Vermiculture

I've grown so used to using vermiculture that I almost forget it's different.
Well no, none of my friends compost with worms that I know of. But it's a fairly low maintenance way of reducing your waste.

Worms are incredible. They break down food just like a normal compost pile would, the difference is you can easily do it in your house without a smell (or a mess). At EcoHouse we have stacking worm trays. This way we can shift the trays as the top one fills. The vertical orientation also allows water to seep to the bottom where we collect it in a jar. This worm tea is a more effective fertilizer than miracle grow, plus it's natural. When the compost is finished, you sift out the worms and add the compost to your garden.

Worms eat all the regular household scraps you might compost, but they also eat shredded paper, dryer lint, egg cartons, wood chips, etc. Those carbon heavy materials provide a nice bedding for the worms. Having a bedding is important because it provides the worms food, a nice place to live, and it keeps your bin from smelling. We use peet moss, but we also add other carbon heavy materials so that we don't use too much of the peet moss (it's expensive and a limited resource).
If you're looking to set up your own bins, you can either get stacking trays like ours (Worm Factory, available online at amazon.com or if you're in the cities, Eggplant Urban Farm Supply on Selby Ave) or make your own out of Tupperware. It's imperative that the worms have the ability to move from tray to tray, and that it's easy for you to lift out the trays so you can fork through and supply oxygen to the soil.


For more information, we recommend reading the book "Worms eat my garbage." It's been a great resource for us, plus it gets into more of the complicated worm composting management strategies.

Living Deliberately

In 1845, Thoreau went into the woods.



In 2010, I went into a residential neighborhood that happens to have a lot of big trees.



I won't try to pretend like living in the EcoHouse is remotely similar to Thoreau living in his cottage. Though similarly square in shape, (well the EcoHouse may be a little longer than it is wide), that about sums of the similarities in our structures. Plus, the EcoHouse has far more weather-stripping and insulation than Thoreau's cottage. I certainly hope we won't feel the wind through the walls come winter.

Thoreau has been on my mind first because of a blurb in Blessed Unrest about his social activism. More recently because of a reading I had to do for one of my Environmental History classes. In the section of Walden, Where I lived, and What I lived for, Thoreau talks about how he wished to live deliberately. As I read those words, I realized that the intention embodied everything I had been feeling about living in the EcoHouse.

When we first moved in, we spoke about all the things we wanted to do and try this year. All the things we wanted to learn to make ourselves instead of buy. There were habits we would need to learn: shorter showers, composting, tending the worms, turning off lights, buying different soaps... but we knew we could do them with a little effort.

We all got used to whole grain bread. I'm not sure if that kind of flour is any more sustainable than white flour (perhaps less processing?) but it's healthier for you so we agreed to make the switch. We buy from a co-op when we can, but we buy at Rainbow or Target if it's cheaper there-- we are still poor college students. I've started going to the Farmer's market every weekend to buy eggs and the last of the fall harvest. We take out the composting after it's been full... for 3 days. We have a separate jar for the worms so we don't over feed them. We freeze vegetable ends and scraps and when we have enough, we make vegetable stock, and then compost the remains. One less thing to buy, far tastier soup.

We're living deliberately. We're making choices to live healthier, and better. Maybe every now and then we buy into the green washing fads (after all, Caribou does guarantee that their coffee is fair trade AND rainforest safe! couldn't hurt, right?) but what started off as having to be a conscious decision has now become second nature. We're almost two months in. Now we're looking out as to how we can help other people make their homes EcoHouses too.
When I tell people I live in the EcoHouse, they usually ask what makes it Eco. As I started to get into the spiel we've been asked to relay about how it was renovated-- "Oh so cool! So everything's state of the art??"
Well no. There are a lot of "new" things in the EcoHouse (I really love pointing out our solar powered water heating). But a lot of it is old, and that's what makes it Eco. So if you already have a house, just changing your habits slightly can make your house an EcoHouse too.
That's part of what I'm working on at my internship. I'm making a guide not only on how to renovate houses to be more sustainable, but how current residents can make their house more energy efficient (and thus "greener") by making a few easy changes.
Coming up on the EcoHouse calendar is making a pumpkin pie… from an actual pumpkin. Pictures to follow soon. Also, I have pictures from my cheese making adventure that will find their way here soon.

How did I get here?

Today was my first day of classes. Actually I just had one class, so today was my first day of a class. This class is American Urban Environmental History, taught by Chris Wells. Aside from the fact that this is an *awesome* class (apparently a redundant statement) it fulfills a couple graduation requirements, part of my core for my major, and potentially part of my Urban Studies Concentration. The academic and practical reasons for my taking this class are apparently clear. But the question he asked us in class today wasn't to understand those reasons; it was the more intangible mentality behind motivation. It was to understand us as people, not as students. I wish I'd gotten that immediately, but it's provided me some inspiration for thought. To dwell upon something that has been bothering me for a while.

How did I get here?

It's a question that is asked of me on almost every tour I give, by every freshman I met in the last week, by my peers, by my friends from home, by my professors, and now by me. A lot of times it's easy to put myself on autopilot. To assume a character and just go, feeling compromised at every turn as I make decisions for someone else's rational and not my own. What took me to Costa Rica the summer after my junior year was not an interest to improve my Spanish-- I didn't, after all, speak it yet-- but being turned down by a scholarship Arabic program in Egypt which I was interested in because of my desire to travel and potentially study international relations.

