There are many movements afoot that are working towards creating a regenerative future. Good opportunities arise to learn more about what people are up to when there are gatherings that bring the diverse strategies of regenerative endeavors together. With so many fronts to focus on to bring us into a more sustainable today it’s hard to keep up on what’s going on sometimes. You can read books, search the Internet and take classes to learn more about becoming a part of the movement to create a more sustainable culture. But how do you sift through all the information to find out what works best? A great way to get more connected is to attend an event that showcases sustainable living. I don’t know about you but I like to learn about things in person and first hand. That’s why this fall there are some gatherings that I will be attending that bring some of these strategies into the same arena.
Sierra Green Day is coming to Murphys, CA on September 21st. It is meant to bring together people that are interested in participating in a sustainable community. This year they finally moved the venue to a place that seems to fit the vibe of the purpose. Murphys park and the Native Sons Hall is a great place to commune with people of all ages. There will be two tracks of educational workshops. One that fits in seamlessly with the mission of a “green” event is the self-reliance and local resilience track. The other is a bit of a stretch with employment and business development track. I see the former as a integral part in a so called green event. However, the business track seems a little bit out of line with the purpose of such an event, perhaps I’m biased a bit and think the whole thing should revolve around self reliance and local resilience. I’m just not sure that all employment and business are “green” and the list of workshops doesn’t really line up with so called “green” living. I look forward to seeing how some of the presenters tie their presentation into green living. I see the importance of such an event in our community so I will be presenting two workshops here this year. The first one I’ll be giving is about how to incorporate permaculture principles into your lifestyle. The second one will be how to make seedballs. If you don’t know what seedballs are I suggest you come to my workshop and Sierra Green Day.
Coming up on October 18th-20th is the 24th annual Bioneers conference. This year the theme is ‘turning vision into action’. Held at the Marin center in San Rafael, CA, it is the premier gathering for people that are dedicated to creating a regenerative culture. Here is their mission “The overarching mission of Bioneers is the advancement of holistic education pertaining to global social, cultural and environmental issues. Bioneers identifies progressive yet nature-honoring solutions to rising challenges of instability, inequality, and unsustainable growth…”. The conference is a space for many people to gather around these issues. Being the premier conference of its type on the planet it showcases leading-edge innovators and their solutions for restoring people and planet. The conference attracts many like-minded individuals and offers a great place for networking. The workshops and plenary talks are inspirational to say the least. I like the way they organize the workshops and plenary talks, their categories include women’s leadership, restorative food systems, youth leadership and an indigenous forum. These are the voices we need to listen to more. I think they have done a great job of giving voice to these issues. I have been to this conference for the last 3 years and I come away feeling inspired and connected every time. I feel at home when I go there, soaking up as much new material that I can and networking with friends and colleagues. One of my favorite parts of Bioneers is the seed exchange. Several local seed companies donate seeds, as well as one of my favorite sources for seed, Tesuque pueblo from New Mexico.
Go check out one or both of these events. Join with others that feel the need to make sustainable changes. Take some of the knowledge you may learn and help spread it around the globe.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Chop and Drop some of your Crops!
Building soil fertility may be difficult to do without spending quite a bit of money on all kinds of amendments. However, there are several easy ways to build soil without purchasing amendments. If you look at nature, forests, prairies and the like have been slowly building soil for millennia. With a little insight from how soil is built naturally we can speed up the process. If you go to any forest or prairie you can see that the debris that is created by the ecosystem is deposited on the ground and is eventually broken down in to soil by fungi, microorganisms, herbivores, and others. If we take this design strategy into our own system we can design the system to have several different soil building species mixed in with our edible (or useful) perennials. If you have animals in your system you can utilize the fodder from your crops for making nutrient rich manure from your animals. But with or without animals in your system you can speed up soil building processes quite rapidly.
One thing I enjoy doing is chopping and dropping certain plants to mulch and build the soil locally. You can chop and drop plants of all different growing patterns and sizes. The basic concept comes from planting plants that you intend for this purpose and depositing clippings nearby where they were planted. This mimics the natural processes of growth, dieback and deposition of debris on the ground. However we can increase the amount of debris that can turn into soil by choosing species that either dynamically accumulate nutrients or fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. One of the great workhorses is comfrey. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows about 3 feet high and about the same in width. Once it gets this big it is ready to be chopped and dropped. I like to leave a few of the smaller shoots so they grow back quicker. You can do this at least 3 times in a summer. When you mulch the ground with materials like comfrey leaves you can protect the soil from drying out, create more habitats for microorganisms, fungi and other soil creatures, such as earthworms. It can also act as a weed barrier. If your not wanting to mulch a certain area or it’s already mulched well enough, you can utilize your chop and drop materials to make a nutrient rich tea to feed your garden with. Simply add your comfrey to a bucket and cover it with water. Wait about a week, stir it up and dilute this mixture about 1 to 10 and use this homemade fertilizer to boost plant growth.
