What’s in the ground:

With all of this heat and rain, and the bolting that ensues, the one bright spot is that tomatoes are going crazy right now. You really don’t realize it’s summer until you come outside one day and see an exploded plant with fruit on the vine. But as good as a sight as this can be, the lushness can be deceiving. Too much green growth on your tomato plants can really inhibit the plant. So it’s a good idea to prune the plant as it grows through the season, and cut off any suckers (those little vines that start to sprout from larger vines) before your plant is overtaken in green growth with no fruit. Just be careful not to mistake flower buds for possible suckers.

What’s going on at the homestead:

There’s plenty going on. The bees are building comb, the chickens are almost old enough to start laying (although one is a rooster who may end up on the chop block) and the berry bushes are taking hold. But I’m going to put off stories of my homestead for another two weeks while I talk about a few others.

It was only two weeks ago that I wrote an entry from the tail end of my tour with Hoots and Hellmouth through the central part of our country, going from Tennessee to Arkansas, to Kentucky and back home. Now, it’s not every day that a writer gets this opportunity. Even though we put our pictures on the back of our book jackets, we’re barely as recognizable as people like Jim James from My Morning Jacket or Sharon Jones, both of whom we got to hang out with in the artists tent at Wakarusa, drinking free beer and enjoying free food. I must admit that this was an exciting experience and I had a lot of fun, so please don’t judge me too harshly as I complained in my last entry about the lack of sustainable choices. It’s something that we are trying to actively change with tours like this. But in the meantime, we got a great reprieve on the farms we visited.

The first place we stopped was a Bio Dynamic Farm outside of Nashville in Boiling Springs Tennessee. It’s ran by a gentleman named Jeff Poppen, also known as the barefoot farmer and a bit of a legend in Tennessee, and for good cause. Along with living up to the name by going shoeless, he also had a dreaded beard down to his waist and an almost mystical quality about his views on farming and living. He was one of those very in-tuned farmers who has no problem relinquishing control to the plants. Bio Dynamic farming is a technique that combines the scientific with the spiritual. So for as much understanding of supernatural soil amendments (which consist of concoctions brewed in the house using principles of vortex water mixing and stuffing the minerals into cow horns and stag bladders which are buried in the ground according to the lunar calendar), there is also a great emphasis on the molecular make up of microbes in the soil and the benefits of using animals to use their natural functions to keep the land in health. It was very interesting to hear his views on these things (even if his rational of not watering was reliant on the consumers of his CSA having to deal with crop failure seemed a bit irresponsible), hear how he was waging a war against Tyson Chicken producers who were building a plant that was affecting his farm land and it was even more interesting to play the show. What started off as a controlled story salon quickly became a sublimely chaotic jam session of songs and dancing. But we rolled with it and had a great time.

Our next stop was the complete opposite but just as impacting. It was at the farm of Ralph and Kathy Pacckard in Paynesville KY. They are a couple in their fifties, with a large family. Their reserved demeanor and family life could not have been more of a contrast to Jeff. But they were acting on the same principles just the same. While not bio dynamic, they worked hard to remediate their land that they had bought from a monocropper who used mass amounts of chemical fertilizer. They told stories of the streams behind their house being so polluted that the dogs wouldn’t even go near them. But after just a few years of organic practices, they remediated the land back into a thriving eco system that supports their market farm and CSA. And just like Jeff, they were fighting big agribusiness, this time in the form of the Animal Identification System proposed by the USDA that would put a huge burden on small farmers while not making meat production any safer or cleaner.

Our last stop was at a farmer’s market in Bellevue Kentucky. After purusing the farmer’s market, we were invited by the participating farmers back to the Dolce Vita Gelato Shop to sit on the porch, eat some Gelato, share some songs and share some stories on how communities are coming together to make local food accessible to this growing movement. While sitting out back with all of them it became apparent to me just how widespread this movement was becoming. Sure, talking to Jeff and Ralph was inspiring, but also a little scary as they bemoaned an industry that still has not stepped to the forefront to support their growing techniques that are going to be the prominent techniques available if we plan to feed people and survive into the next one hundred years of humanity. But seeing this connection of people in a place as small as Bellevue, thinking about everything going on in Philadelphia, and noticing things as little as the Memphis BBQ joint that used local ingredients and sustainable packaging, it did make the future seem a little less stark. At the very least, it makes me hope that in the future, a band like Hoots and Hellmouth can finally take a tour to do the thing they love while not having to sacrifice their ideals to do it.