            What I experienced in Costa Rica, however, was not the colors and bright experience I expected. It was a much darker, richer, and sweeter culture than I ever knew. To understand this, you must know that from my earliest memories the places I have lived have been in pristine neighborhoods of prim suburbanites who get together on the rare occasion to dine together and chat about politics. The places I have lived have been full of middle class people who belonged to country clubs and went skiing in the winter. Kids rode their bikes without fear of dangerous strangers, hopscotch games and chalk drawings littered the sidewalks, and squirrels darted up and down the elm and maple trees on the tree lawns. Residents of the Twin Cities would recognize this as Edina. Clevelanders would recognize this as Shaker. With the exception of three years of my education, I have always attended public school. I felt as if I’d worked for my education, instead of my daddy buying it for me like those spoiled rich kids who lived out in the far reaches of the developments.

I had a spoiled childhood, however. My mental status was so innocent that it surprises me that I ever learned anything about the world. My parents didn’t actively shelter me, yet since they did nothing to teach me of the dark world I really lived in, I never ventured out of the safety of the bubble that I had been placed in. I knew of war, to be sure. Yet in my mind, war was something that had died out ages before. My brother and I would take toy fighter planes and shoot at each other, we had beautiful death scenes that would last for ten minutes, only so that we could be resuscitated and die again. It never occurred, at least not to me, that such tragedies and atrocities were still very much a reality. We went on playing these games until we moved on and I outgrew them.

Needless to say I grew up from the little tomboy who loved to fight with her brothers and shoot dart guns. I was smart, and I wanted to learn as many languages as possible. I wanted power. I had delusions of grandeur, that I could someday change the world with my influences. Going to Costa Rica knocked me back into place. I lived in a house that had a dirt floor, that had cockroaches in the shower, with people that were so poor they could barely make rent, and yet opened their arms to me. They threw huge parties and fed everyone who came by. They wanted to know about you. To hear your stories. But best of all, they knew how to sit together in the evening in silence, enjoying the place around them. They were poor, by American standards. But they had so much more than I did.

I realized that to instigate policy, I had to be able to understand the symptoms that arose from the fundamental problems. I wanted to be active in a community, to volunteer, and to experience. I decided that I would take a gap year in order to do something different with my life. At that point I played with many ideas of what I wanted to do. At first I wanted to return to Costa Rica and help out with the English program at the local technical school. I changed my mind, however, deciding that maybe it would be better for me to work locally. I thought about getting an internship with a law firm, or a small business, but that was the old me, not this new idea I had of myself. It was at that point I called Dr. Scott Miller.

Two years ago I was still that naïve little girl who believed she could change the world in a year. I wanted to help people, and I still do. I was so ignorantly confident that people would be willing to receive what I had to offer. So the first day I walked into Cleveland School of the Arts, I made sure I looked good. I wanted to reflect the person I considered myself to be, a smart girl from the suburbs who wanted to learn more about the world around her. My hair was blow-dried and straightened. My nails were perfectly manicured. I wore a tunic shirt and black leggings with neat clark flats on my feet. I wanted to look professional. I was there to teach and be taught. I was dressed how I imagined a student teacher at Shaker (my alma-mater) would have dressed. I tried to look older as well, acknowledging that it would be hard to get respect if the students could tell how young I was.

Looking back now it’s hard to keep from laughing at my naïveté.  The students could not help but laugh at me. They had to listen to me? Someone who was self described as living in a bubble? The boys snickered and made crude comments. The girls rolled their eyes. They didn’t understand me. Who had Dr. Miller brought in this time? The year before they had another student teacher, a 22 year old woman who soon after completing her student teacher requirement decided she did not want to be a teacher.

I sat there smiling while Dr. Miller spoke of me, saying that I was talented in math and could help the students anytime they needed. He encouraged them to use me for tutoring and help. “Oh we’re going to use her,” said one of the boys. I looked up, blushing beet red. Dr. Miller glared at the student. He continued with his introductions, however, not bothering to stop. I rationalized that the comment in and of itself was innocent, it was silly. Before I knew it the students were moving on to their next classes and the juniors and seniors were pouring in.

Looking back on that year, I wouldn’t say that I didn’t learn anything. That’s certainly what I thought immediately after finishing. It was hard, and the hours were ridiculously long. The students often fought against me, and I know I never fully earned their respect. After that year, I felt like it had been a waste, wished I had travelled more, or even just gone to school right away. I hadn’t learned what I had sought out to learn. But I’m not sure I knew what I wanted to learn to begin with. I wanted to know about the things outside of my bubble, as broad of a description as that may be. If nothing else, that time at CSA taught me to be even more self reliant and independent than I was already inclined to be. I no longer felt comfortable asking my parents for money, for help, or for advice.

I didn’t want to be a teacher anymore, nor did I want to major in theater. When I got onto campus, I took one glance at the course schedule for those majoring in International Studies and realized it no longer held much interest for me. I knew I was going to be an Environmental Studies major.

But I’ve jumped ahead! Bear with me as I provide you background information, that for the sake of continuity, belongs here, and not earlier in this reflection. Before I ever applied to go to Egypt and then got put on a plane to Costa Rica, I was really bad at physics. In fact, I got a C in physics freshman year. Senior year, I was given the choice of taking either AP Physics or AP Environmental Science for my science credit, so I opted for the one I had a better chance of passing. The class was a lot more math and science than I expected, but I still (somehow) got an A in the class both semesters and a 5 on the AP exam.

Then I took my gap year, thought about my future, did a lot of reading about Environmentalist movements, finished up at CSA, and left for college.

Now you’re caught up.

