Media

Lots to chew on there! Everybody should hear this interview with Jules [Dervaes], to know your prospects for feeding yourself or family, should the need arise. Self-sufficiency is coming to the city.

“A cake is a cake until you put roses on it–then it’s a work of art,” says Jules Dervaes

This is a conviction familiar to Jules Dervaes from his seat on the front lines of the urban homestead movement. “This next generation is going to have to shoulder a huge burden,” he says. “When I was their age, we had acid rain. These kids are facing global tilt, polar shift, melting ice caps, global weirding, and depleted resources, and social upheaval from the resultant declining food production worldwide.

“In the face of all that, I really admire the upcoming generation’s combination of positivity and pragmatism,” Dervaes says. “Instead of miring down in hopelessness, they’re getting down to work.”

In 2006, [Jules Dervaes] added two goats to the menagerie, and he quickly came to appreciate their cat-like intelligence, dog-like personalities and general adorableness, despite the management they require.

Fresh vegetables, herbs, honey and new eggs every day; Jules and his family are living the farm life. It’s also a most unconventional lifestyle given that their home is in the middle of Pasadena, California. The family struggles to be as self-sustainable as they possibly can—their car drives on biogas, solar panels power their television, and each day they have fresh food from their own meticulously well-maintained crops.

My favorite thing about this family (along with the fact that they’re really, really nice) is their do-it-yourself attitude. They seem to have skipped the gene for complaining. Or laziness. If they need something done, they seem to just go out and do it. I think they see it as a “duh” response to life.

Anchor Val Zavala visits an urban farmer in Pasadena whose family-run farm allows them to harvest enough not only to feed themselves but also to sell to local restaurants.

Late Night City with Pete Price
Liverpool, Merseyside
United Kingdom
Radio City 96.7 & City Talk 105.9

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.

The hour of the trowel has come. Jules Dervaes is pioneering a revolution from his backyard that will change the way you feel about this humble tool and your own garden forever.