There are plenty of annuals and perennials that can be utilized similarly to comfrey. At Love Creek Permaculture we harvest the greens from lambsquarters in spring and early summer, but when they bolt (flower) we like to cut the plant at the base and use the tops for mulching. Leaving the roots in the soil will add to the organic matter in the soil, and increase soil fertility. We even utilize the chop and drop method with several different tree species. Deer brush is a common medium to tall shrub that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere. Cutting branches from these trees can give us materials to chip up or we can just leave them to decompose on the ground nearby. It is important to note that when you cut a branch from a tree, there are corresponding roots in the ground that die back. These dead roots also add organic matter to the soil and increase the soil fertility. Alder trees are also quick growing nitrogen fixers that can be coppiced and a continual supply of branches can be utilized for making woodchips, BBQs, and hugelkultur beds.
The ultimate food forest is designed to have several chop and drop species mixed in with crops that you utilize for food, fuel, medicine, and fodder. Some quick growing tree species can be planted to build soil as your slower maturing fruit and nut trees develop. Over time the quick growing species are chopped and dropped about once a year and eventually can be removed entirely to make room for your maturing trees. But all the while you are also using other dynamic accumulators such as comfrey to add chop and drop materials to the soil within your food forest.
This type of soil stewardship can be fun and is rather quite easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the species can be more difficult because there isn’t much information on this subject outside of the permaculture community. However comfrey is a great species to start with and is easily found at your local nurseries. From your own observations of how plants grow you can find some chop and drop species that are already in existence on your land. Try it out and see what happens.
One thing I enjoy doing is chopping and dropping certain plants to mulch and build the soil locally. You can chop and drop plants of all different growing patterns and sizes. The basic concept comes from planting plants that you intend for this purpose and depositing clippings nearby where they were planted. This mimics the natural processes of growth, dieback and deposition of debris on the ground. However we can increase the amount of debris that can turn into soil by choosing species that either dynamically accumulate nutrients or fix nitrogen from the atmosphere. One of the great workhorses is comfrey. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows about 3 feet high and about the same in width. Once it gets this big it is ready to be chopped and dropped. I like to leave a few of the smaller shoots so they grow back quicker. You can do this at least 3 times in a summer. When you mulch the ground with materials like comfrey leaves you can protect the soil from drying out, create more habitats for microorganisms, fungi and other soil creatures, such as earthworms. It can also act as a weed barrier. If your not wanting to mulch a certain area or it’s already mulched well enough, you can utilize your chop and drop materials to make a nutrient rich tea to feed your garden with. Simply add your comfrey to a bucket and cover it with water. Wait about a week, stir it up and dilute this mixture about 1 to 10 and use this homemade fertilizer to boost plant growth.
There are plenty of annuals and perennials that can be utilized similarly to comfrey. At Love Creek Permaculture we harvest the greens from lambsquarters in spring and early summer, but when they bolt (flower) we like to cut the plant at the base and use the tops for mulching. Leaving the roots in the soil will add to the organic matter in the soil, and increase soil fertility. We even utilize the chop and drop method with several different tree species. Deer brush is a common medium to tall shrub that fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere. Cutting branches from these trees can give us materials to chip up or we can just leave them to decompose on the ground nearby. It is important to note that when you cut a branch from a tree, there are corresponding roots in the ground that die back. These dead roots also add organic matter to the soil and increase the soil fertility. Alder trees are also quick growing nitrogen fixers that can be coppiced and a continual supply of branches can be utilized for making woodchips, BBQs, and hugelkultur beds.
The ultimate food forest is designed to have several chop and drop species mixed in with crops that you utilize for food, fuel, medicine, and fodder. Some quick growing tree species can be planted to build soil as your slower maturing fruit and nut trees develop. Over time the quick growing species are chopped and dropped about once a year and eventually can be removed entirely to make room for your maturing trees. But all the while you are also using other dynamic accumulators such as comfrey to add chop and drop materials to the soil within your food forest.
This type of soil stewardship can be fun and is rather quite easy once you get the hang of it. Choosing the species can be more difficult because there isn’t much information on this subject outside of the permaculture community. However comfrey is a great species to start with and is easily found at your local nurseries. From your own observations of how plants grow you can find some chop and drop species that are already in existence on your land. Try it out and see what happens.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Get Prepping and Plant Peas!
