With only a few weeks left till spring, winter isn’t over with us just yet.

After pretty dry & rather warm start to 2011, February ended with a few cold snaps and storms blowing in.    The last storm dumped over 2 inches of rain and brought snow to some parts of LA!  We did get a bit of slushy, mushy "hail like" stuff for a minute.  The mountains that form the dramatic backdrop to the LA basin were covered in snow and that was a majestic sight to behold.

The last few nights have been cold (26 degrees at “Lettuce Level”)  but so far all the greens and vegetables under the row covers are doing just fine.    Since the stone fruits flowered so early we a bit worried that the recent rains and cold will have an affected on the crop this year.   Not only affecting the flowering but the pollination.

This years eats are at the mercy of the weather so we are hoping for a good year and bountiful harvest

February 2011 Harvest Totals

Produce: 118 lbs

Eggs:  38 Chicken    127 Duck

Year to Date Tally

Produce: 411 lbs

Eggs: 46 Chicken    185 Duck

It rained over an inch this week.  The garden is drinking it the much needed watering after a dry January.   There's still more rain to come.  What a blessing!

The cabbage is growing nicely and I can't wait to use the gorgeous heads.

Thankfully,the rain wasn't hard, we were worried about the early blooms on the stone fruit and apple trees.

Looking forward to summer, Justin mixed up a big batch of soil and starting pulling out the summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and more!   Over the weekend we plan to have  soil blocking party to get a jump start on summer plantings.

Here's a bit of news, for those who care and aren't a victims of this recent rumor mill.

Our family hopes that level heads prevail and that people take time to step back, be informed about trademark policy, and search out the truth.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone,  and we hope that you continue to live the urban homestead lifestyle.

If you've been following our harvest tally over the years here's a nifty little HARVEST GRAPH 2001-2009 to give you an idea how we've been at the fore front of urban agriculture food production.

These last few days, I too have been anxiously waiting the final harvest tally from Justin who's been going through the invoice books to tally the herbs and edible flower boxes that we harvested and sold (which came to 117 lbs for the year).

On a side note, we just couldn't figure out how to calculate the weight of 100 plus flats of wheat grass that we grew last year, so we just left them out of the final tally.  Oh well.

The extremely wet and cold December affected our harvest numbers, and of course there are still loads of oranges on the trees but it wouldn't be right to strip the trees clean just to bump up the tally.  We were tempted though!

So the numbers are in!

From our 1/10 acre growing grounds:  Jan 130 lbs, Feb 139 lbs, Mar 396 lbs, Apr 555 lbs, May 590 lbs, Jun 730 lbs, Jul 1110 lbs, Aug 1228 lbs, Sep 638 lbs, Oct 388 lbs, Nov 492 lbs plus 117# herb and flower sales

December 2010

517 lbs of produce

14 duck eggs

0 chicken eggs

2010 Year Total

Our previous harvest record of 6200  has been officially broken .....

Drum roll please!

7,030 lbs of produce (fruits, vegetables and herbs only)

131 lbs of honey

307 duck eggs

706 chicken eggs

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest!  Wow, you guys are good since there were certainly a lot of close guesses!  The prize winners of our "Guess the Harvest Contest"  are:

Anna @ 7010

Carrie @ 7015

Brian @ 7043

Congrats on winning a beautiful and inspirational Little Homestead in the City Calendar - mind, there are only a handful left so get them before they are all gone!

Oh, and you winners, please send us your mailing address.

We hope that you've been inspired to grow MORE of your own groceries.   May 2011 be a productive and a bountiful one for everyone!

FUTURE FEAR SBS DATELINE (watch video)

Others are approaching the future differently, believing the biggest threats we’re facing are problems that we’ve caused ourselves. Richard Heinberg is one of the world's foremost peak oil experts, who warns that we’re addicted to fossil fuels and must adapt before they run out. David takes us to a Los Angeles suburb to meet the Dervaes family of so-called ‘urban homesteaders’. They've already adapted and are living self-sufficiently and almost entirely off-grid.But are they all being over cautious, or will the rest of us be under prepared?

Heinberg thinks that if we're going to survive, we need to change the way we live.

RICHARD HEINBERG: We've got to work together on this because individual survivalism just isn't going to cut it. You know, if I've got my vegetable garden and my neighbour is starving, then the only way I'm going to be able to continue eating is to stay up all night with my shotgun to make sure no-one goes over the fence. What kind of life is that? We're creating out of this paradise, Earth, we're creating a hell for our descendents. I think it's our duty, not just to somehow try to survive this but to change what we're doing and to create a survivable planet for everyone, for our communities and for our descendants.

