Do you ever see something about the world that doesn’t feel quite right — something that you would change if you could, but you know you can’t so you try to ignore it and think about something else? This whole “community” and “mythology” bent I’ve been on lately is a way for me to imagine what would happen if we started over, just you and me and a few other like-minded people, in a particular place, with a particular idea. How would our new little world be different?

Changes, even imagined changes, are scary. Since we tend to avoid doing something if it’s scary, let’s just pretend that we never intend to build anything or move anywhere — we’re just playing a game of “what if?” Just playing. That’s not too scary, is it?

Or, maybe it is. Some psychologists believe that our worldview is our mental and emotional “home,” and when a new idea is encountered that threatens our worldview we may react in anger, denial, depression, or any number of other emotions that help us build a wall around our long-held beliefs. What ideas can be safely questioned, and which other ideas are so entrenched that they’re basically untouchable? It’s a fine line…

But let’s give it a try, and see what happens. Some of the following may push a few buttons, so be prepared.

Let’s have a framework for our thinking so we can break this project into manageable chunks:

First, let’s create a list of new precepts. A precept is “a rule or principle prescribing a particular course of action or conduct.” Precept is a less scary word that “rule” or “law,” simply because we don’t use it very often. Less scary is good, so let’s us that word for now.

Then let’s build an explanation or rationalization that tells us why our new precepts are better than the ones we live by now.

And then the fun stuff – let’s write a story or parable to illustrate our new precepts in a way that’s more emotionally satisfying than rational explanations ever can be. (I’m a lousy story teller, so I might need a few glasses of wine for that part – or maybe we need someone else to play with us who has some poetic talent).

Here’s the precept I would suggest first:

Precept #1

Before enacting any rule or law, the community will carefully examine the ideas behind that law to see if they’re truly just. To do that, the community will try to determine if any similar law appears in nature. If the rule can’t be justified based on natural law, no action should be taken until every member of the community has been convinced that it is an improvement over nature. This process should be slow and deliberate and approached with considerable trepidation, since it is difficult to see beyond the prejudices of our culture.

Rationalization:

All social animals have rules about right conduct, but human societies also have laws based on ideas that have been handed down through generations. Since the people in charge of creating the rules are almost always those who hold some position of power, and most humans try to protect their own interests once they attain power, many of our most commonly accepted laws are inherently unjust. However, once an idea has been swimming around in a culture for a number of generations, it becomes “obviously” right, even if the law continues to protect one class of people at the expense of others. For this reason, if a law can’t be found to exist among other social animals, it should be considered suspect, and deep deliberation should be required before the law is enacted. And this law should always be open for future review.

The term “natural law” is, of course, already taken, and it means something quite different, so we need to find a new term for this idea. But we can do this later.

To see how we can use this precept, here’s one thing about our current world that bothers me a lot when I forget to ignore it: our prisons. I should probably choose a smaller issue that pushes fewer buttons, but this is the one that came to mind so I’ll go ahead and use it.

According to the statistics from California, one of the nation’s most “liberal” states, almost two-thirds of court admissions to state prison are for property and drug offenses.

If I’m using my calculator correctly, out of the whopping 170,588 Californians in prison in 2007, almost 53,000 were locked up for property crimes like burglary or petty theft, 45,000 were locked up for possession of illegal drugs, and another 7,000 for the sale or manufacture of those drugs. Are the laws that we enforce through these imprisonments just?  What ideas are these laws based on? Are these ideas right, if we judge them using our First Precept?

If we look more closely we can see there are three basic ideas that our society accepts as true:

1. Acquisition of property through legal means is good, while the taking of property currently owned by someone else is bad and should be punished.
2. The society has a right to determine that certain inebriating substances are lawful while others are not.
3. Imprisonment is a just and natural form of punishment.

Let’s take a look at these three ideas, using our First Precept:

Theft: As far as I know, there are no other social animals that enforce the permanent possession of things, although a pack will defend the hunting territory they need for their survival. For most young animals, possession of an item starts a fun game of keep-away — I’ve got this really cool stick, try and take it from me. Now you’ve got that really cool stick, and I’ll try to take it from you.

In nature, there is nothing intrinsically “good” about the possession of stuff, and nothing intrinsically “bad” about swiping stuff from somebody else. This is, I know, causing all sorts of brain storms as you read it, but please keep reading anyway. We’re just playing with ideas, remember?

