The Future is Insight

One Straw Has MOVED~!!

2007-12-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Effective immediately, all future content from Beo/Rob will be posted on

www.onestraw.wordpress.com

Please adjust all favorites and links accordingly.

I look forward to continuing the journey with you on a different format!

-Rob

The Story of Stuff

2007-12-10T06:31:00.001-08:00

Not sure if you have checked out the Story of Stuff videos yet, but I am thrilled with them. Accessible, compelling without being militant, and very well done. Here's a teaser.

What I am finding in my eco evangelism is that many people understand the need for recycling, energy efficiency, and habitat preservation. But they often do so in a piecemeal form, and lack the knowledge of how it all ties together to be able to Root Cause some solutions. The Natural Step and Permaculture are great ways to provide solutions, but many people are no where near ready for that level of detail yet.

I am more of a "do-er" than a marketer. I prefer to work on the solutions and let others work on marketing. And that is why I love videos like this, books like Omnivore's Dilemma, and movies like an Inconvenient Truth. They are laying a foundational awareness so that a critical mass of the population can be ready for change before it is too late.

-Rob

Hoop House 12/8 Update

2007-12-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

Fall is going out with a vengeance this year. With 8" of snow on the ground from 3 2"+ snow events since Thanksgiving on top of some bittery cold nights (Wed AM was -4 F), this is proving to be a fantastic year for learning's for the aspiring Four Season Gardener. At least that is how I am choosing to categorize my demolished radishes.

2 weeks ago I had added about 150 gallons of water buckets to the hoop house. I had two solid reasons for this. First the water line running from the owner's farm house would not be open forever and I wanted some water on hand, and second I was hoping to add a degree of thermal mass to the interior of the Hoop House to help mitigate the temperature swings. Saturday morning was not warm-only 4 degrees, but it was partly sunny for the first two hours after sunrise, before descending into the more typical overcast. I had not been to the house for 10 days and the fact that the door was frozen shut did not help my trepidation of what I would find.

Good news-the spinach, mache, and claytonia are all virtually unscathed. The Black Radish , which I was gambling to get to harvest size before the bitter cold, are a complete loss
, and the bok choy is wounded, but may recover. Despite exterior temps at 3 degrees, interior was a balmy 28. To better illustrate the weather that had done in the radishes, the 5 gallon buckets of water were frozen solid. Now my thermal mass was working in reverse... But even here I incurred a learning. In addition to the dozen buckets, I also had a large black plastic garbage can I had also filled with water. It too was frozen, but only an inch or so thick. I just need more mass in my thermal mass, and the black helped with solar gain. This bucket was also full of a bushel of Comfrey Cuttings that I was letting stew into a slow brewed compost tea (make that iced tea), once it thaws I will have a nice shot of nutrients for my seedlings. This is my first attempt at compost brewing, and I am looking forward to it!

Everything has its first set of true leaves, and the spinach and bok choy are going on #2. And a huge win is that the Deep Freeze has leveled the weeds that I had missed so it looks decent. This may be small comfort when I look up at the 1/16th inch coating of ice on the inside of the plastic, but I knew I would harvest more experience than greens this year anyhow.

Tomorrow I will bring out two of my home fab "cloches" from last years season extension attempt, and I will attempt to source 2 trailer loads of fresh manure to build a compost windrow over the deceased radish. The thought is that the hot compost will add a significant amount of nighttime Btu's to give the bok choy a chance.

I had hoped for a slower start to winter, but the wonderland that the kids get to play in makes up for it. This year is a great counterbalance to last years non-winter (06/07 didn't get cold until mid January-I took root cuttings on 12/28/06) that provides a good dose of reality to the unpredictability of nature that we are aggravating with Global Warming. My hope now has switched form fresh greens on Christmas to the First Salads of Spring as I seek to overwinter the mache and spinach!

-Rob

Four Season Insight

2007-12-08T11:48:00.001-08:00

I love my Honda Insight. I love its minimalism. I love its modern look. I love the function over form engineering dripping from every aluminum widget. And I love what it stands for: the first shot in the War for Sane Transportation.

What I do not love is driving it in Wisconsin Winters. See, the original Bridgestones are still on the car. They have 80k miles on them and will have enough tread to go another 50k at this

rate. They were specifically designed to be low rolling resistance, i.e. they are as hard as iron. This makes them noisy, interesting in the rain, and downright unfun in snow. They may have been fine new, but rubber compounds degrade over time and after 7 years mine have little grip left. Last year during snows I would take our Forester to work, but now Sprout is in school and Mia needs it to take him in. Though only one week of December is behind us we already have had 3 snows of over 2". Big Win for the aquifers, but my commute this time of year starts at 3:30am and roads are typically unplowed. 3 commutes with the only way to make a 90 degree turn consisted of grabbing the E-brake (every time) to swing the tail around once the front lost grip were enough to convince me I needed to do something or end up in a ditch-or worse.

Enter my new budget WinterForce snow tires. You know you are a die hard hybrid driver when you mount knobby snow tires and think "my, these tires sure are quiet!". Other than making my beloved Hybrid look like a Tonka Truck I am very impressed. I did alot of reading about dedicated snow tires back when I was looking at rally racing my Evo 8 (yes I traded a modified 350 whp Evo 8 for a Honda Insight) and they were always billed as having surreal traction. I must say that so far I am blown away by the difference!

Case in point-today I went to visit the Hoop House north of town. The property owner drives a Tacoma pickup and it wasn't until I entered his driveway that I remembered he doesn't plow. The ruts were deep enough that I left a flat mark as the Insight's ground clearance was not sufficient, and then I ended up parking off the driveway in 8" deep snow covering the ice from last week's sleet storm. After checking on the plants [The -4 degree night on Wed did the radishes in, but the beds are not frozen yet. Outside air temp was 3 degrees, but despite it only being 9:30 am interior temp was already 28 degrees. Spinach, mache, and claytonia are all small but fine!] I returned to the car and realized I was going to have to back up 250' or attempt a 3 point turn in the deep snow. 3 days ago I would spin all of 1st gear across plowed intersections, but despite cutting trail through deep snow I never spun a tire!

I am sold: the Safety alone make it worth while. Adding incredibly sticky tires has certainly hit my mileage... to the tune of about 10-15%. But then again, the Forester gets 30 mpg on a good day, and with my "knobbies" on I was able to run errands today and still eked out 49 mpg. I'll take it.

-Rob

Gasifier Project: Pics

2007-12-02T17:29:00.001-08:00

Here in no particular order are some of the shots from our Gasifier Project Yesterday:

Hank is an old timer who happens to live nearby and have enough machining tools in his shop to rebuild the USS Wisconsin if we had enough steel. Look at the size of that lathe! Hank forgot more over breakfast than MacGuyver ever knew. You could give him a napkin drawing of a piece and he'd rummage through a pile of scrap, put it onto the lathe and turn it out 5 minutes later. That the world will desperately need the Hank's of the world as we hit Peak which was a main reason I was on this work party.

Here Mike and Beth take a spin on the Band Saw. And, yes, that is 3/16" iron plate that they are cutting a 14" circle out of.

We went slooooow, so we all still have our fingers.

It seemed like every piece from the iron pipe, to the steel drum to the carriage bolts was modified. I am still only half certain it was all necessary, or if we were just geeking out on all the tools!

Here our resident welder and innovator, Greg, is welding the cut plate to the 8" pipe for the combustion chamber/wood chip feeder. Like our welding stand? Yep, its a manhole cover.

Here is yours truly running the saber saw to modify the steel drum for the combustion chamber. Most of the time I felt in the way due to my lack of knowledge of machining, so I jumped at every chance I could to use the tools I had experience with. I learned alot!

Greg explaining the various parts, their end functions, and the various jobs needed to get them to their finished states. After this we all grabbed some tools and split off to make sparks and smoke.

Mike is a retired engineer. Which makes the fact that he used a nail, jute twine, and a pencil to draw our perfect circle all the cooler. Keep it simple!

Mike again with our finalized ash basket (a stainless steel dog food dish with a hundred holes drilled into it) sizing it up for the bottom of the now welded combustion chamber.

As the day progressed I couldn't shake the reoccurring idea that I was living in an A-Team episode where they happen to get locked into a barn unattended while given enough time to weld steel plate onto a tractor to bust their way out. "I love it when a plan comes together!"

With only about 6 hours (30 "man" hours) of work, and less than $100 in parts we are over half way finished with the first prototype. Next steps are attaching the wood chip hopper (metal trash can) over the top of the barrel, and attaching a heat exchanger to cool the gas before it gets to our fan which will provide the vacuum until we can hook it up to an engine. Lots of little details left, but most of the Big Fabrication is done. And to date no one has been seriously injured! Can't wait to see it flare later this week!

The greatest part of it all is having 6 adults, some who barely knew each other, to give up a weekend to get together to try to make a difference. It is these meetings, whether to weld up a gasifier, plan a community garden, or discuss Plan B 2.0 at the library that are happening all across our country and are paving the Road to a more Sustainable Future.

As the nights grow longer this month reach out and begin to build a community around yourself and start something.

Be the Change!

-Rob

Gasifier Project: Caution Men with Tools!

2007-12-02T08:56:00.001-08:00

One of the fantastic spin off of our starting the Sustain Jefferson project is the ability to quickly network with other local Eco Freaks. One net result is a group of us getting together to build 2 working gasifier prototypes-one to be mounted on a tractor for use and display at fair and markets, and with the learnings from that a larger one to be used to produce energy for a home.Gasification is a relatively well know alternative energy that takes virtually any carbon intensive material (typically coal) and through a process of low oxygen burning produces "syngas" that can then be used to power a turbine or even an internal combustion engine. Syngas is much, much, cleaner burning that petroleum or coal. What we are most excited about is that you can also use plain old wood chips to produce Syngas and the gasifiers can be sized to fit even midsize (20 hp) tractors. In fact virtaully every tractor in northern Europe ran on wood chip gasifiers during WWII. But then we conveniently forgot the technology as Cheap Oil took over.

The plans we are working off of and lot of history are available at GenGas.

Here are some of the shots from our 5 hour workshop fest. Total out of pocket for the project will be under $100-though we had access to a complete machine shop at hanks house

complete with bandsaws, welding torches, lathes, grinders several drill presses and about 400,000 drill bits.

Here is most of the group. Left to Right: Mike, Hank, Dick, and Greg

I will get some more photos up soon!

-Rob

Growing Green Article

2007-11-30T17:23:00.000-08:00

With the cooling of the weather I have christened advent of the Writing Season (comes after the Harvest Season and before Catalogue Season) with my first successful submission to Groovy Green. Hope you enjoy it!

-Rob

Hypermiling Returns!

2007-11-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

Had the Insight in the shop this weekend while we visited family and my alma mater in South Dakota. It had developed a periodic hesitation at light throttle (the sweet spot for mileage) that was getting worse. My hunch was the EGR valve, and I pleased to find I was right. I was wrong, though in thinking it was under my certified warranty-and the part is $220. Ouch. While it was in I had the tranny fluid changed as well as the engine fluid (it is cold and I am getting lazy). I had them swap the tranny fluid for full synthetic and plumbed the engine full of Mobil 1 (as usual-it is good for 5% in mpg). I have been looking forward to getting the more slippery tranny juice in for 20k miles. And yes, I should get out more.

The results are fantastic, if based on very circumstantial evidence. The 30 mile trip out (we live in the boonies-30 miles from a Honda dealer) was 62 mpg, trip back with the hesitation fixed and slippery new oils everywhere was almost 74 mpg. The mileage was impressive enough, but the feel is what has me jazzed. It is almost as if the car has no static friction anymore. I drafted semi's (as usual) to boost mileage, but this trip I was racking up 100+mpg on the inclines. I held 110+ for over a mile on a very slight downhill. I'm terribly excited about this!

On the less hyper mileage front I was able to beat the EPA again in our beloved Forester. This Holiday's trip to South Dakota netted 31.5 mpg sustained for the 1000 miles. The EPA says it should only be good for 28. I love Foresters: AWD, enough power(170hp, but gobs of torque where you need it) to tow 8 whiskey barrels, 5 star safety rating for the kids, they can haul 160lbs of greyhounds in the hatch, standard roof rack for lumber, and we got our 2006 very nicely equipped for under $19500 with 1.9%. Compare that to the hybrid 'utes which get similar mileage, but without the AWD for $6-10k more. The Auto Industry needs to wake up and give us a 40mpg vehicle capable of moving 7 adults and/or towing 4000lbs.

The significant exception is the Toyota Highlander which gets slightly better mileage but can tow twice as much and can seat 7 in theory. If I wasn't drooling over a used Passat Wagon TDI (38mpg and 250 ft/lbs of torque, but dang are they holding value!) which I will convert to veggie I would be looking for one of those used for my preferred Mulch Towing Vehicle. However as we get closer to Someday and our farm I will most likely hold out for either a diesel truck to convert or an old carburetter truck that I will convert (along with my BCS) to run on "E100" that I hope to distill in my backyard from Sunchokes. And no I am not kidding.

Good to have my Honda Insight back to full health again. Would like to see another 90+ mpg commute before Winter sets in!

-Rob

Peak Proof Aquaponics in Zone 5?

2007-11-25T05:22:00.000-08:00

So I have been completely obsessing over this Aquaponics idea and I want to put some of the ideas on paper and hopefully spur some additional inputs to my thinking. Though still definitely in the experimental stage, the skills needed to grow fish in a recirculating tank system are getting dialed in to a level that fish loses are dropping to the near zero range in well managed operations. Where I see the next stage of design sophistication will be in making the system Peak Proof by dialing out the fossil fuel inputs to make the energy inputs as sustainable as the food system.

And those fuel inputs are sizable. What the Growing Power system is doing is essentially keeping 10,000 gallons of water at 78-82 degrees every hour, every day, year round. In a Hoop House. In Wisconsin. Given the BTU needs of keeping that much water 80 degrees during a 4 month Winter, I don't know of a feasible way around the NG heater at this point. Preheating the water seem to be the only workable option, and that system would then handle 100% of the heating 8-9 months of the year.

Probably system components:

Solar Water heating with thermosyphon pumping
Small Wind Turbine charging batteries (DC water pumps; small inverter for lights) and sized to dump excess into a heating element in a tank before the boiler.
Running water lines through Hot Compost Piles which are also located within the greenhouse for theoretical 100% thermal efficiency. Currently looking for BTU figures for compost piles.
Modified Hoop House with insulated North Wall
Modified Hoop House with multiple layers of "inflated" plastic for better R values
Dream system based on the BioShelter of the New Alchemists with passive solar elements, built into a hill. This system works best built onto an living structure. This might be the only Peak Proof Aquaponics system using Tilapia.
Ditching the Tilapia and switching to Lake Perch. The backup system for the NG heating could then, in theory, supply 100% of the heat, reducing winter water temps to the 50-65 range. Perch can survive being frozen solid in Wisconsin ponds...

The last piece is probably the Sustainable Option. But the lose in harvest would be severe. Perch stocking rates are already a third of Tilapia, and they will not grow much in water under 65 degrees. Furthermore, Tilapia are omnivores, allowing you to grow much of the food in duckweed and water lettuce, and also giving you a better place to put your now marketable greens than the compost pile. Finally, Tilapia are easy to breed in tanks, but a Perch system puts you into dependance on the DNR. Other options would be using a methane digester to make your own Bio-Gas, or a biomass based boiler. Either of these gets expensive right quick.

Partnering Aquaponics next to heat intensive industries make allot of sense, but most small landowners do not have access to that.

Still, the system is still brilliant and I know there are ways to make it work off grid.

Please shoot me links, ideas, comments, and resources!

-Beo

Aquaponics

2007-11-22T16:48:00.000-08:00

I took a tour this week that blew my mind and I have been dying for a few spare moments to tell you about it. A few friends of mine from the fledgling Sustainability NPO we recently founded, Sustain Jefferson , spent a few incredible hours touring Growing Power this past Monday. Growing Power is an Urban Ag facility that claims to grow enough food for 2000 people on 2 acres. With a claim like that I was drawn like a moth to flame. Their website offered some clues to their system-vermiculture, aquaculture, and several greenhouses. The site filled in the details and inspired me in a way that no other has since I was originally introduced to Permaculture and Bill Mollison.

What excited me most about Permaculture was the sheer common sense of it all. Taking wastes and turning them into resources to allow you to reap the benefits of both in one integrated system continues to fascinate me Aquaponics, especially in the uber simple system that Will Allen of Growing Power sets up, fits the bill perfectly.

Aquaponics takes the aqua from aquaculture and ponics from

hydroponics and melds them with a healthy dose of applied Permaculture. Aquaculture is the farming of fish in indoors in recirculating water tanks. The single largest waste from this system is that housing thousands of fish in a closed system fouls the water right quick. Hydroponics is a system of growing plants in a nutrient water medium, which of course begs the question of where the nutrients come from.

Aquaculture attempts to solve these problems, and routes the waste water from the aquaculture tanks through a hydroponic system to provide the nutrients for the plants, which help to clean the water and significantly reduces the filtration needed. Even at this level I love the idea. Growing Power puts this system into overdrive.

What Will Allen and some others are doing is experimenting with what is considered by most to already be an experimental way of raising fish and plants. First off Will has completely done away with the filtration system. He has also done away with any commercial feed, preferring instead to grow his own. See the underlying foundation of Growing Power is worms.

Readers of this blog know that I am a firm believer in Vermiculture as a means to reduce, even recycle, waste and turn out some freaky good fertilizer. Growing Power does this on an almost industrial scale-using hundreds of bins (pictured) like mine to process literally 1o's of thousands of pounds of waste into worm castings.

The other great thing that worms do is, um, breed. In fact in perfect conditions composting worms will double in population every 6 weeks. Growing Power uses the immense amount of castings to provide the growing medium for their greenhouse operations and then uses the surplus worms as a significant portion of the feed for his thousands of Tilapia in the aquaculture tanks.

Back to the filtration method. Growing Power uses plants, specifically water cress, to filter the water. As with most of the systems at the site, it is simple and uses mostly reused items that are common in an urban environment. In this case reclaimed sump pumps water from the bottom of the 5' deep tanks to 30' long flats of cress. The flats are very slightly sloped, and as the water slowly makes it way through the pea gravel bed that serves to anchor the cress roots it is cleaned of virtually all of the excess waste. Will Allen was not real long as specifics when asked about ratios of cress to Tilapia, he is an instinctive innovator... he just knows it works. Several PhD types have also toured the facility and are adamant that the system should not work. Yet, Will adds with one of his huge grins-he has been doing it for 3 years and has only lost one fish. Time to rewrite the textbooks!

So what gives? Will Allen (the giant in the blue sweatshirt) is convinced that the few handfuls of worm

castings he adds to the cress flats are the difference. The castings are chock full of rich living bacteria and fungus cultures, and it is these that Will believes supercharges the cress flats with filtering capability. After seeing the vibrance and life of his greenhouses, the obvious health of his fish, and the numerous innovation that seemingly turn up at every corner-I believe him. Heck, that is how wetlands are supposed to work, right?

Anyone who knows me can see where this is going. Will's newest aquaculture houses are built in simple plastic hoop houses in an attempt to cut costs. He does a lot of mentoring in the 3rd (and 4th) worlds and is trying to get the system down to its bones. The last house he took us through was built for $5000 plus labor, and it houses 7000 tilapia and 2500 Lake Perch in addition to 300 sq ft of water cress and several hundred pots of greens and vegetables that were basking in the warm humid air. The next biggest problem to overcome is how to make it Peak Proof by removing the dependence on the second hand natural gas pool heater he is using. It will certainly add significantly to the start-up costs, but a combined solar water heating and wind turbine dumping into a heating element after charging a few batteries for lighting seems like a great primary heating system with a propane backup. This could also be modified to run on methane from a digester. The owner of the farm I am using to grow my market garden has plans for one already drawn up...

Looks like I have a winter research project!

It was truly inspiring to see people in the heart of an the poorer parts of Milwaukee making a difference, growing sustainable and nutritious food, and spreading the word about simple commonsense systems that work.

-Beo

Finding the Muse

2007-11-18T06:16:00.000-08:00

I embarked upon a major shift of world view this week. Actually, it would be better said that I materially manifested a change that’s been in the works for quite some time. I bought a MacBook you see. I’ve been a PC guy for, well, as long as I have known about PC’s. PC geeks were the kind of geeks that I wanted to be. I have never been what I have considered a “creative" person: skills in graphics, videos, oils, clay, virtually any artistic medium were apparently absent or severely underdeveloped. I enjoyed doing and modifying, but creating is something much different.

Then I discovered gardening, and in ways that I have never dreamed possible I am learning to create. I spent enough of my youth gardening with my mother, so I had at least the basic skills in gardening, and just as I had done in auto mechanics, home construction, and many other things I applied my belief that an intelligent person with books and perseverance can do virtually anything. But I was continuing to apply a macho top down approach to gardening
-"dominating" the land, "beating" the pests, "earning" the harvest. After several years in the field, hours talking to masters of the Art, and thousands of pages and sites read that perspective has changed. Thanks to a partnership with Mom Nature, I am finding my Muse.

Back to the Mac. Mia grew up on Mac's and I fought her when it came time to buy our first joint computer, and largely because of the Macho ethic I fought to win. Now these years later I am more ready for a partnership than a computer I can bend to my will. Just as I need some aphids in my gardens to allow the lady beetles something to eat so they won't leave I am ready to use an intuitive interface and let my Start Menu go so that when I am ready to design a web page I will have that intuition to help me rather than my needing to learn HTML.

While my American Male mentality is still present far to often, I have begun to take the Road Less Traveled by. Hopefully it will too: "make all the difference"

-Beo

I, Teamster?

2007-11-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday I went out to my market garden for the weekly watering/weeding and, frankly, to do something to get my mind off putting Cody down. As I was unloading, I noticed the older brother of the landowner was out working the horses around the trail they have cut around the perimeter, so I quick dropped my scuffle hoe and ran down the lane to intersect them.

Dick was having the team drag their training sled for a few laps to keep them in shape now that the chores of the summer were done and encouraged me to climb on. His excuse was that the extra weight would work the horses more, which was more than enough to convince me to take a horse drawn sled ride!

The team consists of two beautiful Percheron mares, Winter and Minnie. Minnie is easily the largest horse I have ever seen, weighing in well past 2000lbs and that was before she became pregnant this year. In fact both mare's are due to foal this coming April which will be reason enough to be around, especially with two children! Looking at these two incredibly powerful animals, it is easy to wax nostalgic to knights in armor or even to simpler times before 350hp 4wd tractors and 2000 acre corn fields. Yet, despite their mountains of muscle, they are docile enough to lightly pluck an apple from Bird's little 4yr old palm -which I am coming to learn is one of the many charms of the Percheron.

It was fantastic to watch Dick work the horses, even in something as simple as pulling a sleigh in laps around the acreage. Dick has them trained to react to the slightest pull of the reins, and the horses are ever listening for his simple "Gee!" or "Haw!"-as he is in his seventies and weighs all of 130lbs, his horses must be trained to respect something other than force. Being horses, they are also a quirky bunch-Minnie likes to rush the slight hills on the property as if to show off her incredible strength, and Winter is ever ready to stop and munch some grass. By the second lap I found myself calling instructions as Dick and I talked about horses and I received an impromptu lesson in tree lore as we rounded the property.

As we finished, Dick was pointing to the neighboring land to where they sometimes pasture the team, and he mentioned that he planned to use the team to pull some oak limbs up to the owner's home for him to use for firewood. In the roundabout way that he has about asking, I got the impression that he might like a hand with the project, so I mentioned that I was free every Monday if he ever wanted an extra hand on a chore. We talked more, and I expressed again my respect for the fact that they choose to work much of the land with horse power. It was then that Dick mentioned, again in his off hand way, that perhaps he could "show me a thing or two" about working a team.

Later that day as I conversed with the land owner about his idea of converting his ancient Oliver tractor to wood chip gasification (more on that in a future post-and yes we are birds of a feather!), he mentioned how good it would be if I would learn to work the team with Dick. I get the feeling he is a little concerned about his older brother working the team by himself. By the time I left he was talking like I would be plowing on my own by June...

As I walked back to the Insight, I tried to get all this through my stunned brain: Not only was I getting the free use of as much organic land as I wanted to run a market garden, I was now being offered an apprenticeship in becoming a teamster?!

Someone pinch me!

-Beo

Goodbye, Friend.

2007-11-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

Saturday, November 11th brought the passing of my long time friend and partner, my Australian Cattle Dog, Cody, when we chose to end her long fight with failing kidneys and a fading mind.

Mia and I adopted Cody even before we were married-waaaay back in 1997. And even then she was already almost 5. Cody was a warrior princess from a very tough breed-hiking to the top of Harney Peak in South Dakota and, despite being bred for desert heat, tackling multi night winter camping trips in the U.P. of Michigan-always carrying her own pack and refusing help.

A staunch protector of our children and with her indomitable urge to play, a powerful ally against depression: Cody was an incredible dog.

I will miss you, but never forget.

Goodbye, Cody. You have earned your rest.

Catharsis and Germination

2007-11-04T05:53:00.000-08:00

After that last post something had to lighten my mood. The first positive salvo that Life shot across my bow was the germination of the Hoop House. In one week I had at least some stalwart sprouts from all the varieties poking up through the crust. Unsurprisingly, the radishes (black and french breakfast) were leading the charge to lift my spirits, but the bok choy was a close second with dozens of plants up and running. Spinach was seen to be lifting through the compost, and even little mache was rearing their heads in an attempt to shake their seed hulls while subtle claytonia's tiny spurts of life were in evidence to the determined viewer. The uber moist environment has also germinated a significant amount of grass seed, evidently the compost is old enough to have alot of windblown seed mixed in. As soon as the rows are germinated enough to identify I will sally forth, scuffle hoe in hand, to lay them low.

The second was a Step It Up! rally hosted by the Green Sanctuary program at my Unitarian Church. The event was held at the historic Lapham Peak State Park about 20 miles east of our home. Over 200 people attended the outside event held in a natural amphitheater on the edge of restored prairie and mixed hardwood/pine forest. On hand were booths from several local sustainability groups including WEAL (a county wide environmental group), the Sierra Club, and ReNew a statewide non profit focused on promoting Green Energy. ReNew is a huge force in the state staffed with wind and solar site specialists and offers fabulous support in navigating the morass of grants, regulations, and permits necessary to have successful point source energy production.
The day was clear and crisp, with temps in the very low 50's and a steady Fall wind the crowd kept to the sunny spots to remain warm. I got a huge kick out of watching 200 individuals act as a living sun dial as we all shuffled to stay in the sun during the 2 hour event.

The speakers were fantastic. The event was invoked and made sacred with a blessing from an Elder from the Pueblo tribe who has lived in WI for 35 years. He had us each face the points of the compass as he washed us pure with smoke from sage leaves, and as he'd finished, the strongest gust of the afternoon whipped our hair as he completed it. I have no doubts the Great Mother sent that wind in her approval. Other speakers included a representative from Al Gore, an Ecology Professor from a local college, prominent Geologists, and even the founder of Fighting Bob Fest, Ed Garvey. By the time the scientist had laid out the evidence-in a level of detail that even the most jaded of us learned something new, and Ed was finished whipping us into a frenzy, I think we were all ready to march on Madison to demand action. Great stuff!

