now we're rolling!

The first pea flower has arrived!

of course it appears that something has been munching on various things in the garden, mainly pea tendrils and broccoli leaves. And I'm not talking on a bug scale, I think its either a cat or rabbit. And unfortunately, being next to the dog run is not a deterrent.

Hmmmm. Apparently I need to look at further deterrence. And if that was not forboding enough, I think our front lawn has been infested with grubs (japanese beetle larvae). Normally I wouldn't care about the lawn, but japanese beetles are supposed to be a minor pest to kiwi, which by the way...


The Kiwi which has been in the ground for little more than a week is already sprouting!



All in all very exciting, lets just hope the squash and tomato transplants will take hold.

When Good Plants Go BAD!

Folks... Game Over for the swiss chard.

Its bolted. Actually I was hoping for this. I pushed some extra mulch over a few of the plants and they made it through winter. Chard are beets, beets are biennials. What is a biennial you ask?

You can pick em the first year,
and most people do.
But it won't produce seed,
unless given two.

anyone else make inane rhymes about plants?

Proof of Life

Here it is, a baby potato plant. This is one of the several Caribe's to have emerged of which I probably planted 20. The Yukons were no show until this morning when I found two. At this point they look pretty much the same as far as the above ground portion. Its been very wet lately and I was concerned for their health in the heavy clay soil. Hopefully as the years progress, the successive additons of organic matter ought to improve things. That still blows my mind. The act of gardening sustainibly can improve a soil's quality and increase fertility. How far a cry from the days when land was plowed to death and then left behind for greener pastures.

Being the descendant of a people who depended on the potato to sustain their lives, there is a certain deep ancestral joy I got from seeing these sprouts come up. It never hurts to think back on where we have been when we start to consider where we are going. In a time when we were tennant farmers, and the landlord gave us one acre to feed our families, potatoes were one of the few crops to be calorie effective in the small plots. In a time when we are once again constricted by lack of land, we may once again find salvation in the humble potato. Thankfully, we know the value now of crop rotation and genetic diversity to keep the troubles of the past at bay.

The First Harvest

Ladies and gentlemen, the first produce of the season, and appropriately around the same time of year I used to start the garden in the past. Thanks to mr. jeavons and the almighty we had a nice salad with dinner that traveled exactly 0 food miles. My wife remarked that she had never had lettuce so fresh....get used to it hon.

And for those who are part of the growing challenge, this was from seed so I guess I met the goal...but I'm not stopping here.

By the way thats green salad bowl leaf lettuce, a head of tom thumb lettuce, and my bahco pruning knife which works great for reaching under the head and cutting. I usually leave the roots in the ground when I harvest a plant, what about you?

Garden Update

Hope Faith and Love

Hope: twice in one day our daughter, completely unprompted and unprovoked, blew my mind. First in the home depot while we walked by the toilet aisle on the way to get screws to fix the deck gate. Her: composting toilets? they compost your poop? Me: yep Her: can we get one? Me: I don't think it will be equally appreciated by everyone in the house. Her: huh? Me: ask mom.

second, while riding in the car with the family and my mother a roadgoing monster passed us. Her: Was that a hummer? Me: it certainly was. Grandma: Do you like hummers? Her: No, they waste gas and pollute the environment.


Faith: Yesterday I saw the first buds of the potatoes pushing through the soil. I'll say it again, I'm an anxious person, and I'm sure by now I've spent hours staring at that side of the garden. Being my first time with spuds I was apprehensive. Did I plant to deep too shallow? upside down? was the soil to dry? too wet? Anyhow, as of this morning, about 6 of the 50 or so have completely pushed their leaves up through. As Tyler Durden would say, stop trying to control everything and just let go.

