many thanks to Nancy Klehm for arranging these events! See her website Spontaneous Vegetation for more info on other events a...

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Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

...e to remove (to water, etc…) without mangling. The building manager at the time told me that the screens were non-removable (what?!). So I measured all the windows, went to the hardware store, and had them make removable screens, voila. Maybe I should mention, too, that the management recently ripped out all the shrubbery in front of the building. I assumed they were going to put in something else in imminently, but a couple months went by… so, a...

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Essential System #9 – Hydration

...tructions for purifying water with iodine or chlorine can be found on this page. Filters, however, do not kill viruses which include hepatitis A., Norwalk virus, and rotavirus and are present when water becomes contaminated by the feces of affected individuals. In other words, bad dookie in the water. To kill viruses you need to use either iodine, bleach or expensive filters which also use iodine or electrostatic charges. Boiling water for at leas...

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