Growing Green Article

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

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Finding the Muse

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

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I, Teamster?

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

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Catharsis and Germination

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

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Doom and Gloom: Triage

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.

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Rowling Rocks

And How.

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Why we shop at Whole Foods

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.

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Paying the Mowers

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.

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Mosquitos and Self Driven Imperatives

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.

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Moral Imperatives

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:

1. Fertile, friable, living soil benefiting form a decade of love from highly trained organic management.
2. 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.
3. Water-there is a rain fed 750 gallon water tower on site-all it needs is the drip irrigation to be self sufficient.
4. Greenhouses-2 full size poly houses for growing and drying produce
5. The Owners have forgotten more about small scale ag than I will learn this decade-and they are on site and like to talk.
6. Poultry: hens, geese, and yes even peacocks, range the land eating slugs and caterpillars while fertilizing as they go.
7. 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:

1. I already have virtually no free time
2. 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.
3. It is 7 miles away so picking tomatoes and lettuce every day is out. And that is our current market.
4. It is 7 miles away-sprout and bird can't play on the playset while I weed and then go inside for lemonade.
5. 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?

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Burnout

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!

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Detour Ahead, Delays Likely

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

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Strangest thing I have seen today

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

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HOA meets CSA

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

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Living the Dream

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.

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Yellowstone and Back

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

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Still Kickin!

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:

1. 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].


2. 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?


3. 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!!

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Whose Woods These Are

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.

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Tuesday Vaca, Part Deux: The Organic Bistro

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.

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Beo's Vaca... Carrboro Edition

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!

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