There Will Be Kraut–Lecture on Fermentation at the Historic Greystone Mansion

...cabinets to pricy “pro-biotic” supplements. Erik Knutzen, co-author of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, will give an overview of the world’s fermented foods and discuss how you can make your own. He’ll cover everything from sauerkraut to pickles to sourdough bread to the great kombucha controversy to the health benefits of fermented foods. He may even discuss arctic explorer Knud Rasmussen’s untimely de...

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Roughin’ It

...we highly recommend it. The class includes ten classroom sessions, two day trips, and two overnight trips all for a very reasonable price. The class ends with a challenging weekend of snow camping in the high Sierras. Take this class and your urban homestead will be ready for most contingencies. And speaking of camping, the velorutionaries at C.I.C.L.E. are hosting a weekend camping trip on November 11-12 that will feature a wild food hike with th...

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Leave Your Leaves Alone

...view that we need to consider a mix of native and hardy non-natives in our urban spaces, Our urban landscape bears little resemblance to pre-development conditions. Consequently, formally local natives may be unable to succeed in these altered environments. What plants are then most appropriate? Rather than looking to a past that is no more, it may be best to use our understanding of the ecological services plants provide. A review of research by...

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Saturday Linkages: DIY Coffee Roasting and That Crazy Rhubarb Lady

...=sm&utm_campaign=button_chunky … As City Considers Removing Ban on Parkway Vegetable Gardens, Some Communities Continue Planting http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/08/13/as-city-considers-removing-ban-on-parkway-vegetable-gardens-some-communities-continue-planting/ … The view from above Los Angeles http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-green-homage-to-los-angeles-20130814,0,4040309.story … This Week in Crazy Rhubarb Lady by Amy Stewart http://gard...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

...ing site. A sideline: natives vs. exotic This is a hot button issue in the gardening world. Rainer and West have a very nice stance on native vs. exotic plants. They are not native purists. They point out that in a disturbed environment like an urban center, where even the soil might be imported, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to chase after a lost past, especially when local conditions have changed so much that what once might have grown there si...

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