Love: Yesterday my brother shipped off to 29 palms california for 2 months training, after that, iraq. The family event at the reserve depot was remarkably different from the first deployment 4 years ago, you could read it on the faces of everyone there. The trust is gone. The trust in safety, in the rightness of the mission, in the leadership. Gone. The most unsustainable, unrenewable action a government can enact, wanton destruction of participant and bystander alike, the squandering of resources, starving the needy to feed an all consuming beast, and somehow, by not spending every breath trying to avert it, are complicit in the crime. No More.

Anger is not sustainable, Faith, Hope and Love are.

Back from rehab

In the words of the late Woody Gutherie... This machine kills facists. The above gem is a circa 96 diamondback MTB with one of the first forks rock shox ever made. Several pairs of rims have been tacoed by this beast until I finally found a good strong set. Time in storage had its way on the tires, but after taking care of that, a little chain grease, some minor brake and derailleur adjustment and its ready to rock again. Now if only I could find my helmet.

In the words of the sage

...Tom Petty, the waiting is the hardest part. And indeed it is. After getting the kiwi (and being pleased with the timelyness and the manner in which they were shipped from miller nurseries) I ordered what will be the last of the trees for this year. A pair of Paw Paw trees. This one is a leap of faith. I've never eaten Paw Paw because it doesnt ship well and no one around here grows it, but the description sounds delicious. In the unlikely event that I dont like it, well its a 10 minute bike ride to the food co-op in town who I'm sure will be thrilled to buy it. They are going in behind the bench in the herb/perennial area. A spot I have had consistent problems getting productivity out of. The bench shades the area almost completely, and nothing, save for a creeping invasive weed can thrive. I'm hoping a good sheet mulching combined with some saplings that can reach up to the area only partly shaded ( a preference of paw paws) will finally make that spot a net gain instead of a constant liability. And then I wouldn'y be constantly detangling that damn weed from the lemon balm thats on the edge of the area.

So after I wait for the trees to arrive I have to wait about 3 years before they fruit, and that is still about 2 years ahead of the kiwi. I know the incredible effect that trees can have on yearly production and overall stability of the system, but the running start they need is painful sometimes. I need to work on patience I guess. The garden of eden may have been built in one day but I am significantly less talented than its designer.

in between raindrops

I managed to get a few more low quality pictures. It would seem that the chinese cabbage are a magnet for whatever bug appears to be preying upon its leaves. I tried to save the garden ones by planting a few extras from the original flat and discovered within two days the weaker new transplants hand been..true to form...decimated. Its no far flung theory, bugs really do prey upon the weaker plants. Hopefully that will give the garden cabbage enough of a reprieve to make a comeback. It has been unusually cold and rainy, and things are just kind of in a holding pattern with the exception of:

Fennel (which I have never grown or tasted before, but I can say with certainty that I am pleased with the results of both)

leaf lettuce (green arrow variety) Its really taking off, and despite being started at the same time under the same conditions, appears to be fairing much better than the heads of tom thumb above it. Which is a shame because I could live on tom thumb lettuce.

and in even worse pictures are evidence of radishes starting to form little baby bulbs, And broccoli making some nice big leaves (which seem to be left relatively untouched by the phantom bug)

In other news, the tomato seedlings are doing nicely although the peppers are off to a very slow start. I think I will start them earlier next year. The cuccumbers do not appear to be liking the weather and are no bigger than when they were first planted. We are supposed to have warmer weather this weekend which should help that though.

And despite the verrrry stressful day yesterday there was a bright spot. The kiwi vines arrived from Miller Nurseries. Being in CNY these are of course the original grape sized hardy variety rather than the fuzzy plum sized commonly sold in supermarkets. Kiwi is our soon to be adopted daughter's favorite fruit, and a big hit with the rest of us so I figured, why not? I purchased a male and female vine and started digging. Normally I find the act very therapeudic and the first hole was, but with all the gravel and clay in the spot where the male vine is going I had to quit after about 15 minutes. It was not a day to turn a delight into a hassle. On a positive note though pruned the vine down a bit before planting with my new bahco pruners. Very nice product, I'm not one for endorsements but these are a good high quality garden tool. Check out Earthtools.com a lot more friendly and knowledgable than the Home Despot.