If we accept the First Precept, then we would see that our attitudes about possession are most natural when we play the kind of game where there’s no moral judgement against the guy who steals the ball. Possession and theft were originally two opposing roles of a game. Nothing more than a game.

The idea that “possession is 9/10ths of the law” first originated, then, with people who owned property and the power that came from owning property (which was often military power, at least during the feudal times when many of our common laws were first written). The game of keep-away has somehow become one of the basic underlying values of our culture, with all odds stacked in favor of those who currently have possession of the ball.

If we take away the culturally-imposed moral aspect of the situation, we see that  current laws tend to protect the interests of one class of people and not others, because once a person has accumulated a great deal of property and the power that goes with it, illegal accumulation of more property rarely causes a conflict with the authorities. People are most often imprisoned for the “bad” theft that happens when one with very little tries to take something from someone who has more. Doing it the other way around is common, and rarely punished. (The recent banking scandals come to mind…)

How could a small new society allow for the natural inclination to acquire stuff, while keeping the act of possession where it belongs – as part of a game, rather than the primary focus of life? The Potlatch societies give us one example of how a group of people can look at possession in a more natural way. We could surely think of other systems that would work as well, if we put our minds to it. Or, we could just swipe the Potlatch idea…

Drugs: As far as I know, there are no animals that enforce rules against using intoxicating substances, and the use of intoxicants is commonly seen in nature — among species as different as wasps and moose. Therefore, the use of mind-altering substances is natural, and anti-drug laws are not. Furthermore, we know the consequences of anti-drug laws are enormously destructive.  The repeal of the drug laws would instantly empty many cells of our prisons, and put a stop to the disastrously violent wars between governments and drug cartels in drug-producing countries.

If we use the First Precept, we would find it very difficult to approve of any rule in our new society that punishes people for the use of mind-altering substances.

The drug problem in the greater society is far too big for a few people to change, and the ones who profit from the current situation are far too powerful. However, when we design our new society we have an opportunity to make it right. At least in our imaginations, of course…

Prison: When a member of a pack or social group breaks one of the natural laws of that species, the other members quickly correct the misbehaving animal. The young animals are gently but firmly guided towards right behavior when correction is needed. If an animal continues to act in a way that is contrary to their natural laws, the corrections will get progressively more firm and may eventually lead either to banishment or death, in order to remove the offending animal from the gene pool.

I am not aware of any natural system that includes imprisonment as a punishment. I also don’t know of any natural system that drags out a punishment over time. Therefore, according to the First Precept, imprisonment is not natural, and all efforts should be made to find another system for correcting anti-social behavior in a way that’s swift and just, and where the punishment is appropriate to the crime.

Finding another way to protect our new society from anti-social behavior will require a great deal of creativity and ingenuity, but it can be done. Prisons, especially as they are currently used, are a fairly new invention.

Of course, this also means that our animal partners should also not be subjected to a life in prison. Factory farms defy natural law. Using the First Precept, they cannot be justified.

What’s next?

There are no stories to illustrate the First Precept yet. Please feel free to write one. Also, let us know if you think the First Precept is a just and valid idea, and if it would lead to a better society. Which precept should be written next? Just out of curiosity, did any of the ideas on this page seem so contradictory to your own worldview that it made you feel angry? After thinking about it, did it still feel wrong? If so, why?

Join us in creating a new worldview for our imaginary new society. One that’s more just, more sustainable, and more fun to live in. But let’s not take it too seriously — we’re just playing, remember?

It’s popular now to say that a “community” is the most important thing to have if there’s some sort of emergency. If the economy breaks down, or we run out of oil, or the trucks stop running, or (fill in your favorite catastrophe here), it’s the people you know who will help you get through it.

Interestingly, among the people I know who say this most often, community doesn’t necessarily mean the people who live in your neighborhood, or the people who supply you with locally-grown food, although the movement towards localization is certainly growing. Instead, for the people I talk to it implies that if one has the ability to make friends, to be sociable, to create ties with like-minded individuals, then the people you know will offer the psychological support you need to get through any emergency.

