So Ross wanted to know what’s going on in my garden/ sustainable living site as we near the end of summer. With this recent cold spell fall seems fast approaching. It’s tough at 4000 feet in the Sier- ras. The season is so short up here that you might not even have time to put a fall crop in where your summer crops have been growing all summer. I’ve learned over the years that if I want to get a fall crop in I’d better leave some room for them in the summer garden. Whether you live down by Angels Camp or Sonora or up by Dorrington or Strawberry, if you’re thinking of starting your own plants for a fall crop you’re at least a month too late. Transplants should be going in the ground now. Granted there are some crops that you might be able to plant still, lettuce, rad ishes, or some type of cress. If you want to build your soil, cover crops should be going in now so seeds can have a chance to sprout and grow before freezing temperatures show up. I’ve already heard accounts of frost on the Meadowmont Golf Course, fall and winter could come early this year. If you want to get a fall garden in and you don’t have any transplants yet, you should check with your local nursery.
In my garden, I’m about to plant Guatemalan purple Fava beans, Gai Lan (Chinese broccoli-kale), sylvetta arugula (perennial). I’m also going to do some container plantings of Egyptian walking onions, evergreen white bunching onion, He-Shi-Ko Japanese white bunching onion and the local Camalay red onion. Everything except the fava beans I’ve already started. I started the Broccoli-kale and arugula in July, and the onions I started in early August. I’m really exited about the perennials that I’ll be planting because come next year I won’t have to replant the arugula, bunching onions and walking onions. More perennials that I’ll be planting this fall include chocolate mint, orange mint, horseradish, perennial kale, feverfew, hollyhock, Nan King cherries, thorn less raspberries, thorn less blackberries, figs, asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes, cardoons and a few more that I’m forgetting. So if you have once again procrastinated to the point where it’s too late to get your fall garden in, I suggest you get off the annual treadmill. Plant perennials so we can create a more permanent agriculture.
To get out of the short season blues I use season extenders to help me not worry about cold frosty nights. Cold frames can work well to help cold tolerant plants thrive in freezing temperatures. A cold frame is basically a box with a window on top of it.
I also have row cover that offers 6 degrees Fahrenheit of frost protection. But the real prize for extending seasons is the Subterranean Heating and Cooling System (SHCS), or “climate battery” that I’m installing in my greenhouse. It’s definitely nice to plug into this battery on a sunny and cold winter day. It can feel like the tropics in January. I first learned about this when I took my Permaculture Design Course at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI). CRMPI is one of the pioneering sites for this technology.John Cruickshank (Going Concerns Unlimited) and Jerome Osentowski (CRMPI) have been working on refining this technology for decades now. The SHCS is fully explained on the website The Land of Hobbit House and Company. The basic premise of SHCS is that it takes the heat that is created during the summer and warm days and pumps it into the soil using a small fan and 4” perforated flex tubes. The heat and excess moisture is stored in the soil. Air comes out the other end of the tubes cooler and drier. The energy is stored in the soil for use when the air in the greenhouse is approaching freezing. When the greenhouse gets too cold another thermostat clicks on the fan and warm air from the soil is pumped into the greenhouse preventing frost damage to any plants. This system works very well as I’ve seen figs, rosemary, prickly pear, bananas, three year old pepper plants and a whole slew of tropical and Mediterranean plants thriving at 7000 feet in Colorado. The best thing about this system is that it runs a small fan on about the same amount of energy as a conventional 90 watt light bulb. It is a fraction of the cost of running a greenhouse conventionally, literally only pennies a day. So I’m building the first of its kind in the area and possibly the whole state. I’m looking forward to getting the first one finished to see what is possible around here. The possibilities are only limited by the size of your greenhouse. Should I start planting Avoca- dos and citrus in Arnold? I just might have to. Stay tuned for SHCS workshop in late September.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Call to Action
A Call to Action By Gabe Bridges
No time like the present to start working towards a more sustainable future. One of the biggest things we can do to start the process is create a more secure local food system. So many things we can do to create the security. Can we continue to rely on food sources that may travel thousands of miles before it gets to our plates? I think not. Unless we want to keep supporting oil spills, energy shortages and possibly food shortages we need to create and support local food production systems. When I work in my garden or consult with someone I’m guided by the permaculture ethics: 1) Caring for the Planet 2) Caring for people 3) Sharing the surplus. These ethics can help guide our choices in supporting a local food system.