I met a family that's doing just that.

JULES DERVAES: Some more tomatoes here, we're about 90% self-sufficient in the summertime because this is all our bounty.

Jules Dervaes lives in Los Angeles, right next to a major highway, but he's turned his backyard garden into a farm.

JULES DERVAES: These are heirloom squash from Italy, and they hang from the trellis here. Just watch your head.

He's got two daughters and a son.

REPORTER: How do you like this yourself?

JUSTIN DERVAES: I love what I do, so I can't complain. I've got a green thumb.

They grow 350 different fruits, vegetables, herbs and berries. They all survive on what's grown here.

JULES DERVAES: This is our barnyard. It's in the city, so we've got a nice little animal enclosure here. We've got five ducks, eight chickens and two goats.

And while I'm there looking at these goats and chickens, I can hear the traffic next door, whoof whoof up and down the highway, but you could be in the middle of the countryside.

JULES DERVAES: We're looking at a planet that has run amok. So you have to be sensitive about which direction you're going. If it's going the wrong direction, it's either you're going to turn around early or you turn around at the edge of the cliff.

Come up here to our store on the front porch - Nice to meet you.

They obviously had a fear for the future too of what's going to happen. But they're going around it in a different way.

JULES DERVAES: This is a completely different dream, we're talking about self-sufficiency, we're talking about neighbourliness, we're talking about a community of helping one another.

ANAIS DERVAES: It has the herbs from the garden. And we've already made some ice-cream. Yeah we have a hand-cranked...

JORDANNE DERVAES: It's cool, yes, it works for us. But it's a little scary because out there, it's no. It's, you know - you could actually forget about the bad things out there.

There seems to be this common strand running through America right now - A fear of the future, and a sense of doom. But I saw people responding in very different ways - from preparing to hide from change, to preparing to make change happen.

JULES DERVAES: So we figure we're preparing ourselves to live simply. I mean this here is riches, but people don't understand. If you look around, you'll see riches here but it's in the form of tomatoes and peppers and animals. So we're going backwards, and I say a step backwards is progress.

Afterthoughts

Though Mr Brill was here for well over four hours, tis a shame that the piece didn't capture the entire workings of the urban homestead - we'd need a whole show or two, there! A seasoned and well traveled journalist, was really taken with the place and after the filming as the sun set we sat down to a homegrown meal (which he enjoyed) there in the garden while Blackberry and Fairlight looked on.

We received an email from one of the SBS staff which said:

"We had so much wonderful footage and it was such a such a shame that we couldn't have included much much more of the Dervaes' in our piece (especially for me as a Researcher who sets up stories and then hands over the reigns to a producer and editor)."

Perhaps if enough folks write in?

The debate continues, what happens when the times turn bad? Escape or take a stand? There are the extreme preppers and practical preppers - what's the future going to be? Is sure is a scary thought, especially for us in the city who have, as urban homesteaders, taken practical steps towards positive change. Of course, it's not just an American problem like it sounded in the piece, we are all are on the same train - though some countries may be slightly behind we are all traveling the same track. One day we are going to have to deal with the future because it's happening now.

So what are you doing to prepare for an uncertain time? Which side are you on?

A step backwards, clay pot irrigation

We bought a couple dozen olla’s from you last year but only had two beds and few oak whiskey barrels at that time. This year we made a few more raised large beds and added a few more barrels (barrels perfect for the olla’s) installed drip lines to water all of the ollas at once by turning the handle on the hose. OH MY OH MY. We have a few whiskey barrels with just drip irrigation 360 sprayers and no olla’a and what a difference the olla makes, all of the whiskey barrels (holding tomato plants surrounded by herbs or strawberries and herbs combined are thriving, just thriving, taller than the no olla barrels. Plants love them, when removing them this past winter, they were hugged by roots of vegetables that had grown with them that past summer. They work and work well, we all have been utilizing the plant nanny a clay spike that holds a wine bottle. They have the same concept as the olla yet can not be filled with the drip lines. look very nice in the whiskey/wine barrels. very vineyard feel to our courtyard now.
We love it. - Patricia

Plant Pottery That Works

We can't sing the praises enough of clay pot irrigation, an ancient method of plant irrigation - considered the original drip irrigation system. And yes the ollas are 100% LEAD-FREE

Sure they are somewhat pricey but here on the urban homestead we've been slowing putting ollas [pronounced OH-ya] throughout the yard and over the last three years have cut our water usage in 1/2 while maintaining our annual poundage of close to 6,000 lbs. {our water bill for the entire year is $600}

It's great to hear of others who too have success with this ancient yet highly efficient watering method, thanks for sharing Patricia.