Well for those that read my article last month here is a continuation of that inspiration. Hopefully you’ve already started thinking about what you want to grow in your garden this year. So now I’m telling you it’s go time.
Time to direct sow peas in the ground. If your ground is frozen solid or buried in snow your just going to have to wait. Just keep an eye on it and the next time it warms up and dries a bit, get it prepped. If your ground is nice and crumbly and you are beginning to see other plants sprout up, chances are you can prepare your beds and start to sow some cold tolerant plants. When I’m talking prepped I mean using a digging fork to loosen the soil, not necessarily turning it but fluffing it. It is better to maintain the soil structure than to churn it up. I have several garden beds that don’t have any frames around them, I’m just working with the earth and shaping it how I like it. I will insert the digging fork as deep as I can go and give it a wiggle to loosen the soil, repeating over the entire space desired. Then I’ll use a garden rake to smooth out the edges and pull them into the bed to make it taller. When you use raised beds of any sort they are able to warm up quicker in the spring allowing our plants to do better when it’s cold out. Raised beds also have increased drainage that can help reduce pathogen outbreaks. I’ll then top dress the whole thing with compost. Now it’s ready for direct sowing. I’ll also start prepping other beds that will take greens transplants in another month or so. Broadcasting seeds is another way to get stuff growing as well. Granted they won’t sprout up in neat little lines but it’s not labor intensive (bonus) and with a little practice you can get a good spacing of seeds throughout the bed. The bonus of starting things outside now is that you will get rainfall to do your watering for you. It rarely dries up during these remaining winter months and early spring. Mustards, arugula, mache, and lettuces are pretty hardy when it gets cold. I have all of those in the ground and covered with garden cloth. Two weeks ago they were buried in some of that snow we call sierra cement. So as the snow melted off I was surprised to see delicious micro greens when I peaked under the cloth. They are patiently waiting for warmer weather to put on some green growth enough for me to begin harvesting. You’d be surprised at how things can still grow when it seems to be so cold out.
Time to direct sow peas in the ground. If your ground is frozen solid or buried in snow your just going to have to wait. Just keep an eye on it and the next time it warms up and dries a bit, get it prepped. If your ground is nice and crumbly and you are beginning to see other plants sprout up, chances are you can prepare your beds and start to sow some cold tolerant plants. When I’m talking prepped I mean using a digging fork to loosen the soil, not necessarily turning it but fluffing it. It is better to maintain the soil structure than to churn it up. I have several garden beds that don’t have any frames around them, I’m just working with the earth and shaping it how I like it. I will insert the digging fork as deep as I can go and give it a wiggle to loosen the soil, repeating over the entire space desired. Then I’ll use a garden rake to smooth out the edges and pull them into the bed to make it taller. When you use raised beds of any sort they are able to warm up quicker in the spring allowing our plants to do better when it’s cold out. Raised beds also have increased drainage that can help reduce pathogen outbreaks. I’ll then top dress the whole thing with compost. Now it’s ready for direct sowing. I’ll also start prepping other beds that will take greens transplants in another month or so. Broadcasting seeds is another way to get stuff growing as well. Granted they won’t sprout up in neat little lines but it’s not labor intensive (bonus) and with a little practice you can get a good spacing of seeds throughout the bed. The bonus of starting things outside now is that you will get rainfall to do your watering for you. It rarely dries up during these remaining winter months and early spring. Mustards, arugula, mache, and lettuces are pretty hardy when it gets cold. I have all of those in the ground and covered with garden cloth. Two weeks ago they were buried in some of that snow we call sierra cement. So as the snow melted off I was surprised to see delicious micro greens when I peaked under the cloth. They are patiently waiting for warmer weather to put on some green growth enough for me to begin harvesting. You’d be surprised at how things can still grow when it seems to be so cold out.
Start thinking about seeds!