One of the best ways to secure your food supply is to do it yourself. Home gardens can supply us with bounties of food with virtually no ecological footprint attached. It can create nourishing food to care for ourselves and loved ones, it can enhance local ecologies and create habitat for wildlife, and we can share the excess by bartering or just giving away the surplus. What sounds better to you, food delivered by semi-truck or food delivered from one hand to the other. We need not only grow and eat fresh foods but we need to be able to preserve our harvests so we can have them for extended periods of time. Food production doesn’t have to be something you do alone but can be more thoroughly enjoyed when done with friends and family. Do you have fruit trees that you can’t keep up on the harvest? Call up some friends and make some wine, jellies, jams, chutneys, or dry the fruit. Do you like pickles, salsa, barbecue sauce? Grow a plot with friends and have a canning party. Now you have gifts and tradable items, its great to share with people food that you have grown yourself.
What if you don’t have land to work with? Time to start looking into community garden plots. They have caught on all over the nation and are starting to pop up here in Calaveras County. This is a great way to share knowledge and get inspired. I once lived in Davis, California where I had several community garden plots. I was always inspired by the different ways that people grew food. The Armenian guy grew lots of herbs and when he got too old to work in the garden he planted more fruit trees for his friends and family. The Taiwanese lady would always grow amazing mustard greens, bitter cucumbers, daikon radish, and spicy peppers. The lady from the Congo loved to grow okra, amaranth greens, and walking onions. The Mexican guy had a bounty of nopales, hot peppers, oregano, tomatoes and sugar cane. A couple of guys from California had a beer garden, where they grew everything to make a batch of beer, including barley and hops. So much inspiration and always great pleasure to see these characters working in their garden plots.
People would be out in their plots at all times of year tending to their seasonal crops. Some plants actually thrive in cooler weather while others prefer mild or even hot climates. So don’t be fooled that we can only grow food in the summer. Season extenders such as row covers, cold frames and greenhouses can extend our harvest even further than we expected.
Don’t have time for any of this? Stop by your local farmers market and check out what they are harvesting. Get to know the farmers that grow locally and support them. When you support local farmers the food miles can be relatively low when compared to similar items at local grocers. I wouldn’t count your local grocer out though. Many of them do carry small amounts of local produce. You can ask them if they can source more and they may. Restaurants have a role to play in this too. Many local restaurants prefer to have fresh local produce in their menu items and specials. We as consumers have the ability to ask for more local produce from our grocers and restaurants and reward them with our money. This can have profound effects on the local economy and environment. When we support endeavors that support local food production we are investing in our community, making it stronger, more self-reliant and stable. Supporting a local food system can feed our community with more than just food. It can offer food security and we can build a vibrant community around food that includes learning, celebrating, and sharing.
No time like the present to start working towards a more sustainable future. One of the biggest things we can do to start the process is create a more secure local food system. So many things we can do to create the security. Can we continue to rely on food sources that may travel thousands of miles before it gets to our plates? I think not. Unless we want to keep supporting oil spills, energy shortages and possibly food shortages we need to create and support local food production systems. When I work in my garden or consult with someone I’m guided by the permaculture ethics: 1) Caring for the Planet 2) Caring for people 3) Sharing the surplus. These ethics can help guide our choices in supporting a local food system.
One of the best ways to secure your food supply is to do it yourself. Home gardens can supply us with bounties of food with virtually no ecological footprint attached. It can create nourishing food to care for ourselves and loved ones, it can enhance local ecologies and create habitat for wildlife, and we can share the excess by bartering or just giving away the surplus. What sounds better to you, food delivered by semi-truck or food delivered from one hand to the other. We need not only grow and eat fresh foods but we need to be able to preserve our harvests so we can have them for extended periods of time. Food production doesn’t have to be something you do alone but can be more thoroughly enjoyed when done with friends and family. Do you have fruit trees that you can’t keep up on the harvest? Call up some friends and make some wine, jellies, jams, chutneys, or dry the fruit. Do you like pickles, salsa, barbecue sauce? Grow a plot with friends and have a canning party. Now you have gifts and tradable items, its great to share with people food that you have grown yourself.
What if you don’t have land to work with? Time to start looking into community garden plots. They have caught on all over the nation and are starting to pop up here in Calaveras County. This is a great way to share knowledge and get inspired. I once lived in Davis, California where I had several community garden plots. I was always inspired by the different ways that people grew food. The Armenian guy grew lots of herbs and when he got too old to work in the garden he planted more fruit trees for his friends and family. The Taiwanese lady would always grow amazing mustard greens, bitter cucumbers, daikon radish, and spicy peppers. The lady from the Congo loved to grow okra, amaranth greens, and walking onions. The Mexican guy had a bounty of nopales, hot peppers, oregano, tomatoes and sugar cane. A couple of guys from California had a beer garden, where they grew everything to make a batch of beer, including barley and hops. So much inspiration and always great pleasure to see these characters working in their garden plots.