So that’s all I got. Next week I promise to be back in the homestead. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

There’s not going to be much left in the ground if this heat persists. All of that massive rain we got in the beginning and middle of May is now coming back to haunt us as the plants stored up a lot of water and then had to quickly use it as the heat set in. This has made most of our spring cold crops like broccoli and greens bolt much more quickly then they should have. Since I’ve been out of town on the road, I was on the phone with my harvesters at Walnut Hill and they didn’t think they should harvest the broccoli because it wasn’t big enough. After a few days of waiting, I just got word that the broccoli began to flower before we could harvest it and get it to market. So the tips this week are lots of water, lots of harvesting and maybe some row cover. Keep those plants protected and maintained.

What’s going on in the homestead:

As I said in the last section, I’ve been away from the homestead for quite a while now. I’ve been on tour with Hoots and Hellmouth promoting my book, connecting with some farmers throughout the Tennessee/Kentucky region, and having a really good time doing it. Aside from a few club dates and playing the Wakarusa Music Fest in the beautiful Ozark Mountains, we also stopped at some farms. Our original intent was to combine their music and my story salons into one show. But as I’ve learned about the road, shows rarely go the way you think they are going to go and the sign of a true artist is one who can take his or her art and fit it into whatever forum presents itself. It’s a valuable lesson that has really inspired me to broaden my scope of how I fit my art into my ideals and those ideals into something that people are affected by. And since we have one more show tonight, I don’t want to start telling all of the stories of the farmers we met, because I think that’s a story within itself.

For now I’ll just offer an observation. As I explained last week I changed the name of this section of my posts because I want to work to expand the idea of a homestead as much as I can. And from my homestead in Philly, it seemed completely attainable. But being out on the road taught me something. As much as we’re trying to accomplish on this tour, or what we all try to accomplish in our own life’s ideals, the road is the greatest test of those ideals. For as often as we tried to stop in on farms to play shows or stop in with friends to have a home cooked meal, there were just as many times that we had to take what was given to us. Now, I may not get much sympathy as I describe sitting in the artists tent at Wakarusa, drinking all the free beer I want and hanging out with all of the amazing artists backstage. But this was a bittersweet experience as I had to eat my food on a styrofoam plate, or drink my beer out of plastic cup, or even drink mass amounts of bottles water because there was cooler backstage to fill up my water bottle.

I’m not blaming the festival for this. The spirit of their hospitality was really good, and I’m surely not blaming myself (I stopped putting myself through that after I turned 25). However, I do blame the larger system in general. The festival used those throw away things because they are cheap and easy. And I used them because I had little other choice. And in that trickle down affect I realize the crux of sustainability. Most people don’t live sustainably because they don’t have the systems in place to do so. Although I certainly do a lot in my homestead to build my own system, I also am very supported by the knowledge and community around me. But being at the festival and even being on the road in general, brings me back to when I lived in the suburbs and felt the same frustration I did at the festival; that I was part of a system that inhibited my sustainable creativity.

But I did get out, I did find a homestead. And what I’ve learned from this experience are two things. The first is that most people don’t live sustainably, but not because they don’t want to. It’s because they don’t have the larger systems in place to make better choices, just as I had no option but to just use the styrofoam plate at Wakarusa. The second is that living in your own little homestead is not enough if you want to change the world to be more sustainable. Because like it or not, communal sustainability is all of our duty, no matter how individualist we want to be. Just ask farmers who are affected by climate change, or fisherman who are affected by water pollution. Maybe the moral of this experience is obvious to people, but for me, it has really renewed my commitment to going beyond the homestead and getting it out there, so that one day, my entire city can function as a homestead.