I took Environmental Science again my first semester at Macalester. I figured it would be a recap, but it’s also required for an Environmental Studies major. My professor was absolutely phenominal. Though I knew the material, one chapter in my textbook caught my attention immediately. It was a chapter about urban environmentalism. Each chapter of that book usually took me about 2 hours to read but this one I finished in 30 minutes. I was so interested that I actually read some of the suggested readings at the end and wrote every paper from that point forward about Green Urban Development. I was hooked. Being from Cleveland, I never really knew cities could be beautiful. Though of course there is nature in Cleveland, it does not have nearly as many parks and gardens as the Twin Cities, so you’d have to stretch your imagination to call the place beautiful. It’s drab. It’s dirty. And God is it poor. Looking at pictures of the ingenuity and creativity coming out of Berlin, however, one would wonder why the movement hasn’t spread more quickly.

I thought about taking American Environmental History that next semester, but I was told by my ES professor that it was really Chris Wells’ class. That I should wait til he came back from sabbatical. Instead I took Ecology and Science of Renewable Energy-- two natural science courses that would provide a good foundation of understanding. In addition to those classes, I took Intro to Human Geography. I didn’t, at the time, know it would count for my major. I just figured it’d be a nice introduction to Urban Geography (since Intro to Urban Studies wasn’t offered that semester). But that class, in combination with Ecology, led me to begin to view the city instead of being separate from the Environment, as actually being part of a greater system. Humans aren’t separate from nature, we are nature.

Which brings me back, again, to something that happened before I got to Macalester. The second summer of my gap year (the first being after I graduated) I travelled to Tanzania on a mission trip. I was there to look at hospitals, schools, and churches to see where there was opportunity to send over volunteers (stemming from my newfound humanitarianism). I was there with a man who had just graduated from college having before that spent 5 years in the Marines. During one of our many long conversations, he said something that I haven’t been able to shake. He said, “Humans always come first, no matter what.” He was talking about policy, but it didn’t sit right with me. It’s that long debate of pitting humans against nature. Either or. Would you save a hundred tigers if it meant that 50 humans would die? It’s a hard question to answer. It’s uncomfortable to say the least. But if you view the system wholeistically, as an Ecosystem—encorporating every organism and inorganic components as well, then saving the rainforest will often save more humans than it hurts. If we preserve and take care of our ecosystems, then we are in turn helping ourselves. The ethics of this statement can be debated over and over again, but ultimately, whether God created us or we’re here by coincidence, we are nourished by the same things that other organisms need to survive. The only thing that truly makes us different is the ability to conciously recognize this fact. Doesn’t that make us responsible?

If every ailmant that befalls humans today could ultimately be attributed to our ongoing struggle to control everyting around us, including nature, what would that mean? Humans without clean water because of humans polluting and losing their natural resistance to the organisms that now make us sick. Humans starving for food because their buildings and development has driven away all the game. Humans dying of cancer because their cars pollute the air and infest them with carcinogens. Humans poor because their agroeconomies are built on failing monocultures and they don’t grow any food they can actually eat. If I was a part of the people searching to find a way to negotiate with nature to reestablish harmonious living situations, could I have also found my humanitarian needs filled?

How did I get here?

The decision to apply to live in a sustainably modified house fit in nicely with my interest in Urban green movements, so that, in short, is how I came to the EcoHouse. And how did I get into American Urban Environmental History? Well first and foremost because someone else dropped out of the class and I was first on the wait list, but also because I need to take the course to fufill my major, Chris Wells is teaching it, and it’s an awesome class.

But I wouldn’t have declared the major if it hadn’t been for that chapter I read with that awesome professor who told me to wait to take American Environmental History until Chris Wells came back because it’s “his class” so then I did a little research on what other classes he taught, found American Urban Environmental History, and decided I absolutely had to take it, no matter what, it would fit in my major core it just had to, and declared the Sustainable Development core partially for that reason.

I could go on for about six more pages about the randomness and chance decisions that brought me to this bed I’m sitting on with this laptop before me. I could talk about the millions of other things that make me who I am and have caused me to reapproach my life in an attempt to detach from the material and petty desires that bring me unhappiness. I could talk about my summers at camp in the Vermont mountains breathing in the clean air and losing myself in the woods to feel entirely connected to everything.

Everything is how I got here. A lot of it is why I’m here. But where, in the metaphysical sense of both words, is here?

coffee

I know coffee takes up a lot of gasoline in its transportation...




But I am not giving it up.

Moved in

Somehow I managed to survive the summer and now three out of four of us have moved into the EcoHouse. Already we're filling it with food, finding that incandescent lightbulbs had been put in some of the light fixtures over the summer (gasp!) and rearranging EVERYTHING. 

It's somewhat surreal moving into a house that is partially furnished. In a way, that prevents it from feeling like my own. But at the same time I already feel comfortable lounging on a chair, or browsing the pantry looking for a snack. It's already a bit messy (thought part of that is we're still figuring out where to put things) and already has it's first bouquet of "I'm sorry" flowers-- Minnesota grown, of course.

Slowly bits of ourselves appear, reminding of our old living spaces. Today I finally hung all my posters, but still my floor is strewn with more things longing for a place-- I have yet to loft my bed for storage space. There are posters in the living room that speak of sustainability, others of art exhibitions. Decorated computers on tables and a cast iron pan in the kitchen receiving a treatment. 

It rained for the first time since I've been her last night. Even though the roof has a stone covering, it's made of metal, so each drop was a little louder than I'm used to. I guess it reminded me of camp, so the house now feels a little more familiar. 

Next week I'll be starting my internship with District 7. I'm going to be working on a project of renovating vacant houses to make them more sustainable. Sound a bit familiar? It's a bit of an EcoHouse expansion project. Most of my job will be research based but I'll also attend meetings. 

There's always more unpacking to do so I'll sign off now. Tomorrow is going to be a LONG day...

Cleveland

People who know me like to mock me for the fact that I am from Ohio. And not just from Ohio, Cleveland.