People would be out in their plots at all times of year tending to their seasonal crops. Some plants actually thrive in cooler weather while others prefer mild or even hot climates. So don’t be fooled that we can only grow food in the summer. Season extenders such as row covers, cold frames and greenhouses can extend our harvest even further than we expected.
Don’t have time for any of this? Stop by your local farmers market and check out what they are harvesting. Get to know the farmers that grow locally and support them. When you support local farmers the food miles can be relatively low when compared to similar items at local grocers. I wouldn’t count your local grocer out though. Many of them do carry small amounts of local produce. You can ask them if they can source more and they may. Restaurants have a role to play in this too. Many local restaurants prefer to have fresh local produce in their menu items and specials. We as consumers have the ability to ask for more local produce from our grocers and restaurants and reward them with our money. This can have profound effects on the local economy and environment. When we support endeavors that support local food production we are investing in our community, making it stronger, more self-reliant and stable. Supporting a local food system can feed our community with more than just food. It can offer food security and we can build a vibrant community around food that includes learning, celebrating, and sharing.
the importance of perennials
Gardening with Gabe
Permaculture Perspectives By Gabe Bridges
Welcome to the article, “Permaculture Perspectives,” where we will examine gardening through the lens of permaculture. Pe- rennial plants are the topic this month. A perennial plant is one that will last more than two years. Perennial plants in our gardens and land- scapes can be very rewarding.
Let’s compare an apple tree and carrots. If you think of an apple tree and the maintenance it requires it is rather simple. You really only have to go to the apple tree about 3 times a year. You need to prune, harvest and mulch/compost. If you want to grow carrots, you have to rototill the soil, spread compost, maybe rototill again, plant seed, wa- ter, water, water, weed, weed, weed, then finally after several visits you get to harvest. I’m not advocating against carrots but showing a simple contrast between the two.
Perennials should be included in every garden and landscape. I recommend using perennials that serve at least one function and also include at least one use. Functions that perennials can serve include nitrogen fixer, dynamic accumulator, wildlife forage or shelter, nectary for pollinators such as hummingbirds and bees, weed suppressing ground covers, and other functions such as aromatic pest confusers or coppice species (Jacke, Toensmeier 2005). Uses include edible fruit, edible nuts, edible greens, edible roots, culinary spices and herbs, teas, edible others such as flowers, seeds, saps, and medicinal uses (Jacke, Toensmeier 2005). Here are a couple of plant descriptions based on Jacke and Toesnmeier’s plant species matrix chart, species-by-use table, and species-by-function table. Allium schoenoprasum, common chives, are an excellent culinary with good edible flowers. All Allium species are considered a superfood by virtue of being the best land plant source of selenium, and having good medicinal qualities similar to garlic. Chives are a good dynamic aaccumulator of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, and calcium. They are a generalist nectary plant, which flowers from June –August. They act as a moderate ground cover. While Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier have highlighted these functions and uses very well in their book “Edible Forest Gardens Vol. II,” there are also a few more reasons that make perennial-based gardening appealing.
Perennials can reduce the need of our own garden maintenance. First off, when you plant garden space with perennials you reduce the amount of space that has been tilled. This reduces our dependence on fossil fuels and increases our own self-reliance.
Second, without having to replant every year we end up saving some time spent on starting seeds and/ or preparing soil.
Finally, established perennials tend to be more drought tolerant than annuals, thus reducing the need to take the time to water and if we are on municipal water, hopefully it will reduce our water bill.
So if we are going to grow a section of our garden with all perennials how do we put it together? If you look in any natural ecosystem you will see that perennials make up the majority of the architecture of that ecosystem. From the coast here in California to the high Sierras you will see trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and bulbs placed according to light, moisture, and nutrient availabilities. We can use these natural systems as guides as how to integrate several different plants into our own designed ecosystem. This doesn’t mean we have to use trees in our design. We can however use this guide to help us grow what we want. We don’t have to try to design some complex self-regulating system, we can use perennials in a more simple manner. We can use them as border plants for the rest of our garden, they can be used here and there. The more I see how easy they are to take care of, and how much I enjoy harvesting something I planted 5 years ago, the less and less space I have for annuals in my garden.
