What’s in the ground:

I’ve not even had a chance to test out the new rain water catching system because it has stopped raining. This heat wave is brutal. And just as important it is for you to keep in the shade, drink plenty of water and take it easy, so goes it for your garden. Now is the time to set up shade cloth over your plants during the intensity of the day and take it off to let them cool at night. Water everyday, even once in the morning and once at night, also make sure your garden is well mulched so the water doesn’t evaporate. And last but not least, take it easy on your plants. Do light harvesting, light cultivating and light weeding. Don’t disturb them too much in this heat.

What’s going on in sustainability:

It’s too hot to sit at this computer and write, plus I don’t want to run it too long in this heat, so I’ll keep it short. As miserable as I am now, I’m actually relishing in putting up with this heat with just a fan and the breeze in my room. These seasonal shifts and your body’s acclimation are all just part of the amazing gift it is to be human. Are bodies and our environments were made for these changes and by embracing them rather than running from them, we can keep the climate on a more even keel so it doesn’t change as drastically as it has. This means that running an air conditioner constantly is not just adding to the energy consumption that is causing global weirding. It’s also taking our bodies away from the natural cycles of the earth, and even further disconnecting us from a natural environment.

So yes, it’s hard to work, and even play, but who knows, maybe your body can use the break and just lounge into the summer sun. You may read this and feel pity for me as I swat drips of sweat away from my key board. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. That sweat is the sweet nectar of sustainability.

Until cooler temperatures come, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

If any of your stalky plants were affected by the storm last week, I want to stop you from pulling them out. If you did already, then know for next time that even if a plant is knocked over, even if the root is exposed, you can still try to remound it at the base. You’d be surprised how fast they’ll start reaching for the sun. Our corn was totally knocked down and now it is right back where it was just from reforming the mounds.

What’s going on in sustainability:

This past week I embarked on the first step towards getting water to the Walnut Hill Community farm. It’s amazing how great the produce has looked, and I’m happy to say that it has already begun to generate a small amount of money for our cooperative growers. Not as much as we like, but then again a fifty foot tree was uprooted in Clark Park and came crashing down four feet from their table during their last market. Hopefully this week they’ll have more luck. But as with all things, they could use a little help. So if you happen to be near the Clark Park Farmer’s market on Thursday, please stop by and say hi.

But back to the water. So as I wrote a few weeks ago, that great accountant firm Deloitte came by and built a shed for us. So I took a look at the roof, with 80 sq. feet of surface area, and I thought to myself, we could fill a few rain barrels off of this thing. It’s funny because when the plan began to formulate in my head, it seemed like a daunting task, but as the day went on, it was pretty easy.

We already had two retrofitted rain barrels, which only needed stands. My work was cut in half as I walked back to the Enterprise Center to get a circular saw to cut the wood I gathered for a stand, and  I trash picked a small table, sturdy enough to hold the barrel. I then built a very basic table top, we dug the legs into the ground off the back of the shed, and we placed the barrels on top.

Next, we attached the gutter. The only thing we had to work out was getting a drill bit with a sleeve. A sleeve is just a piece of the drill extension that extends past the bit, so the head of the screw sits in it. It’s difficult enough to get through metal without the awkward angle and small screws. When we positioned the gutter, we put it at a very slow decline and let a bit of the end go past the back of the shed. We sacrificed some surface area, but we did this for a good reason.  The mouths of the barrels are a few feet from the shed, so rather than trying to run a downspout at a weird angle, the water can cascade out of the back and flood into the barrel. Our openings are wide enough and I hope that the cascade will filter some of the impurities out.

In a perfect system, you should try to catch the first quarter inch of water. You can do this by attaching a pvc pipe or hose from the gutter right before the spout. Just cut a hole on the gutter and seal the pipe or hose to it. By attaching an end to the hose or pipe, the water will fill up and then the rest will flow over top of it out of the spout. The reason for doing this is to catch the first run off of loose gravel from the roof, or any bacteria that may have collected on the shingles, bacteria you don’t want in your barrel. We’ve not yet done this. But since we have a new roof and the gravel is not an issue, I just wanted to get the gutters up. Now all we need is some rain.