Cleveland is a funny city. Many people are familiar with our playfully comedic (fake) advertisements on youtube. #1 and #2. Both were made by a Cleveland resident who jabs at the fact that Cleveland has been on the way out for about 50 years. People who live here both accept it and reject it in the same breath. I mean, I'm not poor, but at the same time I drive through neighborhoods where stores and homes are closing up on the daily.

So why mention Cleveland in this Eco blog? True, in 2007 our public transportation was named the greatest in the United States by the American Public Transportation Association (to which Cleveland residents would probably do a Scooby-Doo like double take), but from an outside perspective there is nothing green about Cleveland. I mean for God's sake, our river caught fire in 1969 because it was so polluted! We are a manufacturing city-- er, were a manufacturing city, that has poor air quality and coincidentally good healthcare. But on my first day back in the Cle, sitting down in my bunker of a basement (my family moved and are currently cooking on a hotplate in our basement while we redo the kitchen) I noticed on the front page of the Plain Dealer (our local newspaper) an Amish person plowing an abandoned city lot and preparing the soil to be farmed. 

Now what you need to know is that I am like a kid at Christmas when it comes to learning about new green urbanization projects in the US. And to find one in Cleveland when I wasn't even looking for one is like realizing that your parents got you a bicycle even though you didn't tell them that you wanted one. Golly Gee Cleveland, for me?? How did you know? 

Well I would be the most egotistical person in the world if I actually thought that Cleveland plowed this field just because I suddenly took an interest in Eco Cities. So I should clarify that I understand that the legislation for this has been years in the making. But it doesn't stop me from being any more excited. 

To read the article and see pictures, click on this link. 

I won't pretend that I am the most educated person on the subject of Cleveland. But it strikes me that such a run down city with manufacturing on the way out has an incredible opportunity to invest in itself. We have a huge healthcare industry. In fact the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals are about the only two businesses that are routinely expanding just because they can. We have more Colleges and Universities than I can even name, and a prime location to do some experimental greening. Why couldn't Cleveland become a research hub? Because of our proximity to Lake Erie, we could do experiments not only with tidal hydro turbines, but with costal wind energy as well. Why not try to hook up some of the outer buildings to geothermal heating and cooling? We do have the space, given all of the abandoned mines and mills. Cleveland is one of the few big cities that doesn't have a lot of  traffic at any time of day, so closing off one or two of the roadways to improve them for public transportation would only slightly inconvenience commuters.

Now I'm not saying that being Carbon Neutral is anywhere on our horizon. To start, the white flight and sprawl that began in the 60s is still going (and going and going). People commute as far as an hour away and further on a daily basis just to avoid the "terrors" of Cleveland. Yeah, it's been said that we're the 7th most dangerous city, and yes there's a lot of truth to that. But studies have shown time and time again that by greening the city (and I do mean literally greening it, this farm could be the start of an urban farming movement as well as a rise of city parks and green roofs) you also decrease the crime rate. People are happier when they get to look at trees, they're healthier when they eat local foods, and they move back to the city when they feel like they will be safe. That decreased commute lowers the amount they drive their cars, and therefore the amount of gas they guzzle. 

Oh, I know it's incredibly idealistic. But unfortunately for the planet, my idealism needs to become reality and soon. Regardless of whether you believe in Global climate change, we cannot continue to pollute as we have, for our sakes and for the biota around us. Anyone trying to make the claim that putting mercury into the air is good for the environment as a whole is just wrong. Period. 

Going green needs to be more than just a fad. It needs to be a lifestyle change. As Americans we have to lose this idea that we need to cram as much as possible into one day. We must be willing to add a little extra time to our commute, not so we can live further away, but so that we can take public transit, or bike. Instead of flying across the country to go to the beach, we can learn to enjoy our on natural landscapes and make do with what we've already been given.

But I sound redundant. Anything that I say here has been said by someone else before. Yet I don't think it can be said too often. As much as I know that any amount of change takes years to take effect, I don't see enough being done. Tax breaks are still being given to fossil fuel companies, people are still unwilling to take the bus, and there are still bananas at my local grocery store. It just seems that if you knew your house was going to catch on fire if you didn't fireproof it, you would fireproof it, instead of saying "my house isn't going to catch on fire, that's stupid." 

Beds

One resource I've been relying on very heavily this summer is "Great Garden Companions" by Sally Jean Cunningham. I found this book in the MULCH shed and it has been an EXCELLENT resource. It may be a bit dated (it was published in 1998) but it's all about planting this in a way that they benefit each other and you don't have to use external chemicals. In her very first chapter "Getting ready to Garden" she talks about why raised beds are so important. Not only does it show CLEARLY where the paths are in your garden (because you really shouldn't walk on the beds) it allows you to build soil that is healthy, nutritious, and excellent to work with. 


The MULCH south bed had individual raised beds, however last weekend we had two HUGE thunderstorms that washed a lot of the soil into the paths. One of the many consequences of large storms (another being the flooding I experienced in my basement this weekend... where I sleep. I do so love living in a house). So I've decided to start a project of re-lifting the beds. I'm literally digging the path, but I think that the work I do will really benefit the beds in the long run. The soil isn't that good. It needs a lot of rehabilitation. And at the end of the season, I'm going to see to it that it gets plenty of compost turned into it and is properly "fluffed" (in Sally's immortal words). Ideally when you're making the paths you rake the topsoil off and onto the center of the beds. I can't do this because the soil is so dry in crusty that there isn't really a layer of topsoil that can be raked. Hence the shovel. While giving the beds the full rundown they need isn't necessarily plausible right now, I did do a lot of work on some of them and tried replanting. Hopefully with some love and care, I can get the Black Beauty Zucchini and Haogen Melon to grow. 