What about anyone else, care to share your olla experience? O yah!

Or better yet, share what water wise efforts you are doing to reduce your water use in the garden. Are you getting rid of the lawn to grow more food, mulching or planting crops closer together all in an effort to save water?

Here's our latest Water Saving Projects and list of Water Wise Ways

:: Resources ::

Buy Ollas from our Urban Homestead Shop

Using Ollas in Your Garden

Pictures of Ollas in Raised Beds

Ollas FAQ

Make Your Own SWC ("self watering container") Ollas in Containers (pics sent to us by another LA urban homesteader)

Photo courtesy ORGANIC CONNECTIONS MAGAZINE

“In the old days, people had relationships with nature and connections with animals,” he said. “When you remove that and put it in a factory someplace far away, people forget about it. When you have a different relationship with your animals and with your plants, when you treat them real well, they respond. Your own health and the health of the planet are intimately related, and as a society we’ve gotten away from that. So we just brought this all to pass in the city, in our Urban Homestead, and we’re spreading the word far and wide.”  - Jules Dervaes

Dervaes Gardens sits practically on top of a Pasadena, California, freeway and is only blocks away from the famous Rose Bowl. Outside are all the trappings of twenty-first-century life: automobiles, satellite dishes, supermarkets, car washes, and stores carrying produce brought thousands of miles for the convenience of their customers. But inside, Jules Dervaes and his children have created what they call an Urban Homestead. Virtually every square inch of land they have available to them—a tenth of an acre in all—is utilized for growing their own food. In addition to the hundreds of varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers, there is a beehive for honey, ducks and chickens for eggs, and goats for numerous purposes.

Read complete article at Organic Connections Magazine

[ Just to clarify!   Khaki Campbell ducks not "Camel" ]

:: Resources ::

Rock Dust - remineralize your soil

Freedom Seeds - seeds grown by the people for the people

On the Food Front

June's been a pretty mild month, thanks to the morning gloom is not too hot nor too cold - just right!

But the first day of July is a HOT one.  Summer is officially here and it will only get HOTTER.

June is the tipping point month were things can either go up hill or downhill ... and fast!  So far, we are holding steady.  Some things are growing well, while others not so much.

No new news hear, we do have a problem with some worms that are randomly cutting round holes in the chard - cheeky buggers.   In the morning I go thru and cull the bad leaves from the green beds - those go to the critters who chow down on box load of leafy greens each day.

We've spotted a few grasshoppers too.   If they are big enough, Justin who's just about as quick on the scissor trigger as Wyatt Earp, cuts them half.    Bye, bye grasshopper.  The ones that are the hardest to combat are the teensy tiny ones that wreak the most havoc in the garden.

A few harlequin bugs are still around but now there are some spider mites on the cucumbers and beans.  Justin sprayed Neem Oil to control them a bit.

We are harvesting another bed of carrots.  Like I said, best carrot year EVER.  Next big harvest will be the beets.  I've fallen in love with roasted beet and apple salad.  Green beans are pouring in - can never have enough of those.

Tomatoes are coming in by the handful, but hopefully not for long.  So too are the cucumbers, peppers and squashes.  Eggplant are not far behind.  If you drop by the urban homestead these days, you'll

On the fruit front:  there's baskets full of apples, blueberries, peaches and pretty soon figs!   Life is good.

Tally Hoe

730 lbs produce (fruits, vegetables, herbs)

Eggs:   32 Ducks /  68 Chickens

Year to Date Tally

2,540 lbs produce

205 Duck Eggs

440 Chicken Eggs

Happy Interdependence Day everyone!

On a cold, drizzly, gray day in February two chefs were dropped off at the Urban Homestead.

See what happens when they have to whip up a tasty meal with ingredients from the garden and pantry in this "foodie's" drama.

For "behind the scenes" photos check out our photo montage

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

As Seen On

So for those of you who are wondering where you can get supplies for your very own Urban Homestead most of the items featured on the Food Network segment can be purchase at our very own online stores either Peddlers Wagon or Freedom Seeds.

Don't forget what minimal profit we make from sales helps keep this site going and growing!

Few "featured" items....

Salad Mix, Produce & Preserves - local pick up from our front porch farm-stand

"Organic" Sign - handmade out of recycled materials

Bike Blender - pedal power!