Sprout was with me the entire time [he uses global warming as a verb: "we try not to global warm much do we Dad?"] , and as we left and drove to a local coop to stock up on flour (30 lbs including 10lbs of bulk Spelt flour: yes!), soup lentils and beans, steel cut oats, and local bulk eggs I was pleased to note that there was virtually nothing in the cart that was ready to eat. That switch in the paradigm of our culinary habits has reverberated through our lives. Running low on bread no longer means a trip to the store. Now it has become either along night letting it rise, or a weekend day spent at home doing chores and forming loaves instead of driving around and shopping for more Cheap Crap. The Spelt Flour is divine-a true whole grain that is significant lighter than wheat with a definite nutty edge that lends itself well to both bread and pancakes. And we can now get it bulk and organic for $1.29/lb. Nice.

I am through the Dark Canyon of last week. The impetus for change still rests strong in my soul, but action is the best medicine for despair and my greens need weeding and bread needs kneading. And Congress had better wake the hell up.

-Beo

Doom and Gloom: Triage

2007-10-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

As I had previously posted, one of the several books I am working my way through is James Martin's The Meaning of the 21st Century and I am finding it a fantastic thought provoker. Most of his book is spent talking about solutions to the problems we face in the current Generation and offering clear vision to how to implement them, but several of his portraits of the mid near future (say 25-50 years out) are dark. He calls it The Canyon. Those of us familiar with the The Natural Step would term it the Resource Funnel. The funnel is currently closing as the demand for resources rises and the availability of resources (including such vital things as clean water and topsoil, not just oil and n. gas...). It is most often depicted as it is at right: with the lines not touching. Basically that The World wakes up before it gets ugly.

The reality is that when we are approached with a slowing growing, easily rationalized or otherwise nebulous threat we typically do nothing until the crisis occurs and removes all doubt. Two easy, recent examples would be the Cod Fishery off Newfoundland, and Hurricane Katrina. In both cases scientists, engineers and enlightened citizens decried the impending doom or either a collapsing fishery or blown levies, but in each case enough smoke was blown to forestall action until the Crisis Hit. Then in the case of the fishery at least massive legislation was instituted. Each of these cases were avoidable, the science to correct them known, and an early fix would have been immensely cheaper then correcting from the Crisis. These cases were also regional and for the most part only involving one country. Take the case of Global Warming, Peak Oil, or Global Population, and I am in my darker moments I am forced to the conclusion that we will not, perhaps cannot, react until it is far too late-until after the Crisis.

Martin's Triage scenario fits my vision when I am that dark. Triage is a way to assess those who are in need of medical attention after an extreme event-when the victims are far in excess of the medical providers resources to handle them. Triage is a way to roughly and callously (realistically?) group the victims by the ability to be treated to attempt to save the most victims possible without wasting precious effort on the Doomed. When we enter Martin's Canyon, or when we let the sides of the funnel cross, we will be undergoing a Crisis that could very well force the planet's nations into Triage. The 1st world will be shaken and bloody, but will almost certainly survive-America did not see mass starvation even in the Depression. The rate of survival without disability will fall quickly as you enter the 2nd world, and by the time you reach the 4th world-where people are already starving-there will simply not be resources left to feed them all. The 1st world has the money to buy the food, regardless of cost. Hell, we even use food to power our cars. This scenario can be avoided with current technology, the scientific community-even the oil engineers-are telling us it is coming. And yet we will most likely do nothing until the cod runs out.

I usually don't go this Doom and Gloom-neither here in the Blog nor in my actual life. But this morning I was at my son's school. In the hallway after the assembly there was one of Sprout's classmates that is in a mechanized wheelchair and is very severely handicapped. Again, I am in a Dark place now, but when I got home I wept. When Triage hits the 1st world civilization will survive, but there are many shades within even our uber affluent society.

I have made it a mission to learn what is necessary to be able to feed my family, even my neighbors, once it Gets Bad. But how will this boy, or the thousands like him, manage?

We must do better.

October Planting

2007-10-27T16:14:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to have a litany of informative pictures in place to detail my mid fall planting, but the camera went on the fritz-another issue with being 10 miles from home. Without pictures to prove it, you wil have to take my word for it: I had a very productive afternoon!

Moving the Hoop House

Last Monday I finished prepping the beds, but there was still the little item of getting the house over said beds. I brought along my 5' steel prybar and we rummaged around to find some "rollers" to help us out. The thought being we would lift up the greenhouse with the prybars, put some rollers under it and then push the Hoop House onto the prepared beds 25' to the south. We found some old fence posts and got out a chain saw to hack them up into 6 18" chunks. We also came across some planking which we put under the rollers to make it easier. The 5' prybars made short work of the lifting with proper fulcrums and once on the rollers, the whole apparatus pushed quite well-the only exception being that we drifted East repeatedly on the uneven ground. Some redirection with the prybars and we had the house moved all 25' in about 3o minutes-without using a tractor!

Seeds!

The owner had said he "might even have some seeds" when I proposed planting some winter greens. He wasn't kidding! In 2005 the property had hosted a 25 family CSA-and it turns out that the left over seeds are all still there! One of the most beautiful things about CSA's is the diversity of the produce, which is necessary to provide a half bushel of produce to each family-every week for 20 weeks. "Some seeds" turned out to be 2 5 gallon buckets of commercial size seed packets from Fed-Co Seeds. The CSA really drove the variety of cultivars-I found 5 varieties of spinach alone-many in 8-16oz packets. I think I could plant 3 acres in spinach alone! Between this stash, and E4's bounty I am set for next year with the exception of dry beans, seed potatoes and some tomato varieties that I am finicky about. For a planting this late I set a strict limit of veggies that are harvest able from direct seed within 50 days. Given the short day factor of fall planting, I figure a 30% addition on that. This limited the planting to, well, about what Eliot Coleman recommends in Four Season Harvest. In the buckets I found (in addition to the spinach) mache, black radish, claytonia, bok choy, and arugula. Even these stalwart plants should have been in the ground 2-4 weeks ago, but I am giving it a go anyhow.

Earth Way Seeder

I have dreamed of what I could accomplish in time savings by stepping up to "commercial" grade tools. The owners had 3 Earthways hanging in the shed, with another 3 tied together to plant 3 rows simultaneously. I was excited to try it, but the reality completely blew me away. What an elegant tool!! Assuming you have a prepared bed, in one pass the seeder cuts a furrow, plants a seed to the spacing you have chosen in the planting wheel (10 sizes on site), fills in the furrow with the dragged chain, and then lightly tamps the soil over the seed with the rear wheel. Dear god is this easy!! Even planting 6 different varieties, I had both beds planted in 15 minutes. The tool is so simple and easy to push that my 5 year old literally seeded two rows himself. Wow, wow, WOW! These seeders are available new for $110 and if you plant more than a few beds it is worth every penny in time and back pain saved. I planted the beds with 3x the seed needed-with the low temps and 2-3 year old seed I want to hedge my bets.

I then soaked the beds thoroughly, and drenched the wood chip paths with the intent of getting a significant amount of moisture into the house before I close it up for the week-given the temps I am not worried about mold.

This week I would like to purchase a thermometer that will allow me to tract high and low temps to see how much benefit the hoop house is netting me, and help me to determine if/when I need to add the cold frames.

Fingers crossed that I get germination in week 1!

-Beo

Winter Greens?

2007-10-22T15:53:00.000-07:00

One of the seemingly unending perks of the partnership with the local hobby farmer is that he has a small (12'x25') hoop house that is currently sitting unused. 2 weeks ago I proposed the idea of prepping some beds for some winter greens. As the owner was very enthusiastic, and even has the seeds on hand, we are giving it a go. The plot and hoop house have been unused for 2 years, so I have my work cut out for me. Still, the tools on hand are fantastic, and make the task less daunting. Plus a excuse to get dirty in the crisp October air is most welcome!

Here's the beds 2 weeks ago...

The owner has a 48" PTO driven rototiller so we cut 2 beds to the south of the Hoop House. The house is on 4x4 skids so once the beds are prepped we will put the house on some log rollers and drag the it over the prepped ground ala Eliot Coleman. This weekend I discovered a large patch of Russian Comfrey (one of my all time favorite plants) that was overgrown and got permission to cut it down for soil prep. Here is a shot of a 3x25' bed filled with .5 cu yards of comfrey cuttings (high in minerals and a great soil builder) and lined with a 1' wood chip path. The soil is so friable that you sink 2" into the tilled ground without it!

Worms...Come and get it!

On another part of the property there are 3 windrows of 3yr old leaf mold of extreme proportions: 6' tall, 12' wide and 75 yards long! This past year, another family grew squash and cherry tomatoes on them (below), next year I will most likely put potatoes on one of them.

500 yards of compost anyone?

The compost is about 200 yards from the hoop house, but 5 trips with Archimedes (my 10 cu ft barrow) and I had enough to cover the comfrey with a 2" layer to coax the worms to the feast.

Black Gold!

Rain was starting and the temps were dipping into the 40's so it was none to soon when the last load was raked flat. The beds will rest until this weekend when a few friends and I will attempt to move the hoop house over the beds. The owner assures me that 4 guys can lift it, I think we'll need the tractor. Regardless it will soon reside over the now finished beds.

Just waiting for seeds!

The beds are gorgeous, and in the 2-3 weeks it will take for us to move the Hoop House, plant and get the seeds to germinate, the comfrey should be mostly worm manure. Next year we will start a month earlier and have transplants on hand to give us a jump. Given how late we are starting, I give us a 50-50 chance of actually getting edible greens this season, but the learnings will be legion.

Now I just have to cull the hoop house of weeds:

Time to order a Scythe!

-Beo

Sheet Mulch : Building Soil Nature's Way

2007-10-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

I had the oppurtunity this weekend to take a significant amount of lawn, 1000+ sq ft, at a client's house and begin to turn it into a perrenial bed. Round-Up is not an option in my world, so I pitched Sheet Mulch and it sold. Here is a photo how to for a simple, effective 3 ingredient Sheet Mulch with materials that are locally and readily availible here on the rural fringe of Suburbia: wood chips, cardboard pallet sheets, and horse manure.

Step #1 Prep the Ground

This plot had not been mown in months, so it took several passes with my electric mulching mower to knock down the turf grasses with the great result being a 1/2" thick layer of mulched grass. The owner called them weeds, I called it a Green Manure crop!

Step #2 High Nitrogen "Starter"

In this instance there was a horse farm literally a block away from the home, but the edges of suburbia are speckled with horse farms. Some neighborly conversation can get you access to a trailer load of manure prebasted with straw/sawdust for near perfect carbon:nitrogen ratio. It sounds nasty, and it can smell alittle ripe, but use a long fork and you will be fine. I spread it about 2" thick, but feel free to go as much as 4". More than that and you might go anerobic. 2" deep for 1000 sq ft will took about 5-6 yards or 3 loads with my trailer. That's alot of forking, but you can't beat the net returns!

Step #3 Weed Barrier

I like to use pallet sheets. Most warehouses, and some retailers-especially those carry alot of pet food or other bagged product, will have these in abundance. Again, do some calling and make nice to see what you can turn up. Newspaper 4-7 sheets thick works great too, but pallet sheets are ink free, and don't blow around as much in the wind, plus each sheet covers 16 sq ft so you cover ground quick. I overlapped mine at least 6" on all sides so it took the better part of 100 pallet sheets. The manure is thick with oat and hay seeds, this layer will keep them and the turf grasses out of the bed.

Step #4 Weed Free Mulch

Every muncipality out here has a free mulch pile for its residents. This municipality even had a backhoe on hand to fill my trailer with 2-3 yards of chips in about 5 minutes! I made 5 trips in 2 hours. Check out that windrow!! And, yes, my shoulders will be unuseable tomorrow... The garden will get a 6-7" layer of this that will settle to 5-6". Spoiled hay, straw, etc would also work, but spoiled hay is alot harder to find if you aren't Ruth Stout, and straw typically costs money. Wood Chips take longer to break down, but they don't blow around much and are a perfect medium for innoculating with edible mushrooms!

Putting it Together

When sheet mulching I find it to be much easier to not let any one step get to far infront of the others. Get too much manure down and it starts to dry out, get too far ahead of the woodchipping with the pallet sheets and they start to blow away. Sheet mulching is a very satisfying to do, as the ground is covered very quickly and the sense of accomplishment is huge.

Tools of the Trade

I did this job solo in 10 hours start to finish, with the exception of having 60 of the pallet sheets on hand prior to starting. Here is a short list of some tools that saved me massive amounts of time, all of which are pictured above

Utility Trailer. Mine is 5x8', cost under $700 and turns my Forester into a "pickup truck" extraodinaire, able to move 3 yards of light mulch with ease, or 2 yards of manure. Plus a trailer's sides are 3' shorter than a pickups so schlepping manure into it is much, much easier. Besides, when I don't need a work horse I take the trailer off and the Forester goes back to getting 32 mpg vs a pickups 14! I love my trailer!!

Wheelbarrow. I purchased a mulch barrow for this job. $95 at TSC and it holds 10 cu feet. Even overflowing with manure I could lift it with ease-the balance is more Vermont Cart than traditional wheelbarrow with alot of the weight past the wheel's fulcrum helping you lift the wieght. I have named it Archimedes, but often call it Hubris... A barrow this big is bound to get me in trouble...
Coal Shovel and Compost Fork. The Coal Shovel can move over a cu ft of mulch/manure at a scoop-mulch is light so it pays to move as much per scoop as possible. I picked it up at Menards for $16 as quality/design seemed simple. The Compost Fork is from Earth Tools and imported from Germany. It has a balance and feel that far exceeds anything you will ever find in a hardware store, and is worth every one of its $40.

Helpers! Many hands make light work; I had my uber energetic 5 yr old with me. True, the amount of work done by Sprout was minimal, but the diversion of someone to talk to was priceless, and mad props to him for keeping us both entertained for a full day as "Mr. Stone" keeping the cardboard from blowing away, or squealing anew everytime I dumped him out of the wheelbarrow on the return trip to the mulch windrow. Regardless of their age, someone to keep the weed barrier from blowing away is always a good thing!

The end result of a single days hard work will be taking 1000 sq ft of very sandy loam and covering it with an 8" layer of organic matter. Through fall and into spring the soil's ecosystem will kick into high gear with the manure's nitrogen and eat away at the cardboard. The chips will also begin to decay-I see about a 25% decomposition annually in my paths at home. The net result by June should be a 2-3" layer of ecologically alive compost covered by 4" of wood chips-ready to plant!

Sheet mulching can be a great way to relatively easily turn lawn into garden-as long as you have several months before you want to plant. Those months are worth it if you can spare them: in addition to killing the sod, you keep the topsoil of your lawn, with all its ecology, intact, and add 2-4" of topsoil in the process.

-Beo

Rowling Rocks

2007-10-20T19:12:00.000-07:00

And How.

2 Great Reasons...

2007-10-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

...that I am thrilled with Al Gore's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize

Ruth and I Tuck In My Beds

2007-10-15T06:27:00.000-07:00

This weekend the air finally turned crisp-we had our 2nd frost of the season-and it was time for the vegetable gardens to come down. The crazy thing about it was that I picked another gallon of green peppers, and another 20lbs of tomatoes-on Oct 13. We lost track of our total harvest when our harddrive crashed this past week, but total take was in the 4-500lb range -with an incredible 50 lbs of that being romaine. With the sunchokes yet to come in 500lbs will be a sure thing.

We delivered the last load of lettuce to the coffee shop, pulled up the remaining beets, cilantro, and carrots and then reached for the scuffle hoe and hand kama to prepare the beds for winter. Once the tomato vines were down, I then ran my electric mulching mower through it to chop it up into itty tiny bits for the critters to eat. Having read Ruth Stout this past year , there can be only one thing to do next: I layered on one small square bale of straw per 80 sq ft bed. This may not be thick enough as it is only about 2" deep, but total mulch including the green matter is about 3-4".

I am an incredibly firm believer in the philosophy that we need to start thinking of ourselves as Soil Farmers, i.e. as sustainable growers we must cultivate the health of our soils to produce healthy pest free crops. My soil was dirt when I started-clay, sand and cobblestone sized rocks that the developer trucked in froi ma nearby quarry-organic matter content was in the fractions of a percent. My answer has been to double dig in about 2 yards of compost per 100 sq feet of bed to start, and then add organic matter yearly for the past 2 years. This past Spring I needed to take some severe anti Quack grass measures and meticulously turned and hand pulled rhizomes to attempt to rid my gardens of this plant (Quack Grass is about the only plant I term a "weed" in my gardens). But hopefully that will be the last major disturbance the beds will see. Going forward I hope to no till them and use heavy mulches and a cover crop rotation to keep organic matter and soil life high, and invasive weeds down.

I added 3 new beds this year for the purpose of keeping 4 beds in production and allowing the remaining 3 to set in cover crop for a season to rebuild. The more I read about cover cropping the better I like it. Historically, and by that I mean 60-70 years ago, farmers would use cover crop mixes with upwards of 30 different plants in them to create a lush, diverse soil ecosystem for their cash crop the following year. Thus far all I have used is a rye/vetch mix (pictured), but I am hoping to experiment with annual clovers, oats, and buckwheat next year. Both heavy mulches and cover crops help mitigate the harsh winter conditions for the soil--if it is as mild as last year I could have active life for much of the winter. The plan is to save the mulched gardens for the spring plantings, and the cover crops for the May/June warm weather crops.

On a separate, but very exciting note, the market garden will be trying an experiment in 4 season gardening. The owner has a 20' hoop house on skids that we will be moving to cover two beds we are cutting this weekend to grow spinach, mache, and endive. He also has dozens of sheets of triple pane glass from a business that was to be demolished, so I intend to cover the beds with simple straw bale cold frames as well.

Wish me luck!

The Meaning of the 21st Century

2007-10-09T18:58:00.001-07:00

I am currently reading the book and I find it simultaneously riveting, terrifying, angering, and stimulating. Thus far Martin seems to place far too much faith in technology and humanity in general for my liking, but he is much, much better connected to What is Going On, so I am withholding as much judgment as I can. Another good video of Mr. Martin here

If for no other reason than to make your brain sweat, I recommend the book.

Dirt Worhsiper

2007-10-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

I bought a compost thermometer. I know that this is a trivial thing, but I have been frustrated by not having compost cook enough to kill my weed seeds and also wanted to dork out on Compost a little more. It takes temps in the 150-160 range to sufficiently kill most weeds-and that can be rather difficult in a backyard operation, but given the amount of compost I process (LY upwards of 5 yards) I think I can have a go at it.

First learning's-I need waaaaaay more nitrogen than I I typically put in my piles. What I had assumed was a "hot" pile using the terribly unscientific method of sticking some rebar in it for 15 minutes was actually only about 110 degrees. This is a nice active pile that will make a really fine finished compost, but will not kill many weed seeds. Nitrogen is what makes piles cook, and mine was distinctly lacking. My reading had led me to assume that the 25 gallons of coffee ground gorp from the Coffee Shop was about a 20:1 ratio of nitrogen to carbon (which is what coffee grounds are)-about perfect. Unfortunately it appears I was greatly undervaluing the amount of carbon from the paper filters and occasional napkins-even with the odd banana peel and tomato end they throw in.

So this past month I have begun harvesting (ok, bagging) the grass clippings from the thickest areas of my lawn, and I even got a first cutting off the 60' stretch of Red Clover and Comfrey I put in for a compost garden-one pass filled the bag!. Adding these to the pile by dusting the green matter about 1/2" thick for every 3-4" of compost as I turn it weekly has allowed me to hit 130-140 degrees even as the air temps have dipped to the 40's overnight. Seeing as this is on a pile that is 85% done, I have high hopes for next year.

Here is a brief of a typical cycle from turn to turn on my pile:

Day 0 110 degrees and falling, time to turn!
Day 0.5 80 Degrees after the turn-no activity
Day 1-3 Temps climbing slow but steady to 130
Day 3-4 Temp peak in the 130-140 range
Day 5-6 Temps slip to 110-120 as nitrogen is exhausted
Day 7 (0) 110 degrees and falling, time to turn!

As an aside, turning it weekly and adding this much pure green matter seriously speeds up the process-if it wasn't for the corn stalks and thicker garden stalks this batch would be all but done in about 4-6 weeks. Turning it this often also keeps the pile sweet smelling, and allows you to quickly react to a pile that is too wet or dry-it should be damp to the touch like a sponge. Plus I just love getting out there in my pile and visiting the pill bugs and centipedes that live on the edges, and feeling the warm, humid air thick with life waft up at me as I fork the pile open.

Composting is religion to me. After reading that you can already assume I am not a very religious man, but let me explain a little. Here I can, in a very real way, participate in the Divine. I am not a very creative person-art never came easy for me-but in composting I can take crude matter-garbage to most people, and by following the rituals of Nature turn that refuse into one of the most life sustaining structures on Earth: hummus. And in doing so I am quite literally making a tiny piece of the world a better place.

Jesus broke loaves and fishes, I turn my manure pile.
We both do miracles.

Be the Change.

Consumer Consequences

2007-10-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a quick little game put out by American Public Radio that makes testing your ecological footprint rather fun.

Thanks to a commitment to reduced consumption, offsetting our energy with renewable resources, and my beloved hybrid the Beo/Mia household ranks about 2.5 Earths, down from about 5.9 Earth before we made these changes. Still aways to go, but nice improvement!

If you take the quiz, please feel free to post a comment on how you faired!

Honda Diesel?!

2007-09-30T19:09:00.003-07:00

I know I have been off the energy posting kick lately in lieu of my market garden, but a rainbarrel client I delivered to today actually had a biodiesel distillery in his garage so naturally we talked that up for a bit. He assured me that Honda was less than a year away from releasing their rumoured diesel line so I figured Google and I had a date this evening. Here are the results:

Apparently Honda has been selling a diesel Civic in Europe for years that gets 43 city and 55 hwgy-but the marketing dorks don't think it will sell here because the German diesels of the 80's flopped. Business Week had a decent, but dated, article about it last year.

That provides some history, but it turns out that you can just go to Honda's site and read up a some on it as well. At right is their new i-DTEC engine. It is a 2nd generation 2.2 liter diesel that passes both Euro 6 and the even tougher Tier 2 EPA ratings for diesels. No specs are listed yet, but the other photos on the site show what looks to be a smart little turbo which should push the power ratings up into the 200hp/300lb-ft range-enough to power a CRV, Pilot, or (be still my heart!) an even Odyssey minivan with a bit more boost (or hybrid assist?). They are claiming that efficiency is improved-so we could be expect mileage for deisel Civics to beat the current hybrids, and CRV/Odyssey's to get mid/high 30's.

Honda is touting the i-DTEC in conjunction with their Honda Tourer concept, which looks like a slightly warmed over Mazda 6 wagon. That is not a bad thing as the Mazda is a prime seller and easy on the eyes. If Honda brings this state side we could be looking at a Camry Hybrid beating sedan/wagon with better power (I could tow barrels with it) and the ability to (I am conjecturing here) run on B100 with a true carbon neutral fuel print. If Honda keeps the weight an drag coefficient down, 40+mpg seems doable. This concept at the Frankfurt show was very, very polished-essentially a running prototype-my gearhead says we are looking at the 2009 model with some cosmetic changes.

Now if Honda has half a brain, it will partner their i-DTEC with their i-MA hybrid system and eck out an Insight beating Civic (65+mpg) that can run on pure B100 for essentially zero carbon emissions and reclaim their crown of King of the Hyper Milers. Put the iMA into their full line and you would find a 30% boost across the line-50mpg Accords and CRV's, and 40+mpg Minivans and Pilots-or a 70+mpg Fit. While I am wishing, nake the whole line plug in to boot!

Sticker price on this would be very high, which is the deal breaker, but come on Honda: Give Peace a Chance!

-Beo

Market Garden Plans

2007-09-30T17:47:00.001-07:00

To the surprise of no one that knows me, the fact that I now have 10,000 sq feet of garden to plan has my gourd in overdrive. The bed layouts are set-the tractor that we are cutting the field with has a 48" rototiller on it-add a 1' path between each bed and that nets me 20 beds 4x100.

Let that sink in for a minute-I grew alot of food this year in my seven beds. We fed our family to a large part, canned gallons and gallons, and sold about $500 in surplus. Each of my beds is about 80 sq ft and 2 were fallow. So my working garden this past year was about 400 sq feet. That is equal to only one of the 20 beds I am planning next year. Odin's Burning Beard that is alot of space!

The original plan was to plant only 3-4 of the beds and those only with crops that need little attention-like root crops that only need to be harvested once. The spirit of that is still alive, but I am expanding to fill the beds quickly. Here is my rough plan:

6 beds of potatoes!

Actually it will be 3 spring and 3 summer, but it will take 6 total as the summer bed with have a spring legume crops, and the spring crop will have a winter cover of rye/vetch. This should net me about 2000+lbs of potatoes. I have about 1000lbs pre sold to friends and neighbors if the quality holds. Plans are for Purple Viking and Yukon Gold. Price of organic potatoes right now is about $1/lb, and my overhead for these beds will be about $400. You won't get rich on potatoes (look at the Irish), but a 5:1 return ain't bad either.

Cash Crops
Only 2-3 of the beds will be for direct sale-looking to fully support one restaurant for at least a month with all their lettuce, tomato, and cucumber needs. This plan will be the first to be nixed if time is tight. The tomatoes will be a mix of Roma's, Cherries, and a wonderful cultivar from Seed Savers called German Pink that was completely oblivious to drought, floods, and lack of calcium this year. We were getting $5/lb for our lettuce, $2-3/lb for our tomatoes, and about half that for the cucumbers. Overhead for these beds will be less than the potatoes, with a much better return. Of course you have to work them about 20x more...

Storage Crops

We are starting a small informal partnership with a couple up the hill that also happens to have a root cellar and enjoys eating local, so in addition to 400 heads of garlic and the ton of potatoes, I will also put in a bed of dried beans trellised over carrots and beets, and another of winter squash. I think I can build a 100' long (and 6' high) gale proof trellis for 2 rows of beans for under $100 that involves alot of baling wire, jute twine and some 2x2 cedar. Expect a How To post next year!

Cover Crops

In between each of the above beds (all of which will be under a cover crop when not in production) I will have a bed of buckwheat (6-7 total). Buckwheat attracts alot of beneficial insects, and also smothers quack grass effectively- and we are basically planting in a field of quack grass now so it will be needed to out complete the rhizomes. Plus I like to make pancakes!

I am still deluding myself that this is doable along with running a side business and working a full time job as an executive. It will mean alot of time weeding and harvesting with the kids after work, but it will also mean that I am living my dream. No doubt some of the above crops will fail due to neglect or farmer burnout, but I will learn an immense amount of hands on knowledge, build relationships with the owners and the local market gardening community, and all around get myself closer to our Someday where we are running a working farmette and deriving a significant amount of our income from it.