Here’s hoping for it. Until next week, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

What’s in the ground:

I hope everyone is keeping up on your succession planting. People tend to plant their garden and think that they are finished, but a garden is a process, or better yet a cycle, for every plant you take out you need to put one in. So as the “excessive heat” warning sets in Philadelphia, it’s time to get that lettuce out of the ground. It will be almost impossible to grow. A good heat resistant green to put in it’s place is spinach, especially baby spinach. Try it and keep those greens going.

What’s going on in sustainability:

So for this installment, I thought I’d take a break and take an amazing tip that was just too enjoyable to pass up. This past weekend was Mr. Rob Berliner’s birthday and in true West Philly Fashion, we celebrated with a garden party and an accordion all of his friends collectively bought. Below is the genius of John Branigan, former bass player, who made the most interesting dish at the party.

“I’d heard about solar ovens for years, and had checked out plans, but never got around to constructing one. So when I made plans to be at Rob’s birthday party, held outside in the middle of June, I figured it
would be a great opportunity to do some solar cooking. Solar Cooking International hosts a website with reams of information about all types of ovens, recipes, and techniques. http://solarcooking.org/plans/

“I chose to build the basic “minimum” box oven design as my first solar oven project. It uses readily available materials, and cost me less than ten dollars (with enough leftover material to build another). I
had a couple of empty beer cases in the basement, picked up some aluminum foil, white glue, and a Reynolds oven bag (for turkey cooking). In less than a few hours, I was able to assemble the oven completely. I’d recommend using bigger boxes to catch more sun and create more heat, but this one worked!

“I put four large (organic, free range, never frozen) chicken breasts in a dark-colored, four quart covered pot with an onion, plenty of garlic, fresh cilantro (from Rob’s garden, no less), and a bottle of chipotle barbecue sauce. The oven sat in the sun from one o’clock to about seven, slow cooking the four pounds of meat. I monitored the temperature with a meat thermometer, and it was cooking at 160 degrees. I shredded the cooked chicken before serving, and, all modesty aside, it was fantastic! I’m thinking that a pork shank braised in beer and herbs (from my garden this time) is next on the solar oven menu. Might as well take advantage of all this free energy surrounding me every day.”

A side note, he was at my house at noon getting it ready for dinner at 7. It was great. Until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.

For the better part of the last year, we’ve been talking about sustainable living with the help of our urban homesteader Nic. Now we wanna hear from you:

Let us know how you’re living sustainably and we’ll enter you to win 2 free tickets to our show at Sellersville Theater this Friday! Winners announced Thursday at 5PM. send your ideas to: info@hootsandhellmouth.com… let the submissions begin.

What’s in the ground:

I know that I’ve been a big proponent of not over watering, but as I said in that blog, tomatoes are a whole different story. They are %85 water, so they need to be soaked regularly. However, the main problem gardeners run into is not over watering, but watering the wrong way. When you water tomatoes, you want to keep all of the water at the base of the plant, at the soil. Plants have natural mechanisms for catching water, such as those little hairs on the stems of tomatoes, which is perfect for adequate rain fall. But when it comes to gardening, the conscious gardener makes sure to water the soil, not the plant. By watering the soil and not the tomatoes, you will avoid bottom rot, those black spots on the bottom of tomatoes. I know it’s premature to write this, but with the jump on the season the heat gave us and the benefits of getting into good habits, I hope this advice is well taken.

What’s going on in sustainability:

This past week a great company called Deloitte Accounting partnered up with the Enterprise Center and our Walnut Hill Farm to donate the money and labor to build a shed. The entire day was a pleasant surprise. I was happy to learn that the shed would not be some cheap rubbermaid snap together, but actual wood. And I was impressed that accountants can take off that white collar and get their hands dirty, I’ve never seen a volunteer group do that much weeding.

