What’s in the ground:

I can’t believe this is our first August installment. The season’s flying. Traditionally, August is the hottest month in these parts, but from what I heard, it may be the coolest of the summer. So, I think it’s possible to get a jump on your lettuce season by starting some seeds now, and transplanting into a bed with row cover on top. By doing them inside, you can regulate the germination temperature and then protect the transplants from getting scorched with the row cover. Give it a shot.

What’s going on in sustainability:

It’s great to write for such a talented and sustainably minded band. Thanks to Sean Hoots’ curiosity from PASA, he and his partner took a great trip out to New Mexico for Earthship building classes. Please enjoy what he learned.

The Earthship Get Down

Earlier this Summer, the lady and I took a trip out to the desert of New Mexico to explore a funky concept, Earthship Biotecture. It’s a revolutionary new approach to designing, building and living in homes that are both sustainably built and entirely self-sufficient. Over the course of that weekend we sat in on lectures, toured the various structures on-site and got sweaty with some hands-on labor.

Upon our return, we were bombarded with questions about our experience out west, so we decided to throw a little shindig at our place and give a presentation of sorts to curious friends all in one fell swoop. Since the themes involved dovetail nicely with the m.o. of our Urban Homesteader’s blog here, Nic asked me to recount the essential points of our evening for you, dear readers.

While I regret that we can’t somehow transmit the experience of our tasty beet bites or creamy homemade hummus, I’m more than happy to give you the nutshell version of our presentation…

Simply put, Earthships are domiciles as living organisms. The concept is that your house should provide for your every basic living need because it is an extension of you. In building an earthship, you are building around yourself, utilizing materials from your environment, in harmony with that environment.

So, let’s think about your environment. The obvious “trees and rocks” come to mind as suitably stable construction materials, but to use them, we have to extract them, effectively working at odds with the harmony we are seeking to create around us.

Expanding the notion of environment, think about all the trash that fills it. Garbage has been with us for so long, it’s become a substantial part of our surroundings. Why not reconsider the notion of garbage…instead of accumulating it in worthless piles that only serve to clutter and destroy our world, why not put it to good use?

Tires. Rubber automobile tires. If you ram dirt into a tire with a sledgehammer, you eventually end up with a 300 pound brick with which you can build an entire house, no foundation, earthquake resistant. Seriously. It sounds overly simplistic, but it truly works.

Similarly, bottles and cans are suitable materials for finer work such as garden walls and archways. These materials are all surrounded with what is essentially adobe (dirt + water + straw), giving it all a very fluid, clean aesthetic. The look and feel is elegant.

Integrated into the construction of the building are the various systems that provide the household with electricity, heating/ac, water filtration, plumbing/sewage and food. Yes, there’s even a greenhouse built into the design of every Earthship. It’s tied in with the filtration and heating systems. Then again, everything is tied in with everything in this house. It’s an incredibly efficient machine.

Over the next couple installments of the Urban Homesteader I’ll detail each of the house’s systems and how they all work together. In the meantime, please check out Earthship.com for more details and info. They have lots of great pictures there to give you a better idea of what’s going on, too.

Hello Friends,

Over the past five years, Hoots and Hellmouth has operated as a trio at its core primarily, but in the next coming months, if you attend a show, you will notice personnel change.  Sadly, I am announcing the end of my touring days with Hoots and Hellmouth in order to pursue other life goals.  However, I am excited to see the band grow in my absence.  Sean and Rob are grouping some killer musicians and expanding the stage sound, which will only yield a top notch musical experience for all to witness, and I will happily stand in the front row- rooting for them all along the way.  Trust me.  It’s gonna be killer.

I would personally like to thank everyone who has housed me, fed me, and inspired me throughout my tenure with Hoots and Hellmouth.  To say the least, I feel infinitely grateful for the friends I have made, and the experiences I have had as part of the Hoots and Hellmouth family.

Although I am excited for this next phase of my life, which may lead me back to the classroom as an English teacher, I will miss all of you dearly.  Please know that the decision to leave was not an easy one to make, but don’t worry- the show will go on!

Thank you all again for everything.  Without supporters like you, none of this would be possible.

Humbly,

Andrew Gray

What’s in the ground:

Now is the time to start seeding your fall crops if you don’t plan on buying or bartering for transplants. Hopefully you saved some of that seed from the broccoli that flowered in June. You may even want to let your current Kale and Collards bolt so you can harvest their seed. You basically just need to stop picking and let the plant flower. You can then get one last harvest, cut off the pods, dry and replant into small containers to get ready for the fall season.

What’s going on in sustainability:

The other day at a work day at Walnut Hill, my garden partner Erica said that if she got paid for every time she used the phrase, “It’s hard in July,” she’d be able to fund the garden herself. But it’s true, especially with this July and the month long heat wave we’ve endured. As I said last summer, everyone starts off with the best intentions in the spring and early summer planting those tomatoes so close that their vines start growing off into the paths of the garden. But then when the heat of the city drives us down the shore or up to the mountains, we just leave a lot of produce that’s going to rot on the vine.

I said this too late last year, so I’m going to get a jump on it this year. If you’re going away, or your garden plot neighbor is, then it’s your duty as the sustainably minded person to not let your produce rot on the vine, smelling up the garden and putting all of your fellow gardeners in that precarious position of to pick or not to pick.