It may be an unattainable pipe dream, but at least it will be fun trying, The vibrancy of our lives is the bog thing us homesteaders have going for us. So I’ll keep on working and I hope you all keep reading and start acting. Next installment I’ll be back with some stories from the road and more gardening tips. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

Weeds, weeds and more weeds. A weeks worth of rain followed by 90 F weather will do that. The other day one of my farming apprentices asked me if weeding served a function or was just for aesthetics. This was a natural question from someone who was getting frustrated pulling weeds everyday. But I explained to him that those weeds were thiefs, robbing our plants of water and food. So we needed to get rid of them lest our plants suffer. So next time you’re frustrated with weeding, just remember that, and keep on it. Also, if you haven’t gotten your summer crops in the ground now’s the time to do it if you want tomatoes by July.

What’s going on in the homestead:

So as you see, I decided to change the title of this section from sustainability to homestead. I did this partly because there’s just so much going on in my homestead that it seemed appropriate, but also because even if I do write about other issues in the world, in my vision, they are all part of one big homestead that we’re trying to create. That’s the premise for the tour that Hoots and Hellmouth and I are working with as we prepare to hit the road together to promote their new EP, my book Seeds of Discent and that beautiful connection that happens when the land and the art come together. We’re calling it the Traveling Dirt Salon and I’m sure that I’ll have plenty of good stories for you all in two weeks.

But for now, I’ve been plenty busy preparing to leave for two weeks. It’s been great getting up every morning, preparing my tea, feeding the dogs and then going out to the chicken coop. It’s very meditative to dump the chickens’ water feeder, fill it back up, clean out their feed tray, and check their food all while they cluck around my feet. I’ve even been letting them out into the yard to munch on some of the bugs and weeds they find near the border of my berry patch. I’m bummed that my camera has been missing so I haven’t been able to take a picture, but soon enough. It’s a good thing because I have to do some major renovations. In all of my excitement of building the laying house and hang out space for the summer, I didn’t give much thought to the winter. I’m feeling like a grasshopper right now, because without a separate, secure place for the chickens to live separate from their laying space, they will not have a place to store up their body heat to get through the winter. So I’ll have to figure that out.

I thought of the perils of making it through the winter the other day as I installed my bee hive in my backyard with the help of Mr. Rob Berliner. My fiance and I were lucky to have gotten the last spot on the mailing list for bees. We’d been waiting all of May and finally on Monday they came. Ironically enough, they arrived during the 20 minutes I stepped out of the house. When I got home I saw the bees sitting in their small postal cage. The delivery was ironic because an already annoyed postal carrier handed the bees over to our current housemate who is deathly afraid of bees. So he was hiding in his room when I got back, waiting for me to get rid of them.

So I’ll tell you the procedure on how to install, but let me just say, that the actual act for your first time is so hectic and exhilarating, it feels like you do it in a minute or two. So you take the top off of your bee box. You should have a lower box full of bee frames (wooden rectangles with a wax sheet in the middle where the bees make comb). The top box should be empty. You take your bee package and spray them with a mixture of half water, half sugar in a spray bottle to get them ready for installation. This gives them something to feed on while you move them. Carefully pry the top cover off of your bee package. For us it was stapeled in and when we finally got it off and a few bees flew out, Rob and I both jumped back and almost dropped the package. But I caught it in time and I used a paint scraper to pry out the can that contained the sugar water. Once that was out I made sure that I grabbed the queen’s box before sliding the top back on. This is important. If you’re not careful you can drop the queen box into the package and then you have to fish through thousands of bees to get her out.

Put the can of sugar water in the empty top box and then take your queen box, look at the bottom and pull the piece of cork out. By doing this, you open the passage way for worker bees to fly into the queens box, smell her pheremones and chew through the rock candy that separates her from the open part of the box. Once they chew through and hopefully accept her, your hive will be all set. But first you have to carefully slide the queen’s box in between your frames. Some packages have the queens box attached to a strip that you need to tape down. Ours was a much better design. It was attached to a circular strip that rested on the frames.

And with that done came the fun part. I took the top off of the be package, flipped it upside down and started shaking the bees out of it. One thrust with my hands and almost all of them came out. It took a few more thrusts from side to side to knock most of them out. Then I put the box on the ground and let the other bees that didn’t get out slowly make their way. The whole time I did all of this, which was like I said, about a minute or two, Rob just sat there mezmorized by the bees and saying, “I can’t believe you’re doing this.” It truly is an amazing feeling to shake these bees out of the box, feeling the energy of thousands of them. It was also amazing to watch them all fly around in a circle above the hive until they all finally settled in, hearing their buzz and seeing them get to work. It was quite an experience.

