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Thursday, November 03, 2011

Coyne and Knutzen share “Radical Home Ec” at Community Center

Pictured: the Altadena Flag, Tim Dundon version.

by Laura Monteros

With the talk of the town being which flag be run up the flagpole to see if it flies, Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne introduced their Wednesday-night program with their own design: Altadena’s own Tim Dundon and his compost heap on a field of green.  It makes perfect sense, not only as an Altadena icon, but by way of introducing “Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World.”

Coyne and Knutzen, residents of Silver Lake who say they are considering moving to Beautiful Altadena, were promoting their book by the same name. They also wrote “The Urban Homestead” and have a blog, Root Simple.  Altadena Heritage sponsored the talk at the Altadena Community Center.

“Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World” is essentially a how-to book filled with projects, from a simple olive oil lamp to brewing beer. The projects are designed to use inexpensive materials and basic skills, and to be ecologically sound, and wonder of wonders, the projects they shared really are simple.

Erik Knutzen

“Unless you were lucky enough to be raised by hippies, you grow up with a compost pile in your back yard,” Coyne observed.  “It’s not hard.  It’s like any other household skill—making a cake, taking spaghetti out of the pot at the right time.”

Like honey?  Build bee frames and capture wild bee colonies (as long as you do it while they are swarming, not guarding a hive). Or just call the hotline Backwards Beekeepers and they’ll capture any swarms you see.

Central to a working homestead with plenty of edible plants is good soil.  “Soils keeps us all alive,” Knutzen said, because all our food ultimately comes from the soil. “The soil is full of all kinds of creatures in symbiotic relationships” that keep it in balance without additives.  

One additive that Coyne and Knutzen recently found in their soil is lead.  Knutzen stressed the importance of getting soil tested by a lab, both to see what the nutrient levels are and to find out if there is lead.  Even purchased soil might contain lead, he said.  Tests cost about $75, and in the case of the speakers, they are having it done multiple times due to conflicting results from different labs.

However, Coyne said, the danger of contamination to fruits and vegetables is not of much concern.  “Plants don’t uptake much lead,” she said, because they can’t use it.  “The danger is to kids, because they put soil in their mouths.  There is no safe level of lead.”

Knutzen added, “We’ve replaced all our cleaning products with vinegar, baking soda and castile soap.  “I’m more worried about that than the soil.”  Coyne also makes homemade soap, which can be used for shampoo as well as washing, and uses soap nuts for laundry detergent or hand soap.

Planting sunflowers, one of the few plant that do pull up lead, can help decrease the lead content in soil.  Phosphorus locks up lead so it’s less available for plants, so raising the phosphorus level can help as well.

“Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World” and “The Urban Homestead” are available at Vroman’s and Amazon.

Coyne and Knutzen, residents of Silver Lake who say they are considering moving to Beautiful Altadena, were promoting their book by the same name. They also wrote “The Urban Homestead” and have a blog, Root Simple.  Altadena Heritage sponsored the talk at the Altadena Community Center.

“Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World” is essentially a how-to book filled with projects, from a simple olive oil lamp to brewing beer. The projects are designed to use inexpensive materials and basic skills, and to be ecologically sound, and wonder of wonders, the projects they shared really are simple.

Erik Knutzen

“Unless you were lucky enough to be raised by hippies, you grow up with a compost pile in your back yard,” Coyne observed.  “It’s not hard.  It’s like any other household skill—making a cake, taking spaghetti out of the pot at the right time.”

Like honey?  Build bee frames and capture wild bee colonies (as long as you do it while they are swarming, not guarding a hive). Or just call the hotline Backwards Beekeepers and they’ll capture any swarms you see.

Central to a working homestead with plenty of edible plants is good soil.  “Soils keeps us all alive,” Knutzen said, because all our food ultimately comes from the soil. “The soil is full of all kinds of creatures in symbiotic relationships” that keep it in balance without additives.