If I can break even I will be very pleased-if I can pay for some cool new tools I will be thrilled. But regardless, if I can pull it off I will have made a huge impact on the amount of food grown in our village and sold in our resturaunts.

Be the Change!

What can you do? Read this book!

2007-09-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

Sitting hear letting a completely local (average food miles was 50 yards)- potato based skillet breakfast settle. All of it, minus the garlic which just finished curing, picked fresh this weekend, and much of it this morning in my slippers. Included were peppers, tomatoes, sorrel and garlic chives-and we are one day away from October. I am still attuning myself to the rhythms of Nature as I delve deeper-but our average first frost date is less than 5 days away and the high yesterday-heck all of last week-was in the 80's. The problem with Global Warming is that this could just be an "Indian Summer". But we are on the 4th week without appreciable rain (again), and while the rain for the summer looks only slightly less than normal, 90% of it came in a 10 day period in the middle of 14 weeks of almost literally zero rain at all. It is an interesting time to become a farmer. The new farms must find ways to mitigate these extremes, but that is for another post.

As the Doing Season is drawing to a close and waxing into the Reading Season, I stopped by the library to see what they have been up to-its been 4 months! The head librarian was really excited about a recent purchase for the Sustainability Library we started this past Spring. A quick flip through it and I could see why-the book was gorgeous-at first blush it appeared to be a cook book: dripping in glossy photos of fruit, food, and bucolic scenes of children in gardens with only brief text with alot of bullet points. Then I read the intro-and it turns out I was not far off. The book is essentially a recipe book for how to reduce your impact.

How many of us have had someone say "What Can I do?" I often give Big Picture answers: drive a more fuel efficient car, buy organic, etc but what many really want is something more concrete. The book is broken up into 3 sections-based on how much land you have starting with living in an apartment and finishing up in a large suburban lot or even a small acreage. Each section contains ways to grow your own food, cut your waste stream, and reduce your energy use. Many feed into the next-apartment dwellers are offered ways to make eco cleaning detergents out of vinegar and baking bread, which of course applies to all of us. Suburbanites get a glimpse of heating water with the sun, and by the time you get to the acreage section you are learning about raising dairy cows, making butter in a food processor, and planting orchards.

The book is thick, but the beauty of it is that it just skips the surface-each section is barely a page long. This is just long enough to give you the why's and peak your interest, but not too much that you get lost in the details of something that isn't for you. The author assumes, correctly, that if you get interested in making bread you can find dozens of other sources to give you the How. This approach allows the author to give you literally hundreds of ways to make a difference-and you can make the choice to follow her reference section (or Google) to learn more about pickling pears. I learned quite a bit (running ducks lay more than muscovies, and you can separate the queen honey bee from the workers in a new hive by plugging the cell with hard candy-by the time the workers chew her out they are accustomed to her smell), so it has

value however along the change curve you are.

I will be purchasing this book to loan/give to the next person who honestly asks "What can I do?". With its immenently accessible approach and pages laced with optimism and Can-do-it-ness without a trace of preaching, doom or gloom it has a real chance of inspiring change.

Why we shop at Whole Foods

2007-09-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

My Eco Mia puts it best.

I know that Whole Foods is contentious.

Many of you also know that I detest the "Lamers"... those on the Left that spend their energy dragging down those people making real solid changes in thier lives or businesses to make the world a better place because they aren't doing enough. Can we do more? Yes, we can always do more.

But the world will be made a better place by helping and building, not hurting and destroying.

I stand with those who help and are actively Being the Change.

Happy Autumn!!!

2007-09-21T18:14:00.000-07:00

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. The Autumnal Equinox is particularly special, even holy, to us. I am not an overly spiritual person, but September/October are fabulous times-the harvest is still in full swing-my sunchokes are cresting 8'-and while there is a nip in the air during my 5am commute I can still pick tomatoes and peppers. It is a beautiful, magical time.

Today was also the final installment of a 6 month long intermittent training program I was participating in at work. Together with another 40 execs from our region, we got together 3-4 times to discuss career development, give/receive feedback and network. This is real Fortune 500 stuff that I tend to isolate from my blog, but during the sessions I (being me) had worked enough permaculture stuff into some of the discussions that 2 of the members of my group were up from IL asked for an "eco-tour" of my property after we wrapped up.

We took the short version (under an hour) of the tour, and as I explained my permaculture guilds, rain barrels/gardens, bio-cisterns, and native plantings we grazed along the way. They were amazed that at almost every stop I was able to bend over and pluck a leaf off a plant, pop a tuber out of the ground, a berry from a bramble, or fruit from a vine. They commented on the simple elegance of the rubble rock walls and the frugality of the municipal wood chip mulches-and were then fascinated at the functionality of the rocks storing heat to serve as season extenders, and the mulch as a substrate for edible mushrooms and provide food for a complete soil ecosystem.

When I answered their question that I had harvested over 500# of produce this year and hoped for 2000# within 3 years they were stunned. They know I work the same jobs they do-they knew that they could do it too if they wanted to.

And that is what my HOA Permaculture is all about. Imagine if I hit my goal of 2000#. Imagine if my entire subdivision of 50 homes did the same (100,000#). Then take that out to my little village of 1200 with its 500 homes and you get darn near 1,000,000 pounds of food. All from homes that still have lawns and play systems and decks. From the street it would look like we all just have well landscaped homes. But a walk through that landscape and you realize that virtually everything is either edible, or supporting a plant that is.

David Holmgren has posited that we turn the problem of Suburbia into the potential solution for the feared food crunch of the coming century through Permaculture. In no other time have so many people owned land-cleared, arable, and irrigated land. The fact that we only farm Kentucky Bluegrass instead of apples and raspberries on our small holdings is only a matter of priorities and the luxury granted to us by cheap energy. The energy needed to completely revamp the infrastructure of our society may no longer exist-I believe we need to make lemons with our lemonade as we transition to a greener future. That Super Walmart looks alot less necesary if each hamlet is growing 1,000,000 pounds of real food...

Be the Change!

Great Permaculture Plant Resource

2007-09-20T07:03:00.001-07:00

As I said in my last post I am spending alot of time on the web researching for next years more significant foray into organic market gardening. Currently I am focusing on 2 main aspects-biological pest control and building long term fertility cycles through cover cropping, rotations, and a more scientific approach to composting. A favored launch point this week has been the Permaculture Activist Magazine's website, specifically today their Plant Lists.

One nursery really caught my eye and thus far has been a font of knowledge and optimism: Fedco Seeds out of Maine. I could describe them, but I will let them do it for themselves:

Welcome to Fedco Seeds, your source for cold-hardy selections especially adapted
to our demanding Northeast climate. Each year we observe hundreds of varieties,
selecting only the best for inclusion in our catalogs. Through our product lines
and cultural hints, we encourage sustainable growing methods. We offer a large
selection of certified organic cultivars and regional heirloom varieties. We buy
products from all over the world.

They have several distinct branches-seeds, fruits/nuts, tubers, and growers supply. The catalog for their trees reads like a primer on orcharding and is over 62 pages long (available online). Their tuber line is dubbed Moose Tubers and besides offering 47 varieties of organic potatoes, they have (be still my heart!) 3 varieties of Sunchokes! Each variety gets several paragraphs of text as well as an extremely helpful chart listing all the potato varieties together showing harvest time, tuber shape/size, average yield, and lots more. Pricing is very reasonable-I can get 100# of Purple Viking shipped for about $180. Considering that should be enough to grow 1000#+ of potatoes $.18 per harvested pound seems pretty reasonable.

In their Grower's Supply section I came across two books, Compost, Vermicompost and Compost Tea: Feeding the Soil on the Organic Farm & Manage Insects on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies both are rocketing to the top of my reading list. Here is an entire book devoted to my dabblings in interplanting flowering plants for beneficial insect attraction-and one that is focused on soil management on a commercial scale. Priceless!

And, yes, I realize I am a dork.

We begin cutting the beds in a few weeks, and the adventure will begin with 800 sq ft of garlic.

By January I should have a firm starting plan on crop rotations, insect management, and soil strategies that I can present to the land owner, and then modify after consulting with my customers and the restaurant (where I am currently typing this with my daughter reading beside me) I will be selling to to dial in cultivars and sq footage.

This is a dream come true.

Paying the Mowers

2007-09-19T04:18:00.000-07:00

With the land deal made my mind (to no one's surprise) is in hyperdrive. I think I have read half of the ATTRA site in the past several days, worn the pages of my Seeds Savers and Seeds of Change catalogues down to nubs, and have spent an inordinate amount of time drooling over equipment sites that no good can come from like Earth Tools, and others that actually make sense like Scythe Supply. It is that last sight that has tickled my muse this morning.

This 1890 scene was found on the Scythe Supply's site-and is titled "Paying the Mowers". What has me going is that here are a half dozen grown adults receiving their wages for mowing. Someone who knows their way around a scythe can reportedly mow about an acre a day. Now imagine paying in today's wages about $100+ to have each acre of your pasture/orchard/lawn mown. It would be ridiculous, but considering that was the way of things barely 100 years ago it bears thought. With this in mind it is not hard at all to see why rural America is dead or dying-population densities lower than when the Native Americans had the run of the land and the rural youth in full flight to more favorable climes. This flight is redefining our country and forcing the vast majority of our food to be grown by drivers instead of farmers.

I realize I am waxing nostalgic here and glossing over an immense amount of things like cholera, social security, and botox, but there was a time when this country paid just wages for things that mattered-like putting up the winter's hay for the dairy cow-rather than KitchenAid mixers or LCD screens. As Polan and others have made clear to larger society, we currently pay less, as a percentage, for our food than any other culture in history. So not surprisingly we treat that food as a commodity valued by cost alone with hardly any consideration to quality. As a society we will spend weeks agonizing over which digital camera to purchase, but spend little to no time reading the ingredient list of the cereal we feed our children and caring not at all about the farmer that grew the grain, or the workers that packaged it.

This past year I have tasted a sweet new fruit-that of receiving part of my wages from growing food or crafting items (rain barrels) with my own hands. Given that I charge just prices (about 3x the grocery store) for my produce and products, my customers would not be purchasing it if they did not value it, and what it stands for, more. I take great pride in having a neighbor choose my produce to serve in their restaurant or to feed to their family.

Our rural economy was once based on neighbors providing products and services to each other. That interconnectedness bred community and a level of dependence. You paid just prices to the smithy or mill-if they folded who would repair your wagon or allow you to make bread? Why should today be any different? Our family will gladly pay more for local business to keep that business local-be it a bakery, repair shop, hardware store, or famer's market. We have the power of the purse to make our community economies what we value. Given that statement there is palpable irony in the fact that the closest vendor listed in first paragraph is over 400 miles away.

The facts are that the 21st century community will be different than the 19th. Scythe Supply, Seed Savers and others are a critical component to building the future that I desire, and I will support them. But where the local economy still exists I turn to it- my garlic "seed" was purchased locally, we have sought out local coffee roasters, brewers, and cheesemakers, and Wisconsin has some of the finest farmers markets in the Midwest.

I guess I am proposing that we think hard about which mowers we are paying in our lives, and thereby ensure that those mowers will be there come the spring cutting time.

Be the Change.

Adventures in Community

2007-09-16T18:41:00.000-07:00

So I am still riding high from this Saturday past when the deal was made-I have land to use next year! But even on the way home my gears were turning. Where in the sam hell would I be putting 600#'s of potatoes next July? As luck would have it a friend I had made this past year was in the middle of restoring an old farm house in town and had uncovered and rehabbed the original root cellar. I shot him a quick email and asked him to stop by if he got a chance.

He is up for swapping 40# of potatoes or so for use of the cellar, so it looks like whatever we are unable to sell we will be able to store well into winter, while also helping to keep another family well supplied with locally grown calories.

So the Beo Farm Community grows: 1 family to own the land, their brother to run the tractor, another to plant and tend the fields, and still another to store the surplus. 3-4 families sharing resources to create thousands of pounds of local food were there would be none without community.

All this grew from the simplest of things-the courage to ask a neighbor if they would be interested in sharing a resource. What other bounties are unrealized every day?

Talk to someone about your dreams,

Ask for help, Give some help.

Be the Change.

It begins

2007-09-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I finally met with the local small farm owner to discuss using some of his land. On several sides it is better than I imagined. The plot we agreed on is about 1/4 of an acre and which will make about 20 beds (4x100 with a path)-I will probably only use 5 at most the first year.

One-its free. Yes you read that right-at least as money is concerned. I will be sharing the produce, helping with some with chores, and I wouldn't be surprised if a rain barrel doesn't show up at their home, but no money will change hands.

Secondly they owners will prep the beds for me with a tractor mounted rototiller. The tiller will make 50" beds with 18" paths in between that I will cardboard mulch and layer with wood chips. This is especially good as the area was allowed to fallow and the quack grass is thick.

Thirdly, I have access to water, wheel cultivators, and a storage shed/root cellar to store the produce in. They even have fencing for me to use to keep their gaggle (well over a dozen) of geese out of the garden.

Finally, I have the invaluable oppurtunity to learn innumerable things about farm steading just by being on a working permaculture farm. Just today I helped the owner use hand tools to skin a huge 40' log he felled this week that will be used to make the second story of his home in a year or two. Sound difficult? It only took about 20 minutes using some heirloom tools he bought at an old estate sale. It was incredibly beautiful to see those old tools put to use again.

So it begins. My path down the road to small scale ag couldn't possibly have started in a more optimistic way-sharing labor, tools, land, and knowledge with neighbors and nary a contract or check in site. They have the land -we share the passion- and I supply the labor and seed. Together we will make something special that was not possible without our community and one generation of small farmers helping the next.

It will be an adventure as I learn to scale my thinking from gardening to farming. Last week, I was excited about the daunting prospect of planting 400 cloves of garlic-they will be putting in 800 sq feet in about a month-even at the 6" spacing they use for ease of weeding, that is something like 6000 cloves of garlic-enough for over 100 families!!!

Mother of all Rain Barrels

2007-09-15T08:32:00.001-07:00

We had a mother of a drought in July of this year. We went almost 6 weeks without rain-which meant daily irrigation of our gardens-even the established perennials needed a weekly hit. We have 5 oak rain barrels on property which will hold about 300 gallons but that was soon drained and we were taking from the local city water to irrigate our permaculture plot which rankled me as it went straight against my "zero input" plan.

Now thanks to the beauty of Craigslist I may have a solution:

I am guessing the dog doesn't come with, but 2000 gallons with the drain aready installed for $200 seems like a steal. I have no idea how I would support the base (we are talking 16,000 lbs of water!) and I would need to surround it with something lest the neighbors mutiny but I am pretty stoked. If I can work out the logistics of tranporting it here this just might happen.

Wonder if I could get Koi in there...

-Beo

The Blessed Bulb

2007-09-08T17:37:00.000-07:00

As we wind down the summer of 2007-with its droughts and floods- we begin to plan both our Fall gardens, and the gardens of 2008. Now is the time to plant fall crops in our locale, and our gardens are obliging by making room with the passing of the corn, melons, and cucumbers. Into those beds will go Kale, Spinach, and Carrots. The spinach for a touch of freshness as the days shorten, and the kale and carrots to keep us in vitamins deep into winter. I do so enjoy messing with the heads of our Thanksgiving guests by picking vegetables for the feast!

Back to the 2008 planning. Our #2 bed first gave us 45# of potatoes, and is about ready to finish with carrots (crop#2), cilantro (#2), beets (#2) and lettuce (#2) and the final 1/3 is currently planted with a rye/vetch mix. As the carrots and cilantro come out we now have the final phase of this bed on hand. Garlic!

Garlic is great-there is nothing easier to save "seed" from, it stores incredibly, is freaky good for you and makes most of the meals we enjoy much, much better. We love garlic. It is also very easy to grow, and you can put a sick amount of garlic into 100 sq feet as most varieties will take a 3" spacing in beds. That is about 16 cloves per sq ft. Quick math gets you up wards of 1600 cloves in one my 100 sq ft raised beds. Damn! Mia, being significantly more level headed than I in such things put the kibosh on 1600 heads of garlic, so we compromised and purchased a total of 53 heads from 5 varieties. After splitting off the cloves it should be about 4-500 heads for next year! We eat about 50-60 a year and plan to sell/give the rest to local restaurants and friends. At $1/head that is about as lucrative as you can get in a bed.In our research we had become quite smitten with a cultivar named Music: Mia loved both the story of returning to the homeland and the simple, beautiful name. I am partial to large cloved garlic, but we doubted that our small vendor would have this rare garlic. However Gaia provides! The 5-6 cloves are almost ridiculously large (below), and have a firm feel and pungent odor that hints of a pleasant flavor without being too hot.

We also scored more traditional varieties: Chesnok Red, Chrysalis Purple , and a few soft-neck varieties for Mia to braid into wreaths. These will all be stored for another 3-4 weeks and then planted with my latest tool and covered with a 3" layer of straw to sleep soundly until spring. The straw prevents Mom Nature from heaving the bulbs from the earth over winter, and then doubles as weed suppression come spring!

Garlic is not only one of the easiest and most lucrative crops for the home market grower, it also lends itself perfectly to sharing the bed with a fall lettuce crop. As the garlic is done in late July, its harvest will till the soil and Aug wk 1 is just about prime time for fall greens planting here as the nights cool again and the rains return.

Formerly I had thought of gardening in annual terms focused on the August Harvest, but as I begin to implement Coleman's Four Season Harvest, I am coming to think of it as more of a constant flow of produce broken breifly by the "catalogue season" of January/Febuary where the soil rests. This year we will have fresh picked produce from April through (hopefully!) December through simple crop selections (radishes, kale, etc) and some simple season extenders like cold frames. Not bad for Zone 4/5! On top of that each of my 7 beds saw at least 2 crops-and all of them saw 3 if you count the cover crops I overwinter on 5 of the seven (Garlic and Kale are left alone).

Happy Planting!

-Beo

Mosquitos and Self Driven Imperatives

2007-09-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

So I am solo this long weekend. Mia, Sprout, and Bird are off to Ohio to spend time with G. Grandma with Grandma in their minivan. Friday and Saturday were rife with me blowing off some steam at the Taste of Madison where I attended several shows, drank too much, and incurred several deep tissue bruises and strained tendons while in The Pit at the JJO stage. With that behind me I spent much of yesterday sleeping it off and resting as I appear to have my 3rd cold of the summer.

In between down times I have attempted to catch up on my yard work. The weather certainly is playing ball-upper seventies, clear and a nice breeze. But coming off of 4 weeks of intense rain the mosquitoes are fierce. Brushing a tomato plant to pick illicit a charge of dozens of insect fighters and weed whacking was downright dangerous (swatting and whacking are not a good combo). I had hoped that the higher temps in the afternoon would drive the mosquitoes for cover, but my afternoon weeding of the lettuce beds was an unmitigated victory for the several dozen mosquitoes who managed to count cou on my back. The only option I saw was to dress for the invasion by switching to light pants and a light, but baggy cotton shirt helped immensely, but also meant I lost about 2 quarts of fluid to sweat. Still I managed to pull 20 cu ft of weeds from the strawberry, tomato, and lettuce beds, picked a bushel of tomatoes, and started to hack down the corn stalks.

Today I am less adventurous, as much due to the welts on my back, neck and face as the stubbornness of my cold. But I have noticed something strange about being alone for 4 days. Without the family here to drive things, I find it- if anything- harder to relax. Especially with the kids here, one is never at a loss for what to do next. But alone, I have this devil on my shoulder driving me to the next thing every time I sit down to read or take a break. Even those two tasks took on an almost urgent tone-must rest and finish Noah's Garden so I can build the rock wall at 2...

I have never lived alone-Mia and I's relationship has always been the type that we are virtually inseparable. This may be the longest apart in our 10 years, and certainly it is the longest I have been alone. I can't help but wonder what I am pushing myself towards, or away from. Perhaps my life is like my gardens-never done, never at rest.

Not sure if that is comforting or concerning.

Still more freaky Pedi-Culture

2007-09-01T06:18:00.001-07:00

The Sustainable Future will be created by many-in myriad forms. I've spent much of my time on the Ag Front-ceaselessly reading about permaculture and Sustainable Ag while I clean the compost from beneath my fingernails that I acquired by attempting to convert my .5 acre track home into the poster structure for sustainable suburban living. In between plantings I preach resource use, having found Rain Barrels to be a great "In" with people that crosses political lines to open discussion on resource cycling and conservation. The fact that they are the prime fund-er of my eco mission helps immensely as well. But there are so many thousand of other Fire Souls that are pushing the envelope in other areas while I attempt to help suburbia feed itself from its backyard.

This past weekend I found myself burning out on Ag reading, and found my random googling to be leading me back to an old love-bicycles. While I live 19 miles from work, I still dream of living life less dependent on a car. We have alot of room to improve-traveling about 35k miles a year, though we have cut 15,000 miles off annually in the past 2 years. Can we cut off another 15k? I think so, but it will take some Big Changes... and I will need help.

Luckily I am not alone-not by a long shot. In need of a pick me up? Read the mission statement of Clever Cycles of Portland, Oregon. For every fact I learn in growing food in a suburban backyard they are matching me in providing the tools to live car free. I at times bristle at the bicycle Lamers who want me to dress in Lycra (that would not be pretty)and ride a wedgie all the way to work. Clever Cycles is pushing the envelope to make and market real zero emissions vehicles that are car replacements. The Bakfeist is a great example, but how about the Z.E.M. pictured at right? It is freakishly heavy (300lbs!), but with 4 pedaling that is less an issue. Still, it needs to go on a diet and get some electric assist. I love seeing the spirit of Ben Franklin survive in the HPV world, with backyard tinkers pushing the envelope and designing some amazing vehicles. The Stormy Weather is one such bike. The velomobile is a trike, but it has articulating engineering (damn, but some people are smart!)that allows it to lean into turns and can therefore keep a narrow width and remain stable in turns. Lightfoot is still working on getting their slick gas assist to work on it, and they are estimating mileage to be in the 600+ mpg on the engine alone-with mileage going up form their depending on how much you pedal. A 1000% increase in my commuting efficiency sounds about right. $6500 is steep though.

I will leave you with some feel good links to some feel good Flicker photos from a wedding of some of the New Ped Culture elite, and a You Tube for some Euro Velomobiles in action. It is sweet to see HPV's passing cars!

Be the Change.

Cargo Bikes

2007-08-30T04:33:00.001-07:00

I like quirky bikes. I love the sustainable power sources (powered by peanut butter toast and coffee), their simplicity (50-60lbs v. 1800 for my Insight), and their small business mentality (Lightfoot or Little Circles are alot smaller than Honda). Thanks to some quick comments yesterday from Mike and Matt there is another bike on my wish list.

The Bakfiets is a Dutch style"work bike" and is gorgeous. Plus it is packed full of goodies like internal hub gearing, roller brakes and hub generated dynamos for lights. This is one seriously functional cargo bike for the city/rural roads that is spec'd for the long haul. Not sure if I would trust it on a tractor path, but given the engineering visible in the picture I am sure it is more stable than I think. Pricing seems reasonable and their other city bikes are worth a shot too-I am particularly partial to their Secret Service which is dripping with Retro/Functional cool and a nice price.

This may not solve the 40 mile commute daydream, but for getting product to market or running to the store the Bakfiets is one sweet ride.

-Beo

Commuting Carbon Nuetral: HPV Hybrids

2007-08-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is something I struggle with. I live with a 38 mile round trip commute. There is no public transportation, and car pooling is difficult as each department has staggered start times. While there are beautiful country roads with passable shoulders for biking, there is that whole Winter thing, and the 38 mile daily commute is pretty daunting-even in my MTB racing days of yore.

Closer to work housing gets alot more expensive, and with the market this flat it would be difficult to offload a house on the freeway and not lose money.

These are the 2 year old arguments that led me to purchase my 2001 Honda Insight 18 months ago. In the summer I can go to work 4 days a week on 2 gallons of gas. Not too shabby! In the Winter it climbs to about 3. But we were running the math this weekend trying to find a way into acreage before I turn 40 and selling the Insight would save about $10k in the next 2 years between payments and insurance. That would knock 1-2 years off the Get Beo a Farm plan.

On a random Google trip this weekend I was looking for a Farm Bike. I have this weird fantasy of a very low geared quad Human Powered Vehicle (HPV) with a payload capacity of about 1 cu yd that I could put tools and veggies in and pedal out to the Back 40 with on my farm. I swear I have seen them, but recent searches have come up dry, though if anyone needs it, it is this guy. I did find some really sweet bikes that are pretty close from a small company in Montana called Light Foot Cycles. Their PediTruck is just about perfect, and they also sell one of the most reasonably priced Cargo Trailers for bikes I have ever seen. Spending $4k on a pedal truck for the farm is a joke, but I like looking at quirky bikes-if for no other reason than to re-assert my geekiness. Then I stumbled on the part that makes this a Carbon Neutral Post.

Light Foot Cycles sells a really slick power assist system. They sell 2-3 electric options, but they didn't seem to be strong enough for a 40 mile commute-I really got turned on by their gas option. They take a teeny tiny 1.5hp (your neighbor's lawnmower has 6.5hp) Honda 4-Stroke which is clean enough to pass CARB's small engine laws. When attached to one of their slick recumbents it will power you to 25+mph (
with fairing) as long as you have fuel-basically a long distance gasoline/human hybrid that would only add about 30 minutes each way to my commute. They don't give any economy figures, but with mopeds getting upwards of 100mpg I think this could do up to 500+ if you pedal enough on the uphills-heck the fuel tank is only about 1 cup!

But that is still not true carbon neutral. Back to that Honda 4-stroke. Any engine this small is carburated. And anything carburated can run on any alcohol mix you want with relatively little tinkering (ok-it takes alot of tinkering, but no computer hacking so I can do it with enough books, tools, and patience). E-85 is becoming more available, but I am a do it yourselfer, so I want to make my own. I posted in June about the possibility of using my favorite crop, Sunchokes, to make 1600 gallons of ethanol per acre. While I only have about 200 sq ft of Sunchokes, that would still be enough to make about 70 gallons of alcohol (someone check my math)-enough to power my HPV hybrid for about a decade (35,000 miles?!?). Plus if I tune the engine right (and get back inshape), I might hit 30mph average speeds.

A Light Foot Cycle with the ethanol modified power assist would be about $3k and a weekend or two of sweat equity- I could limp through carpooling in the winter and catch up on my reading. That extra $7k would also make the cold November commutes feel a little warmer.

Not sure how serious this is-selling an Insight because it uses too much gas seems extreme, but trading a car in on a bike feels like a step in the right direction. Regardless I think getting past the stigma that some bike commuters have against motor assisted bikes, and learning to start thinking of them as HPV Hybrid's could open up alot of options for alot of people.

Be the Change

And The Rains Came

2007-08-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

July had less than an inch of rain, thus far in August we are over 14 inches in Johnson Creek, with parts to the West of us in Wisconsin getting hit hard. We spent much of the week reading account after account of the devastation-focusing in especially on our local Organic Farmers which after overcoming the odds by eking out an existence as Sustainable Farmers were being blasted by the whims of fate and possibly the far reach of Global Warming.

