Your Urban Homesteading Vocabulary Word of the Day: Slumgum

May 22, 2017

...of slumgum. Don’t leave your slumgum outside like I did. It turns out that urban night critters such as skunks and raccoons also love slumgum. Some mammal dragged mine off and ate it! Side note: check your library’s online digital resources. The Los Angeles Public Library offers the Oxford English Dictionary, and many more online reference resources, for free to anyone with a LA library card. Stay tuned for a longer post on beeswax processing in t...

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The New Urban Forager

Mr. Homegrown

April 22, 2008

Food, Foraging

...On a hot, humid day along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou, in the shadow of four abandoned concrete silos, a maggot infested corpse of a pit bull lies splayed across a sheet of black plastic. Nearby, a pile of asphalt roofing material blocks the path I’m taking down to one of the most polluted waterways in Texas. Not a promising beginning to an urban food foraging expedition. (Read the rest of our foraging essay via Reality Sandwich)...

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Urban Foraging with Nance Klehm

Mr. Homegrown

September 8, 2008

Food, Foraging

Via The Little Green People Show, a podcast with Chicago’s urban forager Nance Klehm: “We’re not talking gardens or dumpster diving. This is a discussion of the riches that grow in our highway medians, city planters, backyards and rail lines. Expert forager, Nance Klehm, sheds light on the city’s bounty, from medicinal plants to tasty greens. Getting to know the foraging landscape takes some time and energy, but gives back in complex flavors and...

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Looking for Urban Farmers

Mr. Homegrown

January 23, 2009

Thoughtstylings

22 Comments

...s of the Library of Congress: Oswego, New York. A citizen showing his wife vegetables from his victory garden as she starts on her way to church. Homegrown Evolution is writing a profile of urban farmers for a new magazine. We’ve got the West covered, but we are still looking for some folks to profile who: 1. Live in one of the five boroughs of New York City and grow edibles and/or keep livestock. 2. Live in Detroit. We hear rumors of folks keepin...

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Chicago’s Urban Bees

Mr. Homegrown

May 29, 2009

Animals, Bees

...hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there. In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping, as many agricultural areas are contaminated with pesticides. Keeping bees i...

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