So just to give you all a head’s up, for the next month or so it’s going to be a lot of adventures with bees and chickens. Hope you’re all ready for it. Until then, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

What’s in the ground:

So if you live in the heat of the city, your root vegetables may be ready to come out of the ground already. Just remember as you take them out to put something else in its place (preferably not a root vegetable so you can keep nutrients in your soil). And remember, you can eat the tops of beets and radishes so don’t let them go to waste. Speaking of eating leaves, if you’re going out everyday in anticipation of getting broccoli heads, but are becoming impatient, satisfy that craving with the leaves of the broccoli. They are nutritious and taste just like broccoli. But don’t eat too much, you want the plant to maintain its photosynthesis.

What’s going on in sustainability:

As May brings the transition from the spring to the summer and all of the crops begin to burst into full bloom, I too will be going through my own transformation. For the past two years, I’ve been writing these installments from the rental home I share with Rob Berliner in West Philadelphia. But starting in June, I’ll be moving into my own homestead with my lovely partner Elissa. So from here on, I hope that this blog follows that transformation and delves even deeper into what it means to make a sustainable urban homestead.

I’m not fully moved in yet, but I’ve still been over at the house working on projects. And even though there are a few pressing projects, Elissa and I couldn’t help ourselves from fulfilling a lifelong dream for the both of us. Last week we became the proud owners of six chickens. They are only two months old, so they have another month and a half to start laying. But until then we’ll have to keep them healthy.

In order to do that we had to build a proper chicken coop for them to live in. To do this I used found wood around the yard. I built what’s called a “community house” for the birds. It’s basically a four by three frame with a floor, two by fours that build the side wall and a roof that’s on hinges so I can open it up. Whenever building a chicken coop, you want to make sure that each hen has 1 square foot to lay (we have 12 sq. ft. for 6 chickens so they have tons of space). Some people will tell you that you should build individual boxes, but from my research, most people said that the hens would all lay in the same one or two boxes, so I went with one big open space. And I used the two by fours to allow for air flow and sunlight to come through the cracks. The sunlight is important because it’s an important catalyst for ovulation, the more sun, the more eggs.

I then sheathed the box with particle board and left a small hole for the chickens to walk out of, down a little ramp that I made out of an old window shutter. I then built another frame in front of the coop and attached a tin roof that connects to the back of the coop, so there is a four by three area outside where the chickens can run around and eat. It’s important to give them this space so they don’t peck each other. I also built in some perches into the chicken wire I lined the outside frame with. The perch is used for when they sleep (it’s really cute to see them all bunched up together) and the chicken wire keeps out predators like opossum’s, rats, our dogs and the neighborhood kids. I’ll admit that the coop is not as asthetically pleasing as the swiss chalet coops you can have hand crafted for you chickens. I was even thinking of posting a picture of it on a site for ugly homemade chicken coops. But I think it’s beautiful and I only spent $11 on the hardware such as hinges and screws. The rest was found wood.

I apologize for not having a picture, the camera is on the fritz. But next week I’ll have it for sure. I was just too excited to post this and let you all know about the beginning of a new homestead. I’ll have a pic next week along with an update of our chickens.

Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

I never thought that I’d become that guy that talks about the weather all the time, at least not until I was old and gray, but I can’t help but pondering in most small talk I make with people, “What happened to Spring?” Now I’m sure there are a whole host of theories (some outlandish, some plausible) for the weather, but it’s what we got, and it’s what we have to deal with. So here are a few tips for dealing with the heat.

1. These rains mixed with heat can lead to extreme bursts of growth, which are a good thing. But too much unchecked growth can lead to your plants bolting before you get a chance to enjoy them, so make sure you’re steadily cutting the leaves of your greens.

2. Make sure that you are steadily cultivating. Heavy rain like the rain I just witnessed outside of my window can compact the soil and cause it to cake, leaving a solid layer that leads to water run off an no aeration. So take a three pronged cultivator and scrape the top layer of soil to break up the clumps. This way the roots can get oxygen and the soil can absorb the water rather than having it flood.

Another tip is that it’s a perfect time to start germinating your tomatoes and peppers and any other summer crop you want to grow. We’ll want to put them in the ground in the next few weeks, but for now, get a little seedling going on a windowsill with good sunlight.