Our preferred source for veggies that we don't grow is Harmony Vally Farm, a large organic farm NW of Madison in the heart of the "organic valley" of the Kickapoo River made famous by Organic Valley Dairy. Harmony valley took 12 inches last weekend, to make 17 inches in one week. Losses are expected to exceed $300,000 dollars in gross sales. Far more disconcerting is the state of the fields as the floods recede-the topsoil is gone and a gravel sludge now resides in its place. Back to that $300k number-this isn't agribusiness-I have met the farmer and his stand is full of 20 to 30 somethings that he is teaching to farm sustainably, and also paying fairly for their labor. Luckily half of his farm is above the floods, so the damage is not total. When we stopped out today to buy onions and brassicas (gone due to flooding) we gave the clerk 2 twenties for the $18 bill. When he tried to hand one back-we told him we had read about the floods and that having them at the market every week was very important to us-enough that $2/ea for onions seemed pretty darn fair to us.

Here at the Beo suburban farm, the tomato crop was set back by 3 weeks as tomatoes split so fast it was almost comical-at least Mia was able to put up 9 pints of sauce last week before the deluge. The melons are a little watery, and the corn has all fallen over. But the new rock walls around the garden beds have held firm so the fall crops of lettuce, beets, and carrots are coming in strong-if one braves the mosquito swarms to check on them.

Started pricing garlic bulbs and potato "seeds" today in preparation for the Business Plan on the Prairie Dock acreage. Not sure if I have a market for 3000lbs of heirloom potatoes, but am willing to look! The Insight's payload capacity is 250lbs....

Moral Imperatives

2007-08-20T18:08:00.000-07:00

After my recent post about burnout I can't believe I am even considering this, but here it is... I am seriously considering renting acreage. About 7 miles north of our home there is a 20 acre permaculture farmette that was until last year a small CSA/hobby farm. In addition to an orchard, small vineyard, sprawling small fruit stands, timber, and a 5 acre restored prairie, there is also a 1-2 acre garden that was devoted to a CSA. The CSA was run by interns and recent graduates from a local organic farming school, but this year it went without management, and is for the most part fallow. It is this fallow garden I have been musing about ever since the balance sheet of our produce business hit the "black".

This plot has some significant advantages to it:

Fertile, friable, living soil benefiting form a decade of love from highly trained organic management.
Access to a shed full of market gardening accouterments-Glaser wheel hoes, Earthway seeders, and every pruning/harvesting/weeding hand tool you can think of.
Water-there is a rain fed 750 gallon water tower on site-all it needs is the drip irrigation to be self sufficient.
Greenhouses-2 full size poly houses for growing and drying produce
The Owners have forgotten more about small scale ag than I will learn this decade-and they are on site and like to talk.
Poultry: hens, geese, and yes even peacocks, range the land eating slugs and caterpillars while fertilizing as they go.
Manure-a team of draft horses and several hogs are in residence.

This is why I went all gooey when the owner said he was very interested in having me out to talk plans. Here are some of my concerns:

I already have virtually no free time
It is 7 miles away-in permaculture speak if your back door is zone 1, this is zone 495. In real speak that means I am not going to be hitting it daily and will likely miss out on pest infestations, etc allowing things to get out of hand in a jiffy.
It is 7 miles away so picking tomatoes and lettuce every day is out. And that is our current market.
It is 7 miles away-sprout and bird can't play on the playset while I weed and then go inside for lemonade.
It is 7 miles away-that is even less time I am home to tend to our own gardens, housework, kids, reading, i.e. life.

I am completely torn, but moving ahead to see if we can make it work. Why in the hell you may ask? My moral imperative (which may be faulty). Here is my reasoning. I have discovered a market in some local restaurants that are craving local heirloom produce, but cannot hit the Madison or Milwaukee farmers markets so they are buying from Sysco. I have the ability to grow market worthy organic produce-at least on a backyard scale. For some reason, Gaia has dropped a 1.5 acre organic garden with a shed full of tools in my lap.

The compromise that I am working on is to plant less needy crops than lettuce or tomatoes-ones that are mostly self sufficient (they can out muscle weeds and have little pest pressure) and most importantly-can be harvest in large infrequent chunks. My plant list so far: potatoes, corn, squash, melons, garlic, and others. My second tier (need weeding) list would include: carrots, onions, and herbs like oregano and dill. Third tier that would need at least weekly attention-peppers, cucumbers, etc. I am ruling all the brassicas (broccoli, kale, cauliflower) as I am uncomfortable with bT and the cabbage moths are vicious hereabouts. the trick is to find a market for these crops-I plan on making some calls this weekend after touring the farm. But if I can find a root cellar (the owners may have one) I may just plant enough for our family-we are entirely hooked on home grown potatoes. If we do this the landscaping side our Someday Gardens would have to take a hiatus. Not sure how I feel about that, but I have wanted to be a farmer since I was 10-can't ever say I wanted to be a landscaper.

We try to live our lives by "Being the Change" What would you do?

Cottage Economy

2007-08-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

Less than a year ago we posted on the prospect of us providing rain barrels to fill a niche in the market and a service to Mother Earth. That first full trailer of barrels was so exciting!

Well, alot can happen in a year-and we've come a long way baby!

This past Saturday Mia and I unloaded a semi-trailer load of barrels to the ill masked curiosity of the neighborhood. This was a BIG project-these barrels weigh over 100lbs each. Luckily barrels are designed to move easily (their, well, round) so despite having 4.5 tones of oak to handle we had them unloaded in 30 minutes with the help of the drivers and a simple ramp of 2x4's.

We have also made huge improvements in our production-I am on my third drill (an 8amp Bosh Hammer Drill that will try to snap your arms off if you aren't damn careful-do not ask how I know this) and have upgraded to carbide tipped hole saws and massive auger drills to save time. Mia in her first stab at making the intakes tripled the productivity of that task. So by noon we had the all unloaded, 70 of them in the garage, and 22 built. Of course we can hardly move today, but the accomplishment is impressive. Henry Ford would be proud, and once installed these 22 barrels will account for 40,000 gallons of runoff saved annually-when the batch is completely done by the end of the month it will be closer to 150,000 gallons. Nice.

Burnout

2007-08-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

I had know that this was a possibility, but I thought (in my typical arrogant fashion) that I was stronger/better/smarter than the average Joe. I thought that I could balance family life w/ 2 litte 'uns, working full time, running an expanding small business, standing on 2 municipal committees, running study groups on The Natural Step and volunteering with Sustainability groups and come through grinning. Anyone reading the previous sentence has already concluded that I was deluded in the extreme.

Of course I failed, hitting The Wall hard in early July. Basically I couldn't let my work a day job suffer so instead I disconnected almost completely from the outside world-no cell phone or email for almost 3 weeks until I recharged my mental fuel tank. I missed alot of meetings in my breakdown, and family life suffered as my temper flared and my energy leveled slumped to very low levels. One small bright spot was that I was out of rain barrels so no orders went unfilled.

I am back now in some form due mostly to necessity: I have an order for 65 barrels waiting for me. Mia and I unloaded 85 barrels from a semi trailer yesterday morning to the extreme curiosity of the neighbors ("no they are not still full of wine..."). It was satisfying to see the enthusiasm from the ones that I am close enough to that they know what we are up to-with them either driving by with energetic thumbs up, or stopping by to marvel at the display.

The kicker is that I am still struggling with saying "No!". I am doing well by not taking on new tasks, but all the irons we have in the fire are really good ones. The majority of our rain barrels are going to projects to help Milwaukee Co. disconnect their storm water systems from their sanitary sewers. Currently, as a legacy of 19th century city planning, many homes run their gutters into the sanitary sewers-causing massive effluent overflows with extreme water quality and ecosystem ramifications in the Great Lakes. Literally every barrel I build for them helps to alleviate this issue-and there are currently no other sources. How do I say no to that?

Same for the municipal committees-we are down to 2-3 voices of "eco-reason" on the Smart Growth committee-bowing out now would all but hand the committee to the opposition giving them the power to write our 25 year plan in their image. The study circles are a great way to build a critical mass of empowered citizens to help in future efforts. Then there is the fiscal side-every dollar we earn on the side business designing and installing landscapes, building rain barrels, or selling produce is one step closer to our Dream House. The business is very lucrative-but also time consuming and stressful which makes it the prime suspect in my burnout.

I am more balanced now than I was, but something has to give. My current task load is unsustainable, and I hope and pray to find the strength to level out my commitments to my ability to fulfill them. On a much more pleasant side, I had the intense pleasure of giving several Garden Tours to about a dozen of the local Eco Elite and their encouragement and obvious, vocal approval were an elixir for my soul. Recognition by one's peers is a wonderful thing.

Of course, the tours resulted in several requests for speaking engagements-the cycle goes on!

The biggest takeaway is to be selective in Being the Change.
You can't do it all!

An Organic Perspective

2007-07-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

One of the most common, and utterly ridiculous, criticisms of "organic" methods of agriculture is that they can't keep up in quality and volume with conventional chemical methods. I am prone to picking fights, and this one gets me spitting mad. It takes forms as benign as my family condescendingly nodding their heads as I describe my deep mulching to make my own fertilizer (while all the while musing about all the money I am throwing away when my perennials die), to the much more damaging argument that a switch to organic methods would doom the world to starvation-we can't "feed the world" without Big Ag. That is a load of hooey, and my .1 acre project is hell bent on proving that. So here are some "Where's Beo" shots of my gardens to lend some perspective, literally, on organic methods.

Right, so that is my ugly mug about 2/3 of the way up my Golden Bantam Sweet Corn. I am 5' 7". All of these shots will look weedy, but that is due to the polyculture plantings-in this same bed is also basil, beans, and melons.

One of my 7 Tomatoe Teepees (4 plants each). This one is some of the freakishly vigorous yellow pear plants from Seed Savers. The plants have easily climbed over 6' tall in less than 2 months! The teepees are so sturdy that I didn't lose a single plant in a particularly vicious storm front last week with 50mph winds and 3-4" of rain. This bed also contains 1.5 dozen pepper plants and has an understory (waaaay under these days!) of white dutch clover for weed suppression, insect attraction, and nitrogen. The teepees also offer fantastic habitat for our black and yellow garden spiders which are superb general predators taking the edge off any pest invasion.

This is a shot of one of our native beds. Not a prairie as it was planned primarily for aesthetics but all plants are native to Wisconsin. The cupplant I am behind are only 3 years old and are well over 8' tall with leaves the size of dinner plates. This bed has seen no fertilizer other than deep mulching-and the droppings from the numerous voles, sparrows, finches, and chickadees that frequent it!

The key to any gardening regime is meeting the plants needs-the heavy feeding corn, melons, and tomatoes got a very healthy dose of horse manure (1-2"). In addition the tomato bed was cover cropped with a rye/vetch last fall, and the corn bed was the bottom of the massive sod based compost pile of last year's prairie restoration. The beds also had prep with green sand for trace nutrients, and periodic applications of either composted chicken manure or fish emulsion. With the exception of the fish emulsion and green sand, all of the inputs to these beds are readily accessible on any well balanced (livestock+diverse plantings) small farm-the way 90% of farming was done in Wisconsin 90 years ago when my grandfather was supporting a family of 10 doing it. I will put my yields up against anyones-and this is on only 3 year old gardens on top of a soil made up of a sand/gravel/clay mix from a quarry used as backfill in our subdivision.

"Beyond" Organic Farming works amazingly well-my 8' corn has impressed the heckfire out of me. I got 40#'s of potatoes off of 100 sq ft-that works out to about 9 tonnes per acre which compares very favorably with conventional yeilds... and that is with a lower yeilding Purple Viking strain v. the typical Russets.

Be the change!

Detour Ahead, Delays Likely

2007-07-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

Faithful readers will remember that our HOA Permaculture experiment abuts I-94-as in the backfence of my prairie restoration is owned by the D.O.T. There is a long story of us backing out of a farmette due to unforeseen structural problems with it- with only weeks before our house closed and despite herculean efforts we were unable to find another property in time. That was three years ago, and we have managed to make the beginnings of some pretty good lemonade with our lemons.

Back to the D.O.T., or more specifically the letter that we received from them yesterday. It seems that next year they will be doing massive work on a 25 mile stretch starting from our backyard and going East. This is no simple resurfacing: the will be raising bridges, widening exits and shoulders, and generally tearing things up royally. No worries though, the letter goes on to say, as there should be little to no impact to traffic because the work will take place at night. Sleeping will get very hard next summer.

Mia is 100% in the "Hell no!" camp and is dead set on moving before then. Prior to the letter we had agreed on a 3-5 year stay to get our finances in line for the Big Move-and finally get our Someday House on some land. In the mean time I would continue my experiments in permaculture yardening with the explicit intent on making my mistakes here on a small scale to reap the benefits of scale when I move from a 1/10th acre garden to an 1+ acre mini farm. Moving now will be difficult-the backyard gardens will not be show-able for 2-3 years, until then looking like the remnants of a drunken party that somehow involved a wood chipper and some fruit trees...

If we do move now we will need to drop down in home size to make up for realtor fees to stay on track for our 5 year deadline. Making a step up to a farmette in the current economic uncertainty would be foolish. That said, the town next to us allows chickens within city limits so a smaller home there has some appeal, and my harebrained ideas would look less out of place if we did not live in a planned subdivision.

If we do not move I think next year might see some new experiments-this time in green building and energy. I have reached a point where a potting shed/greenhouse would make things much easier, and after a quick search of strawbale construction I turned up the Canelo Project infusing art in their built environment. The "Architectural Control Committee" would go into hysterics over something this "hippy", though even my pragmatic heart is moved by the flowing lines and soft tones, so something more mainstream would be needed. But I am enamored with the concept of a passive solar greenhouse/shed that is also off grid to power a few lights and charge my cordless electric yardening equipment. If we weren't moving I would put a 1000 gallon cistern under the foundation fed by the roof and use a solar well pump to pressurize an irrigation system. The thinking is the same as the the orchard-make my mistakes on a 150sq ft structure before I build a 1500 sq ft one.

This is probably all simple musings. I spoke to the lead engineer of the project I am supplying rainbarrels for and the project will continue thru winter 2008 and he is looking for hundreds more. Screw the potting shed-I need a bigger garage.

-Beo

Strangest thing I have seen today

2007-07-14T18:03:00.000-07:00

One can't help but think that something much, much cooler could have been accomplished with a restored tank.

Being the Change

2007-07-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

That simple sentiment has spawned a revolution of sorts... at least in the small world that is the Mia/Beo household. It is why any "new" clothes are either purchased used or seen as a chance to vote with our dollars with retailers such as Patagonia, Prana, REI, etc that are offering fantastic clothes from sustainable or organic fibers. It is why I have converted 20% of my backyard to food crops-and half of those beds are what I can safely term experimental to push the edge a little farther. It continues in these blogs, in my hybrid evangelizing, and in the mini seminars I hold at work over coffee on the CCX, nutrient cycling in landscapes, or the local eco-nomy that we are helping to build and support.

But in no other place is it more apparent or vital than in our children under my partner's tutelage. Mia is fantastic. Tonight she created another superb dinner from our gardens-beets (with caramelized brown sugar), potatoes (roasted with sage from the herb spiral and garlic sea salt), and a kale quiche made from local goodies. The meal was stunning enough, but what caused me to almost burst with pride (for them) and affection (for Mia) was that our children ate it all-with multiple servings. How many 4 and 5 year olds in suburbia are asking for seconds of roasted beets and kale quiche? After dinner when Sprout and I were out planting the second crop of beets and carrots he came across a roll of sod I hadn't moved to compost yet-and he cried out: "Dad! We can reuse this-we don't need to throw it away!"

We're doing it...
Think Global.
Act Local.
Teach your children.

Be the Change.

The Good Life

2007-07-10T16:10:00.001-07:00

As if we had any doubt...We're living it.

A brief synopsis of this picture perfect day. Slept in past 7 (had stayed up late doing an 8 hour blitzread through a new fantasy novel), cooked myself breakfast (local eggs and fresh bread cooked the evening before) as the family had eaten and then drove with the family to take the kids to ballet lessons with the Milwaukee School of Ballet. From there we headed over to our preferred independent organic grocer for some staples (steel cut oats, flour, wine and eggs-we grow much of our other food in June/July/August), and then a quick kiss to Mia as she headed off for a meeting on a job that she was considering taking on that would add 50% to her gross income and I returned home with the kiddos. The fact that we are solvent enough to "consider" job offers is not taken overly for granted-at least not today.

Lunch was quick (salad with peppers and raspberries that I picked 5 minutes before), and then Bird went down for a nap while some storms rolled thru (only .25 inch but I'll take it!). Mia returned in time for the nap and we enjoyed some quite(r) time weeding and harvesting until Bird woke up, and then we went to a nearby lake for a quick swim.

Now I am sitting outside in the sun, beer on arm rest and grill to my left while Mia prepares some potatoes, basil, and beets from our garden that I will finish on the grill presently as the kids play around us.

Life is good.

HOA Permaculture

2007-07-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

The trees came in last week! Of course they came 22 hours before I was set to leave on a 1300 mile trip to marry off my best friend, so time was of the essence. I was able to get them in the ground with a modicum of marsh hay mulch before we left for Missouri, and was distracted most of the trip praying for rain while we were gone (unanswered, though the wedding was almost canceled due to tornadoes!). Upon our return I spent the next day sourcing materials to finish the beds on my back-hauls from delivering Rain Barrels to clients. The picture above shows the prep work as I left them last Thursday: on the right is the Speckle Pear with a Paw Paw on the other side of the bed and a pair of Hardy Kiwis on the fence. Edible Landscaping was unable to meet my order on the Paw Paw and only had 1 gallon trees on hand-hence the 18" tall "tree". What is impossible to see in this shot is the 3 French Sorrel, 2 Russian Comfrey, 2 perennial Clovers, 2 New Jersey Tea's, and 2 Hazelnut Shrubs that are also part of this polyculture. The grass surrounding this planting will be sheet mulched this month in preparation for more plantings next year.

At left is another of the tree guilds, this time anchored on an Asian Hosoui Pear Tree. This guild butts up against a 300 sq ft native planting that will provide a significant degree of diversity in both soil and insect life. This picture was taken after I had added a 3" layer of 9 month old leave compost from our village yard. The pile was steaming when I forked it into my trailer so the soil ecology will get a nice jumpstart of microorganisms! This bed includes New Jersey Tea, Comfrey, Nodding Pink Onions, and Garlic Chives in the understory, with another dozen or so prairie plants within 10 feet. In the background can be seen some of my compost bins and the tandem rain barrel set I am moving from the front yard to make room for a new, larger system I installed last week.

The bed at right has the second Paw Paw mini tree and the usual suspects in the understory. This demonstrates about how the beds look "finished" with another 4" of wood chips from the village yard on top of the 3" of compost. In the front yard I have the 2 peach trees in similar guilds, though one gets a mulch more elaborate understory complete with multiple nitrogen fixers and a bastion of beneficial attractants from still more native plantings and our large rain garden. I am lavishing plants on these guilds in my respect for the impending pest pressure that the peach trees will undoubtedly experience.

A few more thoughts on my prep. I took the unusual permaculture step of ripping the sod off. This is typically a no-no as you deplete the soil of its organic layer and much of its ecology. However, my sod is rife with quack grass and I had no interest in giving it a leg up in my forest gardens. Their rhizomes laughed at the 1' overlaps of 4' pallet sheets under our play system with shoots coming up in a nice 4' checkerboard. I have a strong dislike of that plant that borders of hatred, but I cannot deny its evolutionary chutzpa. So the rhizomes were removed leaving only the subsoil back-fill.

Without a year to add a topsoil layer through sheet mulch, I purchased 8 yards of a topsoil mix (Peat/Sand/Topsoil) that I layered on about 18" thick and then lightly tamped (ok I walked on it) and into this I planted the trees. I did break up the subsoil compaction considerably with a mattock (it scoffed at my digging fork and fancy imported spades) before planting. My intent was to mirror a forest soil strata as much as possible, so starting with my subsoil back-fill and placing topsoil on top of that, I then applied the 3" layer of mostly decomposed leaf litter from last years leaves. This simulates the micro-organism rich layer immediately beneath the surface in a true forest-the layer that feeds 90% of the plants in the forest. On top of this, the wood chip layer mimics the carbon rich mulch found in any forest-consisting of fresh leaf litter, twigs, and fallen branches. This is the layer that will provide the fuel for future generations of my soil ecosystem, while also protecting the soil from compaction and the suns rays. All trees were also inoculated with mycorrhizal fungus spores prior to planting to give the beds a more balanced soil system.

Next steps will be ensuring that the trees survive the ordeal of being shipped half way across the country and transplanted, and then to sheet mulching the rest of the lawn in this section to prepare the way for next years plantings. Only other additions planned for this year are some gooseberries and perhaps some strawberries as ground-cover and fungus inoculant to encourage decomposition of the mulch layers.

Will it work? Can I grow a suburban orchard "beyond" organic-with virtually no future inputs besides mulch? The next 3-5 years will tell!

-Beo

Dead Zone

2007-06-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

So last year I began experimenting with sheet mulching and had very high hopes. Now, 6 months later I am reporting back. Unfortunately it is with mixed results. The partial success is that the sod is, in fact, dead. The partial failure lies in the fact that the mulch material is not decomposed-or at best only partially. That was last week and I found it frustrating, but it got sidetracked as I began Orchard Prep in full force.

But tonight I spent the final hours before sundown after work preparing about 100 sq feet of soil that I had pulled the sod off this weekend. For some reason that fact that I hadn't seen a single worm finally sunk in. Let me say that again-in turning 100 sq ft of lawn-organic lawn-to a depth of about 8" I did not turn over a single worm. My conclusion, based solely on anecdotal evidence without soil tests, is that my soils are as dead as I had once feared. This is why the sheet mulch is just sitting there-one needs decomposers to decompose coffee grounds and cardboard. This lawn has been there for almost 3 years now, but our subdivison, like most, had its soil stripped off and sold, and then post construction had hundreds of yards of backfill trucked back in-in our case it was quarry waste: a stable and cheap mix of sand, clay, and stones. That backfill came from a subsoil or lower level in the soil strata-a strata dead to the soil ecosystem.

Into that layer-with a thin veneer of topsoil (2-3") crushed to oblivion by my spreading it with a skid steer- I am trying to create my Eden. I recently wrote about inoculating the soil with benifical fungus, but this goes deeper. I need to literally rebuild the entire soil ecosystem. Luckily I am not treading on virgin soil as it were-my trusty texts on Edible Forest Gardening speak of technique to do just that. The long and short of it is that I will be taking some 5 gallon buckets to nearby woods-as old growth as I can find-and scoop out some soil to mix into my orchard plantings. This is a broad base inoculation that will hopefully start to cover the gamut of bacteria, fungus, nematodes, and critters that I need to balance (or in this case create) my soil ecosystem. There is an abandoned farm about a mile from here with standing timber-I plan on making a foray next week to make some very significant progress on righting the wrongs of my site.

Be the Change!

HOA Permaculture

2007-06-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

If you haven't picked up on the recurring theme of the past several months, I am planning a small scale forest garden something bigger than a permaculture fruit tree guild but certainly less elaborate than the ones Robert Hart created almost 30 years ago that have received some coverage of late. I guess I am thinking of linking about 6-8 tree guilds into a mini ecosystem. Perhaps Orchard Gardening is a better term, but I won't belabor the point.

I have a few goals in this experiment:

Tidiness Alright I may be accused of snobbishness here, but I am trying to "bioneer" a system that is replicable in suburban homes across the US, and if it looks like the weed fest that Mr. Hart grew no one is going to be on boarding anytime soon. I know his Forest Garden was brilliant in many ways: self sustaining, productive, and groundbreaking, but I am looking for something that will pass the HOA police. To that end it needs to be structured, functional, and well tidy. That means I will need to add more inputs in weeding and mulch rather than letting succession do the work for me, and I want it to ramp up fast so it will entail alot more prep work instead of waiting for nutrient accumulators and legumes to enrich the soil for me. I figure my garden club attending Mother will be a decent measurable here-if she approves I have passed.

Natives Right, so this may have already nixed my goal of readily identifiable species, but I want to make these guilds decidedly Upper Midwest in Character by including natives to fill niches when possible. This goal is rough to begin with-apples are imported, peaches shouldn't grow in WI, etc but I want to give it a go. So at least in the understory I will be incorporating natives as I go. For every niche if I can find a native to do the job I will be giving it a try. This will only be a partial win as productivity suffers without hybrids and "domesticated" plants but I will be giving it a shot.

Enjoyable, not just Edible This goes back to Mia's euphemism that "just because you can eat something, doesn't mean you should..." So I will be sticking with "normal" edibles as much as possible. Peaches, pears, apples (okay and Paw-Paw but its native) will be the anchor trees in the guilds. Strawberries will be a ground cover of choice, raspberries, kiwis, chives, sorrel, and other familiar plants will be in attendance. I want to be able to serve produce from these guilds without explanation to guests-and then spend the explanation time on the beauty of a (mostly)self sustaining garden instead of driving home that, yes, indeed, that dish is edible.

Some wins to date:

New Jersey Tea I first noticed this plant in the Prairie Nursery's catalog as one of the few native shrubs, and then started seeing it virtually every where I turned in my winter reading: Noah's Ecology, Edible Forest Gardens, Gaia's Garden. Mostly it is mentioned for one of two reasons. 1) The cute anecdote that the colonists used the leaves of NJT as a Tea substitute post Boston Tea Party... planting this shrub is Patriotic! 2) Hummingbirds apparently can't pass it by-they capture some of the pollinators to feed their young. Cool. So it was going into the guilds already for its nativeness, tea-ness, and beneficial attracting-ness, but then came the coup de grâce... this bugger is a nitrogen fixer!

This plant just rocketed to my Top 5 along with Russian Comfrey, Goumi, Sunchokes, and Black Locust Trees. I bought 9.

Nodding Pink Onion I have a few of these in my perennial beds, and I knew they were a native allium, but it took Edible Forest Garden's freaky useful appendices to dial home that this native was a great onion substitute (can you call it a substitute if it is still an onion?) They might not bulb up like a Walla Walla, but they are perennial, can be divided annually, attract beneficials and emit enough chemical odors that they can mask more susceptible plants from pest pressure. I'm in for a half a flat.

Misc Natives some others that will be included: New England Aster for a late season benifical attractant, Bergamot (beneficals and more good tea), Leadplant (N-Fixer), Alpine Strawberries (edible ground cover), Indigo (N-Fixer), and about a dozen other native perennials will be about 8' away in a 500 sq ft prairie transplant bed as a beneficial insect haven to try to keep the Curculios off my apples.

Other plants that will be in attendance in force will be Russian Comfrey and Chives (both great nutrient accumulators). French Sorrel (great snacking green), some Dill, Miner's Lettuce, hardy kiwi, edible mushrooms breaking down the mulch, some clumping native grasses like Prairie Dropseed, and I plan on tucking in traditional annual veggies like peppers, tomatoes, etc to harness some of the wicked good soil.

