→ 2010-03-03 06:24:33 (15 Comments)
June 29, 2010
Now that the first summer planting flush is over, it’s time to get started on the second round of planting. Folks often ask us why is our small garden so productive. One of the main reasons is we have successful succession plantings. When one crop goes out, another one comes in.
October 23, 2008
Orlando Home & Leisure Magazine, October 2008
A Landscape Good Enough to Eat
Save your money, improve your cooking and help save the planet by transforming your lawn into an edible landscape.
By Cindy Heroux
No, we’re not suggesting you chow down on that boxwood hedge or dine on dracenas, but there’s a growing movement called “urban farming” that [...]
June 3, 2008
It’s a busy time here on the urban homestead. Lots of produce orders to fill, constant planting and harvesting efforts. There’s also figuring out to best optimize both the productivity of the garden and use of the harvest in terms of preservation – perhaps into secondary “sellable” products which would generate a [...]
April 3, 2008
A reader asks:
I must admit to being a bit confused about your use of the term “NPK fertilizer” – I presume by that you are referring to artificially manufactured fertilizers? All fertilizers, including those we consider “natural” such as animal manure and compost, contain varying concentrations of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K) (amongst [...]
March 31, 2008
CHOW MAGAZINE: Photos courtesy PathtoFreedom.com… Yep, them’s our gorgeous figs, tomatoes, swiss chard!
Lawn Liberation
Back in 1990’s Jules Dervaes was fed up with his lawn. Fed up with the time and water spent caring for it and getting nothing in return, he smothered it under a layer of newspapers and mulch the yard [...]
March 30, 2008
Fellow traveler, Field of Tansy, shares a review and pictorial of her first soil blocks – looking good! Thanks for the nod – happy soil blocking!
Each year on the urban homestead we make thousands of soil blocks using this nifty block maker (which is about 10 years old from my recollections!) Soil [...]
March 19, 2008
Late winter front yard landscape
Back in the 90’s after the front yard fell victim to layers of newspaper and a couple inches of mulch it’s been a journey of growth for our family. With an eye for function and form we’ve slowly transformed our typical lawn into a an edible [...]
March 14, 2008
Squash, cucumbers, beans, tomatoes and pepper are up!
Let the planting season begin!
“Succession Intensive Square Foot Gardening” means planting as much as you can in the smallest of plots. Our motto here on the urban homestead is that “small is beautiful and productive.’ Even the smallest plot can [...]
March 12, 2008
by Anais in Compost, Composting, Fertilizers, Garden, Garden, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais, Soil & Mulch
Justin mixing up a batch of EM Bokashi using bulk organic rice bran and organic molasses
One Year Milestone
Justin proudly remarked that’s been one year with out applying any organic NPK fertilizers to the garden. So what are we using to grow and maintain such healthy and productive plants? Every week [...]
January 14, 2008
Backyard “winter” garden
In Search of Good Food
A documentary film tour of California’s emerging sustainable food systems write about their LA experience and stop at a super productive urban farm.
Here’s looking at you kid
Chicken Behavior
In our backyard menagerie all our animals are friendly and have their own personalities but out of all our feathered friends, Estella [...]
February 5, 2007
by Anais in Barnyard, Chickens, Garden, Greywater Reclamation, Homestead, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais, Water, Water
Q & A – Hatching Eggs
Q. Just wondering how you can tell that an egg is fertiile? Does it look different from an unfertilized egg? I was also wondering how many eggs you can hatch in an incubator at one time and how long it takes them to hatch?
A. Regarding fertile eggs, you first need [...]
January 11, 2007
by Anais in Clay Pot Irrigation, Compost Toilet, Depaving, Garden, Garden, Greywater Reclamation, Homestead, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais, Rainwater Harvesting, Soil & Mulch, Water, Water
O Water Where Art Thou?
Over the last 15 years on the urban homestead we implemented a few water saving conservation practices (and we still have a ways to go)
around the house
• bucket drain (bathroom and produce packing area sink in the garden) – this water can be used to flush the toilet and in the [...]
January 10, 2007
Soil blocks w/lettuce
Q. If you are still looking for questions to answer, I was wondering how you start seeds. I know you like avoid plastic when you can. Do you use plastic trays for seed starting?
A. For seed starting we use/makesoil blocks orAPS system. Alsonewspaper pots are great for vegetables like cucumbers, squash, corn and [...]
May 22, 2006
by Anais in Clay Pot Irrigation, Community, Garden, Homestead, Menu Planning, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais, Water, Water, Weather
It’s raining! What a tremendous blessing this late in the season. By storms end, we could get anywhere between 1-4 inches. The plants (and people – well, gardeners mostly) are loving it. Waking up this morning and opening the window to look out in the garden, I see that the plants seem to have grown [...]
April 4, 2006
Planting french filet beans
Well, the “big storm” isn’t here just yet. Although we have experienced very light showers, we hope the rain will increase after all the plantings we did in the garden to give the seeds and plants and deep soaking. Instead of watering the new beds and transplants we figured on letting [...]