In the late summer, sally recommends layering materials on the beds so that they're ready to plant in the spring. I don't want to directly plagiarize her, but essentially it's like making a passive compost pile that will process over the winter. Layering greens and browns so that enzymes can go to work and seedlings will have lots of nutrients the next spring. Soil is SO tricky. It needs a lot of care and attention the first couple of years so that it can be fertile. There are tests that you can have done to see what the balance is and ph level and from there you'll know what you have to fix. It's painfully obvious when it's off though. The North bed of the MULCH garden is rich with plant life right now, and the South bed... is not. 




Today I harvested garlic scapes. Scapes are the would be flowery parts of the garlic, but you really don't want them to bloom or else energy that should go to the bulb goes to the flower so you have to break them off. There are wonderful recipes to put the scapes into (mostly pesto from what i've seen but they're essentially like chives). You can usually buy them at farmer's markets so I highly recommend trying them out!

Sustainable Landscaping

For the past couple days I've been pretty heavily researching sustainable landscaping. It seems that green engineering may be my future... but we'll see.
The director of facilities has agreed to help sponsor a new design for the backyard, since one was never really put into space. Avid readers (if I have any) will remember that I already did some planting in the backyard. This would be an expansion of what's already there. The tricky part of the EcoHouse backyard is that it's not just shady. It's got a variety of different sun levels. It actually makes the project a little more fun, however. This is a rough I compiled of the things that have already been planted in the backyard (click to see the whole picture):

It's pretty rough in terms of presentation, but the location of everything is accurate. The grey represents shaded areas, and the dark grey on the sides represents the sidewalk. The lower left corner of the yard tents to accumulate a lot of water because of the location of the downspout (the long brown rectangle) so I've been looking into moisture tolerant plants. So far, using suggestions from the DNR and availability at the Outback Nursery (just for example prices) I've compiled a database of plants categorized by their of shade, moisture, type, size, and overall benefits. I'm still finalizing this list, but once I have the plants I really want, I'll draft a couple planting plans.
What I think we're going to try (since there's still a great deal of weeds in the yard) is using weed killer on the more troublesome plants and weeding the rest. There's a whole lot of creeping charlie that I'll cut back and then spray. Herbicides and weed killers are a tricky choice. Whenever possible it's better to just weed or cut back the problem plant, but sometimes the only way to stop them from coming back is by spraying. When used in small quantities, they don't do nearly as much damage.


The other issue I've been dealing with is chipmunks. In addition to poor soil, the South bed has a chipmunk neighbor. It's been eating all the little plant sprouts so that they don't even have a chance to survive. So how do you get rid of chipmunks? Well, the simple solution is to trap them. You can use live traps or deadly traps. But then what if they come back? Where one chipmunk was another is sure to appear, right? So other suggestions online were using predator urine (like fox or wolf urine, found at many hunting stores) which tend to scare away any pests. When my family got a cat, he was the most effective chipmunk trap we ever had. While we never found bodies of rodents (thank god) he certainly kept them away for our yard and our neighbors. So I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'll probably do a combination, with help of the facilities department.

Weeding

Weeding is a tedious and necessary part of gardening. You plant things you want, you pull things you don't want. There a couple ways to try to avoid weed growth (though I've been assured the battle is never won). One is mulching. When things start to sprout, mulch with woodchips or what have you around your seedlings to keep anything else from coming up. There are different mulches for different plants, though I think woodchips are a pretty safe bet. Mulching with compost is also a good idea. The other thing is clover. Clover is a pretty active ground cover that a lot of people weed, but I read in "Great Garden Companions" that it's decent at preventing other- more harmful- weeds from taking root. So for now i'm leaving the clover, if it starts to look threatening I'll pull it. 

Beans

In the North bed of the garden we have 3 rows of pole beans. Pole beans like to climb (think Jack and the Bean stalk) the interesting thing about them is that the stalks are actually a little grabby (I think they have tiny hooks) that allow them to hook onto a pole and wrap around them. Ideally when you plant the beans you'll plant poles alongside them so they have something to climb, or you could also create a sort of Teepee around them, go here for more information. 


We didn't give the beans anything to climb when we planted them, but we did line the rows with poles to mark where they planted. So I just spent the last hour and a half stringing twine across to give them something to grow along. I'm hoping that this works, so far they're holding on just fine, but I won't know until tomorrow if the beans will actually grow along them of their own accord. I'll post pictures tomorrow to give examples (forgot my camera today). 


In the South bed of the garden I did a little bit of soil rehabilitation. Ideally soil is 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. A lot of the beds seem to be pretty sandy, given that they don't hold on to water very well at all, and the surface is left crusty and unfriendly to planted seedlings. Contrastingly, the soil over by the EcoHouse has been super compacted and has a higher percentage of clay (when I water the plants in the back yard the water tends to sit in large puddles for a while). I had a lot of soil left over from planting in the back yard, so I brought it over to the South bed and mixed it in (along with compost for organic matter) to the beds that were so hostile nothing planted had grown (and lived). I'm thinking I'll apply to the sustainability office for funds to plant new seedlings there in a couple of weeks. 


There are tests you can have done to test the quality of your soil. Overall, it should be fairly apparent given how your plants are growing and what happens when you water your soil. Soil compaction is also an issue! You don't want people walking on your beds! Aside from the fact that they can kill your plants, when people walk on the beds they compact the soil and make it hard for future plants to spread roots. I've had some problems with this over in the North bed, where there are painters working on the French House. Despite the chicken wire and the CLEAR indications that it is a vegetable garden, I found footprints in my tomato bed and a broken seedling! Ah! The best thing to do to avoid this is to make clear paths using dry leaves or wooden planks, and hope people are smart enough to pay attention to the signs. When all else fails, put up a sign with an explanation!