What’s going on in sustainability:

So the season is getting off to a great start and there are a lot of great events coming up. But one event I must advertise, if you’ll allow me to shamelessly self promote for one moment, will be the release of my first novel, Seeds of Discent. It’s the story of a group of people living in a homestead in West Philly who have their garden shut down because they don’t own the land. The ensuing story ties in many characters, philosophies, and situations that many people in this movement find themselves in.

The release party will be this Friday at Studio 34 in West Philly. For more information, please check out seedsofdiscent.com.

Thanks for indulging me and I’ll be back in two weeks with some more gardening tips for getting those summer plants in the ground. Until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.

-Nic

What’s in the ground:

The other day when the sun was shining and the thermometer read an astonishing 84 F, I considered taking the row cover off of my plants to give them a nice chance to bathe in the direct sun. And if I had a smaller backyard garden I would have considered it. But it’s just such a hassle that it was not worth being fooled by that mirage of summer weather because the next day the earth was back up to its old tricks with a miserable 58 F and rain. So if you have row fabric on your plants, I would suggest keeping them on until after this weekend, which is the official last frost date and because it’s going to be rainy and cold. If you haven’t used row cover before, it’s something I would suggest investing in. The brand everyone uses is Remay, it’s kind of like the Bandaid of row cover. It’s a light white so it allows sun to pass through, and it also allows water to pass through. But it will create a barrier between your plants and the elements in the spring and fall, and it will create a great barrier against intense heat or bugs in the summer. It’s easy to put on. You’ll need to put some kind of arched structure (they actually sell prefabricated metal hoops at garden supply stores for this very purpose) at the ends of your bed or garden rows, and then a few every ten feet or so in between. Drape the cover over the arches so the fabric isn’t touching the plants, and then secure the fabric on the ground with rocks.  And that’s all you need to do. Also, do this for seedlings, but not direct seeded rows. The fabric won’t really make a difference for that.

What’s going on in sustainability:

What I love about farming is how similar it is to life. One of my favorite things to do in the garden is to think about all of these parallels as I plant. And the one I was thinking about the other day was the idea of succession planting. This is a system farmers use to replace a plant that they take out of the ground with another one, to make sure food is always growing and to regulate the soil structure by rotating plants in and out that need certain nutrients. This is a concept I’ll be discussing in future blog posts, but for now I’d like to relate it to our sustainable lives this season.

No doubt in the next few weeks you may have signed yourself up for enough Earthday, Arbor Day, Gardening Day ect. events to occupy every hour of your weekend and even some of your week nights. Which is great. Hopefully we’ll be seeing you on the 15th and Hoot’s World Cafe show in Wilmington and my book release on April 29th at Studio 34 in West Philly. But I advise to plan these events like you would a succession planting. It’s always my experience every season to watch people get so psyched about the growing season, sign up for all of these events and volunteer opportunities and then be totally burnt out by mid summer. Avoid this by approaching your sustainable social life in the same way you do your garden. Plan a succession for your events and your plants. Remember that it’s a whole season, hell, even a whole life of sustainable activities and to spread it out, give yourself sometime and enjoy every minute of it. I know I will.

So that’s what I’ll do, and I hope you will too. Enjoy and until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

Even though it’s been bitterly cold in Philly for the past few days, I am happy that the weather did make an honest man out of me. I would have felt really bad if I told people not to plant and then we had 70 degree weather all week. But the cold temperatures would have really shocked those delicate transplants and stunted some of the seed. But now the ground is warming up and I think that we’re turning that corner. So I would say that this weekend would be a good time to get those transplants in the ground and do the rest of your seeding. This is also a really good time to take a look at any fruiting trees or bushes that you have in your yard. The healthy parts of the plants should have sprouted buds, and anything that hasn’t is probably dead. It’s really to tell by the lack of buds and sometimes the pale bark that is extremely brittle. What you want to do is clip off any of this dead growth. By doing this, you’re taking off parts of the plant that is wasting energy and directing all of that growth to your healthy branches.