Sun Ovens - low impact cooking

Tromboncino Squash - grow your own

Heirloom Vegetable Seeds - start your own garden!

Preserving Books

The Art of Canning DVD - from our friends the West Ladies of TN

Build Your Own Earth Oven - how to book

Stainless Steel Kitchen Composter - handy counter holder of scraps destined for the compost pile

Wire Egg Basket- nifty basket to collect eggs

Want to start your own intensive garden?  Check out HOW TO GROW MORE VEGETABLES

Wire Harvest Basket - great for harvesting and washing veggies

Scissors - we use these shears in the garden on a daily basis

Keeping Chickens & other Citified Farm Animals

New Blog

Note, we are (if all goes well) upgrading the blog this week so expect some down-time as we launch the new blog!

Chocolate, coffee and encouragement would be appreciated.

Good little article but there are some slight misstatements. 1.) We grow 99 percent of our PRODUCE not diet 2) We do buy supplement animal feed (grains pellets) oh, and our goal is "ZERO" food miles!

Path to Freedom conserves water while cutting ‘food miles’ from Dervaes family’s carbon footprint

By Carolyn Neuhausen PASADENA WEEKLY

On a quiet street off Orange Grove Boulevard, about a mile from the Rose Bowl and Old Pasadena, members of the Dervaes family pull about 6,000 pounds of edible flowers, vegetables and fruits from the raised beds and pots on their micro-farm each year.

Jules Dervaes and his children Justin, Anais and Jordanne have been growing their own food on their one-tenth of an acre lot since the 1980s. The family produces 99 percent of its entire diet in the family yard in what Jules calls the “100 foot diet,” since produce and eggs travel 100 feet or less from their source to the Dervaes’ kitchen.

The Dervaes’ urban homestead, Path to Freedom, symbolizes a victory in cutting out food miles from their carbon footprint. What makes this feat all the more remarkable is the family’s ability to use water-conserving techniques to grow their produce.

Food miles are “the distance food travels from where it is grown to where it is ultimately purchased or consumed by the end user,” states a paper published for Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

The farther a product travels from its source to a store, the more gasoline, energy and packaging is used to bring that food to the consumer. The longer food takes to get from the farm to the consumer, the more nutrients it loses, since food starts losing its full nutritional value after being picked. For this reason, consumers have been growing their own vegetable gardens and attending local farmers markets in increasing numbers.

“Food miles are important [because of] the carbon footprint that’s hidden in our cheap food. It’s like ‘look at our cheap food’, but someone’s paying somewhere for something because it’s not cheap when you ship. [Food] coming from Chile or New Zealand, that’s a lot of trucking. If you can’t see it [the cost] right off the bat on your bill you’re going to see it in the health care bill for the planet,” said Jules Dervaes.

When the Dervaes’ harvest a surplus of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and peas, they sell the surplus to restaurants in Pasadena such as Marstons, Elements Café and a catering business, Kitchen for Exploring Foods. At the most, Dervaes produce travels a mile and a half to get to these restaurants, which also represents minimal food miles.

At zero food miles for the family, Path to Freedom is certainly environmentally friendly, but the Dervaes’ have used other methods and systems to decrease their environmental impact and increase their Earth friendliness.

Animals are a part of closing the sustainability circle at Path to Freedom. A food chart produced by the Dervaes family shows that, in a good year, they consume 60 percent of their harvest, 30 percent is sold to restaurants and 10 percent is fed back to their farm animals. The homestead farm is entirely sustainable, because the family re-uses and composts droppings from their two goats, five ducks and eight chickens, which enriches the soil for next year’s garden. Because the urban farm produces enough food for the family and the animals, the Dervaes’ don’t even need to use their cars or gas to get food from an animal-feed supply store. Everything they need to keep their farm fed and producing happens in their yard.

In an effort to decrease their environmental impact, Jules Dervaes took advantage of Pasadena’s many city rebate programs, upgrading his three major appliances to Energy Star brands, taking advantage of compact fluorescent light bulb giveaways, installing solar panels and planting trees. The solar panels provide two-thirds of the Dervaes’ electricity, and Jules chooses to pay an extra few cents per kilowatt hour to get wind-powered electricity through the city grid at night.

Running a farm in their backyard hasn’t always been easy for the Dervaes family; drought, natural aridity and California’s growing water shortage have posed problems and harvest shortfalls in recent years.

According to the state of California Web site and the state Water Control Board, statistics show California entered a severe drought in fall 2006. Three years later, the state may be gearing up for a fourth year of drought and is planning to reduce urban water usage by 20 percent by 2020.