Yesterday my friend Nick and I endeavored to harvest some of the rhubarb over by the EcoHouse. We harvested about half the patch. I heard that the more you harvest it the more it grows, but just to be safe we left a significant amount. We didn't have enough to make a full pie (which we had hoped to do) but we chopped it up into little pieces, partially covered it with water, added a cup of sugar, and let it cook down to a jelly. We ate it over ice cream, yum!


The elderberries are starting to ripen so I can't wait for that next project! I've heard of some great ideas for what to do with them. I just have to beat out the birds!

tree planting

So I FINALLY got all the plants I bought for the EcoHouse yard into the ground. I had to get help from Terry Gorman of the security office so that I didn't accidentally dig into any wires or pipes. (If you're ever planting anything that needs to go deep in your yard, make sure you know where things are). As it is I NARROWLY missed some wires when I planted the raspberry transplants... EEP!

I don't have internet so that's part of why I haven't blogged in a while. Hopefully I can start getting more posts up. It's actually kind of cool though because I'm blogging from the garden right now. 

Anyway the soil in the EcoHouse yard has a high percentage of clay, which means it has a tendency to hold onto water. This is a problem because when it rains, the water can't seep into the ground. Taking this into consideration, we mixed a hefty amount of compost with the soil as we planted. Hopefully that will help the plants establish a little better. As it is, they'll have a tough time of it. Once plants start to establish they have an overall positive effect on the soil, they tend to make it better for other plants after them. I have a feeling this will be a multiyear project.

Over in the South MULCH garden, I have a chipmunk problem. Unfortunately there is no magic plant that will deter chipmunks, so I only have a couple of options. The first one I want to try is rebuilding the fence. While it is rabbit proof, the chicken wire has holes that are big enough for a chipmunk to easily run through. It's eating the plants I have sprouting down to the ground, and has killed a bunch of the seedlings. The other option I have is to trap it, but if I trap it then another chipmunk will come and take its place. So I'll get some funding for new fences from Suzanne. 

In the North bed things are doing WONDERFULLY. The soil there is SO good! The beans are getting so big I'm going to have to give them things to climb soon. More info on that once I research it. Also the seedlings I planted there are getting bigger... no chipmunk to eat them! (also, I saw a cat prowling around, so maybe it's helping my cause). Anyway, I'm off to go shower before tour guide training (my OTHER job on campus this summer) but hopefully I'll have an update later this evening with information on beans. 

Seedlings

I planted the rest of the seedlings today. In the South bed I planted tomatoes, brussel sprouts, and peppers. In the North garden I planted broccoli and onions. 

I turned the compost pile which was starting to smell (lots of recent additions). The baby robin was gone so I checked on all of the new EcoHouse plants which are fine. 

Funny thing is that I meant to buy wintergreens at Outback but I was charged for winterberries (same price so not a big deal) except that now I'm not sure if all of my plants are wintergreens. So I have to call Outback tomorrow and figure out what's what. 

I met with the Lily Fellows briefly today and gave them a tour of the garden so they may be volunteering by weeding and harvesting which will be fun. 

Saturday we're building new platforms for the rain barrels so they'll be raised 3 feet and add a little to the water pressure.

very long update...

I think I'm going to commit to updating AT LEAST every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. That way I'll at least have three updates a week and won't be so far behind. 

Okay.. since I planted raspberries...

Last Friday I planted a couple of the onion plants and the surviving rosemary plants. It's been so hot that not a lot of them are making it. Getting them in the ground will hopefully better their chances, but this is just one of those tricks of gardening you can't account for all the time. 

When I came back to water later that evening, there were bean sprouts!

These are them as of yesterday, doing very well I might add!

Tuesday I decided to put a bunch more seedlings into the ground. I set up two beds in the lower bed of the North garden (it's a little too big to reach, so I made a couple divisions so it's more accessible). I planted four or five rows of tomatoes and two rows of onions. They're settling in fairly well, but it's still very hot so time will tell. I've been watering regularly and hopefully that will help. I mulched them all with compost, so hopefully those nutrients will leach down and make everything a little better.

I still have my work cut out for me though. There are still plenty of seedlings that need to go into the ground. Each seedling is wrapped in newspaper which will give it some protection, but now that they're in the ground the newspaper should decompose. I ripped it a bit around the edges so that if the roots do need to expand, it isn't so hard.

I turned the compost again (I did filter out a large chunk of it to use as mulch) because it's been running fairly hot. Compost piles will naturally get fairly heated, because of the decomposition activity that takes place, but if they get too hot, it can kill the bacteria that are necessary. Turning it will lower the internal temperature and also give it air. Usually you can tell that a compost pile is ready to use when the temperature reaches a consistent level, but when you're continually adding to it, it's more of a sight trick. But if you're using the sifting method as I have been, you need to be consistently checking for mold. It should be easily avoided if you're composting correctly, but you can never be too sure and putting mold on your vegetables can be devastating. 

Yesterday I had intended on putting the rest of the seedlings into the ground, but first I had a meeting with Suzanne from the Sustainability Office. We talked a bit about my role as gardener and what else I might be working on this summer. After I get the seedlings into the ground, my job will mostly be weeding, watering, and harvesting. (I wish the there was a W word for harvesting, then I could call it the three Ws... alas). Anyway, that's not enough to fill up 20 hours a week. 