What’s going on in sustainability:

Last installment I discussed where to get your transplants. It is a little difficult find local and sustainable nurseries and plant stores in the Philadelphia region, but you can find them. But if it’s difficult, and you don’t want to go to a large scale gardening store (as we all remember, Lowes was ground zero for the blighted plants that were shipped up from Alabama two summers ago), then here’s an easy alternative you can do at your home.

I’m sure that any local food loving person, who isn’t vegan, has compiled a cache of egg carton containers in her house. And I’m sure that everytime that person walks to the farmers market with the intention to bring those cartons back to the chicken farmer, but forgets. Here’s an idea, turn those cartons into your own, reusable, sustainable seed tray.

Take a carton and cut the top from the bottom. Use the top of the carton like a tray and place the bottom inside. The top will catch the water that will seep through the cardboard after watering. Then line the twelve holes with newspaper and fill up the holes with potting mix. The reason I line with newspaper is because it’s another barrier to retain water and it makes it easier to keep the root ball together when you take the transplant out of the tray. Once the soil is in, put a seed of your choosing in the soil (collards, kale, broccoli) by sticking your finger in the soil, placing the seed in the indentation and then covering up with soil.

Once you’ve done this, since the weather is starting to change, you can keep the seed tray outside. So why not just seed in the ground you may ask. Well, it’s much easier to regulate your growth in a see pack and then transplanting than it is by direct seeding when it comes to plants like kale collards and broccoli. And also, you have the freedom to bring the seed trays in at night when the temperature drops. It’s not easy growing in the city without a greenhouse, but these are the fun tricks to make it happen.

So happy planting. Until next time, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

So as you all may have noticed from that first line, we are back to our original format. No trips to India, no long dissertations on the ponderings that winter can invoke. We’re going right back to digging our hands into the soil, getting a little dirty and growing a lot of food. This season I’ll be writing my installments every two weeks, always on wednesday, so please, keep tuning in. So with that said, let’s start off with our first planting of the year.

Although I realize that not everyone lives in a city, I’m pretty sure that few people on this blog have been propagating their own plants. If you have, then great, keep them in the green house or hoop house until next installment and we’ll get planting. If you are looking to buy plants from one of the many great local nurseries in the area, then you can probably go pick them up  this weekend or the next and even store them on the back porch. Just remember to bring them in if the temperature gets below freezing.

If you are going to start your spring crops outside in propagation packs or more sustainably, egg cartons, then you should be waiting until the next installment where I’ll explain how to do that. But even though it’s going to be 75 F in Philly on Friday, I’m not convinced that the cold temperatures are completely gone.

But if you’re really itching to plant, then you can certainly hoe up your dormant garden bed and throw down some beans or peas. As the old saying goes, “Beans and peas in the ground for St. Patrick’s day.” And since it’s going to be such a great day on friday, why not nurse your hangover with a garden planting. Beans are hardy enough to germinate in very cold soil and the shoots should be strong enough to take root. So plant your beans and I’ll be back in two weeks to talk about your other plants.

What’s going on in sustainability:

So, I know that I started off this blog talking about getting our hands dirty. But there are still some left over ponderings from the winter. They’ve actually all been compiled in a book I’ve been writing from the past year. It’s called Seeds of Discent and it will be released in Philadelphia on April 29th. Right now, I’m raising money on that wonderful site, kickstarter. So if you have a second and would like to check out the project, please go to  http://www.kickstarter.com/e/7KHHi/projects/672243413/lets-plant-my-novel-seeds-of-discent

Thanks, and until next time, this is the note from the urban homestead.

I’m writing to you all from the relative warmth of my room in West Philly. We returned from India this past weekend and am very happy to be back in the homestead. It’s a little shocking to the system to leave the warmth of India for the chilly air of Philly. But I can feel that air slowly changing and I can sense that spring will be bringing some nice warm weather soon. So I’ll be getting everyone ready with the blog next week to start getting some plants in the ground.

But before then, I just wanted to give a final word on my India experience. I hope you all enjoyed reading about my adventures and discoveries across that crazy country for 8 weeks. It was certainly worth the travel and missing the winter. I think that this annual farm vacation will become a yearly tradition. Next year we’re thinking Cuba. But for now, my Indian experience of sustainability can be summed up in this phrase.

“There are no absolutes.”

