Urban Garden Projects - Berlin

Speaking Gardens - The Berlin urban gardening movement (TRAILER - english version) from ReneResi on Vimeo

Community Supported Publishing

 Wolverine Farm Publishing, a fledgling publishing house in Fort Collins, CO is testing a new strategy for staying afloat in the publishing bussiness - Community Supported Publishing.

You may ask, ummm isn't this the same as a subscription?  Well yes, however I do think re-branding to CSP is apt for this outfit as Wolverine Farm is a family run affair, epically conscious of its place in the community and its unique position to provide for the community of northern Colorado.

Much like the pioneering Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs in the neighborhood Wolverine Farm cultivates a cohesive community through literacy outreach, and various intellectual forums. Not the least of which are a series of discussions at the Bean Cycle coffee shop in downtown Fort Collins.

I should say as a disclaimer, I have written for Wolverine Farm Publishing in the past and they have written about me :) A symbiotic relationship of the highest caliber. They have been good to me so I'd like to return the favor.

From WFP ~

“The best way to support Wolverine Farm Publishing is to sign up for our Community Supported Publishing program. There are different levels of support depending on your desired selection of books and publications. While we are based in Fort Collins, Colorado and some of our work focuses on our actual geographical community, our wider community includes readers from coast-to-coast and around the world, the businesses who support us, and also the businesses, people, and issues we involve ourselves with. Find the level that is right for you and sign up today!

All CSP levels include the upcoming issues of our publications – Matter 15: East Coast and/or Boneshaker BA 43-300 — unless you specify otherwise.   If you would like to pick up your CSP share instead of us mailing it to you, please let us know.”

Please take a moment and learn what Wolverine Farm Publishing is all about at their web page.

Holy Shit!

Last weekend I attended the Great Blue Heron Music Festival held in the woods of Chautauqua County here in Western New York State. As far as music festivals go this one is small to mid-sized with 5-8,000 attendees showing up over three days. The festival features a mix of bluegrass, zydeco, and rock-n-roll. Positive vibes flourished as the perennial motto "Happy Heron" echoed all around.

Fireflies lit the misty paths between our campsite and the main stage as the speaker systems carried both new and familiar melodies through the hemlocks and sugar maples into our ears. 

Today I want to tell you about something at the festival that left an impression on me other than the music - the toilets. 

Eating a gigantic lamb gyro with fresh lettuce and tomatoes covered with creamy tzatziki dressing, coupled with a full night of dancing until my toes blistered left me standing in front of a dimly lit blue plastic door to a Port-o-John at about 3 AM. 

As I waited in line to use the "facility" my face grimaced for the heinous cloud of shit-stench in which I was surely about to enclose myself. 

Upon entry I was shocked to find something entirely unexpected. A robust scent of cinnamon over-powered my nostrils. 

Apparently a group of volunteers had been keeping the whole line of high-traffic toilets tolerable by some organic addition of the holiday spice periodically throughout the night. This simple unexpected change in perception flipped the experience to the positive and I went right back to the dance tent. This experience started my thinking once again on the concept of sustainability, specifically the utilization of "humanure." 

I was reminded of contemporary heroes of sustainability. A friend and colleague - Heather Flores - gave the keynote speech at the the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair in 2010. In her speech she proclaimed...

Unless you are willing to "shit in a bucket" you are not taking permaculture as far as you can.  

Even for the liberal greenies in attendance this was a bit much as could be seen in the faces of earth-mommas swaddling their babies scrunching their noses at the thought.

If only they could experience human waste managed in a pleasant way. 

In his book Holy Shit Gene Logsdon explains the practice of cultivating human waste for garden fertilizer. He reminds us that in the golden age of Japanese agriculture the highest compliment a guest could pay a host farmer would be to leave behind a "gift" in the form of feces on the host's compost pile. The compost plies of the time were so valuable that they were kept under lock and key!

Hard to imagine in this day and age. But how did we come to this? The guttural response many of us have toward the very word - SHIT - goes a long way to explain the cultural taboos we have all agreed to place on even mentioning human feces in the current zeitgeist. From a public health stand point this makes sense as poop is by nature filthy and spreads disease if improperly managed. But what if we had some protocols minimizing germ exposure in the whole experience of humanure composting?

In his day Thomas Crapper had a great idea. Get poop under water and out of the house as fast as possible.  Once sealed under water away from air, bacteria and viruses can not aerosolize. That shit is "safe." 

But in this age, the age where fresh water is becoming more and more scarce and in turn more valuable it makes no sense to poop into several gallons of otherwise clean water. 

My experience with cinnamon masking the shit stench in the middle of the night last week at the Great Blue Heron Music Festival gives me hope that a smart and even pleasurable alternative to Crapper's technology awaits my community of resource-minded people. 

 

Corn, Beans, and Squash - Three Sisters

Planted together corn, beans, and squash form a "holy trinity" of cooperative growth. By living in close quarters they provide each other with physical protection and nutritional abundance. As the corn emerges high above the others the stalk provides a living scaffold the beans can coil their vines around as they seek the sun. Meanwhile at ground level the squash act as living mulch by preserving moisture under shady leaves and monopolizing sunlight that might otherwise go to nefarious weeds. The prickly stems of the squash provide a defense system against raccoons and other pests that might otherwise "help" harvest the corn.