A few important things to think about when acquiring plants is to make sure that the plant you have chosen isn’t invasive. Your local nursery should know, but you may want to do your own research just to be sure. Another important piece of knowledge is if the plant has any poison parts on it.
As this article is being read, I’ll be looking for my first sprigs of asparagus, smelling fresh apple blossoms, watching raspberries flower and grow, harvesting rhubarb, scallions, fresh herbs, and thinking about where I’m going to plant all of those cherry trees I have.
* Gabriel Bridges has a Bachelor of Science in Permaculture from UC Davis, is a certified permaculture designer, and teacher. He lives and works on his permaculture farm and education center on Love Creek Road in Avery.
Permaculture Perspectives By Gabe Bridges
Welcome to the article, “Permaculture Perspectives,” where we will examine gardening through the lens of permaculture. Pe- rennial plants are the topic this month. A perennial plant is one that will last more than two years. Perennial plants in our gardens and land- scapes can be very rewarding.
Let’s compare an apple tree and carrots. If you think of an apple tree and the maintenance it requires it is rather simple. You really only have to go to the apple tree about 3 times a year. You need to prune, harvest and mulch/compost. If you want to grow carrots, you have to rototill the soil, spread compost, maybe rototill again, plant seed, wa- ter, water, water, weed, weed, weed, then finally after several visits you get to harvest. I’m not advocating against carrots but showing a simple contrast between the two.
Perennials should be included in every garden and landscape. I recommend using perennials that serve at least one function and also include at least one use. Functions that perennials can serve include nitrogen fixer, dynamic accumulator, wildlife forage or shelter, nectary for pollinators such as hummingbirds and bees, weed suppressing ground covers, and other functions such as aromatic pest confusers or coppice species (Jacke, Toensmeier 2005). Uses include edible fruit, edible nuts, edible greens, edible roots, culinary spices and herbs, teas, edible others such as flowers, seeds, saps, and medicinal uses (Jacke, Toensmeier 2005). Here are a couple of plant descriptions based on Jacke and Toesnmeier’s plant species matrix chart, species-by-use table, and species-by-function table. Allium schoenoprasum, common chives, are an excellent culinary with good edible flowers. All Allium species are considered a superfood by virtue of being the best land plant source of selenium, and having good medicinal qualities similar to garlic. Chives are a good dynamic aaccumulator of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, and calcium. They are a generalist nectary plant, which flowers from June –August. They act as a moderate ground cover. While Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier have highlighted these functions and uses very well in their book “Edible Forest Gardens Vol. II,” there are also a few more reasons that make perennial-based gardening appealing.
Perennials can reduce the need of our own garden maintenance. First off, when you plant garden space with perennials you reduce the amount of space that has been tilled. This reduces our dependence on fossil fuels and increases our own self-reliance.
Second, without having to replant every year we end up saving some time spent on starting seeds and/ or preparing soil.
Finally, established perennials tend to be more drought tolerant than annuals, thus reducing the need to take the time to water and if we are on municipal water, hopefully it will reduce our water bill.
So if we are going to grow a section of our garden with all perennials how do we put it together? If you look in any natural ecosystem you will see that perennials make up the majority of the architecture of that ecosystem. From the coast here in California to the high Sierras you will see trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants, and bulbs placed according to light, moisture, and nutrient availabilities. We can use these natural systems as guides as how to integrate several different plants into our own designed ecosystem. This doesn’t mean we have to use trees in our design. We can however use this guide to help us grow what we want. We don’t have to try to design some complex self-regulating system, we can use perennials in a more simple manner. We can use them as border plants for the rest of our garden, they can be used here and there. The more I see how easy they are to take care of, and how much I enjoy harvesting something I planted 5 years ago, the less and less space I have for annuals in my garden.
A few important things to think about when acquiring plants is to make sure that the plant you have chosen isn’t invasive. Your local nursery should know, but you may want to do your own research just to be sure. Another important piece of knowledge is if the plant has any poison parts on it.
As this article is being read, I’ll be looking for my first sprigs of asparagus, smelling fresh apple blossoms, watching raspberries flower and grow, harvesting rhubarb, scallions, fresh herbs, and thinking about where I’m going to plant all of those cherry trees I have.
* Gabriel Bridges has a Bachelor of Science in Permaculture from UC Davis, is a certified permaculture designer, and teacher. He lives and works on his permaculture farm and education center on Love Creek Road in Avery.
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