I know I have given this alot of press lately, but I have eaten my nails down to nubs waiting for Edible landscaping to get me my trees and kiwi (3 week delay!!) and I have to burn the energy off somewhere: Mia is about ready to burn the Edible Forest books if I mention edible fungus or nitrogen fixers more than once an hour.

This week's task will be finding a source for 5 yards of compost (I actually ran out and used all the City's...oops this will probably come on a truck), tearing up the sod, finishing the irrigation swales, and sourcing 3 yards of wood chips. Like I said-I am going uber input to get it up and running!

-Beo

Sunny Fuel and Chickens

2007-06-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

This morning Mia and I were searching for some alternative starch sources for an acquaintance with an allergy to potatoes, and I jumped to Wikipedia to verify that Sunchokes were Asteraceae (yes) and there have been some updates to the entry. One of them was espousing the virtues of Sunchokes as an ethanol crop. The entry claimed that one acre of Sunchokes can be converted to 1200 gallons of 99.5% Ethanol. That claim seemed ridiculous so I let it go and went on to other things.

Right so I can't just let this go, but you all knew that already. Ethanol from my favorite perennial food crop? So I went back to track it and it turns out the reference on Wikipedia came from one of my all time favorite sites: Journey to Forever, again confirming my growing suspicion that it does, in fact, contain the answers to literally everything.

The JTF reference has about 30+ pages of text on ethanol production of which I read about 2, but it is basically just making strong beer-ok that is an over simplification but it ain't hard. So if I can seriously make 1000 gallons of fuel on an acre (v. 200 for corn) the 20 acre farmstead just became alot cooler. That is enough fuel to drive about 23,000 miles if we could convert our Subaru to E-100 (28 mpg * 85% efficiency) or just buy an E-85 car and cut our own ethanol with regular gas. The process looks easier than making bio-deisel, but that is only at first blush.

Regardless this sounds alot better than corn (6x the production/acre) while not having the no till advantages of switchgrass. I hope that it gets some real time in the debate at least.

Surround the whole thing with another of the coolest things I have read about this week: the chicken moat or even a hog moat, to keep the acre of sunchokes from taking over the entire site. As much as I love pushing the limits of the HOA...I need land for all these ideas!

I came across the Chicken Moat idea in David Jacke's Edible Forest Gardens. For those of you getting frustrated by my continual references to it, bear with me- there are still 625 pages to go...

So I had heard of Chicken Tractors, and like their utility and simplicity. I also really enjoyed the chicken coops in Mollison's Intro to Permaculture where the coop is adjacent to several gardens that are each separated by a fence-and each section also has a door to the coop. The chickens can then be released to "till" in a section of garden, remove most insect pests, and fertilize the heck out of the garden. The Chicken Moat combines the two ideas to some extent while adding alot of utility to the traditional garden fence. The picture above is very ambitious. The runs would house dozens and dozens of chickens.

A smaller version, say 30' on a side, would effectively run the perimeter of my 7 beds. The gardens that Jacke demonstrates with are absolutely dripping with function stacking. On the outside the chicken fence is buried 18" to stop burrowing varmints, and the planted thick with Comfrey and other mulch crops. These are planted fairly tight to the fence allowing them to be grazed, but not killed, by the chickens while also giving them some protection from sun and wind. The run is about 6' tall and fenced the entire height with chicken wire, and then there is a larger opening arbor on top with serves as protection from hawks and climbing predators, but also holds grapes, hardy kiwis, and a variety of other edible vines. The model shown had openings on the garden side for the gardener to chuck weeds in through. If you put down a sawdust/chip mulch in the runs you would have all the compost you could ever need. Loves it.

I can see something like this, but much stronger and with hogs, running the perimeter of the Sunchoke Acreage. Any errant tuber would be gladly eaten by the hogs rooting through the soil. Maybe I need hogs to stop my quack grass problems!

-Beo

Garden Detail

2007-06-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to break down my gardens in a little more detail. When I describe everything I am growing in my yard a common first question is "do you have any lawn left?" I do-alot. While the lawn as an expanse is dwindling annually, it will always be there for the dogs and our children. Plus I like bocce ball and while playing in a forest garden would be challenging, the buzzkill from squashing a sorrel plant would ruin it for me right quick. So here is a short rundown of gardens in the ground followed by a short blurb on plans for June:

Right now I have 3 main areas: Small Fruit, Veggies, and Sunchokes with some intermixing.

Small Fruit

This started in yr 1 of our home (even before the lawn) with 125 strawberry plants from Nourse farms. Not organic or sustainable, but dirt cheap. I split the 125 into roughly equal parts early season (earliglow) and midseason (sparkle) for their dependability and resistance. Each type is in a bed to themselves. The first year I debudded them all (while shedding tears) and got a healthy harvest in yr 2. Peak during the overlap week was about 1-2 Quarts a day. This was enough to put a little by-but only because my daughter eats small fruit voraciously. These beds take up about 80 sq ft each and I leave them to their own devices only trimming runners when they escape the beds which anchor two ends of a mixed prairie/perennial bed that also houses 2 comfrey plants (for compost) and my sole Apple Tree. Nearby are our 2 Currant bushes. These are just coming into production and are used for pectin for making jams.

Veggies
We currently have 5 vegetable beds each approx 5x20'.
#1 contains: 24 potato plants on a staggered 2' spacing, along with a grape trellis and 5 raspberry plants on the north side. Tucked in some gaps are also 3 lettuce plants and some mache I had left over.
#2 contains my heavy feeders: 24 tomato plants on 2' spacings to be trellised to 7' bamboo teepees for height. In the other 2' of this bed on the North side are about 16 peppers. This bed is also underplanted with about 1/4 ounce of white dutch clover seed for a living mulch ala Fukuoaka.
#3 is the spring bed and has a 20' double row of peas on trellis (using jute twine so I can compost the whole lot) on the south side and then 3' deep bocks of lettuce (8'), beets (4') carrots (2') and radishes(2') with about 3' set aside last year for this season's garlic (about 20 bulbs). This bed will be continuously replanted as harvest continues to stay in production (with coldframes) until Thanksgiving.
#4 is about 7' wide as 3' of it houses 12 more raspberry brambles. The other 4' contains 4 more tomatoes (1 teepee), 2 zucchini, and 16' of cucumbers in one row. This is a very new bed that is only partially composted sheet mulch-results will not be great.
#5 is my "3 Sisters" variation. Basically it has 4 melons on 4' spacings with 30 or so corn plants on very wide spacings interplanted. Pole beans will go in soon. On the south face are 6 basil plants for easy picking and wicked pesto.

I have a 6th bed I am turning under right now for the remainder of my peppers and lettuce that buts up against the sea of Quack grass that the DOT maintains on the other side of the fence. Keeping out that any rhizomes is futile so I have enlisted some allies. Enter the Sunchokes.

Sunchokes
Quack grass is my nemesis here at Someday Gardens. I have pulled out rhizomes over 6' long and they laugh at my stone rubble raised beds. I have spent about 20 hours this year meticulously turning over my beds and sifting them to get as many of the rhizomes as possible and then weeding with a vengeance to rid my beds of them. But the Quack Sea on the other side of my fence has limitless rhizomal resources that belittle my efforts. So I am choosing to fight an aggressive pioneer with an aggressive native: sunchokes. Now part of me feels like Roosevelt in 1941, but hopefully I can do better at living with the Sunchokes than we were with Stalin. Bordering my beds to the west and north and separated by mown paths are 3' wide strips of Sunchokes about 30 feet in length. The Sunchokes offer both insidious tubers and a mild allelopathic effect that seems to keep the quack grass at bay. The upside is that this living rhizome barrier also supplies me with about 40 gallons of tasty tubers a year and beautiful sunflowers in August. Now if they just don't take over Europe and SE Asia in the next 30 years...

That is about it for edible gardens right now. In some perennial beds I have 4 Goumi Shrubs that will produce if the rabbits ever stop eating them to the crown each winter, and I just put in 3 blueberry shrubs as well. It isn't much, but with a more normal spring, at least half the beds get 2 crops, and they all do if you count the winter cover crops. I also have an Herb Spiral with Chives, and most culinary herbs. Out of this I will be eating from May through the winter (Sunchokes keep like potatoes) and producing enough to sell to a sandwich shop to pay for next year's seed and supplies.

June/July Plans

En route from Edible Landscaping: 1 Housi Pear Tree, 1 Seckle Pear tree, 2 Paw Paw (pushing the zones here) a hardy Kiwi, and 2 Red Haven Peaches. Nourse will contribute 2 gooseberry shrubs, and I have 3 hazelnuts from the Arbor Day Foundation in the fridge. All the above will be incorporated into a "guilded" orchard that I have been planning for about 8 months on and off. In the guilds will also be more strawberries, sorrel, more chives, some edible native onions, mulch plants, and much, much more. The absolute beauty of the guilding is that in the same space as a loosely planted orchard I will have everything in this paragraph and more driving the production of this 30x50' area to huge heights. In the same 8x8 area I will have a fruit tree, 1-2 fruiting shrubs, an edible groundcover, edible vines, and at least a half dozen edible and medicinal herbs while edible mushrooms decompose the wood chip mulch. All in a system that creates its own mulch, fertilizer, nitrogen, and attracts its own pest predators. Buya! There is much, much more to this frankenstein (including an engineered soil/swale irrigation system fed by my blueberry bog and raingardens)-look for an well documented install over the next month!

I have a .5 acre lot, but I am only using about .1 to do all of this leaving the rest for a typical landscaped front yard, a playsystem for the kids, and enough lawn for 160lbs of greyhounds to frolic in. Most lots, even true Urban lots have that much. On the flip side this approach can also easily expand up to 1-2 acres by losing the raised beds for 5x100' beds, adding zeros to the quantities of the fruit trees and enlisting a gaggle of ducks for slug patrol without getting so big that 1-2 people can't maintain it part time. Hello permaculture market garden!

This is starting to feel like hubris, but fingers are crossed!
-Beo

HOA meets CSA

2007-06-05T19:49:00.000-07:00

So as the realization that the farm is at least 3, and probably 5+ years out sinks in I have refused to let that get me into a funk. Those 3 to 5 years are an opportunity for me to learn, experiment, and grow in an environment that is both safe and challenging: the Suburban Backyard.

Earlier this year on a post at Groovy Green I threw a glove down by saying that I would like to grow upwards of a half ton of produce from my 1/2 acre lot in Zone 5b Suburbia. I am taking that resolution seriously and am investing heavily in both research and plants to make it a reality. But it is bigger than a number-in fact I trace it back to one of my mentors: David Holmgren. Holmgren, in his book Permaculture, made a comment that is haunting me. It can be paraphrased as referring to Suburbia as the Salvation of the 21st Century. WHAT?!! His point is that in almost no other time have so many people owned a plot of land for themselves. Right now those 1/2 acre plots are massive ecological deserts soaking up resources, but what if a few pioneers turned the paradigm on its head and showed what could be done on a sub acre lot in a subdivision. Authors like Sara Stien in Noah's Garden, and the entire Urban Gardening (or City Farm) movement are trying to do just that. Making food and sustaining yourself on a 5 acre plot is fantastic and still the dream, but what about the other millions that will need food in the near future. We are a net exporter of food only because of oil-that will change in our life time.

I guess in the time that I have in the Land of the Home Owner's Association I want to see what I can do to add to the Victory Garden tradition of urban gardening. When I start spouting off at work about my gardens-people ask if I have any lawn at all. In fact we still have over 1/3 of an acre of lawn on a 1/2 acre lot. My food gardens are only about 1/8th of an acre as far as space I have set aside in the Master Plan, but in reality it is only about 1200 sq feet right now-with only 2 fruiting shrubs and some brambles augmenting the veggies and strawberries. But in that we eat from our garden from May through November and once the Filberts are online will grow protein, starch, as well as fruits and veggies. We stretch our harvest by "putting food by" in sauces and storage.

We also stretch our labor around by shifting as much of the load to perennials or "come again" crops like Sunchokes as we can. Using those sunchokes as an example. They produce as much, or more, pounds of food per sq ft as a potato and take as the same amount of work to put in and harvest. But once established, from now until eternity (you can't eradicator them!) all you have to do is harvest. No fertilizer, no watering, and no planting. Every Fall I turn the bed harvesting tubers as I go by the 5 gallon bucket load, and then I lay the stalks down as mulch and store the tubers in the buckets with wet sand in the basement (50 degrees). This saves me about 2 days in the spring of work, and about $30 in fertilizer and seed potatoes vs the annual crop. In return I get over 50lbs of tubers for free!

I want to see what else I can do with perennials. I am trying to debunk the theory of the need to rototill your strawberry patch every 3 years and replanting. How does that makes since? I have 2 berry beds: an early and a mid season. Last year on the midseason bed after the harvest I took my digging spade and turned under about 12" every 3' or so in the bed and let it replenish itself with runners. Into that I sprinkled some left over pellitized chicken manure, but compost would have worked as well. That was the entirety of my bed maintenance other than weeding. This year the strawberries are so thick I can't tell where I tilled, and that bed is out producing my early bed 2:1 and they were dead even last year. This is the third year so time will tell, but I will continue my tilling strategy as it appears to be a huge success. It lets the bed reinvigorate itself and I can get by on 1/3 the space with no capital outlays.

I still have 2/3 of my "production" area to plant and even still I am planning on selling produce this year-I will have attained the permaculture criteria of a "surplus". Sure I am still bringing in inputs in mulch and coffee grounds for compost, but they are all by products of my neighborhood. True sustainability in a Suburb is about community-we don't live in the four walls of our plat of survey-we share in the resource web of our community.

I have about 10lbs of produce in so far in the first 10 days of the season, and I have alot of tubers and fruits to go. Agribusiness can get about 14,000lbs of corn off of an acre (200 bushels of corn/acre @ 70lbs/bushel), I would need to hit 1400lbs to beat that in my .1 acre production zone. That is huge... can I do it?

Time will tell, and I will need the fruit trees maxed out to do it, but this time next year I might have a CSA in my HOA and its a purely academic point because my strawberries beat the hell out of GMO feed corn in the taste department and I am carbon nuetral or better.

Be the Change!
-Beo

Garden: June Wk 1

2007-06-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

Right. So the Big Mission this year was control for the backyard. Last year we left for a 2 week trip to Alaska in Mid June, only to return to a jungle of weeds that we never got in front of. The backyard was not a pleasant place, and we have vowed to make a better show of it this year. So here are some shots of the garden in June. I know, all gardens look great in June, but I am taking solace in how well they are doing thus far.

Here is Bird taking her time picking the Forellenschluss lettuce from Cook's. Bird is an enigma. She'll take carrots over cookies, apples over ice cream and will eat her salad, heck even plain lettuce, completely before touching mac and cheese or her PB & J. Like her Father, she is especially smitten with this variety for its appearance and taste. The leaves are large and firm which makes them a dream to harvest as leaf lettuce and they are heading up nicely. We have about 12 plants going right now that I transplanted out 2 weeks early (Mia's pic below) and they have kept us in salad for 1-2 meals a day for 2 weeks, and are still going strong. We have 2 more rounds of this lettuce to go (I started the seed all at once, but staggered the transplanting which is having a similar effect on harvest times. My "nursery" bed is very low on nutrients due to neglect which essentially puts the transplants on hold until they hit the garden-they stay alive, but don't thrive.

Once we got back from Yellowstone I quick put my transplants from Seed Savers (my starts were murdered by yours truly when I left them out on a windy spring day...) into the garden. Last year I had 14 tomatoes and had used large wire cages for all my indeterminate heirlooms. It was an unmitigated disaster because I didn't prune them and had them spaced to tightly-I basically had a tomato "hedge" that became weedy and suffered from lack of sidedressing

during July. I spent the winter keeping an eye out for an alternate method of growing my heirlooms and stumbled across the idea of Tomato Teepees in Cook's Catalogue. They used 7'

bamboo, and bamboo sounded alot better than my ugly wire cages! Unfortunately my local independent nurseries only had 6', and even Local Harvest (which I use like a sustainable Amazon) came up empty. I was preparing to resort cobbling together mine out of firring strips from Menard's when I stumbled across these beauties at K-Mart of all places! Beautifully stained (I will not ask what with...) and a full 7' long. They came in packs of 6 for a very reasonable $5. I bought them out.

The idea is to space the plants in a 2' square and then prune the vines to a more or less single trunk that will be tied to the bamboo. This should allow me to grow almost double (24 v. 14) the plants in the same area due to going vertical almost twice as much (6' v 40") with commensurate increases in yields. Time will tell!

I also broke with my desire to stay with only one variety of Tomato for seed saving. With me now marketing veggies to the local coffee shop, I needed to grow Roma's and Yellow Pears for them, while also keeping with my Amish Pastes for our sauces-in all I have 6 varieties. Ditto for the peppers-we went from one (Anchos) to 3 to include an early and late red bell for the shop. I hope to still collect seed from my radishes, peas, carrots, and lettuce though for practice!

Here's to the optimism of June in the Garden!

-Beo

Living the Dream

2007-06-03T11:27:00.002-07:00

I just finished building 7 tomato teepees out of 7' sticks of bamboo for most of my 30+ tomato plants (look for a post very soon). We have been eatin salad for lunch/dinner for the past week straight from our garden and will need to start selling produce soon (lettuce is hard to store). We are getting a pint a day (quart on one day) of strawberries and the larger bed with the mid season plants will be in production next week. The potatoes are 2' bushes and the raspberries and Sunchokes are 3'+ tall. Peas, carrots and beets are doing fab as well. We are adding 2 more 100 sq ft beds for next year to grow onions, more melons, and maybe squash.

Coming in the mail are two pear trees, hardy Kiwi, and next week will bring the peach trees, and more strawberries for next year. Sorrel transplants are waiting on the porch, and the basil went in yesterday along with the melons, cucumbers, corn, and a bunch else I am forgetting. Goal of 750lbs of produce this year might happen yet! This will be on about an 1/8th acre of space that still has a lot of lawn in it-the other 1/2 of our backyard is less agricultural and devoted to family space like porches and playgrounds. With 10 acres I would be dangerous! (probably more to myself than anyone else!)

What I am saying is that until we can move to our dream Someday House we are living an incredibly blessed life right now and won't be moving. Next year I will hit 10 years at my job and will have 5 weeks of vacation a year on top of paid holidays and the unbelievable fact that I only work 4 days a week. Starting in August my work week will switch to Tues-Fri from Wed-Sat so I will have real 3-Day weekends. All that free time means that I felt confident enough to start a business rather than go for a promotion and lose the long weekends. And now my side business is successful enough that I am turning work away and will be subbing out some labor starting this month while still augmenting my salary by 20%. Next year I might even rent an acre of land to go deeper down the road of Market Gardening, but time will tell.

Sure living on the freeway sucks, but if you put the iPod up that melts away and eventually the sight break I have planted will block it out, at least visually, and nature doesn't seem to care. The swallows love our yard since it is swarming in crunchy little pollinators, a nighthawk has moved into the area, and we spotted our first 13 line ground squirrel yesterday grazing in our replanted prairie.

Life is good. Even in the Suburbs on a freeway. Sometimes living in the Now is hard for me.
Now is not one of those times.
Be the Change.

Tree Hugging Dirt Worshiper

2007-05-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

So the newest breed of livestock farmers are starting to refer to themselves as Grass Farmers, and many Organic Farmers are proud to claim a bio-intensive form of agriculture-farming with nature rather than fighting it. And now one of my favorite bumper stickers (the title of this post) is taking on a new meaning now that I have finished Volume 1 of David Jacke's Edible Forest Gardens.

I know I have stated that in something like my last 3 posts, but forging through 350 pages of what is essentially an Ecology Textbook takes some doing. Don't get me wrong-the book was incredibly enjoyable and I learned an immense amount about, well, Edible Forest Gardens. It did get rough at times, as I was looking for a "how to" for temperate permaculture, which Vol 1 is not (though it looks like Vol 2 [en route] is). Vol 1 is rather a statement of the vision and theory behind forest gardening (creating self-sustaining perennial agriculture) while giving the reader (student?) a more than cursory understanding of the principles of the science of Ecology. The book is valuable if for no other reason than their incredibly thorough appendix titled their Top 100 Useful Plants. Wow.

As I stated in my last post, the biggest take away for me was in the 100 pages or so that deal with ecology. That is a good thing, because after 100 pages on ecology you need a tid bit or two! I will try to paraphrase my aha! here. Many of us aspiring orchardists have heard that a grassy understory can be detrimental to apple trees. I have heard numerous reasons why, but the main reasons center around resource squabbling between the shallow rooted apple tree and the shallow rooted turf grasses. That kind-of made sense, but it never felt truly right to me-too simplistic. Jacke clues his readers in on a relatively new frontier of soil ecology- the ratios of bacteria to fungus in the soil horizons as another possible reason.

Without getting too technical, grass or freshly disturbed areas typically have a very high bacteria to fungus ratio-there is typically little carbon material in the soils for the fungus to feed on and bacteria are more flexible on the relatively higher nitrogen levels in the organic matter in either disturbed sites or under sod. However, trees, and even shrubs and many perennials, have evolved to live in a mutually beneficial existence with various fungus and one (mycorrhizal) in particular is turning out to be one of the absolute powerhouses of the forest. Basically the fungus lives on or near the roots of the trees and in an exchange similar to rhibosomal bacteria in legumes, gives nutrients and water to the tree for sugar intensive root secretions. Sounds neat and all but why should we care? Here is the tidbit that blew my mind: take a table spoon or two of really good old growth soil. In that dollop of soil there may be as many as 40 miles worth of mycelial "hairs" and, in the soil, nutrient uptake is all about surface area. Dang!

But here is the kicker: the fungus is sensitive-every know "-cide" has shown to be damaging to it including the more innocuous ones like Round-Up. So if you live in a new subdivision like me and have dead subsoil, or are living in virtually any other developed soil on Earth you almost certainly have a soil dead to fungus. This is essentially forcing our trees and gardens to try to soldier on alone uphill with one leg chained to a 50lb chunk of lead. Not only are we missing an essential component of the decomposer web in our soils, we have also hamstrung our gardens by taking away one of their staunchest allies.

So I will be running an experiment in my lawn and some of my gardens this year. I have ordered mycorrhizal fungus inoculants for both my veggies and my lawn from Fungi.com and will keep you posted on the results.

Speaking of Fungi.com, they offer an immense line of fungus products allowing you to grow your own edible mushrooms. Some, like the Shitake, need a log to be inoculated and then placed in contact with the soil, but several others would like nothing more to live in (and aggressively decompose) the wood chip mulch in your perennial beds. In return they will give you a harvest every year for the next several years or more. Loathe turning your compost bin and have some time on your hands? Inoculate the pile (or a round bale of straw!) with their The Garden Giant™ (Stropharia rugoso-annulata) and sit back as you harvest some utterly immense mushrooms while the fungus turns the carbon into compost. Fukuoka would be pleased!!

I plan on inoculating the mulch layers of my sheet compost with the Stropharia and perhaps some others as soon as the beds go in next week if for no other reason than to see a 3' mushroom!

-Beo

Yellowstone and Back

2007-05-28T07:19:00.000-07:00

Wow. 10 days and 3500 miles with 2 toddlers and 7 adults in an epic memory fest week of driving, wildlife and some of the most scenic country our nation has to offer. It was fantastic to see Yellowstone again after almost 6 years-the pines have had almost 20 years to recover from the fire and their success was a fantastic backdrop in succession and disturbance recovery to my reading for the trip (Edible Forest Gardening, by David Jacke). The pines seemed small for 20 years old, until my research turned up that Lodgepole Pines take at least 100 years to reach "commercial" diameter. Why in god's name do we log in the Rockies again? The trees that were spared are beautiful-majestic and exuding history and wisdom with every needle.

We didn't hike much and didn't camp at all, this was a car trip, but the payoff in wildlife was amazing. We saw so many pronghorn that I am embarrassed to say they became almost ho-hum-literally 500-1000 in 4 days. Bison in abundance-including 100 calves. We even saw a "parade" of 60 bison ambling down the road as we headed out the west entrance. That was an amazing 30 minutes as we stopped to watch them march past within arms reach. We saw at least 20 moose and a myriad of elk, mule and whitetail deer and even several big horn sheep. Though it was a cub, I did see my first grizzly and we either saw the biggest coyote ever or a small wolf (60-70lbs). Regardless, we did hear a wolf howl the morning after the canine sighting during our stay in Flagg Ranch Wyoming which was as hauntingly beautiful as I had dreamed it would be. Some of the mistakes made by the Dept of Interior in their Forest Management were erased in the moment. Pictures will be available on Mia's Blog shortly I am sure (she took over 3000... editing will take awhile!)

But now we have returned, the lawn was literally over a foot tall and I quick harvested 2 lbs of radishes before dark before they split. My hastily transplanted peppers, lettuce, tomatoes, mache, and melons all survived. The prairie is 2-3' tall and the potato plants are a foot above their holes and the strawberry crop looks to be incredible. With 48 transplants awaiting on the porch from Seed Savers to cover my losses from the windstorm that killed 2 flats and also to bulk up for my restaurant sales, 3 weeks of weeding to catch up on, and a shoebox of seeds to get in 2 weeks late I have a busy day ahead of me!

Finished vol 1 of Edible Forest Gardening and will be placing my tree orders for the "canopy" layer of my guilds this week. Paw-Paw, Alder, Locust, Pear, Persimmon, Plums will all be in attendance with an understory of shrubs and edible forbs and herbs with a thick groundcover of edibles to round things off. Vines will be trained along the fences (Fox Grapes and Hardy Kiwi)- there is an immense amount of work in the next 2 weeks, but Someday Gardens has cashflow and this is what it was designed to do-fund my horticultural experiments.

Finally, I will begin inoculating my wood chip mulches with edible mushroom spawn. I know very little about this right now but resources like ATTRA and Fungi.com are allowing me to fill the gap very quickly. My biggest initial take away from Edible Forest Gardening was the wealth of knowledge of the soil ecosystem and its critical importance to garden success. Basically if you ain't got fungus you ain't got a healthy garden. A healthy soil will be fine, but a farm field that has been brought to its knees by chemical sprays, or my subsoil backfill subdivision will need some intervention to catch up.
Time to inoculate!

-Beo

New MPG Record!

2007-05-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

Its official-I am a Centurion!

Last Friday on a return trips from a garden install (yes I install gardens using an Insight!) I achieved the insane 102.2 MPG over the same 17 mile commute that I had previously achieved the impressive 92.8 numbers of LY.

Other than being able to apply all the subtle learning's that I have gained in the past 14 months of hypermiling, the single biggest difference is so simple as to be embarrassing. My commute has a 5 mile stretch that is hilly. Now I have always said that my record runs are not normal driving-I rarely break 55mph and I use back county roads, creeping up hills and coasting down them. But as these are public roads I would also always keep the speed over 45mph or so. That is absolutely fine with the exception of 3 of the hills that I must dip pretty hard into the throttle to maintain 45mph up the steeper inclines. For some reason this time I thought "Why not just throw the blinkers on and climb them at 100mpg?". What the hell! Actually on only one did I have to resort to the blinkers to get someone to pass as I crawled up at 39mph (in a 55 zone), but the mental shift of not having to dip into the gas engine was enough to earn me inclusion into that elite status of the 100+ MPG club.