But the best thing I learned was the power this type of project can have on society. I feel that there are too many people in the sustainable community who shun corporate help. Now, this may stem from experiences of corporations wanting unbridled advertisement or exposure from the project, by doing very little work in return. So maybe I’m just lucky that we got a good group. But really, it’s not just luck. I’ve worked with other corporations before with a similar result.

What I realize is, first, that these corporations heavily affect much of the labor structure and commerce in this country. But what I also realize is that in these corporations are good people who have a multitude of ideals and interests. And if my project can help foster and bring together people who didn’t know they shared such ideals even though they work together every day, then the consciousness that I promote is really spreading.

Providing this opportunity just enhances the energy around this movement and encourages people to think differently by creating that culture in their lives. Plus, we got a for-profit to use some of that excess money and reinvest in the community and not just their own pockets. Now, maybe the powers that be do this for deceitful reasons, and maybe there are corporations that are too far gone beyond the point of decency (BP and Halliburton come to mind). But as with anything else, blanket statements never cover anything and I couldn’t have been happier with the workday. I met some great folks, spread some great energy and the shed looks great.

Until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

Now is the time to take a good look at your plants in the garden and check their growth. Every gardener should take a walk through the garden at least once a week, but now it is even more important. If you have broccoli that still has not headed up, or you have tomatoes that are growing leafy vegetation like crazy, two things should be looked at. The first is that you may actually have too much nitrogen in your soil. Try amending it with more carbon, like leaf mulch or wood chips, or add calcium to balance the PH. The other thing to do is prune or sucker your plants. If you prune those excess broccoli leaves off, more energy will go to the heads. When you sucker, mostly on tomatoes, you want to cut off those little stems that are growing off your bigger stems. This way you will concentrate more growing power to your existing stems. Just be careful when you do this. Make sure you cleanly clip the stem as close to the main stem as possible. Also, to stop the risk of disease don’t do it on a wet plant or if it’s about to rain. Other than that, happy gardening and I hope you get some hearty, beautiful crops.

What’s going on in sustainability:

I actually don’t have much to write about this week. The youth coop is going great, the kids are delivering with their new bike trailers and we are looking to solve our water problem with a very innovative partnership which I’ll write about another time. For today I just want to ask a question.

While talking to a fellow urban farmer, we got on the topic of profitable urban farms. After a lot of considerations, he made the great point that we have an inflated profit because we rely heavily on volunteer labor to produce. We then started to think of other types of farms and found comparisons. Agribusiness uses exploited, many times immigrant labor. Family farms often use child labor. And while using volunteers or kids from your family is not evil like paying migrants a penance, although not all people who run family or non-profit farms are shining examples of good human beings,  it still falsely supports the industry.

So how do we get to the point where we can make farming equitable for all producers? Today I just read an article that makes the point that farming has never been profitable for all involved, that it’s not a sustainable to make a living off the earth. But if we can’t do that, then how can we make a living, by not living on it but just raping it as our industrial model is doing now?

I wish I knew the answer, maybe I’ll find it in this coop model with the kids, but time will tell. Until then, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

What’s in the ground:

If you got a good jump on the growing season, you should be harvesting all of your root vegetables by now. It’s important to keep up on your harvest because radishes and beets can get pretty nasty if left in too long. You should now be sowing your next succession of crops so you can have your roots all season long.

What’s going on in sustainability:

Over the past week I’ve found myself in many discussions concerning access to resources for urban gardening. After a few meetings with city officials, many people in the farming community had moments of self reflection regarding the path resources are flowing into urban ag. The core discussion is important and should be had. No single community should monopolize resources. It’s getting to that equitable model that’s the tricky part. Here’s what I have to offer to get us there.

As those of you who read this blog know , Erica Smith and I have created a model for youth development and urban ag production called Youth Growing Cooperatives. Our first one is already under production at 46th and Market in West Philly. Our goal is to use our resource network to create urban farms and staff these farms with college age youth from the community who have either been involved with agriculture programs in school or are interested in urban ag.