Most of what we talked about is the EcoHouse garden, as a project that needs to happen soon. The backyard of the EcoHouse is out of control in that it is almost entirely weeds. Now the only reason I haven't pulled them yet is because I'm concerned about the soil washing away if there isn't anything there to hold it in place. Fortunately Suzanne was able to allocate some funding to buy new plants for the garden. She and I went on the DNR website to look up suggestions they had for shade gardens (which has been the biggest problem the yard has faced). With those recommendations I went online to the outback nursery website to see if they even had those plants available. My friend Maars and I drove out that afternoon to Hastings to pick out some plants. We bought three Maiden Hair Ferns, Two Blue Cohosh plants, Two Jacob's Ladders, A bronzeleaf Diervilla, Four Winterberries, Two Shagbark Hickories, and an American Plum tree.

Maiden Hair Ferns do WONDERFULLY in the shade, so we'll probably plant these in the darkest part of the hard. Hopefully they'll spread too, which will be very good for ground cover.

Blue Cohosh was apparently used by American Indians as a kind of contraceptive or to induce labor. It's also associated with abortion... interesting things you learn on wikipedia. It does say not to take the herb if you're pregnant... Anyway, it does well in the shade and has pretty blue berries.

Jacob's Ladder does well in the shade and has pretty purple flowers. No fun facts about this one except that it does well in the cold.

Bronzeleaf Diervilla does well in part shade and is good for erosion control and massing. So very good for the back yard.

More on winterberries later, I need to look into something.

Shagbark Hickory trees prefer full sun to part shade, so they'll go on the edge of the hard to create a border where they can get enough sunlight. One of the great benefits of these trees is that they have edible nuts. Asa had recommended them as additions to the sustainable forest so this was a great find.

American Plums need full sun, so this is a tree we're hoping to plant in the front yard in place of the viburnum that... died. But anyway it doesn't need that much water which is good and it produces fruit. I'll call that one a win. 

So that was my day yesterday, aside from a rather embarrassing moment where I found a baby robin wedged between two of the plants I'd bought, apparently hiding. Thinking I'd move it somewhere safer (BAD IDEA) I must have terrified it (it had been sitting so placidly until this point!) because it starting crying... and then I was attacked by a mother robin. It chased me. Across three yards. So. Lesson learned, don't mess with the will of nature. 

Today I'm planning on planting the rest of the seedlings, I'll head over to do that this afternoon when the sun isn't directly overhead. 

Raspberries

Today I planted raspberry transfers. I planted about four sprouts where the wintergreens had originally been planted, about five where the juneberry had originally been, two next to the strawberries, and about five on the other bed next to the stairs. Reed says they have a tendency to spread very well, which is good to a certain extent. Future residents of the EcoHouse will have to keep an eye on them. 
Unfortunately they're transfers, and some of them don't look like they're doing so well. They're a bit wilty, which is to be expected since they were dug up and removed from their home plot. Still, we mulched them with compost and watered them so they're in a good position to settle in. 
I watered the beds twice today, once in the morning and once at night. We've been averaging 75 degrees every day, so the beds are drying out pretty quickly. 
I harvested more arugula today, but the leaves are getting bitter so it's probably on its last harvest.
More pictures!

The new raspberry plants along the stairs

The other side of the stairs












(there's a false indigo plant at the top that fixes nitrogen, then runoff benefits all the plants below)

Replacing the old juneberry

I'm gonna make rhubarb pie.












I think mulching tomorrow, but definitely a lot of research on new plants for the permaculture forest.

Permaculture (and why someone should be living in the EcoHouse year round)

Fail about updating yesterday.


So even though I've been waiting until it was shady I think I've been watering too early because the soil's still been very dry. So last night i didn't water until just before sundown, and I dragged my lazy butt out of bed to go water before nine this morning. I'll do the same tomorrow.


Yesterday was again fairly straight forward. I didn't do anymore planting because I'm waiting for the seedlings to mature a little more. I turned the compost (someone in one of the language houses has been putting A LOT of oranges in the pile... big no no). I'll probably take some of the finished compost and put it around the seedlings once I've got them planted. The way I'm going to do that (since a lot of the pile is still big chunks of organic matter) is by sifting it through the chicken wire used to contain it into a wheel barrow. Then I'll take the unfinished bits and make a new pile out of them. 


One of the big things about the EcoHouse is that it has a permaculture garden surrounding it. Now since the entire garden went in at once, a lot of the plants didn't make it because they just weren't receiving enough attention. As it is, however, most of the garden is intact. There is a rhubarb plant on the south side that it settling in nicely, several ostrich ferns at the West as well as some wild ginger, and three large elderberries on the North side. There's also scatterings of Mayapples, yarrow, anise hissup, and other edibles or nitrogen fixers. The East side, however, is fairly barren.


I met with Asa (the original designer or the garden and also the original MULCH summer gardener for the current location) who gave me a full tour of the garden and explained each of the benefits of the plants. According to Asa, most of what the garden needs is remulching (and I can get woodchips from facilities), weeding, and filling. Since some of the original plants have died, they should be replanted. Wintergreens, New Jersey Tea, and False indigo are good plants to try to reinstate. Also, when all else fails, yarrow is a dynamic accumulator (a plant that pulls nutrients from deep in the ground) and is a good idea to plant. Also, he suggested planting a cranberry viburnum at the edge of the property. Asa said he got most of the plants that he bought at Outback Nursery in Hastings, MN. Apparently, Outback Nursery specializes not only in native plants, but the native genotypic strains, aka the specific plants adapted to survive in Minnesota. So that's pretty great, if I find funds for replanting I'll definitely try to go there.


