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.