That’s important, I’m sure, although if sociability is the thing that will help people survive, it doesn’t bode well for those of us on the more solitary end of the sociability scale. And it doesn’t actually explain where the food and other necessities will come from, unless we are to assume that the government will always be there with emergency services, and our community is only needed for emotional support.

Traditionally, a community was made up of people who had complimentary skills and traded with one another. For instance, the bee keeper, the vintner, the farmer who grows barley, the brewer, the publican, and the neighbors who buy their beer and wine, are all part of an interdependent community. These people don’t have to like each other, and they don’t need to think alike – they just need to create products that are needed by others. Bits of this kind of community still exist, and farmer’s markets and the local food movement and micro breweries and craftsmen are all trying to rebuild this kind of community now. The biggest stumbling block is globalization, because a manufactured product imported from China is cheaper than the same product created here, and vegetables or meat imported from a factory farm in California or Arkansas are cheaper than the same items grown a few miles down the road.

Even for those of us who believe that our global economy is too fragile to survive much longer, it’s hard to physically remove oneself from the current system because one individual or family can’t do enough or know enough. And besides, belonging to a larger group is demanded by our biology as social animals. We can’t go it alone, and even if we could, we wouldn’t want to. More families are needed, more skills is needed, more knowledge is needed, in order to form a traditional community. And that would mean that many people decide, more or less at the same time, that they want to give up all the comforts of modern life and return to something that’s more difficult, but which is also more sustainable and respectful of the earth.

Getting all those people in one place is a much bigger challenge than just growing a big garden. That’s why I think that a new mythology, or a common way of thinking, is the catalyst that can bring people together to build a real community. There needs to be an idea that is so compelling that people would be willing to give up the things they already enjoy doing, their homes and their neighborhoods, and go build a new tribe. Just talking about how cool that would be just isn’t enough.

Perhaps we can’t develop a new way of thinking that’s compelling enough to get us moving towards true community until we actually experience the breakdown of the current system. That may not happen within our lifetimes, but if history is any guide, it could happen tomorrow. Whenever it does, people will do what it takes to survive, and that means we’ll rebuild our communities, from scratch. It will take a while, and there may be some grief along the way, but people are resilient and we will get through it.

But maybe at least a few of us could get a head start and build those communities without needing a disaster to force us into it. Maybe we could do it with a good marketing campaign and a place where a lot of houses are currently for sale at affordable prices. Pick the spot, let people around the country know that we’re headed there, let them know what skills or products we have for trade, and that we hope people with complementary skills will come join us. That’s how most of the towns in America first started. Maybe that’s all that’s needed now. If so, one or two families have to be the first ones to uproot themselves, sell their current homes, pack all their stuff into boxes, and move (unless they just happen to live in the perfect spot already). They would have to do it with no guarantee that anyone of like mind will ever join them.

Or, and this is what I believe is probably true, there should be both a compelling idea (which I’ve called a new mythology in a previous post)  plus one or two families who act as the first pioneers, based on faith that others who help build that mythology will someday join them. If that’s true, we need both an idea and a place.

What idea would be compelling enough to make you move and do the work of creating a new interdependent agrarian community? Where would you want that community to be located? Ideas welcome.

I’m going to get a bit philosophical today. No gardening advice, no pictures of the achocha fruit or the chickens. You’ve been forewarned.

Last week I read Michael Bunker’s book Surviving Off Off-Grid: Decolonizing the Industrial Mind. I tried to talk several other people into reading it, because I’d love to have a conversation about  this book and several others I’ve read recently. I imagined lively talks about philosophy and spirituality and sustainable living, all accompanied by a few beers and some home-made pizza (caramelized onion and feta cheese – yum).

Unfortunately, people weren’t very excited about my suggestion because I didn’t do a very good job of explaining why the book was especially important to me, (and maybe because I left out the part about the beer and pizza). I think I told them it was a book about a family that moved back to the land in a somewhat radical way, but it was much, much more than that. Since my error probably means that my offline friends won’t be reading the book any time soon, I thought I’d try again with you, my online acquaintances. Maybe we can get that conversations started. Or not. Perhaps you need to be a geek of a certain sort to find this kind of thing interesting. Anyway…

Here’s why I think the book is important:

Michael Bunker and a group of like-minded people came together to form the foundation of a new tribe, a sustainable community that, like the Amish and Mennonites, has a very good chance of surviving almost unchanged even if the global economy were to collapse entirely (which seems more likely every day).  The value of Mr Bunker’s book is not that he described a way of life on the land that is more respectful of nature and more sustainable, although that’s important. The thing that matters most is that he recognizes the power of myth – especially the power of the unacknowledged myths that most of us unconsciously live by. Because we don’t question the most basic ideas that govern our society, we’re trapped into wishing things were different, but we can’t quite find a way to change our lives in a truly meaningful way.