Can we decide once and for all who rules?

As a ahem...reformed greasemonkey I no longer recieve any of the usual magazines, partly because they offered little to no technical advice that I found usable, their articles were little more than thinly veiled advertisements for companies who already buy ads in their rags, and well the quality of the writing was just plain sub par. After saying goodbye to the likes of hotrod and sportcompactcar I never looked back. The magazines, much like the industry they are built upon are little more than the same old garbage reused again and again.

Glad to see I'm still not missing out on anything.

And for the record I don't believe the entire "hot rodding" industry is worthless. There are some genuinely innovative, and artistic people doing some amazing work. What bothers me is the cookie cutter nature that publications seem to engender. They prop up the latest trend and then the companies flood the market with parts for your Civic, 5.0 Mustang, Gen 1 Camaro, 32 Ford or whatever and soon you've spend a bunch of money so your vehicle can be unique, just like every other one out there.

Why did I feel the need to put this on a blog focused primarily on sustainability? Allow me a moment to explain. First, the "true spirit of hot rodding" is not just about making ridiculous amounts of power. When the soldiers came back from the World Wars and started chopping surplus army motorcycles, in the 50'swhen the teenagers bought up old beat up cars from the 30's and fixed them up, it was about making use of what was available (commonly a limitation) and transforming it with ingenuity and skill (a human surplus). Add in drag racing and you had a reason to push farther and innovate more. And it was done by individuals who had to put up or shut up, not some company thousands of miles away who became less concerned with what would work and last and more concerned with what would sell. It is not about trends, its not about trophies.

America is obsessed with the automobile, and we may never truly shake that obsession. But if we can transform the manner in which it expresses itself, we may yet tap into that aspect which truly gives hope for the future. Ingenuity.

And where's my damn flying electric car?

after a few days away

prompted by generally rainy mucky conditions I returned to the garden to find.

Weeds, tons of them, and the same goes for the yard in general.

And evidence that someone had nibbled on a little bit of lettuce and most prominentlyas shown below, chinese cabbage.

grrrr. I checked under the leaves and along the edge of the garden, and no signs of any bugs, so I'm not sure what did this, but it didn't mind the chilly wet weather. Hopefully this is not a crucible to test my new, do nothing approach. I was originally planning to utilize biological diveristy to encourage a natural homeostatic state of predators and "pests." It would seem I'm about to put my money where my mouth is.

Out with the Hippies, in with the Yawns, and why did you change?

According to CNN living lightly...even if you have the means to do otherwise is a growing phenomenon. Seems almost fitting that its popular emergence is amoung the well to due. I suppose once you realize you can buy almost anything, there is a good chance you realize that buying everything won't make you any happier. I would hardly put myself anywhere near the income bracket of some of the referenced examples, but I can say that my wife and I earn a comfortable amount of income, and I do feel a certain kinship with the people in the article, even though the difference between potential and actual consumption is less pronounced in my case. I imagine that the individuals in the article climbed up to the top of the consumption mountain and said: geeze, I'm no happier than I was at the bottom. I am guessing, but its probably harder for someone halfway up the hill, still intent on reaching the top, to understand the rule of diminishing returns as it applies to materialism.

And then there is the other argument I'm heard that living ethically is expensive. All the green goods and carbon offsets and local foods are more expensive than piling everyone in the car and going to burger king. And who the heck has the time to cook if you're working two jobs to pay off the debts. Its easier to plop the kids in front of the tv and buy them whatever is being pimped this week than to spend time with them after a stressful day. Being an "instant" father I recently have begun to see the seduction of the things I so cheerfully criticized prior.

So what motivates someone like well me and you to stop trying to claw our way up the hill of consumerism. What motivated me? Well read back to my first post, but I'll tell you up front I was not happy. A quarter life crisis so to speak, coupled with an obsessive tendency to dig deeper into the things that caused my anxiety. Eventually I reached a point where one way or another I was not going to keep ending up panicing, and by extention surrendering to defeat.