This is a statement that kept coming back to me with everything I’d see in India. As I worked on navdanya, although I saw some amazing things, I kept being brought back to the concept that people from the East think that the west has everything to learn and little to teach. I found this when I heard organic farmers there saying that they’ve been organic farming for years and just didn’t know it. As cool as that sounds, it’s sort of a misnomer. The Romans and Mesopotamians didn’t use chemicals or pesticides, but they still managed to make deserts out of their lands through inefficient farming techniques. The truth is that organic farming is not an old technology. There are many aspects of it that are traditions used for thousands of years, but new technology like soil science, permaculture and vermicomposting are progressions that show me that we have a lot more to learn to become productive, sustainable farmers.

Also, there is that undercurrent that people from the west are terrible consumers and people from the east aren’t. I was fortunate to dispel this myth too. As I wrote in my blogs about waste management and water, there is insane amounts of waste in India. You all can’t imagine how happy I am to be able to refill my water bottle, recycle plastic and put food scraps in my compost.

What I’ve learned as I said is that nothing is absolute. The west has just as much to learn from the east as the east has to learn from the west. Maybe real sustainability exists in a place where technology meets tradition and a better system is formed. But then again, no absolutes.

But what I do know is that this is going to be a great season. So I’ll be taking a week off and then will be getting a blog together to get this season started. Remember the saying, “Pole beans planted by St. Patty’s day.” So get those seeds together, get out your tools and let’s get on digging.

Until then, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

So I’ll not waste anytime with setting the scene, here are the amazing things I learned at Navdanya.

- Seed keeping is one of the most important parts of the growing cycle. I’ll admit that working in such small urban gardens and having the luxury of great seed producing programs in the city and the convienence of seed shops and nurseries has not made me put that much emphasis on seed saving. But after hearing the stories of large scale agribusiness companies coming into the area surrounding Navdanya and trying to do crazy things like patent the Neem tree or a certain variety of Nepalese wheat, both of which the people have been using for thousands of years, it’s hard to discount the political aspects for why you should seed save. But as I also was invited into their seed banks and learned of the network of seed saving that now includes almost 90 different seed banks all through out India, I learned that this act is what is spreading the organic movement all through out India. Being empowered by Navdanya to save their own seeds is helping farmers preserve  the farming traditions they’ve been using for many generations and safesguarding them from the horrible debt to agribusiness that has affected so many Indian farmers and has led almost 100,000 of them to commit suicide. Obviously we don’t have such a dire crisis in America, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore this very important aspect of farming. So keep reading this blog over the next growing season to follow how I’ll be working to save my own seeds.

-Farmers also can’t just be told to make these changes, they need the support of the community around them. Although I didn’t see that much outreach in the way of nutrition to show people why they should eat organic and support local farmers rather than eating processed foods, I did see Navdanya working very closely with conventional farmers to give them the knowledge and resources to begin growing organic. While I was there I attended a very exciting seminar for over thirty farmers from up in the mountains who want to avoid the chemical products that are being introduced to their area. In this group their were men and women who Navdanya is bringing into the movement to uncover their farming traditions, and then build on them with the new technologies of modern organic farming. It was very exciting to see this union of the old and the new.

-And aside from making all of these great connections with the Indian farming community, Navdanya also creates the opportunity for people from all over the world to come and do projects. While at the farm I was able to learn how to prune citrus trees from a Namibian man, help write school cirriculm for organic farming education with a canadian girl, and did an agroforestry project with a few French students. I liked this project the most. They were using the same system of alley cropping that the Rodale Institute has been advocating for years. Basically this system creates farm rows of shade loving plants that are bordered by trees, mostly leguminous trees that put nutrients into the soil to support the fertilization of crops. The French kids decided to plant Ginger and Tumeric in the plots and built a dyke irrigation system which is basically a series of ditches dug around the crop beds that allow water to flood in and irrigate.

-And aside from all that, I learned of a great way to trelis trees against a wall to make the tree grow on the wall to save space. I also got a great idea for how to make a bike tire driven tiller, and I learned some great integrated pest management techniques. All of which I will be sharing through out this growing season with you all.

So I’m looking forward to that and getting home to start the growing season. But before I do, I’ll have one last edition from Delhi next week to see how two months in this country has changed my view of that city. So until then, this is the note from the urban homestead.