I know this was a purely academic exercise, but the proof is there- 100mpg commuting is possible with current technology. Sure the commute took longer, but I made it from work to home, in an internal combustion powered car and averaged over 100mpg.

Be the Change.

Still Kickin!

2007-05-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lapse in posting-trust me its been a whirlwind month!!

Here are some of the bullet points of things that have kept me busy:

Bad: Village President ousted in election that was an unspoken referendum on our Sustainability Initiatives-have been in damage control mode ever since due to a very unfavorable political climate (first act of new administration was to move to disband our Green Committee...[we survived, but barely].

Good: Someday Gardens has exploded-we have sold out of our entire inventory of 50 barrels YTD and have a waiting list. Am contacting suppliers as far away as Oregon to meet demand on my municipal contracts-if I find one I will actual be hiring staff! Also have enough garden installs that I am turning down new projects. Isn't this a side business?

Duh: Its April/May and I have insane amounts of garden projects: installed another 400sq feet of prairie, installed the recreated Peat Bog for blueberries that also drains the Big Rain Garden, built a Play system for the kids, rebuilt the Herb Spiral, etc

The Village President thing hit real hard. The single biggest learning, and look for more posts on this if it ever rains so I can take a break, is that we focused our energies on the Village Board and not the Village at large. The business community was uneducated to our intent and the vocal minority was able to convince them that we were raving idealistic lunatics and enough people turned out to sway the election. Remember I live in a town of 2000 so literally 32 people decided this elections... So the next two years will be a holding action at best. We have already lost 1/3 of our committee to replacements that are intended to impede rather push our agenda which will bog down our meetings for the near future as we get them up to speed.

On a much more positive note, our gardens are making extreme headway. The blueberries are in (post in the future) and the prairie from last year is coming in fantastically thick-some of the cupplant are already pushing 2'!!! Unfortunately the brutal winter seems to have taken out 90% of my Green Thuja wind break. That may be a blessing in disguise as I am now reading Dave Jacke's 2 volume Edible Forest Gardens and the information is blowing my mind. Its pricey, but the 40 page appendix on the Top 100 Most Useful Plants is enough to justify the cost alone-and there are 660 more pages to go!

Add to that my new compost garden (Comfrey, Clover, and Sunchokes) and the newly installed beneficial insect attractant intensive native garden bordering my soon to be installed Orchard and life in the Beo/Mia household is very, very good! We have also planted the first of hopefully 6 Fruit Tree Guilds filled to the brim with edibles, natives, nutrient accumulators, and biomass plants all supporting a semi dwarf fruiting tree.

Posts will certainly be fewer, but trust that I am out fighting the Good Fight!!

Shower Start Review

2007-04-20T21:33:00.000-07:00

So in my quest to further reduce our impact, and having no more CFL's to install and already getting 70+mpg, I turned to our Master Bath. We have made significant cuts in our water use, including the installation of a new 2 stage toilet (only .8 gallons for urine) that has us down to 2-3000 gallons a month, but looking for more I jumped at the chance to test the Shower Start.

The Shower Start works on the simple premise that you turn on your shower as normal, and the Shower Start will then automatically shut off the water flow in your shower when the water flowing thru it reaches 95 degrees. Simple, slick, but is it worth $40?

First of all I love the wittiness of their marketing "you are no longer waiting on your shower... your shower is waiting for you!" Nice.

Install was an absolute snap-it literally took me longer to get it out of the box than it did to get it installed, and including Teflon tape in the package is just plain smart-amazing how something so small can make such a big difference! That little detail left me thinking how smart this company must be-that they really thought things thru. All psy-ops stuff, but it still worked on me. If you can turn an adjustable wrench both clockwise and counter clockwise you are qualified to install this gadget. Still, I was a skeptic-it wasn't really a low flow shower head-how Green could it be?

I installed it late in the evening, and since I had spent a sweaty day gardening so I turned it on to give it a test run. I took a few seconds to reread the instructions to ensure I didn't miss anything, closed the blinds and then stopped dead in a cold sweat. Why, you may ask? Because my shower stopped. That is not so bad, I knew that was going to happen-I installed the thing right? What stopped me dead was that the shower had only been on maybe 45 seconds. It was late-no one had used hot water in 4-5 hours-the pipes were cold. I don't think I am that atypical in the morning-I turn the shower on, finish up matching socks or whatever and when I notice steam coming up I jump in. It is probably on average 5 minutes. The cold sweat was induced with the knowledge that I had been wasting at least 15 gallons of water every shower of my adult life. 15 heated gallons mind you. Rough math of 5 showers/wk for 20 years equals a savings of, oh, 78,000 gallons of heated water. Sweet Jesus! Suffice it to say I am a huge fan of the Shower Start-and yes its Green!

Back to my skeptic part. I also installed a cheapo ($10) ultra-low flow shower head from a local Ace Hardware which claims 1.5 gallons/min (vs. standard low flow of 2.5) and includes a nice cute button to cut the water supply to a trickle while you lather up. This function turned out to be great-as you don't really turn off the water it stays warm so you don't have to scream after you turn it back on again to rinse. The ultra low flow does impact hair rinsing time a little, but overall it is a Big Win.

Combined between the Shower Start and my new low flow with shut off I can now take a full length (10 minutes-I am indulgent) shower on less than 10 gallons of water-2 gallons to warm up, and the shower is now off for at least half the time for lathering thanks to that handy little button. Old shower head w/o the Shower Start would have equated to say 35 gallons (15ish minutes @ 2.5). That is a huge savings over a family of 4 showering most days. Total out of pocket for both is a reasonable $60, and install for both takes no longer than just doing one or the other. This install will have a quick payback of under a year, and the Green Factor is quite high-I rank it up there with CFL's and hybrids in impact per dollar spent, albeit with no science to back up that claim.

Be the Change!
-Beo

Clutch - Electric Worry

2007-03-31T18:35:00.001-07:00

This post has nothing to do with Sustainability, but everything to do with me fighting Burnout.

Clutch is one of the last true rock bands. I will never beat 100mpg listening to them, but I will live to fight another day.

Druids are cool.

2007-03-31T17:49:00.000-07:00

Why are Druids cool? They value study, reflection, and wisdom while also being champions of balance.

Check out an example of this lucidity here on the Archdruid Report in a recent write up of our current energy insanity and compare it to our current debates at the Federal level.

-Beo

The Natural Step /On the Earth Productions/ Greg David

2007-03-30T20:17:00.001-07:00

A montage of a Natural Step Presentation recently. Greg David is one of our County Supervisors and Paul Moderacki is my Village Adminstrator.

Whose Woods These Are

2007-03-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

We live in a Subdivision. There I said it. See, at work I am always talking about the "village"-working on a committee for the "Village", etc. It seems that some people at work had come to believe I lived in a commune of sorts-or at least an EcoVillage-though they know that term only in abstract. One guy actually sad that he was disappointed in me...

And maybe I am disappointed in myself. 3 years ago we had a small 2 acre Farmette picked out-small house that needed some work, but a few outbuildings and enough room for a goat and some chickens. Our Permaculture Paradise. We put money down and sold our house. Then the deal went south in a hurry and we ended up backing out with our house sold with only 6 weeks until closing. In 2 weeks we visited literally every house on more than 1 acre within an hours drive of my job that was even remotely in our price range. They were all terrible. Affordable and nice are mutually exclusive in real estate when you also add "acreage". In fact the last house literally smelled of sewage due to a failed septic field. Time was short and we ended up in a Spec home with immediate occupancy, .5 acres that was cheap, but also literally on the interstate. My back fence is maintained by the DOT. That was 3 years ago.

Since then we have done wonders with the landscaping, been nominated for 2 Village committees and become very involved in the county. We love the town and I have made good friends with the Movers and Shakers in the Sustainability Circles. We are on the cusp of some Big Changes. But as I write this to the north of my window only 200' away is I-94. Pollution aside, the noise is fatiguing in the extreme and planting a Permaculture Paradise seems almost ironic. Sometimes I feel it is fitting to build the new society so close to the trappings of the current. But only sometimes.

So I am always looking for a new place. Always. I have been watching this house for a year in the vain hope that they will take $150k off of it. What the ad doesn't show you is the sloping hillside to the NW, the 2 acres of reseeded prairie, and the additional 7 acre fenced pasture. If anyone wants a kidney for $150k let me know. The home haunts me... why must every home on more than 2 acres have 6 panel oak doors and marble bathrooms?

Then about a month ago this property came up. If it looks plain, that because it is-in every way. The house is nowhere as nice as current one and it faces north with a God-awful solar aspect. But the Ag taxes are uber low, and it has 4 acres and a stream which are also completely undeveloped. It's only outbuilding is a 10x10 shed and there is literally not a fence on the property. But payments would only be $50/wk more than our Spec Home and I am selling more rainbarrels than that right now. Did I mention there are 5 very mature Maples-syrup anyone? It would take about $70k and/or 10 years to get this where I need it: 800' of fencing, a barn, a wood lot, etc. But it is 4 acres of tabula rosa, and would also cut my drive in half making a bike commute more of a reality. Which is good as the Insight would need to go, I would probably trade it for a TDI with 200k+ miles on it for $6000 just to get me to work in the rain or an old CRX HX that gets 50mpg.

Is this the one? Neither Mia or I think so, but The One is always going to be the better part of $.5 million which is ridiculous and out of the question. So we either need to hang tight for another 3 years until we pay off the cars, or settle for a house that is immensely better, but not what we truly want. We both want the next move to be the last for a looooong time-so we will probably wait.

Waiting sucks.

Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying.

2007-03-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

Bart and M.E.O.W. have linked to something we all need to Get Real on. The reality is getting so, um, Real that even CNBC is catching on!

I have come to think of Peak Oil and Climate Change as one issue which I loosely call "unsustainability", the answer to which is Sustainability. The root problem is the same-we are using energy waaaaaaaay to fast, behaving irresponsibly, and need to course correct in one generation-probably in one half of a generation before we doom our children to a life of poverty and doom the third world to a life of starvation.

Kerry talked about it and now Edwards is too-we need to hit Sustainability with the same National effort that we used to get on the moon. Screw Mars-if we want to keep from looking like Venus we need to get honest with ourselves, scrap the Hummers and make 300 bicycles each from the recovered steel. Silliness aside, we need to use the energy we have to set ourselves up for a sustainable future. It takes alot of energy to make PV cells or even Tulikivi stoves. Time to get busy living.

Be the Change!

Tuesday Vaca, Part Deux: The Organic Bistro

2007-03-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Reading Chomsky, The Union of Concerned Scientists and periodicals about Permaculture and small farming –simultaneously- sparks a weird, fetid brew of thoughts, fears and hopes that takes some time to hash out. Time that I have not given them yet. Despite the incredible restorative attributes of this trip for me, I have not allowed myself much time for reflection. It has been a whirlwind trip of coffee houses, bookshops, and redbuds peppered with fleeting conversations with Chapel Hillites of various flavors running the gamut from Tar Heels to anarchists.

Really what is haunting me most of all is that little gnome, Noam. His portrayal of power politics over the past centuries, and the last few decades in particular, is strikingly disturbing, to the point that I find him difficult to read comfortably- like sitting through a 20 hour scolding by the principal where detention is a totalitarian hell that we allowed to happen. This is due almost entirely to my belief that it is not some dissident liberal intellectual screaming from the rooftops, but a clear voice of reason that is falling on deaf, or more horrifying, numb and therefore powerless ears. I can’t even rightly blame the Bush Administration, though they have taken the power plays to their “logical” and terrifying conclusions. The fruits of the past 6 years are coming to bear from the seeds planting and cared for willingly over the past 50 years by 3 generations of Americans. We have allowed the norm of state sponsored killings to be made in our name. To allow wars of aggression to be engaged on our behalf-to save the unthinkable deaths of several thousand Americans in a terrorist attack we have sanctioned the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians who are far more innocent than we.

And it is that collective guilt that is finally so disturbing for me. I knew the war was wrong, I know we are sacrificing our civil rights on the altar of our fear. But I continue with my daily life to protect myself, my mortgage, my comfort while I assuage the guilt thru telling myself its ok because we won the midterms and it will all be over soon.
Bullshit. Where is the outrage? Where is my outrage? I am paying attention, but I tell myself that working at the local level is more impactful, or that my efforts for sustainability are the greater good. What good is sustainability when Permaculture can lawfully be deemed a subversive, terrorist ideology. Reactionary? ADM owns most of the seeds and is willing to lock people up for using them. I had to sign a consent form that I wouldn’t propagate my raspberries-if they sucker am I legally liable? Paranoid? Watch the Future of Food and see the ruin of our traditional Family Farmers at the hand of corporate greed.

So that is the fear, the fetid brew comes in when you reap the hope of the Permaculturists and Ecovillagers. But even there Peak Oil is beginning to seep in as well. Permaculture may be enough to save me, but is it enough to save us. No individual can live sustainably as an island. I can not realistically make all that I need to survive. Thoreau still made trips to town for lumber at Walden, and his base level of artisan know how dwarfs mine by a factor of ten. Even if I learn enough to feed and clothe my own family if I have not brought my neighbors with me I only breed resentment, jealousy and put myself in a precarious position if the bottom drops out.

So how do I bring others with me and also fight to keep our civil rights civil? Hell if I know, but I have some working hypothesis. The Natural Step (TNS) and Permaculture are my biggest bets so far. Becoming a TNS study group facilitator was a Big Step for me. Taking groups of a dozen or so citizens through the process ever 2.5 months is a quantitative step to making our county more sustainable. I have said time and time again that the hardest part to Being Green is learning to Think Green. My first group has some incredibly well connected and highly trained members. Getting them to work together and network can increase their results significantly-and that is just my group. Our county wide organization has a half dozen groups going at any time-and in a rural community of or size several hundred citizens, growing annually, is a statistically significant block that will accomplish Real Change.

Permaculture is more nebulous, but potentially more powerful. At the last meeting of our fledgling countywide group, Sustain Jefferson, I was asked to teach a course on Sustainable Living at a local Technical College. I politely refused due to being completely overcommitted right now-but how powerful a force could that be? The thought of a continuing education course on Sustainability keeps running through my head and I can honestly see it happening come this fall. The kicker will be to inspire honest, real action on the ground. In the current issue of Permaculture, one of the authors laments that after instructing several hundred students in a semester long Permaculture Course over the years, there are still only 2 other Food Gardens in his entire hamlet.

Is the hope of a Permaculture enough to combat the power politik reality that Chomsky relates? Only in so far as the thinking can permeate society quickly enough while there is still enough power left in the populace to effect change in the Executive branch-be it Democratic or Republican. We live in an age where I am both deeply proud and powerfully ashamed to call myself an American. The political heritage of Adams, Jackson, Wilson, Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes is in sway right now to my great shame. However, our political and philosophical heritage is unmatched for boldness and truth and I believe that as the most powerful Nation we must be the force of change by drawing on that heritage and fulfill our philosophical destiny as framed by Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, William James, Martin Luther King and Carter. The choice will be on our generation to save or condemn our world.

Be the Change.

Beo's Vaca... Carrboro Edition

2007-03-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

High expected to top north of 85 today, but at present it is an extraordinarily pleasant 68 with a slight breeze. After ushering Mia off to another day in the trenches, I packed up my kit ($18, laptop, periodicals [Economist, Permaculture, Small Farm Today]; Chomsky) and hit the road. Today I had a mission. The anarchists at International books had referred me to a mythical “open air market” in the next town “up the road” that, as legend had it, served fantastic eggs starting at 7:30. Never one to pass up a good quest for mythical eggs, I hit the road.

Now to be fair “the next town over” is not the 7 mile hike it would be in rural Wisconsin, and turned out to be a pleasant 2 mile stroll on quaint brick-lined walks under canopies of blooming redbuds. My destination proved to be slightly elusive, surprising given the specificity of my anarchist guide’s directions. Never one to shirk some friendly human contact, a few questions had me pointed in the right direction to breakfast nirvana.

The Weaver Street Community Owned Co-Op is the real deal-outdoor seating for easily 100+ served by a small breakfast bar and all the accoutrements of a natural food coop (kickin sourdough, freaky strong coffee, and all the people watching you can handle). The eggs-in several national iterations favoring olives, jalapenos, and cayenne, were easily as good as billed-and their tofu scramble was seasoned to perfection. Regardless of the extreme quality of their scrambles, anytime breakfast to order is served by the pound it is a win for society.

Now that breakfast is done, it is time to return to the reverie-there is a recorder playing somewhere and the magpies and toddlers are getting restless. Perhaps I’ll hit that Organic Bistro on the way back to Chapel Hill.

Damn… this is a good vacation!

Beo's vaca... the saga continues.

2007-03-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

So besides writing an epic primer on Permaculture Guilds off the top of my head this morning from the hotel room, I have been keeping busy here in Chapel Hill, NC. Yesterday I had stumbled upon an interesting looking establishment named 3Cups ferreted away in a quaint little courtyard marred only by the fact that it is completely torn up for construction. The décor was striking-somewhere between African and post modern and the door was partially covered by crates of empty glass milk jugs waiting to be refilled.

So today after wiling away a portion of the afternoon under a tulip tree on campus finishing my 24 hour blitz thru The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices written by the Union of Concerned Scientists I walked up the street to see if 3Cups would live up to my initial impressions.

First off 3Cups specializes in just three things-all of which cry out to my inner elitist: coffee, wine, and chocolate. It’s too early for wine, and not being hungry I hit the coffee bar. The barista directed me to their coffee list (yes they have a coffee list) and I was struck by their pricing, which was closer to what I am used to paying per pound than per cup. Their “select” grades were topping out at over $7.50! My confusion must have been evident enough, as he suggested one of their selects- and pointed me to a display depicting a Central American family standing infront of several large bags of coffee beans. It seems that 3Cups became so enamored with their beans that they have secured their entire crop. Hooked, I proceeded to order a large, only to learn that got me a 64oz French Press worth which I hastily converted to one much smaller.

The coffee is extraordinary, much fruitier than a typical Columbian and I admit that having my own little press at the table with me is fetching.

Chapel Hill is beginning to grow on me!

Permaculture Guilds: A Primer

2007-03-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

Permaculture is a world created by merging the words "permanent" and "agriculture" or more correctly "culture". Looking around, it is very hard to find a more permanent (i.e. sustainable) form of agriculture than, well, Nature; no one has to fertilize a Forest! And that realization is the crux of Permaculture in a nutshell: mimicking Nature's vast experience in sustainability to make our own crude agriculture more sustainable in turn. In other words we are using Gaia as a mentor, rather than a nemesis. I have not actually attended a Permaculture Design Course, so I am not an official teacher, but I have read most of the major texts and they have literally changed my outlook on everything from our household's waste stream to my perennial beds and choice of pets.

Guilding is perhaps the coolest detail level aspect of Permaculture theory. In Nature plants are grouped in small, reoccurring but loosely defined communities that are often referred to as guilds.

A full guild will have seven layers-each specifically designed to use one aspect of both the sun and root strata. On top will be the Large Trees, followed by the low trees, shrubs, herbs, vines, groundcovers, and finally "root" plants. But Gaia is subtle, and the coordination goes far deeper than resource use. Each participant in the guild brings a wealth of diversity to the table. The tall tree may house small animals that distribute seeds for them, and the shrub layer may provide feed for birds that use the low trees for nesting habitat and feed on insects that prey on the large trees. Plants in the herb layer may fix nitrogen for all to use, and the "root" plants may seek out pockets of nutrients in the soil that are made available to others in the guild as their foliage decomposes. Some plants will attract pollinators, others predatory insects. Some will act as mulch plants by creating excess biomass that regenerates the soil, while their neighbors may act as fortress plants protecting the entire guild from the encroachment of outside species. The inter-connectivity is how nature works-nice tidy systems that sufficiently supply the community with all of its needs given water and sunlight and a proper climate.

Permaculture takes this knowledge of resource management and biodiversity and attempts to modify nature into agriculture, which is really nothing more than an ecosystem modified by humans for their own ends. Unfortunately we have chosen to do this in a way that favors the monoculture. True Iowa GMA corn can net 240+ bushels of corn/acre, and is the most productive way known to eck corn from that acre (consequences be damned!), but Gaia can produce far more biomass on her own from that same acre without any inputs at all. The trick is to find a way to merge Gaia's productivity and self sufficiency with plants that produce usable products from humans. "Guilding" a garden is that attempt.

For suburban use, the guilded Food Forest often forgoes the Tall Tree layer. One apex tree of this size would overly dominate a typical lot, but if you are planting a large deciduous tree to shade your home consider a useful tree such as a Standard Pear (fruit), Sugar Maple (syrup), Chestnut (protein!), or Black Locust (nitrogen fixer!). The Low Tree layer is where I focus most of my guilds. All semi dwarf rootstock fruit trees fit nicely and are uber productive on a suburban scale. Things to consider are whether you need a pollinator tree and also the ability of that variety to survive organically in your local-pears, paw-paw, and cherries are all good choices for the midwest with apples and plums good fits with careful pest management.

The fun really starts in the shrub, herb and root layers because of the amazing variety available. Each guild will need to provide for the needs of the group in as many ways as possible. Each needs 5 things: Nitrogen, Nutrients, Mulch, Pollination, Protection-both from competition and pests. When choosing your plants, in addition to a usable product for your family, each should provide a surplus of at least one service to the guild. Comfrey is a personal favorite of mine. The leaves are edible and medicinal, the roots are nutrient hounds, and they produce so much biomass that they can literally be hacked down to the ground 5 times a year. Nitrogen fixers are legion-including many edible varieties of annual beans and peas. Clovers are great n-fixers that also attract benifical insects and act as a mulch. My favorite shrub is the Goumi as it fixes nitrogen, has edible fruit and gives a good thicket habitat for insectary birds. Brambles and hazelnut shrubs are also great choices. Fortress plants can be as common as daylilies (also with edible tubers and buds!) or daffodils, as tasty as garlic, or if you really need to beat something back use an aggressive alleopath like our native Jerusalem Artichoke-but be ready to keep it under control! Luckily the best way to do this is by eating the delicious tubers!

A well designed guild will need little additional water due to less evaporation from the dense plantings and thick mulch, little to no fertilizer as it produces its own, and little to no pest control as the plants will attract their own predators. Sound to good to be true? Take a stroll through an established prairie or savanna and then ask the forester about his fertilizer or water bill...

My guild plans tend to rely on the fruit tree to supply most of the food, with the herb and shrub layers mostly supporting the tree's needs while also granting some side benefits like edible fruits, landscape beauty, and wildlife habitat. Look for many updates, including plant lists, on my guilds as the season progresses!

If this post whet your appetite, the most accessible book on temperate permaculture is Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden and I highly recommend it!

Beo v the TarHeels

2007-03-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

So Beo and the Eco Mama are on vacation. Scratch that, Beo is on vacation tagging along with the Eco Mama as she attends marathon 12 hour Conferences. So while she is working on surviving marathon meetings I am touring University Campuses, reading Chomsky, and blogging my heart out. Sprout and Bird are at home in the care of their grandmother. Life is good.

At present I am sitting in a sweet little establishment right off campus in Chapel Hill, North Carolina called the Jack Sprat Cafe which is equi part sports bar, sandwich shop, and coffee house. To my right is a philosophy grad student and on my left is a group of card playing 30 somethings planning a trip to Mexico. In front, just to ground me in reality, is a 72" screen blaring the Florida/Oregon game.

Chomsky is brilliant, but his Hegemony or Survival is a bit much to take in over a cappuccino and March Madness so I ordered some pasta salad and switched gears. I love college towns-so eclectic-intellectual yet carefree; vibrant while remaining serious. Somehow you are able to seamlessly switch gears from issues of critical importance to complete irrelevance with ease and that adds an amazing degree of life to the entire atmosphere. It is the ability to table a topic, to speak in generalities, that seemingly allows you to discuss virtually anything with anyone. I can't imagine myself getting nearly as polemic in a debate in this atmosphere as I would at home-it is as if here, in a more intellectually free space the ideas can remain just that-and that their implications to my family, my village, my heirs can be tabled for a bit while the ideas are flushed out.

I guess that is the greatest gift that Mia could give me for our anniversary-the ability to take myself, and my issues, a little less seriously. If only for a time, but hopefully long enough to revitalize my mind and spirit for the tasks ahead. Will that mean I will actually watch a basketball game? Given that I had to Google the correct spelling of TarHeels, probably not. But it will mean that at least for a space dancing through the night at a mediterranean themed club will be more important than the perviousness of my rain gardens or the rockwell rating of my spade.

Gotta run... looks like Florida is pulling ahead.

I think.

Sheet Mulch: Spring Edition

2007-03-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Not sure if you noticed yet, but we have a propensity to add perennial beds at a pace that is almost concerning. Last year that meant I spent alot of time, effort, and profanity cutting and hauling sod. The kicker with removing all that sod is not only the effort expended, but also the fact that it includes about 50% of my topsoil. That I paid for. True I am composting the sod, but it seemed wasteful-and in terms of time and energy it certainly was.

So if you have followed some of my earlier posts about this years plans, we intend to get into orcharding. Not huge, but 4-8 trees. Alot of this is in pursuit of my goal of growing 1 ton of food on our suburban lot in Zone 5, another goal is to finally plant some real permaculture guilds from the ground up. The picture at left is my first real foray down those paths.

The first picture is my laying out of about 15 cardboard slip sheets that I got from our local organic feed store (yes, we have an organic feed store-have I mentioned I love WI?). The slips protect bags of grain from damage and typically are recycled, but they are also the perfect size for sheet mulching. Any local business that deals in palletized freight should have plenty for you-just make sure they weren't shipping pallets of Diazinon...

I also collect about 20 gallons of organic waste from a local coffee shop each week. That raw material has been building up all winter in a compost bin-to the tune of almost 2 cu yards. I opened up that bin and trucked it to the front yard to spread it about 8" thick across the cardboard-I know it was damp because 2/3 of the pile was still frozen!

Once that was rough leveled with a rake, I top dressed it with a 3-4" layer of chips from our local village yard as seen in the final picture. By mid May when I want to get my trees and guilds in, the raw organic material will be 75% composted and teeming with microbial life with all its goodness. So instead of removing 50% of the topsoil I built it 6" deeper!

Here is the best part-doing this the traditional way would have taken at least a weekend of toil. Instead this took less than 2 hours-and that includes going to get the chips from the village lot. The benefits of letting Gaia do the work for you are legion: better soil, less effort, and more time to devote to other tasks. Plus the chance to lay out fetid masses of "garbage" in your front lawn and then take pictures of it while my neighbor's watched was priceless!