But life "outside the box" is alien to most, its lonely at times, and often requires the living to separate from the ways of the dead. Not an appealing proposition.

So why did you leave your box?

MUST READ

Little Blog In The Big Woods: The water is back.

If my babbling about throwing diversity at a problem seemed unscientific and unfocused, click the above and get it straight from a man who has spent nearly a decade proving that nature is capable of taking care of herself and producing crops without a constant program of pest genocide.

A visual smorgasborg

First, you MUST take a moment to view Path to Freedom's amazing video. They're close to the 100,000 mark, so if you've seen it once, well, watch it again. It really is that inspiring.

and now without further ado...

my own meager progress.

Thats two types of lettuce (started a week apart) and peas.

More Peas, chinese cabbage, broccoli, and even though you probably cant see it, the beets and carrots are in there too.

The onion sets are starting to take off, and the radishes have sprouted off to the left below the marker stick.

and with the exception of the onions, all were started from seed! So far I have been following the perscribed method in the jeavons book as close as humanly possible. And despite my doubts about the beet and carrot transplants, they seem to be doing ok.

Tools everywhere, and not a camera in sight

This weekend I did a lot, not necessarily on my own land, but a friend's. Most notably I helped turn over about 100 ish sq feet for a garden bed (and brought home some orphaned hostas for the effort). And helped cut down a tree (which I hadn't done in years). He's putting in a massive gazebo hanging boxes, trellis thing. (Man after my own heart, and don't worry, there are still plenty more left on the plot and being an nth generation craftsman, it will be put to good use I'm sure.

Which brings me to the lament that I did not bring a camera...He has a lot of the traditional tools that his grandfather used, almost all of them hand crafted by the user. Including an all wood oak vice that must weigh about 70 pounds. Despite being almost 200 years old by my friend's estimation and having suffered some worm damage (and a couple chipped spots on the worm gear) it still is rock solid and can easily develop enough clamping force to put a crush mark in a piece of pine.

I went home and promptly greased up the clamps my grandfather made as a machinist. Anybody else have some gems in their shed?

So Long "green" revolution, hello "Green" revolution

I'm really trying not to let this blog devolve into just another whackjob pontificating on the evils of the world, so rather than talk about the bad side of a story, I'll look at the positives.


The Bad:

Fertilizer is getting expensive. Since much of the commercial fertilizer is petroleum based...well you do the math.

and the P in the NPK is getting harder to come by: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/13/64820/6921

The Upside:

The eternal struggle of agriculturalized society has been to maximize output of the land. More readily available nutrients makes for faster growing plants, thats the bottom line. These nutrients can come from a bag that you buy and spread on your crops...And keep you dependent on an industry. Fortunately, there was a time before petrochemical fertilizer when people were able to have good harvests without such inputs. Its called a circle of life for a reason. One organism's waste is another's food. Somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves that life was a one way street, and recycling is something you only do with manufactured goods. Now faced with a shortage of a precious commodity we will have to kick that old habit, and learn to walk on our own feet again. Forced with adaptation or exctinction we WILL remember how to nurture life from the soil without fertilizers or pesticides. I'm not concerned about my own garden plot, I make all the NPK fertilizer I can possibly use. Humanity will learn to close the loop again or we will not survive. And this challenge is something I am actually optimistic about, because challenge brings out the best in us, so long as we carefully stand guard against the worst in us.

relief...and worry

so last night's frost was not at all as severe as I had feared. This morning there was no sign of frost and all of the foliage in the garden was looking healthy. No signs of frost burn.

Hopefully the folks at Path to Freedom are also fortunate enough to have a near miss. There has not been any new journal entries since the last one describing a wildfire nearby. I hope they didn't have to evacuate, and I hope that their home and crops have not been affected by the fires.