Media

The Path to Freedom Urban Homestead and kitchen are featured in this new Food Network show, Private Chefs of Beverly Hills. Watch the It Ain’t Easy Being Green episode on Friday, May 7, 2010, 10:00 PM Eastern Time.
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Their use of an ancient form of slow watering, called ollas, is probably the biggest practice that we home gardeners can easily adopt. Looking like a bulbous clay vase, an olla filled with water once or twice a week, then capped with a stone will slowly leach its water cache into the surrounding soil, only as needed. An olla is a nearly perfect watering system that gets water directly to the roots, and is available in different sizes and shapes on their website’s “Peddler’s Wagon” (www.PeddlersWagon.com).

Airing today, Wednesday, April 21, 2010, on the 5:00 p.m. News on Channel 4.

“This lifestyle is difficult,” admits Jules. “My attitude is survivalist backed up with stubbornness. I’m not saying that this lifestyle is for everybody. (But) some of it is for everybody.”

Chefs Brian Hill and Manouschka Guerrier were challenged to design a menu on the spot one Sunday around the Dervaes’ family produce and ingredients in their pantry. It was no easy task. [...] “The two chefs were under extreme pressure,” says Dervaes. “They were shocked by how much they had to do by hand.”

Chefs Brian Hill and Manouschka Guerrier were challenged to design a menu on the spot one Sunday around the Dervaes’ family produce and ingredients in their pantry. It was no easy task.

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.

An interview with the founder of a modern movement toward self-sufficiency.

What: Building a homegrown, sustainable, urban homestead. Interview with Jules Dervaes, Founder of the Urban Homesteading Movement
Who: WISH: Women’s International Summit for Health
When: RESCHEDULED: Friday, March 12, 2010, 8:00 p.m. – Saturday, March 13, 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)
Where: Online at WISH Summit – Jules Dervaes. (Note: link will not be active until Friday, March 12 [...]

Path to Freedom is itself a dichotomy: a farm in the city, a “peaceful” revolution. It’s an oasis, an example and a subtle confrontation. It is simultaneously, an “urban homestead,” which existed before the term, and also one family’s quest to find “freedom” amid the chaos of city life.

Jules Dervaes is probably the finest example of an urban homesteader in the world.