After a lot of work, we put together an amazing group of youth. I must admit that I’ve had my anxieties over this model working, and we’ve just begun the season, so time will tell if this truly sustainable and profitable. But even in its inception, I feel that there is a lesson to be learned.

Powerful and impacting projects all start with the realization of where resources are flowing and how to best direct them back into communities by reinvestment. That’s where Erica and I come in. But when it comes to sustaining the project, the only way is to create stakeholders in the project and give them real ownership. Just this past week Erica and I and the Enterprise Center used our resources to get bike trailers for the cooperative. Yesterday I helped one of our coop farmers put the trailer together and told him that he could now cart the produce to market rather than driving him there, which was what Erica and I had done the past four weeks. When I said this there was no fear or hesitation in his eye. this is an opportunity he’s been waiting for.

And that’s what the coop can produce, farmers who are not waiting to be told what to do, but who have a real vested interest in their own labor to pay there wages. They have the same voting rights and the same access, and they take full advantage. And just like in the conversation first mentioned about whose community or whose resources, in this model we see it as our community and our resources, and each of us playing our part to complete the system the best we can. I think we’re doing a pretty good job, but I guess the season will tell.

Until next this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

We just lined our fence with sunflowers. They are small now, but when they grow, they’ll create a great barrier from the smog of the street, a great source for pollination and will look amazing. They’re a great flower for a fence line.

What’s going on in sustainability:

I’ve been on this water kick after installing the gray water barrel. Aside from a miscommunication of two people doing wash right after the other and it overflowing, we’ve had a lot of success. A way to avoid overflow in rain barrels is to drill a whole at the top and run a hose to a garden bed so any excess water drains and doesn’t spill, creating a mud puddle. We are alternating with city and rain water and I’ll be testing the PH soon to see where we’re at.

But I’m not treating this new toy like a kid on Christmas. As much as I want to use the system, I’m still mindful of my conservation, not so much because of water shortage issues, but more so because of damage to my plants. Allow me to explain.

People in this country grossly over water their plants. Although we’re not as bad as those Floridians who let  sprinklers run in the rain on the roads, we happen to live in an extremely water generous climate, and people still feel the need to abuse their gardens with the plenty of our water supplies. Without stressing the political, it’s just another example of how industrialism and over abundance tear us from the natural world. If people take a step back, they would realize that we are on a perfect natural watering cycle in this area. How do I know this?

It’s because at our Walnut Hill Farm Project, we’ve not hand watered the garden in over a month. Yet, our broccoli is heading up quicker than other people, our kale is already at market and our roots are ready to go. This isn’t ideal, we don’t have a good water source. And I realize that it will be a different story with our night shades. But for now, I’d like to impart on you all some great advice I received during a farm apprenticeship in Louisiana. My good friend Robert taught me:

1. If you dig your beds correctly, creating deep ground level depressions rather than high raised beds where the water drains through and not out, settling right above the clay and below your roots, your soil will store water better.

2. Mulching is an art, if you find the perfect amount, you will protect your plants while allowing enough water to slowly drain into your soil.

3. Prune off excess growth and concentrate where your plant is sending energy for food growth.

4. Allowing them to go a few days without water hardens their stalk and allows the plant to enact its natural resiliency for growth.

Just a few tips to save a good amount of time and resources in the garden and get some great plants. It’s all about your energy monitoring. Since your not growing for production, it will be better to concentrate all of that growth into a smaller quality harvest rather than a quanity.

Good luck. Until next week, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

What’s in the ground:

As I always shamefully admit, even though I work for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, I am really weak in the field of horticulture, as my strength is in agriculture. But that doesn’t mean I’m not learning. This past week we transplanted the 48 sunflower’s we started in egg cartons. We plan on doing another forty eight, and are planting them on our fence line. After planting a beautiful bed of tomatoes right next to our fence, we remembered we live in the city and even the most ethical of my fellow Philadelphians can’t resist a local heirloom tomato. Since we don’t want to invest perennials in our rental, a wall of sunflowers, and the pollination that will come with it, we hope will make good neighbors.