Underneath the soil the balancing act continues. The beans are legumes - famous for their ability to reduce nitrogen to nitrates by using their root nodules filled with nitrogen fixing bacteria. Corn is notorious for sucking nitrates from soil at a high rate. In the context of large scale farming, corporations get around this by dumping tons of nitrate fertilizers on the corn fields. To fix nitrogen artificially fertilizer producers need to use copious amounts of fossil fuels. This demonstrates that our current food supply relies on ever-evaporating cheap fossil fuels. Another pressing reason to remember and respect the wisdom of the three sisters.

The origin of this wisdom is not a university laboratory but the pre-Columbian fields of present day New York State. The Iroquois or Ho-de-no-sau-nee stumbled upon this beautiful triumvirate sometime during the millenia they lived and played there. So central was this horticultural combination to their sustenance that it became intertwined with their spiritual world-view.

Lewis Henry Morgan writes in League of the Iroquois (First published 1851).

"These plants were regarded as a special gift of Ha-wen-ne-yu (The Great Spirit); and they believed that the care of each was entrusted, for the welfare of the Indian, to a separate Spirit. They are supposed to have the form of beautiful females, to be very fond of each other, and to delight to dwell together. This last belief is illustrated by the natural adaptation of the plants themselves to grow up together in the same field, and perhaps from the same hill. Their apparel was made of the leaves of their respective plants; and in the growing season they were believed to visit the fields, and dwell among them. This triad is known under the name of De-o-ha-ko, which signifies Our Life, or Our Supporters. They are never mentioned separately, except by description, as they have no individual names."

Depending on where you live the time to plant these varies but on average the span between April 20th and mid May marks the optimal planting window. As an added bonus cultivating a garden in your yard or containers in your apartment with your children boosts their veggie intake and physical activity.

Did you like this article? If so please help out my blog however you can. You can donate as much or as little as you like, even just a few pennies. By supporting Tom Paine's Ghost you are helping me bring interesting topics to your beautiful eyes :) Click the MuCash button below. Thanks!





For a much more in-depth look at the practical aspects of cultivating the three sisters see this article by the homesteader John Vivian.

Tom Vilsack can't be all bad if he appreciates this wisdom.

HERMANN, J., PARKER, S., BROWN, B., SIEWE, Y., DENNEY, B., & WALKER, S. (2006). After-School Gardening Improves Children’s Reported Vegetable Intake and Physical Activity Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 38 (3), 201-202 DOI: 10.1016/j.jneb.2006.02.002

Urban Garden Revolution

Cheers to Green Ninja!

Make Wild Kraut!

I ♥ Sandor Ellix Katz.

Permaculture

I posted this interview with Mark Shepard of Forest Agriculture Enterprises a few months ago. With today's feature in the New York Times on the rise of "Permaculture" I thought it appropriate to revisit. I can not emphasize enough how empowering this video is for me. After watching in-depth I have been turned on to several new ideas, like producing food energy by planting perennial rather than annual crops. I am inspired to plant forest gardens filled with hazelnut trees! I highly encourage my readers to take the time to watch. And for those of you of the skeptical mindset I am right there with you. When something sounds to good to be true, it usually is. If you have counter arguments to Mark Shepard's philosophy please share.

106 Acre Profitable Permaculture Farm - Interview with Owner Mark Shepard from The Socio Capitalist on Vimeo.

The Kitchen Garden

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden!"
Geoff Lawton

KILL YOUR LAWN!!!

Lawns!? My question to the average homeowner, Why on God's Green Earth? For most families lawns are not based on any utilitarian principle. The lawn is based on conformity to a generic and obsolete American dream. Lawns are as American as apple pie right? Wrong! Apple pie is delicious and nourishing. Your lawn is disgusting and unwholesome. Now don't get me wrong, I am not completely anti-lawn! Grasses are indigenous to many regions and can be naturally maintained. However, this is not the case for the vast majority. I am even in support of many unnaturally maintained lawns, due to the multitude of purposes that they serve, mainly community recreation. However, ask yourself what purpose does your lawn serve?  It is beautiful?  Is a seasonal vegetable garden not more beautiful?  The kids enjoy running around on the lawn?  Would they not enjoy running around in a vegetable garden even more?  It gives you an opportunity to get outdoors and exercise? Again, vegetable garden! 

Do you know how much water you waste to maintain your lawn? Likely not.  A vegetable garden in place of your lawn would not only use less water but would yield wonderful, nourishing produce.  A vegetable garden is not the only alternative to your disgustingly wasteful lawn and may not be the best alternative. A few urban dwellers are transforming their lawns into xeriscape landscapes, which do not require supplemental water. Beautiful herbs, flowers and plants can be used for xeriscaping schemes in many regions.  The xeriscape alternative may be best for many urban dwellers who do not have the time or ambition to maintain an urban garden or in regions where an urban garden is not sensible.

Think of your lawn transformation as an opportunity to employ and nurture your creativity. Designing a small urban garden or xeriscape is an enjoyable and glorious process. Yes of course you are free to have and maintain your lawn, yet ironically by doing so you demonstrate that in fact you are not free to think.  Think about it!