Journal of the New Alchemists

April 25, 2014

Appropriate Technology, Aquaculture, Gardening, Thoughtstylings, Water and Power

...) covers mostly their agricultural experiments, but occasionally dips into urban planning and other subjects. Biodome. Image: Journal of the New Alchemy. It’s interesting to look back at their work to see what ideas went mainstream and what faded away. What didn’t stick is what Nassim Taleb would call “top-down” approaches to design epitomized by the 70s fixation on geodesic domes and self contained ecosystems (though we’re starting to see a resur...

Read…

Farm in a Box

Mr. Homegrown

June 18, 2009

Aquaculture, Preparedness

11 Comments

...ish with vegetables, naturally balanced aquatic ecosystems are established making it unnecessary to add fertilizer, chemicals or remove nitrogen rich water. As in nature, plants, fish and oxygen loving bacteria create a symbiotic relationship; Fish waste is converted by bacteria to a plant loving nutrient which helps maintain safe levels of ammonia without discarding waste and water. Aqupaonics is an efficient, intensive gardening method with aver...

Read…

Initial Thoughts on the Age of Limits 2013 Conference

Mrs. Homegrown

May 30, 2013

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

21 Comments

...Global Eco Village Network and the author of The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change, The Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook. He blogs at The Great Change. In the wake of the conference, what we find ourselves most interested in thinking about and talking about with others is not the validity of the concepts of peak oil, climate change and economic collapse, or the gritty details of it, but the culturally loaded ideas that...

Read…

Age of Apocalypse

Mr. Homegrown

May 31, 2013

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

41 Comments

...toxic spills, and mortgage payments, opening the way to a simpler life of farming, maintaining shelter, and maybe defending one’s family . . . This is why the return to simplicity offered by the most extreme scenarios is providing so alluring to so many of us. The apocalypse meme also recalls Freud’s observation the the fear of death paradoxically results in a condition of pathological inaction that mimics death. It’s an impulse, in my opinion, t...

Read…

An open letter to Trader Joes

Mr. Homegrown

October 16, 2007

Animals, Chickens

16 Comments

...lated by the USDA (largely because the huge companies that control poultry farming in this country and whose political influence puts the USDA in their back pocket don’t want to acknowledge that pasture raised eggs are superior to factory farmed eggs). It’s a shame that your eggs aren’t pasture raised especially since, according to a study conducted by Mother Earth News, pasture raised eggs contain 1⁄3 less cholesterol, 1⁄4 less saturated fat, 2⁄3...

Read…