Want to sheet mulch yourself? It is crazy easy:

Sprinkle a high nitrogen fertilizer over the area to be converted to garden to jump start the process. Raw manure is great, I used pelletized chicken manure due to lack of livestock. Seeds in this layer are fine. Sprinkle lightly with water if needed to get it moist.
Lay out your weed barrier, ensuring at least 6" overlap at the seems so the sod doesn't try to creep through. I prefer cardboard as it doesn't blow away as easily and is readily availible, but 3+ layers of newspaper work well too. Even jeans or natural carpet would work! Keep this layer damp.
Cover this with compost materials at least 4" thick, but 8" is better. Remember that this will be you soil material and it will break down to 50% of its original volume. Anything that would go into your pile is fine, but avoid noxious invasive weed material like Quack Grass rhizomes. Ensure entire layer is moist.
Top dress with at least 4" of weed free mulch. Wood chips, marsh or spoiled hay, straw, etc are all fine. This is the layer that keeps the weeds seeds below from ever germinating and can be as aesthetic as you need.

That's it! You can sheet mulch around existing plants by cutting holes in the weed barrier, or pull the mulch back when you want to add plants. remember to give air space between the mulch and the stems to avoid vole and fungal damage.

Congrats! You have just created a haven for microbial life, built literally tons of life sustaining humus and you proved to the world that you don't need a rototiller to make a garden!

Be the Change!

Tools of the Trade

2007-03-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

I am a Tool Guy. That is a fact that I have come to grips with over the past decade or so. Now, in my defense, it is primarily through a deep respect for quality instilled in me from my father that was honed to a razor's edge through my adult life by rapping my knuckles against car chassis when an inferior tool broke, or wasting an entire day on a job that literally took 30 minutes once I broke down and bought the correct tool for the job.

I no longer spend my weekends under cars sacrificing my money and blood on the altar of speed, but the tool thing is still there. I am hard on tools. I have little, um, finesse and typically average 1.75 digging forks a season... don't get me started on hoes and spades. While it is almost entirely the fault of the crappy "tools" at today's hardware store's, I accept the fact that I am asking them to do work that most of my generation is using either Skidsteer's or Rototillers for. I am committed to carbon free gardening, so I was setting myself up.

Frustration built to a climax last year when I put in our mini-prairie and cut through almost 1000 sq ft of established quack grass sod by hand. My tools were poorly balanced and refused to hold an edge once I tried to sharpen them. I vowed to change this year. With revenue coming in from our cottage rain barrel business I took the plunge this week. At left is $225 (shipped) of the pinnacle of hand gardening equipment available. I didn't get a digging fork because I have one that I am rather fond of and haven't broken (yet).

I stumbled upon Earth Tools last year when researching walk behind tractors for a market gardening project, and then went nutso for their DeWitt line of English Spades. Some guys read Maxim-I read Earthtools. That may also be why Mia and I just celebrated our 8th anniversary this week, but I digress. I could try to explain the feel of the tool, but I will let Joel at Earth Tools speak for me:

All DeWit spades are forged to a hardness of approximately 60 rockwell;
incredibly tough. DeWit spades feature a more rounded cutting edge than the
English or American spades; the radius helps slice through tough root material,
crust, etc. with less effort.... All feature typical Dutch ‘T’ grip at the top
of the handle, which we have found to be overall more durable than conventional
‘D’ grips.

They start with the frickin rockwell rating for crying out loud! What is almost impossible to explain is the way the handle tapers to the blade, the balance of the tool, and the solid, yet supple feel of the handle.

I was also dumbstruck by their Rogue Hoes line from Kansas. Literally made from the steel of old plow discs these hoes are farm tough. One of my main uses for hoes is chopping, and the Menard's hoes frankly suck at that-which is why I end up snapping them. As shown at right, these hoes come with a razor edge on 3 sides with enough steel in them to last a lifetime of resharpening. The welds are beefy, and all the weight is in the head-this tool packs a whallup! These tools are so sharp we had to hold a family meeting with the kids to instill that they are to never touch Daddy's tools!

For lighter weeding work I also got their scuffle hoe designed to cut on the push and pull stroke and to float on the soil-disturbing less weed seeds for later germination. I got the smallest one with eyes on my lettuce beds which will be difficult to mulch.

Some of these tools are expensive (the spade is $70) but my children will use them in their adult gardens and at my historical breakage rate will pay for themselves in one season. Perhaps even more importantly they can actually be sharpened and will make my hobby more enjoyable and less like work. But most of all, I simply love the feel of a well designed tool.

I would be remiss if I didn't plug Earth Tools even more. In one morning I had 3 phone calls with them fine tuning my order, despite primarily being an implement dealer, they were more than willing to take the time to answer my questions, and ask their own, to ensure I got exactly the right tool for my intended uses. On top of that I ordered the tools on Monday noon and they were on my door step literally less than 48 hours later. Joel and his team are simply top notch: they sell quality and back it with amazing knowledge and service.

Happy Gardening!

Mache

2007-03-04T06:20:00.000-08:00

So I have officially kicked off the 2007 gardening season! Here in far northern Zone 5 planting outside on March 1 is new to me. But using the successful coldframe design of 2006 I trudged through the 2' drifts to my gardens, scratched two rows into the pleasantly warm and moist soil and planted 20 mache plants.

Now back to that zone 5 part. Last week we had some 40 degree days, enough to inspire me to order 2 packets of Vit from Cook's Gardens. While they were en route, I decided to moisten the soil in the coldframe. How? I shoveled it full of snow of course! Temps in the frame are hitting 75 degrees on the clear 40 degree days and the snow melted in days. Of course now that I have seeds in soil nighttime temps are back down to the single digits...

Unfortunately the pic is not from my garden, look for updates in a month or so!

Someday Gardens

2007-02-28T18:20:00.000-08:00

Enough essays already! Time for a post that won't make me (or you) think so hard.

So even in the bitter cold of February, Someday Gardens is going strong. We have managed to complete a sale in every month over the winter, and have fielded some pretty heady inquiries. The coolest thing to date is that we have been invited to display our rain barrels at Waukesha Environmental Action League's (WEAL) Water Forum coming this March 17th. I will be in attendance to answer questions on the barrels and rain gardens, as well as to hopefully make a sale or 3. This is probably the single best chance for us to land some rain garden installations which would be huge. Rain gardens save thousands vs hundreds of gallons of water per event and thusly have 10x the impact on local water supplies. Waukesha is currently experiencing a water shortage due to unregulated growth and short sighted leadership in the past, so Water Issues are a big deal there right now-even if we can inspire some of the attendees to plant their own it will be a fantastic day.

Someday Gardens has also received strong interest from a municipality on the North side of Milwaukee on helping them get more citizens installing rain barrels, as well as large garden clubs interested in Madison and even Chicago going together on group buys! More concretely, by mid March we will have Someday Garden barrels installed in a total of 4 local municipalities. Interest is quickly outstripping my very limited supply so we will either be forced to start a waiting list w/ deposits, or find more sources for barrels. To that end, I am reaching out to (literally) every small winery in SE WI. That is not going so hot, and our local hardware stores have been unable to secure a source of barrels, so I may be forced to contact regional Big Box stores to meet my demand for barrels. The good news is that these barrels are still recycled from distilleries and making rain barrels from them is much better than using them as trash can holders or planters.

Either way 2007 is looking to be a fantastic first year for the cottage business!

-Beo

"What Can I Do?"

2007-02-26T09:17:00.000-08:00

Being Eco Aware in a Fortune 500 company can be interesting. Some of it is great-everyone wants a test drive in your hybrid, but it can also get weird when they want to feel the texture of your organic hemp shirt. Last week in a lull during a meeting in a peer’s office while he took another call I filled the gap by sketching a rough diagram of The Funnel on his dry erase board and as he finished his call I proceeded to regale him with a 90 second version of my deep concern about the results of our current rampant consumerism and its effect on the population limits of our Earth mixing in various elements of ideas such as ecological footprint, Peak Oil, the effects of the melting of the Himalayan glaciers on water availability in India and China, etc. to such an extent that the overall effect was to stun my peer into silence. The Green Bug rears its head at odd times.

Last Friday one of the other supervisors was in that office and my buddy, who has left the diagram up, threw him under the bus by asking me to explain the “funnel” to him. After the inevitable stunned silence he asked me what that means for us. I explained my belief that if it gets that bad-the 1st world will be somewhat protected by our affluence-i.e. in the Depression there was not rampant starvation, just rampant poverty- but for the 3rd and 4th worlds they would not have such luxuries-water and food shortages could be acute with horrifying results given their population levels. He answered with the only real ethical and logical response: “What can I do?”

I was amazed to find that I couldn’t immediately answer. Being short of words is almost unheard of, but after working myself that deep into the Doom and Gloom, changing a few bulbs to CFL’s didn’t seem even remotely enough to offset water shortages on a continent wide scale. I gave it quick thought that centered on a few macro level changes that called for more of a change in mindset than tweaking how you light your kitchen which is my typical answer when a friend asks for a way to live a little greener.

Buy Less After talking so much about the rampant energy consumption, pollution and water shortages in China and India I feel strongly that exporting our pollution and resource use is an immoral act. It takes a lot of energy and water to make a Mattel Hot Wheel in China while at the same time pushing uncontrolled urbanization that is further eroding that region’s ability to feed itself. We cannot be sustainable until we learn to live more frugally. Cutting consumption impacts everything. It cuts environmental degradation from resource appropriation, cuts energy consumption and industrial pollution from unregulated manufacturing, and frees up household money for more sustainable practices that unfortunately can cost more initially while offering long term savings.

Buy Local If we are to survive post Peak Oil and remain flexible enough to roll with the punches of our new self made climate we need to recreate village/regional economies. There is more patriotism to Buying American than in keeping Harley afloat. Here in Wisconsin it isn’t always easy to find local foods and goods year round, but by purchasing as close to home as possible we drive a local economy that encourages artisan skills that will be essential as we are forced to switch from a resource intensive economy and revert to a more knowledge based one. Factor in the massive resource and pollution savings of cutting several thousand miles of transportation off your goods and it’s a no brainer.

Conserve Energy This is usually where I start my Eco Evangelism. I have even made inroads with some die hard neo cons… energy is expensive and even if you don’t believe in Peak Oil or Climate Change, money is a powerful persuader. I figure we are saving $6-8k annually compared to where we were before going green. On a more sustainable level, due to the massive energy losses in transmission lines for electricity or in shipping oil half way around the globe, cutting energy use at the source pays back immense dividends in resource and pollution savings. Hybrids, CFL’s, programmable thermostats, caulking, etc can have incredible effects. Kick it out another level and factor in the built environment with LEED standards, New Urbanism development, and efficient mass transit and hope becomes a reality. We need that energy to invest in a different production infrastructure and may only have a generation to do it.

Buy Organic I rarely push the health benefits of buying organic. The science can be unconclusive and few want to admit they have been slowing poisoning themselves or their children so it throws up walls for them. Instead I push the undeniable environmental consequences of our current industrial agriculture. We are losing our topsoil to the wind while we poison our groundwater--two resources that we literally cannot live without. Almost more terrifying to me is that with the passing of the current generation of farmers (mean age of over 55) we will be losing untold generations worth of accumulated oral traditions of “organic” farming. Our grandparents learned from their fathers before them how to farm successfully without petroleum. Their children switched to a more industrial model and the majority of young farmers today have never farmed any other way. Anyone who has ever tried to start a garden knows that nature is a firm taskmistress and does not brook mistakes-and even Eliot Coleman can only teach you so much from a book. We need that knowledge to be passed on as it always has-through experience: how to hold a hoe, when to plant in your county, and with those skills to have the seeds that have been painstakingly saved for generations to thrive in that exact farm.

I still firmly believe that coming off too strong will not help give others the impetus to change, but that doesn’t mean that we have the right to shy away from the realities of the logical conclusions of our society’s path. If all you can do is convince your neo con neighbor to buy a CFL then we are several hundred Kwh to the better. But for those that are further along the change curve in accepting reality, giving them real tools to help them reorient their lives is critical if we are to build the amount of grassroots momentum to literally save the world. Hubris got us into this mess, it just might be the only thing to get us out.

Be the change!

Sustainability

2007-02-17T16:29:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest arguments (discussions?) that I get into at work is that Green is "too expensive" or "bad for business". These arguments often start from associates that think of me as the "treehugger" or "that environmentalist guy". That was a badge I had worn with pride, but that is changing the more involved I am become in systemic change in our Village. Our Smart Growth steering committee is the first really diverse committee that I am participating in. The Green Committee is pretty safe-we're all treehuggers-whereas the Planning Commission which constitutes 75% of the S.G. steering committee has a healthy mix of business people that better matches our village as a whole. At our second meeting this week the "us v them" tone started to creep in at times. As a Village we want to push for some fairly radical changes in planning-especially for rural America-cluster development, biogas generation at the treatment plant, narrower streets, less parking, smaller lots, etc. Any one alone is fairly easy to defend (though the smaller lots will be a stretch), but taken all together at once and walls started popping up. Why?

It would be easy to write the wall builders off as "backward", but that is ridiculous and arrogant, breeding more destructive us v them thinking that is poison to real, holistic change. So I tried a different tactic. Instead I threw out to the group some clarifying points that I feel adamant about and have been absent from traditional Environmentalism:

Green is good for growth. Green development creates a sense of place by creating communities that are specific to the locale, plus consumers are educated enough to be willing to pay a premium for Green Homes that are safer for their children and save them real money in energy bills. Developers like the fact (once educated!) that they can achieve the same amount of lots with less expense in infrastructure like roads and sewer due to cluster development.
Green is good for Business. Environmentally concerned citizens are legion and in many cases have lots of disposable income. These Green Consumers are passionate about where they "vote" with their dollars-we love to boycott the bad, and will get into a frothing rage defending a corporation or group that has earned our trust. We are willing to pay a significant premium for goods and services that meet our standards. An entire community that supports these issues and earns that trust can become a haven for Green "green".
Green is becoming anti "anti". The historical environmental movement loved to protest, was very successful at it and effected significant and lasting change. But in many parts of the 1st world the need to chain ourselves to trees is lessening as our ideas achieve broader acceptance in society. At the same time it was changing the worldview of a nation, the Environmental Movement burned some bridges. Saving the Spotted Owl was a noble quest, but that icon is burned into much of the public consciousness as a time when the treehuggers destroyed hundreds of livelihoods and depressed an entire region of the country-a trade off that doesn't add up for hundreds of thousands of citizens for know the actualities only thru distantly remembered headlines. The new fight-which I prefer to call Sustainability- is much more about finding solutions that are win win. Environmentalists are predominantly left leaning. Followers of Sustainability are eschewing such labels. Everyone Breathes.

This change in my thinking has been coming steadily for some months now. So much so that I bought a new book to further flush out my thoughts. The Sustainability Revolution, by Andres Edwards is now on my armchair stand and is proving to be dead on for where I was heading. Here is how Edwards breaks down Sustainability core beliefs into the 3 (6) "E's" which are virtually identical to The Natural Step's.

Ecology/Environment This "E" is framed by three broad concepts: long term not short term thinking, a focus on the systemic understanding of ecosystems critical importance to human life, and finally the strongly held belief that there are limits to the amount of life that the ecosystems of the Earth can support.

Economy/Employment Here is where Edwards (and the Natural Step) begin to grow beyond the traditional Environmental movement. Sustainability focuses on the critical importance of secure, employment and economies that do not overstretch their ecosystems. There isn't a community on Earth that can be truly sustainable if they cannot meet the needs of their citizens-impoverished Africans will harvest bushmeat and American farmers will turn more and more to industrial agriculture without a viable economic alternative to feed their families and pay their bills. Amory Lovins and Paul Hawkins take this out to a much higher level in their brilliant work, Natural Capitalism.

Equity/Equality Without going all socialist here, the world does not have a resource shortage, it has a distribution problem. Ok, I'll go alittle socialist-moral issues such as famines and homelessness are all the more terrible because they are preventable if we could just redistribute the wealth/resources already in use in our society. Edwards also stresses community building in this "E" recognizing the inherent importance in concern and cooperation with ones neighbor. "At a fundamental level, members of a sustainable community understand that the well being of the individual and the larger community are interdependent." We fight for a win win between the owls and the loggers even if we lose perfection in the process. Winning battles the wrong way can lose us the war.

I align myself much closer to the solution building philosophical framework of Sustainability that is willing to allow some flexibility to attain the greater good-less focus on short term achievements than long term goals. But I will still be proud to be called an Environmentalist-at least until the Eco Spin Dr's can come up with something better than Sustainabilitarianist...

Love Can Save Us

2007-02-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

A reoccurring theme in my thoughts on Sustainability is “Why?” Why do I care? It would be relatively easy to insulate ourselves from the effects of Climate Change and Peak Oil. Build yourself a nice little homestead (compound?) off grid somewhere and relearn how to make all the necessaries of life and wait for the rest of the world to come crashing down in a post carbon conflagration. There are numerous people out there today doing just that. But we aren’t. Why?

My quick answer is simply Empathy and Love. While we can each protect or insulate our own families because of our affluence, there are literally billions of others without that luxury. For us Climate Change is becoming the Moral Issue simply because of the magnitude of the pending crisis if we fail to mitigate the impacts. Empathy allows me to experience in some small way the potential suffering of others, and Love for those people I have never, and will never, meet forces me to act on that empathy to help them prepare as well and to leverage my affluence in ways that can help protect us all. Empathy is what causes me to fight against the tide in our village to establish better water management practices, drive my hybrid, and host seminars on organic gardening. Love is what drives me to write this blog, to badger my Congressmen, and why I find it so hard to say “No.” to those that ask for help on Sustainability Committees and Projects.

To wax idealistic, what if empathy and love became more widespread? What if we expanded our sense of community out from our nuclear families to our neighborhoods, and then our villages, states, regions, on out to the global community? Pie in the sky stuff, but asking our selves how our actions impact the earth is critical. It is becoming more apparent to me everyday that the latest techno wonder or funding scheme will not save us. What we need is a global paradigm shift in how we think about our environment and interact with its citizens. Until we can learn to Love as a society we will never be sustainable. At a base level, unsustainable actions are internally focused and provide immediate gratification. “What is in it for me?” “I am entitled to this-I work hard” Whereas sustainable thoughts are outwardly focused in both time and space. Unfortunately, often enough sustainable choices made today will incur negative immediate results-spending more for organic produce- to receive delayed and impersonal goals of improved soil quality and better wages for small farmers or a Fair Trade premium for our coffee to encourage sustainable practices 2500miles away. Empathy is what makes those ephemeral and distant goals so valuable to us. Religions will have more to say about this than science. More correctly Religion will supply the moral imperative and Science the "how".

Romantic love is all the rage this week, but instilling a deeper love may just be the thing to heal us all. Talk to the members of your Church about the moral implications of Climate Change vs. say, gay marriage to shift focus. Talk to your co workers about doing what is Right instead of what is Selfish, and push sustainability on a grass roots level like the Natural Step to effect meaningful change at a local level. Change happens when it becomes Right for enough people to reach critical mass.

-Be the Change.

CAR-bon Emmisions

2007-02-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

I have been giving Global Warming alot of thought lately. I finally got around to watching Inconvenient Truth a week ago at a free public showing at our Village Hall and that kicked me into a bout of Doom and Gloom. My fear is that we are entering into a feedback loop of warming that will make averting the pending disaster of massive sea level rise virtually impossible. Hit the Asia-Pacific page of the BBC today. Jakarta is under 13 feet of water with 340,000 evacuated due to record rains and China is in a nasty drought with the warmest winter in 30 years melting off the snowfall early. Now shoot forward a generation, and potentially, that is now what Jakarta looks like all the time and China's billion's are without water because the Himalayan glaciers that feed their rivers are gone. That is some scary sh/t.

Now the EU is trying to do something about it, by attempting to limit the automotive CO2 emissions to about 120g per KM. Autos are the only industry with rising CO2 emmisions in the EU. That is kinda Greek to us in here in the US so check the chart above from Earth Trends. The EU has a long way to go, but compared to the US, they are squeaky clean. How in the hell can Congress defend GM and Ford when they sell us an average mpg fleet of an appalling 18.8 mpg when their EU fleet is almost double that with half the emissions? Besides that- all the numbers are pretty appalling and none are anywhere near the EU's goal numbers-though they have improved slightly over these 2002 figures. But the EU won't move until 2008, and we won't move until we get another election. Grim.

The macro picture is looking too bleak right now thru my doom glasses, so I decided to turn my angst into action. On the local side, I finally converted our dining room 'chandelier' to CFL's. In 30 minutes I converted it from a motion sensor'd 300 watt incandescent setup, to a 50watt CFL set-up with the same lumens. I am saving a kwh every 4 hours that the dining room is on! Not too shabby, but its crazy that our society still uses such wasteful bulbs. I then rewired the powder room with the motion sensor switch, which can't run CFL's, so that the 240 watts of light in there aren't on forever with the kids forgetfulness. That light is now never on more than 3-4 minutes at a time, and CFL's don't do so hot in those quick on/off situations so that will be the last room to convert. The main bath is another story-that one is on the budget for March, with the master bath (I too am concerned that we have 3 bathrooms) to convert in April, leaving only the powder room between us and 100% CFL'dom.

Then we begin considering the Wood Stove to embrace biomass heating (and wood fired bread/pizza!) for 2009. These things are pricey!

Rodentia

2007-02-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

I've think I have finally overextended myself. With the 2 village committees, work, the Green Sanctuary at church, Someday Gardens, Groovy Green, and the family I am about maxed out. Then this past week I started prepping for my annual Home Owners Association meeting and I crashed. I have almost no creative energy, and combined with the bitter cold I am doing almost nothing but making bread, cleaning, reading junk fiction and playing old video games. I am trying to work on a refresh of the Eco-Veg series for Groovy Green, but condensing 4000 words down to 2000 or so is difficult on something that is probably too broad to begin with and I can't make any progress. We'll see.

So the cold streak is lifting, and I actually went outside today on a compost run. On the way back in I saw the arborvitae near the back porch. Or I should say I say the twig that was formerly an arborvitae tubling. I now remember all the stories that Mia has been telling me about the bunny tracks, and the kids asking if you could follow the tracks all the way to the bunny... Looks like the deep snow has forced the little guy to start browsing. Then in a moment of clarity I trudged back to the wind break to check on my 30 seedlings. Only one was chewed down, but all 4 Goumi shrubs were completely limbed.

Remarkably I didn't get angry...not even a flicker. This is probably due to the fact that the thuja's remained intact, and that the Goumi's should recover (we'll see how they respond to a deep pruning!) even if I doubt I will get fruit for another season. But there may be something to the fact that I have come far enough along on attempting to learn with nature. I was actually more pleased that the bunny had found some more calories than if I hadn't of planted last year. This does not mean that I didn't spend the afternoon erecting snow fence around my thuja's, but it does mean that I may also be putting out bales of alfalfa to tide him through.

Hopefully with the warming of the weather my energy will pick up as well. Also tonight is the last round of interviews for us to decide which engineering firm to go with for our Stormwater Management Plan. So that will free up another 10 hours a week...

I also might need to start saying "no" once in a while!

Am I a Druid?

2007-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

That might seem like a ridiculous question. Perhaps it is. Regardless, it is one I have been pondering of late. Following a link on M.E.O.W. last week over breakfast, I found myself on the blog of the Archdruid of the US. Heady company! Mia has had Wiccan leanings thru much of her adult life, but for some reason I had not realized that there were still (or again) Druids among us. I spent an intriguing hour or so running around the Ancient Order of Druids of America (AODA) site and then this weekend jumped over to the even more informative site of the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids (OBOD) for another hour or so of research.

Ever since we rejoined a Unitarian congregation this fall, I have find myself waxing more religious. I find myself using religious metaphors, quoting scriptures, and when the Jehovah Witnesses came by a few weeks ago I had them in and talked shop for over an hour before their refusal to discuss philosophy on a non evangelical level frustrated me into asking them to leave.

One result of that conversation is that in trying to explain my beliefs to them I came more to terms with just how pantheistic my worldview had become of late. Perhaps it was watching several thousand pounds of organic waste turn into life again the next year in my gardens thru my compost piles, only to soon become compost themselves. Or in witnessing the miracles of so many seeds sprouting in my gardens, and caterpillars turning into butterflies in my home, but the Web of Life has become very, very real for me. When the J. Witnesses asked what I thought would happen to me when I die, I said I wanted to (with all due respect) become part of God. In explanation I said that at the very least I found comfort in knowing that my body would become part of the trees and worms, but at most I hoped that I could finally share in the universal consciousness that links all living things... my version of God.

The OBOD site explains Druidry (they end it with a -ry and not -ism on purpose. Think Freemasonry as a philosophy/way of life vs Hinduism as a religion) like this:

It’s an attitude, an understanding, an exquisitely simple and natural philosophy
of living. For a great many it is a rich and ancient religion, a mystical
spirituality. For others it’s simply a guiding way of life. It is absolutely
open and free for anyone to discover.

Much like Unitarianism, there is no sacred text of Druidry, there is no, or very little, dogma and theology. But, again like Unitarianism, there is a unifying set of very broad beliefs and ethics. Reading through them I found almost nothing to disagree with, and much that struck deep cords of familiarity-like someone else putting pen to my ideas, or as if I had just remembered something. That is when I started asking myself that question... Am I a Druid? Or more precisely, could/should I become one? I found the symbolism of the Ogham strangely inspiring, and the sections on planting a Sacred Grove fascinating. I want to plant gardens to mimic nature and sustain themselves, planting one to sustain itself and others on a spiritual level as well is intriguing to say the least. When I plant a tree I truly believe I am healing the Earth... Am I a Druid?

I guess that will remain to be seen. I am certainly becoming a pantheist and am developing a reverence of Nature that is bigger than just environmentalism. But do I need another label? More importantly, though the sites ring true, I suspect strongly that the first time I showed up at a Beltane festival my Yankee Skepticism would be very concerned about running around and jumping over fires wearing very little clothing, but alot of woad. Meditation is good, but I am not at all sure I am willing to believe that I can achieve communion with the Otherworld by doing so. So for now I will continue to revere nature, honor the Solstices, and fight to protect the Earth, but will not call myself a Druid or be initiated into an Order.

But I bet I will whisper a prayer over the next tree I plant.

Plant Propagation Update

2007-01-28T07:19:00.000-08:00

So a month ago we were in a sobering warm spell that had me restless. The incredibly warm temperatures were adding alot of energy to my need to get our gardens more self sufficient. I know (hope?) that Global Warming will have a lesser effect here (though we are already warming in a Big Way-the Arbor Day Foundation just moved Zone 5 100 miles north in WI from just 15 years ago) than in coastal regions or the western Mid-West (which should become much drier), but I still felt the need to do something. With the weather warm, I chose to go out and take root cuttings from one of my 3 Comfrey plants.

I took those cuttings and packed 2-3 into good seed starting mix and some nice decorative pots that we had left over from some indoor plants I had killed last year (my green thumb turns brown indoors). I kept them moist, but time marched on. And on. And then three weeks went by. I moved one to the front window hoping that perhaps the sun would help warm the soil over the 65 degrees we keep the house at during the day. Then a month had passed with no growth. I consoled myself that the roots were probably sinking feeder roots, or that perhaps taking cuttings on Dec 30th wasn't exactly a recipe for success.