What’s going on in sustainability:

What started out as only a dream three weeks ago became a reality on our homestead this past weekend. About three weeks ago, after lugging my dirty clothes around the corner to the laundry mat and then coming home to see the washing machine whose water line was never hooked up and was now becoming a dumping space for tools and other lost kitchen items, I thought to myself, “Something doesn’t make sense here.” Hence, the concept of my gray water system was born.

I’d heard about it before from others, especially in the South West (Of America, not Philly). I did a little research, but really, it was easier than I thought. These were the steps.

1. I found a rain barrel from a local source. It was completely solid so I drilled a hole six inches from the bottom, got the hardware and attached it, sealing the nozzle in place with plumbers goop.

2. I built a stand right outside of my window, that is conveniently placed below a rain spout that needs to be replaced anyway. We basically built a table top three feet off the ground so gravity can drain the water into our hose while the barrel is one foot below the window so the water from the machine can drain into the top of the barrel, and we buried the legs into the ground.

3. I bought an industrial plumbing hose at the hardeware store, attached it to the tube coming out of the washing machine with a hose clamp, and ran the tube out of the window.

Things to Think About:

-The first load I ran didn’t drain because the hose was pinched by the tightness of the window. You want a clear path running to the rain barrel.

-You also want the water to drain in, but you need to place a screen where the water spouts out. Although I think of myself as pretty clean, a load of clothes can produce a lot of muck that you don’t want sitting in your barrel and clogging the spigot.

-You need to mind the PH of your water. You can find detergent at a health food store, Trader Joes, Whole Foods (Dr. Bronners works great) that is safe for gray water. But even if your spent water is non toxic, it can still get your PH to a level that will disrupt your soil and make growing things like night shades and berries very difficult. You can buy additives, but you can also just cut the water with rain water. It’s sad to say, but our industrial atmosphere in the north east produces a very acidic rain water. By using this system, you can balance out the PH of acid rain while cutting your energy and water consumption and reducing stress on the plant.

As I said, this was a very exciting project and I’ll keep you all updated. If you have any questions, please write to me on this blog. Until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

The fun thing about growing food is that our schedules don’t run on those normal things like dates and deadlines. We like to operate on a more traditional schedule. By Mid Atlantic standards, mother’s day has passed, and with that, the fear of frost leaving us a nice warm soil. So, yes, it’s time to get those tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in the ground. Maybe with these crazy weather patterns, next year we’ll change the date to easter, but for now, all of that waiting has finally paid off. Enjoy.

What’s going on in sustainability:

This past weekend, I experienced an amazing feat of community strength. At our first PUFN meeting, there was great interest in bringing a community greenhouse to West Philly. Many of us feel that this is a giant step towards a truly sustainable and secure food system. We are experiencing a surge in urban gardening that goes beyond just growing a few tomatoes and some basil for the summer. If people really want to feed themselves and their neighbors, then we need season extension.

Out of some fortuitous networking, I was put in touch with a construction company who got a contract to demo a greenhouse. After discussions within their company and with the homeowner, they decided that just trashing this structure would not only be a waste, but it would be immoral. Even though some serious negotiations were conducted and we all found ourselves in this weird world of for profit/non-profit and the community in between, it continues to amaze me that it’s not just the “hippies” who are thinking sustainably. It’s on everyone’s minds.

But what amazed me the most were the seven individuals who answered a call on Mothers Day to spend eight hours taking the structure down, and the three others who answered a call on a Monday to call out of work and coop shifts to demo the rest of the structure. Although they will all have spots in the  greenhouse and benefit from its use, that didn’t seem to be the main reason they came out.

They came out because there’s this feeling in our neighborhood and beyond; a feeling that a beautiful, peaceful and vibrant community doesn’t just spring from nowhere, nor is it to be built on the backs of others for us to enjoy. For it to be truly sustainable and equitable, all of us must share in the labor to make it that way. And this project is one of those things.

Once again, thanks to everyone involved, you all know who you are. And please follow this story over the next several months as we, as a community, get this greenhouse back up and growing again.

Until next week, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.