If you’re a gardener, it’s once again time to start thinking about what types of crops you want to grow this year. Pull out the garden porn (seed catalogs) and start drooling over all the scrumptious choices. Do you want more than one variety of tomato? Perhaps a big slicing tomato, a medium sized one good for salads and cherry tomatoes for popping in your mouth. There are plenty to choose from. Are there any other fruits or veggies you would like to learn how to grow? Now is the time to start gathering seeds to grow in the coming months and year. Now where does one get good seed? There are some good sources. And is all seed the same? Not really. Think of it this way, all seeds have stories behind them. Some stories better than others, so what story do you want to be a part of? The story of the seed that came from someone’s grandparents that got them from their grandparents? Or do you like the story about the multinational company trying to corner the market with a hybrid variety developed at a University. I prefer the former myself and for good reason. Truth is that this story of seeds and humans began around 12,000 years ago and has undergone a co-evolution between the two. Cultures evolved with diets based on the seeds they had relationships with. Today we are able to mix and match all sorts of fruits and veggies to our own likings. Borrowing food traditions from others and fusing them into our own creations. That is part of the reason that growing our own foods can be so exciting. You can experiment with all sorts of dishes without denting your pocketbook so much. You just have to find the time and space to get growing.
So when I look at my farm/garden porn. I’m only looking at those seed catalogs that I trust and know. I’m choosing to purchase my seeds from companies I know aren’t owned by Monsanto or some other big corporation. Which is becoming increasingly difficult. A company that has integrity to pass down quality seed produced with production practices that I agree with is one I want to support. Organically produced seeds are preferred because they will be more acclimated to organic fertilizers and possibly poor soils. Once I have found a good seed source I am inspired to localize that species and or variety to my own locale by gathering seeds from the plants I grow and growing them out the following season. I have been saving seed for several years now and have certain varieties of squash, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.. The varieties I have saved have worked well on my site and continue to work well. The more generations that seeds are saved from at a particular site or climate the more adapted to the site they become. So after several years of growing Stupice tomatoes on site and saving seed from generation to generation I am developing a Stupice tomatoe that will do better than any other Stupice tomato seed I can purchase.
So why start thinking about seeds now? First off its better to be ahead of yourself than behind. And second because if you want to start your garden from seed many of the crops will need to be started in the next few months to get a good quality harvest. It takes awhile for seed starts to get big enough for transplanting out into the garden. Transplanting robust starts early in the season (weather permitting) can bring you great yields for the growing seasons. You can start your seeds in a sunny windowsill or for those of us lucky enough to have greenhouses we can do it there. If you don’t have a greenhouse or space on a sunny window you can construct simple cold frames that will allow you to start earlier but not quite as early as a greenhouse or a sunny window. It also depends on what you are trying to grow and when. Greens season is coming up and is already here depending on what elevation you live at. Warm season crops definitely need more heat to sprout so simple cold frames might not work for them as early as you’d like. If you don’t have the space to start your own seeds then you will have to rely on some of the local nurseries to get you going on your garden this year. Only purchase the healthiest looking plants if you can’t start your own and are left with no other options.
Any way you choose to get plants to your garden its time to start thinking about what you want where. What will you need to help you grow your garden great this year?
So when I look at my farm/garden porn. I’m only looking at those seed catalogs that I trust and know. I’m choosing to purchase my seeds from companies I know aren’t owned by Monsanto or some other big corporation. Which is becoming increasingly difficult. A company that has integrity to pass down quality seed produced with production practices that I agree with is one I want to support. Organically produced seeds are preferred because they will be more acclimated to organic fertilizers and possibly poor soils. Once I have found a good seed source I am inspired to localize that species and or variety to my own locale by gathering seeds from the plants I grow and growing them out the following season. I have been saving seed for several years now and have certain varieties of squash, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.. The varieties I have saved have worked well on my site and continue to work well. The more generations that seeds are saved from at a particular site or climate the more adapted to the site they become. So after several years of growing Stupice tomatoes on site and saving seed from generation to generation I am developing a Stupice tomatoe that will do better than any other Stupice tomato seed I can purchase.
So why start thinking about seeds now? First off its better to be ahead of yourself than behind. And second because if you want to start your garden from seed many of the crops will need to be started in the next few months to get a good quality harvest. It takes awhile for seed starts to get big enough for transplanting out into the garden. Transplanting robust starts early in the season (weather permitting) can bring you great yields for the growing seasons. You can start your seeds in a sunny windowsill or for those of us lucky enough to have greenhouses we can do it there. If you don’t have a greenhouse or space on a sunny window you can construct simple cold frames that will allow you to start earlier but not quite as early as a greenhouse or a sunny window. It also depends on what you are trying to grow and when. Greens season is coming up and is already here depending on what elevation you live at. Warm season crops definitely need more heat to sprout so simple cold frames might not work for them as early as you’d like. If you don’t have the space to start your own seeds then you will have to rely on some of the local nurseries to get you going on your garden this year. Only purchase the healthiest looking plants if you can’t start your own and are left with no other options.
Any way you choose to get plants to your garden its time to start thinking about what you want where. What will you need to help you grow your garden great this year?
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