Set up a garden gleaning program. This can be as simple as a garden email, where you tell all of your gardeners what will be ready to harvest and how much they can take. To feel even better, you can even set up a donation at a food shelter or to a community center.

I know this advice may seem easy enough, but I’m always surprised by how people overlook this when they set up a watering schedule, if they even think to do that. Now, I’m not some garden elitist who thinks all gardeners should be putting in a full season at 20 hours per week. I’m happy if people just put one veggie in the ground. But this lifestyle is a bit of a commitment.  It doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your summer, that’s the point of gardening. So keep those veggies growing and feed a few friends when you’re on vacation in August. Because as even Erica will admit, August is harder than July.

So enjoy. Until August, this is the note from the urban homestead.

What’s in the ground:

So I’m experimenting with the idea of letting my garbanzo beans dry on the plant as opposed to trying to harvest fresh and then dry. This is a technique that can be used on many varieties of legumes such as black eyed peas, garbanzos, black beans. Basically you just let the plant brown and die with the pods on the stem and harvest the whole plant. This will reduce yield, but it’s easier than trying to gauge exactly when the beans are ready.

What’s going on in sustainability:

For the past week, I and some very passionate farmers have been using the forum we’ve created through the Philadelphia Urban Farming Network to advocate for the creation of Manatawna Farms in Fairmount Park. In a perfect world, this project is amazing. Ten half acre plots deep in the park where participants can experiment with growing technique, cooperative selling and tool sharing, and trying to make a profit solely from farming, without the help of educational grants.

But as exciting as this all sounds, it has not won over the surrounding neighbors who have started their own advocacy group and who have convinced a councilman to draft a bill that would outlaw commercial farming on the site.

In a meeting we had last week, after explaining the neighbors’ position, two issues came up. The first was that they didn’t want commercial agriculture on their land. The picture they painted was of large combines cutting down corn and being shipped out. It brought up the point that commercial is too often confused with industrial because people still believe that the industrial system is the only way to make money and that sustainable practices are just relegated to theory.

The second issue was land conservation. Right now it’s a hay field with little bio diversity. I made the point that an organic farmer, when using integrated pest management techniques like planting beneficial plants that attract beneficial insects and birds, is in fact a conservationist. We use plant habitats to attract wildlife that helps us grow vegetables.

After these explanations, we thought that we made some headway, but the battle is raging on. We’re basically facing people who don’t want this in their backyard. And aside from not seeing organic farmers as conservationists or more conscious business people than Agri-business, we need to show them that locally produced vegetables are not just some curiosity or theory. They are a viable  solution to a world strained by over consumption of fossil fuels and food insecurity. But as we are finding out, these pragmatic solutions to real problems are just looked at as idealism when faced with a lobby that just wants to have their way. It’s the age old adage of politics. Well, hopefully that ends now , this project gets going and we prove to Philadelphia that sustainable agriculture is possible and practical. Please help out in this movement anyway you can. If you are looking for some inspiration, please come out to the Rotunda on Thursday July 22 at 6:30 pm for Mariposa Coop’s showing of “The Future of Food.” I’ll be speaking afterward.

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

What’s in the ground:

This should really be titled what’s out of the ground. After the heat wave of last week and the rains that have came, our spring crops should be on their way to bolting. If you our still putting up with the bitterness of arugula, or the yellow flowers of your broccoli has choked out any remaining florets, it’s time to clear the way for something else.

What’s going on in sustainability:

So I’m happy that my day got too busy and I didn’t post this until now, because if I had, I would not be writing with the energy I’ve gained from attending Vandana Shiva’s lecture at the Academy of Natural Sciences. The renowned seed saver, physicist and environmental advocate gave an amazing lecture of the monoculture of the mind, our western predisposition to approach problems with one track of thinking and narrow solutions rather than taking the whole system into consideration and finding innovative ways to make better, more utilitarian systems.

Although her talk was mainly about the theories of paradigm shifts, her main focus of work and the message she gave was taking back economic systems and the land by the simplest measure, saving a seed. She told horrific stories of companies like Monsanto infiltrating small farming communities, setting up deals with local governments to supply seeds that are patented, and forbidding the farmers by law to not use the seed again, or genetically engineering seed not to reproduce. Companies like Monsanto also have created dependency for farmers to use industrial and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, thereby stripping them of the knowledge of natural farm systems. And in the end, over 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide by drinking the very same poison that they were forced into debt to buy by these multinational companies.

Therefore, as I left open ended in the first section of this blog, don’t just rip those bolted plants out of the ground and throw them in the compost. First, collect the seed packs. Once you do, you can bind them with string, find a cool, dry place, and hang the green pods to dry into brown, and then save the seed. When saving any nightshade seed (pepper, tomato and eggplant) make sure you dry the seed out thoroughly in an open aired container. Anything with a lid will get them moldy. And be careful with hybrid seeds, because since they are hybrids, the gene may make the reproductive seed different from the plant they came from.

But as Dr. Shiva has so eloquently shown, this is one of the most important tasks humans can take. Our species thrives in cooperation, it’s what made us come out of the woods and trees and build cities and thrive. When one entity controls not only all of the money to buy food, but the means to grow it, then we’ve lost that cooperative system that has made us so successful. And when any species loses their evolutionary technique that makes them successful, the next step is extinction. So when you save those seeds, you are really saving so much more.

Good luck, until next week, this is the note from the urban homestead.

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.