March 1, 2006
by Anais in Depaving, Garden, Homestead, Journey Reflections, Kitchen, Methods & Principles, News, Posts by Anais, Skills & Crafts, Water, Weather
“Hauling your own water makes you aware of how much gets used and how little you actually need. You become part of the system, not just a detached, unquenchable customer.” ~ Max Burns ~
Quote via Wildside’s Musing
So, true. That’s just what I was trying to get across in one of the earlier posts. We [...]
February 28, 2006
The orange trees got their annual hair cut and the clippings aren’t taken away or put into a compost pile. Instead, the trimmings are placed right underneath the trees. Sure, it looks a bit untidy, but why take this organic material away from the plant which produced it. It’s foolish to come back and perhaps [...]
January 31, 2006
Front yard in January
Amy Stewart’s blog states: Sure, it’s easy to post a picture of the garden in June, when everything’s looking glorious. But what about January?
That’s so true. In Spring & Summer, my camera seems to willingly follow me out every time I work in the garden. In winter, there is still a [...]
January 29, 2006
Mixing EM Bokashi
Justin made up a huge batch of EM Bokashi last week using up much of the 25lb’s of bran and 1 gallon of molasses that was purchased in our last co-op order. Bokashi is a Japanese term that means “fermented organic matter. EM Bokashi is a pleasant smelling product made using a combination [...]
October 11, 2005
by Anais in Barnyard, Community, Cooling, Ducks, Earthen (Cob) Oven, Energy, Garden, Garden, Homebrew Biodiesel, Homestead, Kitchen, Methods & Principles, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Transportation, Weather
Fo-ti vine screen
Passive Cooling
To keep our house cool during the brutal summer months, the guys erected two passive cooling, living-trellises a few years back which runs along the hottest side of the house. A Chinese herbal vine grows on one and a passion fruit on the other. We’ve noticed a considerable difference these living sunscreens [...]
May 26, 2005
Before & after
No vital signs – it’s a code three!
As the first slabs of concrete were removed, we uncovered soil. The same hardpan, adobe soil that many years ago covered our entire property. Soil so dry that it repelled water like it was oil and refused to absorb H2O no matter how long you saturated [...]
March 29, 2005
Mint, Strawberries & Green Onions
Article: Rock dust grows extra-big vegetables (and might save us from global warming)
The couple say that the rock dust means that crops don’t need water to produce harvests of magnificent vegetables. “It would be perfect for Third World countries that are usually unable to grow crops because the land is so [...]
March 21, 2005
by Anais in Ammendments & Fertilizers, Fertilizers, Garden, Garden, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais
Bluebells
In every nook and cranny of the garden there are beautiful spring flowers popping out from winter dormancy. The blackberry bush is heavy with clusters of white flowers.
Foregoing the admonition to not count our “blackberries before they ripen,” we
are daringly dreaming of blackberry cobbler, blackberry pie, blackberry jam– mmmmmm. The fragrant blossoms of citrus trees [...]
February 9, 2004
by Anais in Energy, Garden, Homebrew Biodiesel, Homestead, Methods & Principles, Posts by Anais, Skills & Crafts, Solar Power, Transportation
“Don’t let it get away!”
The past couple of days have been beautiful and the weather promises even more glorious sunshine this week. Yesterday, I spent the day sitting in the warm sun, making soil blocks and planting pepper and basil seeds. Today, JC and I will plant another round of tomatoes as already the first [...]
May 30, 2003
People sometimes ask how we are able to grow so much food in such a small space. Well, there are many things that contribute to our “success” if you can call it that. Besides utilizing planting successions and proper management,one method used is “multi-level” plantings as shown in the photo. Here we have tomatoes [...]
April 21, 2003
The last of the broccoli was harvested and the snow pea production is starting to wind down. For awhile, there will be a small lull before the summer crops are ready to begin harvesting. We are eating the last of the cabbage and radishes and are still working on finishing the winter squashes. Boy, we [...]
February 17, 2003
The guys just finished making three beautiful cedar boxes for the front porch. Ah, the front porch, a wasted growing space! All we have growing there now is basically houseplants like ferns, ivy, orchids — you get the picture. The challenge for us this year will be to get some edible/useful plants that’ll tolerate deep, [...]
July 28, 2002
“Nature’s candy in my hand or can or pie…” ~Peaches ~
Finally receive a load of oak mulch for the yard. The four loads of mulch from last year are almost gone — decomposed into a wonderful rich, dark brown dirt. This year wasn’t even a good year for oak mulch. Since there wasn’t any ample [...]
February 16, 2002
Like to take cuttings and want to find a replacement for those unnatural rooting hormones? Make your own natural rooting hormone using willow branches. We tried out this technique last year and it worked quite well. We harvested the willows from the Arroyo Seco stream near our home. With one of the cutting we planted [...]