Then about 4 days ago a miracle happened. Comfrey leaves poked through the mix on the window pot, and yesterday the other 4 pots had shoots emerging as well. Success! I now have at least 6 new plants, and am expecting another 4 within the week. Enough to provide Grow Your Own Mulch for the 4 fruit tree guilds planned for this spring.

If these work out I will provide them via my Someday Gardens site hopefully by June since not even Forest Farm and their 500 page catalogue offers them. Readers that are interested just shoot an email under Someday Gardens "contact us" link and I will hook you up cheap-barter or plant exchanges encouraged!

CFL's-the Gateway Drug to a Greener Future

2007-01-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

So I have had cause lately to consider the merits of some of the different paths to Sustainability of late. On the one hand you have the Gee Whiz items like recycled paper towels that save 200,000 trees or CFL bulbs that save the equivalent of 1,000,000 cars worth of emissions. The "do a little, and do a lot" camp. Then there is the simplify movement and their imperatives. Eat Local! Grow your own food! Bike to work! Compost! Still another camp works to tweak the system itself thru Natural Capitalism, the Natural Step, or Green Development in an attempt to have our cake and eat it to. In the Mia/Beo household we are doing most of these in some form or another (less than some on the simplify, perhaps more than others in the system change) and the merits of them all come under fire at times.

The Do a Little camp runs the risk of slacktivism attacks from those that have a more fatalistic, if perhaps truer, view of the future. Saving 1m cars worth of emissions just makes global warming only slightly less ominous if you believe that we already have 100 million too many cars to begin with. Of course these attacks rarely achieve the intended goal of inspiring the budding greenite to actually do more, and are much more likely to have them do nothing by scaring them off, leaving us all worse off.

The Imperative Camp has the virtue of passion on their side and can get wonderfully clicky. Organic gardening really is fun, Farmers Markets are a great way to meet people in your community, and reducing your impact by cutting back pays big dividends in the pocketbook as well as garnering psychological benefits like the aesthetics of old. We really care... look what we've sacrificed for our cause! But we loose the mainstream real fast. Our society has force-fed us a steady Fast Food diet of Entitlement for two generations. Dammit I worked hard and I have earned my 70" LCD TV! Good thing I have my Explorer to take it home in too! Look honey-we're saving money on delivery fees! That change will take time and even the best homemade bread pales in the hypnotic light of the latest techno wonder.

The Tweakers have their work cut out for them, but frankly have the best chance for Real Change in the near term by harnessing the powers of Capitalism-basically using Greed for Green Ends. I don't care what you think of global warming-gas is expensive, and if Wal-Mart can pull of its initiatives and actually save 100's of millions of gallons of gas in the next 5 years that is some serious ching-like $310million a year by 2015. The industrial benefits of efficiency are clear, but legislative changes can have huge effects too. Sweden just might be off oil by 2020 using the Natural Step, and even raising the C.A.F.E. standards by 1mpg would save enough oil to save the ANWAR. In one year (why are we doing this again? Oh right...). Heating entire blocks with the waste heat from the local McDonald's like they do Sweden's Green Zone might not sound sustainable-but it is a hell of a lot better than that heat literally going up in smoke. The obvious downside to this is that if Walmart has 100's of millions of gallons of gas to save it is the pinnacle of unsustainability to begin with...

So which path do we pursue? Well, we are doing them all. Everyone starts somewhere, and we all bought our first CFL at one time. Think of it as a gateway drug to a greener future. But careful there. Just because we have taken the trip into the Imperative Camp doesn't mean everyone is ready yet. One trap that I know we have fallen into is scaring the hell out of people with our passion-they aren't there yet. If all they ever do is buy on CFL-or install the one we gave them -that is one step closer for us all. The Imperative Camp can be dangerous-you get so addicted to cutting back that you can have a break down. Look-we all need to shower and if people are noticing your cutbacks in a personal way you've gone to far ok? I am personally pushing the Tweaking Angle in a big way. I am now a trained study group facilitator in The Natural Step for Communities, and we are making real change in our village with the Green Committee. I believe that the darker future could be real and all the compost I make in my lifetime won't save my children from the fate I foresee. I need to take (alot of) others with me.

But that is the rub. Sustainability can take on a fervency akin to religion. And religion scares off a lot of people or leads to nasty Us v. Them thinking. We will win this fight by being the Good Samaritan quietly practising random acts of kindness, not thru mimicking the nutjob on the corner frothing over his Bible.

Find your path to a more sustainable Future...

Be the Change.

The Sing Along Song. By Bird, Sprout and Kitchen Aid

2007-01-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

What happens when the kids help bake bread...

Just How Far?

2007-01-14T16:48:00.000-08:00

Today at Church we had a guest speaker give an award winning Unitarian sermon. The sermon was to be about Doing Your Part-titled Just How Much. The theme was to be just how much inequality and oppression do you take before you take a stand. This is a great topic and the psychological discussions alone would be enough to interest me. Plus this sermon has won awards and we Unitarians are a skeptical bunch so I was excited. I was entranced and inspired by Dr. Groth's stories of her great, great, great grandfather's fight for liberalism on the front lines of the Abolitionist movement. But by mid way thru the sermon I was very ill at ease, and by the fourth time the Reverend has used the term fascist to describe President Bush or a Right Wing Christian I was ready to leave in protest. THIS was liberalism? To me it was fundamentalism, not liberalism. Where there is no room for compromise, there is plenty of room for error; where there is only us and them, there is little room for me. I can get very passionate, but to me, this was not a Sermon, but a hate filled speech that stemmed from a viewpoint that once looked like mine. This goes back to my often held view that left wing fundamentalists, and right wing fundamentalists both have their backs against the same wall but are facing different directions. Many found the speech inspiring. In a way-so did I. I am inspired to never let the hate get into me that badly. I can't shake the belief that this speech was given in a dozen other "fascist" Church's just with "Right Wing" terms swapped with "Left Wing". Hate is Hate.

So Just How Far do I need to be pushed until I stand up for what I believe in? I think I answered that question a year ago when I sold my sports car and started this wild journey into a more sustainable lifestyle. I almost never attend rallies. Rallies in the 60's changed the world. But today the world itself has changed and most rallies seem to me to be more slacktivism than something that will actually change anything. I have chosen a different path-it was intended to be one of action, but in the light of today's sermon I think it is religious as well.

Mia and I have chosen to lead by example where we can, and are building our lives from our clothes and food, to our yard and our cars to be something that others can look to and say-I could do that to! But lately we are taking more active roles. Take this week for example. Today I attended a training seminar with Sustain Dane to become trained in facilitating study groups for The Natural Step which is the Sustainability Model our Village has chosen to follow. This Spring I will be leading groups to help educate our community to start to change. Tuesday I will working with our Green Committee to begin the process on managing the stormwater in our community. And then Thursday I will be at the kick off meeting for the Smart Growth Steering Committee for our village as one of 3 chosen to guide our village through the planning process to hopefully avoid anymore sprawl here. I may not be standing on a corner with a sign, but I also think I am doing more good.

Am I angered by the actions of our Federal Administration? Hell Yes. But I refuse to dirty my mind with hate for them. I said earlier that I am coming to view our decision to change others through our actions as a religious act. Jesus very rarely got angry (I certainly can't see him saying this speech), instead he helped thousands learn to live better lives by living his life as a servant-meekly helping his fellow man. Perhaps it was my recent attending of a Green Sanctuary meeting, but I am thinking that environmentalism is a religious and moral act. And I choose to follow in the steps of the service oriented love of Gandhi, Buddha and Jesus, not the hate and fundamentalism of Dr. Groth.

-Beo

StormWater Update

2007-01-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

Well the engineering proposal's are in and I have 4 days to read through about 300 pages of what can at times be some pretty technical stuff. For the record I am not an engineer. I have never studied law, and do not know how to implement a utility from the ground up in accordance with state law. So that meant the first 20 pages took me 2 hours as I taught myself about GIS (think Google Earth but with demographic data) mapping, ERU (Estimated Runoff unit?) measurement and allocation, IDDE plans (Illicit Discharge Detection and Elimination) and a dozen other things that I had no concept of until yesterday.

However, in the next 4 days I will be forming an opinion on which engineering firms can best meet those challenges as we are choosing the top 3 this coming Tuesday. Then we will be interviewing those 3 firms to make the final recommendation to the board. Crazy.
The end goal of this huge project will be that we will allow ourselves to backcast our development for the next 10 years, and install a Storm Water Utility to hopefully install a fee-bate system to encourage the promotion of stormwater best management practices (BMP).

Backcasting? Think of it as the reverse of forecasting. Instead of saying "in 10 years we will have x acre feet of runoff" we instead plan for "in 10 years we want to have no more runoff than now-what do we need to implement now to achieve that". The difference is subtle, but backcasting gives the planners the power to set goals instead of letting sprawl gain inertia that becomes uncontrollable.
FeeBate? I love feebates. Basically you tax the behavior you wish to control (excess runoff) and use that money to fund initiatives that promote the behaviors you desire (BMP's). Think of it as taxing the Hummers to pay for hybrid rebates. You legislatively modify behavior in a budget neutral fashion. Sweet!
BMP's? These are legion, and include various practices to promote infiltration and water holding to both limit runoff and control pollution. Bioswales are a great example. Instead of draining large impervious surfaces like a commercial parking lot into a stormsewer, you direct the water into a bioswale which increases percolation to recharge aquifers and contains plants that trap and neutralize non point source pollution. Basically they are rain gardens on a much larger scale. The crudest example of a BMP would be a detention basin that hold runoff to meter out the runoff-we are thinking much broader than that.

The most encouraging aspect of all of this is that we have almost a dozen large, well funded engineering firms with great track records vying for this project-and we are only a village of 2000 with a small ($ qtr million) budget. Again, the technology and infrastructure are there-we need only the political will to do it. The Utility will be self funding, and the entire project was funded by a state grant-this entire process will be virtually cost neutral to our community, and in the long run will save literally millions in avoided infrastructure improvements as we no longer need to build massive conduits to handle excessive unplanned runoff.

Being Green isn't hard. Deciding to be Green is the most important step-be it for an individual, a business, or a city.

Be the Change!

Greening Religion: Unitarian Green Sanctuary

2007-01-07T07:39:00.000-08:00

For many years now Ecomama and I have been practising Unitarian Universalists. The liberal, inclusive, honestly moral congregations fit our worldview very well and provide us fertile ground to develop spiritually while allowing us to contribute and fellowship as a community.

Recently our Congregation has reaffirmed our conviction that this is our spiritual home by choosing to start down the path to becoming a Green Sanctuary. In a nutshell the program is a statement of conviction that the congregation will include sustainability and care for the Earth and its creatures as a core value. Specific focus in placed on increasing awareness, personal accountability and the incorporation of an environmental ethic into the spirituality of the congregation. I have long believed that Environmentalism is a moral choice with its roots established deeply in the persons ability to empathize with others, make unselfish decisions, and live a life of compassion to others and future generations.

Plans are flying at a furious pace right now including everything from installing green roofs to hosting monthly seminars on environmental issues in our building that would be open to the public and actively marketed. If this sounds right up my alley, your spot on!

Sustainability is edging more and more into religious circles, be it Buddhist, Christian, or others as congregations awake to the fact that our current economic and societal behaviors are destroying creation and leaving the world in a sad state for our children which conflicts with the core ethics of most major religions.

Religion is often at the forefront of societal change-and I am honored that our congregation is doing its part in Being the Change.

-Beo

Insight Update: Return of the Hypermiler

2007-01-06T03:01:00.000-08:00

So I am continuing to try to make the best of the heat, this time in getting back to hypermiling in the hybrid. Back when the weather was actually seasonal, I accepted the reality that my mileage was going to be crap (55-60mpg) for the winter as the warm-up mode of the engine took half my commute. That combined with the absence of the sun was enough to convince me to return to taking the freeway to work-the mileage was about the same even with the higher speeds, and the scenery the same.
But now its 50 degrees again, and yesterday I had to make 2 extra trips home during the day to care for my sick family (influenza all around and my 3yr old has mild pneumonia). So on the first trip home I decided to take my time and hit the backroads again.
Results? 91.4mpg on the trip out, and 88.7 (damn my lead foot!) on the way back in. So for my 34 mile round trip I used barely more than a 1/3 of a gallon. I am off my game though, (severe cramping in right calf) so if I mean to hit 100mpg this year I need to get serious again.
The kicker is that the 91.4 was probably a record run-but I had run a few errands in town first which hurt the trip mpg. The fact that I was hitting 125mpg in stretches I typically can only get 110 in was very encouraging. The new ecu and synthetic oil may do the trick!

-Beo

Too Good to be True?

2007-01-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

So I got what basically amounts to an advertisement today on one of the yahoo groups I track.

On it was a blurb and link to the Citizenre Corporation rep in my area.

The long and short of it is that Citizenre is offering a lease for a fully equipped, installed, and maintained PV system for your home for either a 1,5, or 25 year lease. For any of the leases you will give a one time deposit of $500 (seems reasonable for $20k in equipment) which is refundable at the end of your lease. At the lease signing you will also lock in your current energy rate per KWh, which will be held for the duration of your lease. Citizenre will then bill you monthly for the any PV power generated on your site. Cloudy for the month of December? Small bill. Make surplus energy in July? You get to keep the net metering offset from your Utility.

If this sounds to good to be true to you, then I am with you. I have contacted the corporation to get the skinny. If this is legit, and I saw nothing funny in the terms in conditions after reading it through, it could be a very real solution for those of us unable to front $25k to install a full PV system ourselves, but desperately desire to produce our own 100% green energy to protect our families from the vagaries of the petroleum energy market and save tons and tons of CO2.

If you have heard anything about this company please post a comment. I would love to hear it.

-Beo

Mulching in the New Year

2007-01-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

Though waning, the heat wave is still here. So yesterday while Bird slept, Sprout and I continued to make progress in the garden. With the passing of the holiday's we have a surplus of cardboard in the house and it just so happens that I have several beds to put in. Plus reading Ruth Stout's No Work Garden she scolds the reader continuously in case they have forgotten that Fall is the best time to mulch. Okay, Ruth...Sheet Mulch Time!

In a moment of pride I hesitated to post the picture, but then figured no garden looks good in January so why not? The bed at right is not new, but we are extending it out several feet to match the expected drip line of the apple tree at the center and make room for more nitrogen fixers and another Comfrey. The area under leaves was basically bare earth this year, planted to spring annual flowers, and then in July the strawberry patch in the background was allowed to send suckers in. The Strawberries will become the groundcover in the guild. The large plant that is difficult to see on the right is a giant native Bee Balm that was covered in pollinators and hover flies this past summer so it will fit into this Apple Tree Guild just fine. Behind that is one of my existing Comfrey plants.

Later today, I will go make another Compost Run to our coffee shop and gorp 15 gallons of coffee shop slop onto the cardboard, then top dress that with 8" of leaves from our municipal yard. I will probably need to cover it with fencing to keep the dogs out of it until it freezes, but I am hooked on sheet mulching. Total time spent is about what it would have taken to rip up the sod, but by March's thaw (I am assuming we will freeze first) we will be well on our way to a thick 5" layer of humus teaming with worms instead of having to truck in Compost. Sweet!

Back To Basics Gardening

2007-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of the New Year I am waxing reflective today. I recently was asked to join the inspiring Team at Groovy Green, and posted some of my "Green" resolutions there, but wanted to spend some more time on them here.

Last year was a fantastic year for us in our gardens. Our initial Rain Garden came on in full bloom, attracting both butterflies and hummingbirds to its blooms while providing drinking water for robins and doves between rains. In the drier times, the bountiful sedge seeds provided food for a family of voles. We installed a second, much larger rain garden, installed a small 600sq ft prairie, and built another 200 sq ft bed of native perennials. Our raspberries gave us their first fruit, and the strawberries peaked at 2 quarts/day during June.

However, spending so much time installing new gardens, left little time to manage the less established annual gardens-in many areas the weeds won. Also, in a spectacular way I made a common rookie mistake by planting my veggies way to tightly, completely smothering several crops. So this year I am vowing to get back to basics ad hopefully accomplish more with less.

Plant less cultivars Last year I had 6 kinds of tomatoes for Pete's sake! This year I want to practice some seed saving to start fine tuning the genetics of my site. In open pollinated crops like Tomatoes that means I either need to go to extreme measures to isolate the crops, of only plant one kind. We were extremely impressed with Amish Paste last year. Good enough for salads, and great for sauce. Up close to the house will get some Yellow Pears for the kids.
Deep Mulch I am not going to give up my compost bins-they serve too many other purposes for me as I take waste from some local businesses, but the veggie gardens are getting a 6-8" layer of mulch as an ally vs the weeds. Also the soil in my beds still needs massive work (I started with subsoil backfill) and the organic matter will be a huge asset. We had 6" of mulch on our flower gardens with virtually no weed issues, why I didn't so this in my veggie patch is beyond me!
Sheet Mulch I intend to start at least 2 Fruit Tree Guilds this year, and have vowed to leave the sod lie as much as I can. Chunks will come up to plant the trees and some core perennials like Indigo and Comfrey, but the rest will wait a year as the sod turns into humus under a thick blanket of cardboard, coffee grounds, and straw.
Seed Beds/Seed Saving As Someday Gardens ramps up, I will have need for (hopefully) hundreds of transplants. So I am dedicating at least 2 beds for perennial starts to keep my over head low. I can start dozens of plants for a few bucks vs $4 each at the nursery. In many cases I have already saved seed from our native plants, and split others, like the Comfrey to keep it as local as possible. It also seems that everywhere I turn, I am coming across more reasons to save my own vegetable seeds to strengthen my plants.
Successional Planting Last year I planted several varieties of each vegetable to spread the harvest out. I may still do that in some cases (i.e. spring & fall spinach), but in other cases such as lettuce, corn, and carrots I plan on sowing smaller amounts over a period of weeks to achieve the same results.

Non of this is groundbreaking, but learning from experience and nature is what this is all about. Hopefully losing some diversity in my vegetable garden will help make it more manageable in the long term allowing me to increase diversity in my perennial food beds.

The over all thinking is to do less-but to do it well, before doing too much and failing or falling behind which is discouraging.

Happy New Year!

Sunchokes!

2006-12-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

December 30th and the Heat Wave continues. High was over 50 today, so making lemons of my lemonade (I live in Wisconsin because I like Winter) I decided to do some harvesting. Pitchfork in hand I attacked a small portion of one of my three Sunchoke beds. The picture at right is my take-just shy of 2.5 lbs of glorious tubers. Some are the size of medium potatoes-topping 3oz! These 2.5 lbs came from about 4 sq feet of bed, and this is their first season so density should improve. I have about 200sq ft of Sunchoke beds so I figure I have about 100lbs still to dig up!

So why am I so jazzed up about these knobby little buggers? First off they're native-Lewis and Clark ate them in North Dakota. Secondly they're basically perennial-you can never find all the tubers, so the stand regrows annually. They are a multipurpose plant-they grow like weeds-reaching up to 9' (mine hit 6-7' their first year) providing massive biomass and a decent late season wind/site break. Lastly they store best in the soil so I don't need a root cellar to keep them fresh-just mulch the beds to keep the ground workable and dig as needed! The best part for me is that from July on they are crowned with a riot of glorious little sunflowers-and I love sunflowers. I planted them after seeing them in virtually every Permaculture book I came across, and they also fit nicely in my quest to grow some actual "calorie" crops in addition to all the nutritional veggies. Speaking of which here is the low down on the Sunchoke:

Nutritional Highlights (from mothernature.com)
Jerusalem artichoke (raw, sliced), 1 cup (150g)Calories: 114Protein: 3.0gCarbohydrate: 26gTotal Fat: 0.015gFiber: 2.4g*Excellent source of: Iron (5.1mg)*Good source of: Potassium (643mg), and Vitamin C (6.0mg)

This compares pretty favorably with the Potato, and given the flowers, built in storage, and perennial tendencies it was really no contest. To drive the stake in even further the Sunchoke has no pests and recieved absolutely zero care all year-a true sow and forget crop that is perfect for organic gardening. No wonder the Permacultrists love it!

Serving suggestion are myriad. Use them anywhere you would a normal spud-we've mashed them, put them in skillets and into bakes-just be ready for their nutty taste. Because of that taste they also like to mimic water chestnuts in stir fry and radishes in salads.

Sourcing them isn't hard-our Whole Foods carries them in season, just buy what you need and plant them in the spring-given them a good drained bed, dig 4" deep furrows and give them about 6" spacing. Be sure you really want them there for good-they are virtually impossible to remove!

Comfrey Musings

2006-12-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

Now that we are back from our whirlwind holiday tour of the Midwest, I felt it was time to get down to earth on some gardening planning. First off was to map out some plant guilds for the Big Spring Planting. The week before we left I took 6 30 lb rocks and laid out the outline of my proposed gardens with the incredibly scientific method of dropping the rocks about where I thought a fruit tree would like to live, and then proceeded to kick them around some until I felt that the resulting gardens beneath them achieved a nice flow. I continue to kick them around a little every few days, no doubt the Chi will be well sorted by March.

After rereading much of Gaia's Garden , Food Not Lawns, and Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture to get my Game Face on, this week I sat down and started dropping in some Excel Sheets on my gardens. I am still slightly uncomfortable in using such a sterile medium, but pixels are a bit more sustainable than the several dozens of sheets of graph paper I would otherwise have used. The fact that I actually graph out my gardens says volumes about me I am sure, but I digress.

Looks like each guild will have 3-4 dozen major plants, with another uncountable amount of misc clovers running amuck underneath. Sourcing much of this will be no problem, as they are readily available from seed or at nurseries. All but one-my beloved Comfrey. I will not get into the myriad uses of Comfrey here, except to say that if you want Biomass (and who doesn't?!?) you want Comfrey. Not only will Comfrey grow into a nice 3' mass in virtually any soil with enough water, but you can cut it to the ground 4-5 times a year, and it seems to improve with each cutting. Not only that, but it allegedly seeks out nutrients from the subsoil (the roots on this bugger are insane), stores them in the leaves thus making their mulch basically a fertilizer. The problem is that I only have 3 plants (all I could buy from the one and only vendor I have found selling them locally) which is only enough for one tree. Time to break out my copy of Plant Propagation, by Lewis Hill.

Actually this was almost certainly unnecessary-every account I have read of Comfrey has included strong warnings about its ability to grow from minute pieces of root. But I am a geek, and geeks check books first. So today I went out back hacked one of my Comfrey's in half, rinsed the roots off and took a dozen cuttings off. In the process I also broke the crown up another 3 times, so I replanted those in an unused area near my veggie gardens-if they come up next year-awesome-if not- oh well. One item of note-its 12/29 and I live in Wisconsin. There is simply no frost in the soil at all. At least Climate Change is letting me burn off some cabin fever.

Should the cuttings root in the pots I brought in I will be egstatic, if not, I will try again in warmer times. But all this planning has led me to wax philosophical for a moment. As I strategically placed my N-Fixers, nutrient gatherers, insect attractors, and barrier plants to keep out the fescue-and then further thought thru how the Comfrey would interact with the Indigo, and which cultivar of Day Lily would yield the best edible flowers and in which color while still serving to hold the lawn at bay. I was struck by how this was diversity-valuing the uniqueness of each individual and how that inherent uniqueness was integral to producing the sustainable plant society I was attempting to create. There is a marked philosophical difference between gardening by using plants like we do with a pepper or carrot, and allowing the attributes that a plant inherently possesses to be brought together with other attributes from other plants to form a whole that is unattainable otherwise. How different would our society be if we thought of each other in similar ways-not in terms of usefulness, but of synergy?

If edible landscaping is helping me lead a more sustainable life, Permaculture seems to be doing something similar with my thoughts.

Solstice

2006-12-21T05:42:00.000-08:00

Wishing all of you the joyous hopes and dreams of a new year welcomed in this morn by the return of the Sun. Today is a wonderful time to celebrate the cyclical rhythms of nature: Autumn slipping in spurts to Winter, the waxing and waning of the moon, gold finches turning ashen, the arrival of chipper little juncos, and the knowledge of seeds sleeping expectantly in the soil for the return of the warmth and rains of Spring.

May the next year be a little more peaceful, a little more mindful, and a little more loving.

Happy Solstice everyone!

Guilding the Garden

2006-12-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

Recently I was searching for some good reading for breakfast and I stumbled across a much more sophisticated ecological gardening business located in Minneapolis, MN. Besides being significantly more educated in ecology than myself, they are also better marketers-I simply love their garden "products" for the ubiquitous herb spiral and fruit tree guilds. Here is a marketable turnkey permaculture planting that fits into a flyer, and can have a price assigned to it up front. The Fruit Tree Guilds are some of the most accessible pieces of permaculture-providing easy visual descriptions to interplanting and function stacking to reduce inputs and maximise outputs.

The business plan for our Someday Gardens is simple-to market the gardens, rain barrels, and compost bins we have created here in our Suburban Paradise to other ecologically aware suburbanites who through either lack of time, inclination, or knowhow aren't interested in installing them themselves. The problem is that we don't have any plant guilds anchored around fruit trees. Yet.

My first foray into edible perennial permaculture gardens has already begun. Last summer we installed a rain garden and had high hopes despite the sad results from our perk test. Predictably, it was not to be and our garden turned into a nice sized pond-draining almost nothing for weeks at a time. So we purchased some goldfish for it and moved on. Then I stumbled across an anecdote somewhere about wild blueberry bushes growing on decaying logs in bogs and a idea was born. Could I, in permaculture fashion, turn my drainage problem into a solution for my lack of blueberry habitat? Perhaps.... So one weekend when I had an abundance of energy, I dug a huge trench (2'x10' by 4' deep) that I backfilled 3/4 full with chips and needles from a pine tree. I topped this with 30 gallons of coffee grounds from our local watering hole, and top dressed it with an 8" layer of finished compost. I then connected this filled trench to the (drained) rain pond with a 2' swale even with the pond bottom-and then backfilled the swale with a compost/chip mix to allow infiltration, but only slowly. My hope was to basically build a bog for a pair of blueberry bushes. The trench would act as a huge acidic sponge for several hundred gallons of rainwater which would then slowly spread out into the hillside in the top of my backyard forming a underground lens of water to tide my other gardens through times of drought. Results? The bushes won't go in until spring, but the "pond" is now a true rain garden, draining its 1500 gallons slowly over 2-3 days. Nice! I plan on interplanting a legume under the bushes for a living mulch/beneficial insect attractant/fertilizer. Not sure what cultivar can survive the low PH-I'll plant a mix and let nature decide for me!

I have plans for that buried lens of water from the bog. Come spring I intend to plant a half dozen guilds centered around as many fruit trees. In the works are guilds for apple trees, pears, and even apricots though they are a stretch in my zone. In addition to supplying my family with a truckload of produce, these gardens will also become a living catalog for Someday Gardens, and an example to visitors as our village progresses down the road to a more sustainable municipality.

These gardens will be a huge undertaking, entailing 6-10 trees, hundreds of supporting plants in the understory and the conversion of over 1000sq ft of lawn. Only 12,000 sq ft more to go!