In terms of fixing the East side of the house, there's not a lot of options. It's a pretty shady area,  though it's gotten better. Asa had planted quite a bit, but now it's been mowed quite a few times and a lot of things didn't survive. Still, there's three hazelnut plants, an elderberry, several yarrow plants that are spreading, and anise hissup (which tastes a bit like liquorish and can be made into tea). He suggested planting ground clover as a cover (that will also served to hold the soil in place). The biggest issue is that right now it's a weed bed, but because it's sloped it the soil risks being washed away. I've had several people suggest to me that I make a rain garden out of the lower bit, which might be a possibility, but it would be getting A LOT of water. Also, I'll have to sink it a big, which is tricky because the pipes from the solar panels to the EcoHouse run right through that area. So I'll have to see if I can get someone to flag all the places I'm not allowed to dig so I don't... die. 


Tomorrow I'm going to harvest some arugula, see about mulching, and plant some raspberries that my friend Reed is transplanting from his garden, yay!

More lettuce

Today was pretty straight forward. I stalked down a couple dandelions that I must have missed yesterday, but given that the lawn is riddled with them, I'm sure I'll never win the battle. 

I planted today! That was pretty exciting. I planted bronze arrowhead lettuce and slobolt next to the spinach that I planted yesterday. Also, next to the Arugala I planted more mesclun salad and kaleidoscope premium. Over next to the rhubarb on the South side of the EcoHouse I planted some strawberries. It's decently sunny overthere, but not so sunny that the soil will get too hot I think. 

I trimmed down the sage (which was beginning to overtake the chives) and thinned out some of the volunteer flowers (which were just plain taking over). I watered everything pretty well and checked on all the seedlings. 

Tomorrow will probably be more of the same. But I have pictures!

The Herb bed

The South Bed

The lower North Bed

Some of the Seedlings

The Elder Tree 

The battle of the dandelions: First day in the garden

I tried to get to the garden early today so I could water before the sun came up, but sleep was WAY too appealing, so I'm going to head back over in about 30 minutes or so and finish the job. 

When I got there I started off with some simple projects. I weeded the South bed, thinned out the gooseberry bush, and harvested some arugula and lettuce. There wasn't enough to sell, so I think I'm going to plant some more so that future harvests can be sold. I also trimmed the currant bush a bit, but it's flowering so I decided to leave most of it.

I'd been reading a whole lot about herbs and how great they are, so I decided to plant some more herbs in the herb section of the South Bed. There's already plenty of mint, sage, and parsley, but I added more cilantro, then planted dill, cumin, and fennel. 

I planted spinach and nasturtium (an edible flower) next to the mixed lettuce bed, but I'll plant more lettuce and spinach tomorrow I think. Today was mostly a surveying/ maintenance day.

I checked on all the seedlings at the North bed and made sure they're still moist enough. I'll be planting them starting next week, I think.

A lot of people don't know that Dandelions are edible. But few people choose to grow them, and they're a bit particular about how you can eat them. And since they are ultimately choking plants that kill desired vegetables, they have to go. Today was an epic battle. The MULCH shed was devoid of any of the weeders I'm used to (and are particularly good for getting at the roots of the weeds) so I used a small potting shovel instead. Crude, but effective. I remain unconvinced that I got all the dandelions in the beds, but for now, all visible plants are gone from the North bed, the South bed, and the EcoHouse beds. 

My friend Reed came to help for an hour or so. While he was here he helped prune one of the elderberry bushes (it's really more of a tree now) over by the EcoHouse and thinned some of the flowers over in the South Bed. 

I turned the compost pile over by the German House, it was looking a bit dry. I added some greens to it. I'll start bringing over my coffee grounds in the morning to add to that. I also turned the bin, which is looking a little too wet so I added some browns. 

Using some of the leftover seedling sale money, I bought two weeders, a pair of pruning shears, and some strawberry seeds. I'm going to try to get them to grow next to the rhubarb by the EcoHouse. Also, Reed is going to check and see if he can transplant a couple berry bushes. I'm not sure of the logistics of that, I guess I have some research to do. 

Reed and I made a list of things we'd like to see happen, if cost weren't an issue. First of all, we need to fix the fences around the beds. If that means putting up more steaks as a quick fix, then it's a good investment. They're falling down and seemingly ineffective, which is really too bad. I'll see what I can do with them this summer. We'd also like to get to work on a rain garden for the lower part of the back EcoHouse bed (which is currently unplanted). It's sloping, so there'd be a good amount of water reaching it. We'd like to see more berries in the perennial garden (and hopefully those strawberries will take!). And finally, we'd like to be growing something in ALL of the beds. Hopefully that will happen, I do have 3 months to get to work.

Tomorrow I plan on thinning and planting. Also, hopefully I'll have some pictures to post!

Intent to find a Purpose

Most students at Macalester College (the liberal arts school in Saint Paul, MN I attend) do not know that we have a vegetable garden. They probably also don't know they're allowed to work in it when they want, and would be surprised to learn that it provides some of the food at Café Mac, our one and only cafeteria.

I was one of few students who learned about the community garden within my first week here. That didn't inspire me to do anything with it. I was already VERY busy and never saw any postings about meetings... so the garden slipped from my mind. Come April of that same Freshman year, I found myself hired as the summer gardener. 

Why? Because community gardening matters, to put it simply. But why did I want to do this job? Because I'm an Environmental Studies major living in the school's EcoHouse next year. And I felt the need to spend the summer away from home. So here I am, in charge of a beautiful garden, nestled between the Spanish and German culture houses. 

What I would like this blog to be is a documentation of what I've been doing in the garden, and if I'm good about keeping it up, a documentation of what I'm doing in the EcoHouse next year. I'm sure that once I've gotten the hang of this whole blogger thing, I'll know what exactly what this is.