The Pasadena Department of Water and Power placed a mandatory limit on watering to one day per week this rainy season and, as of April 1, residents can only water three times a week before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m. — the latest efforts in a years-long water reduction effort.

The city charges households for water usage on a tiered scale: what used to be scaled in three blocks has now expanded to five, with five different costs of water. The more water used, depending on water meter size, the more a resident’s water bill.

The Dervaes’ at one point were in the fifth tier scale, costing them plenty of money and jeopardizing their ability to continue affordably growing their own food. But the city gave the family a chance to explain their unique needs for a lot of water and their conservation methods. The family wrote the city explaining the steps it was implementing to curb water usage and was granted relief, making farming more affordable.

In fact, the Dervaes’ have cut their watering bill to $600 annually, and they did it by reusing water, reducing water use and using old irrigation methods.

Rich soil is the key to having a bountiful garden and getting the most out of scarce water resources, which is why the Dervaes’ have mulched and composted their soil extensively. Over the years they’ve added so much natural fertilizer to their soil that they now have a foot and a half more soil than their next-door neighbors.

“We don’t waste anything and we have five composting areas around here. When you put the good soil [dirt with animal fertilizer] on the plants they immediately have a kind of insurance against water stress and drought because the soil’s good and the plants have good root systems because they go down,” said Dervaes.

To learn more about conserving water, Jules Dervaes and his family turned to the Internet. Researching old methods of irrigation, they found a system used in ancient China, Rome and Egypt and still used around the world to this day. The system is called “ollas,” the Spanish term for bottle or jar.

Ollas irrigation is based on burying unglazed clay jars in planters or garden beds, near produce, and filling the jars up with water. Unglazed clay pottery leeches moisture, making it a poor container for holding water for long periods of time. When the ollas are buried to the throat in soil, the jar loses water, dripping deep in the soil, near the roots of the plants. It acts as a constant drip irrigation system, but because water is below the surface, it’s not lost in the sun’s evaporating rays and the plants get only the water they need.

The family’s “computerized, automatic-timed waterer,” son Justin, also waters the garden beds by hand, using a watering wand and a hose, which means water is used appropriately where it’s most needed. Each type of plant is watered based on its needs and its size. This customized watering is much different than the sprinkler irrigation systems used in large commercial farms, where sprinklers shoot water over acres and water is lost to evaporation and scatter.

The Dervaes’ reuse their water as well. During the summer, family members use an outdoor shower shed and biodegradable soaps, so water is rinsed off into the ground, nourishing fig tree and sugarcane poles; clothing is washed in an Amish-style crank washbasin, water and biodegradable detergents siphoned off to water their avocado tree.

The family uses a sink-toilet combo from Asia; after washing their hands in the sink with clean water, the toilet bowl fills with that slightly used water, making the sink and toilet functional, water-saving and totally sanitary.

According to Jules Dervaes, citrus, once established, historically does well being dry farmed in California. However, dry farming in semi-arid conditions does not allow for lettuces, carrots, peas and other crops.

A testament to the power of a good rainy season, Justin Dervaes last hand-watered the family’s pea crop at 8 inches of height. They are now well over 8 feet tall, all based on the generous and steady rain Southern California received this winter.

For more stories on the Dervaes’ ongoing micro-farming and conservation efforts, visit urbanhomestead.org.

Nothing says 'I love you' better than homegrown veggies

There's a slew of photos from last weeks work and happenings here on the urban homestead (from cheese making to brewing a spring garden tonic with weeds) in queue but first I liked to take some time remind folks that spring is just around the corner and you know what that means!

Seeds, Goods & Supplies

Over 90% of the vegetables we grow here at our little farm in the city are featured and sold on our online store FreedomSeeds.org (it's our first year so are aware that the variates are limited but, hey, it's a start!)

In addition our other online store PeddlersWagon.com carries goods and supplies for the modern day urban homesteader featuring items that we actually own and use around our urban homestead.

Some of the best selling items this year are the handy dandy Soil Blocks, 2010 Growing by the Moon Calendars, the sturdy Wire Vegetable Basket and Ollas - clay pottery that drips!

Though it's just a wee wagon full of goods I am sure there's something useful that you could use.

Purchases made through these stores goes directly into the non profit to continue to keep this site online and our outreach growing.

Show your "lovin''" appreciation by supporting this site (count the ways)

Thank you all.

Upcoming Engagement

This Tues, Feb 9 (7:30 PM) Jules Dervaes will be giving a presentation at the OC Fair Grounds.

Check our online calendar for details.

Hope to see you there!