I think there are many people in the world who, like myself, would like to belong to a sustainable agrarian community like the one Mr. Bunker and his neighbors are building, but we haven’t figured out how to make it happen. So we try to make our city life more sustainable, grow a bigger garden, get rid of the car, hang out with like-minded people. But the desire for community still nags at us, even though it always seems unattainable.

I believe that a lot of people in modern America feel almost as anxious as a duck that’s been separated from its flock – in the background of our consciousness is a need to belong to a community, a tribe. We want something more than a group of friends with similar interests, or a career that lets us work beside other with the same education or skills. This anxiety may be present, but not always acknowledged, even in those of us who enjoy living a fairly solitary lifestyle. We enjoy our own company, but we sense that something else is needed. But how do we find it?

If we’re Christians, and if we can accept Mr. Bunker’s somewhat radical interpretation of the bible, we might gather a few friends and neighbors together and use his blueprint, just as he presents it in his book. I suspect that this is entirely possible, and it may be exactly what many people are looking for.

However, for some of us, the bible isn’t the right source of inspiration for this kind of radical change in our lifestyle. That’s certainly true for me, and I’ll talk about that more a bit later.

But I am now convinced that we can’t build the foundation of a new, sustainable community without a story of our own. It doesn’t need to be the same story that Mr. Bunker and his community chose for themselves, but there must be a story.

Why is a story, or, more correctly, a mythology, so important? Why can’t we simply find other people who would also like to live a sustainable lifestyle, and join together with them on a plot of land, or buy or build houses next to each other, and build a new community? It’s certainly been tried before, and on rare occasions it has even worked. But very few communities of this type have survived more than one generation, and they often fail after just a few years. And besides, most of us can’t even talk our spouse or partner into making such a radical lifestyle change, let alone finding 5 or ten other families who’ll help us build a new community.

A truly sustainable community built around homesteading and organic practices and integrated agriculture or permaculture requires hard work. The greater society whispers that it’s “too much work,” that “it’s weird,” and “un-American.” (Ever try doing something as simple and rational as giving up sugar? Then you know how hard your friends and family can work to keep you from doing things differently. And how hard it is to oppose them.)

As Mr. Bunker suggests, we live in a world in which we’re bombarded by stories every day, from TV, movies, the radio, school textbooks, the Internet – and each one of those stories helps to perpetuate the mythology of our culture, to create, in Mr. Bunker’s words, the “colonized mind.” But exactly what is that mythology that so pervades our airwaves? What is it that we believe, exactly, and why? Where did our common ideas come from?  Most of us never question the things we accept as true, because we don’t choose the stories we’ll live by, even if we truly believe that we’re “progressive” or “enlightened.” We tend to accept the hidden ideas that, intentionally or otherwise, keep us from questioning the status quo in radical ways — pervasive stories constantly remind us that there is great value in being “normal,” as it is defined by our debt-driven society. We must not color too far outside the lines.

There’s another reason why a story is important–a story can act as the catalyst for a new community. Octavia Butler, (one of the authors who were recommended by the readers of the Green Wizard forum), suggested in her Parable novels that people are naturally distrustful of each other–especially during a time of crisis. The characters in her novels transformed their natural distrust into a common purpose by adopting a particular story. In fact, she seems to suggest that the need for community is so strong that almost any story will do, even if most of the people in the group don’t believe it at first. But without a common purpose built into a powerful story, people will remain apart. Stories are a form of magic.

We need that magic, because we have to be able to imagine a thing before it can be brought into existence. Creating a community where none existed before is a huge creative project — so huge, in fact, that many of us can’t see how it would be possible to make it happen. Stories and myths and celebration and song can help us imagine a new world. And once enough of us imagine it, we can build it. Or that, at least, is what I now believe.

As Joseph Campbell suggested, if we want to change the world, we need a new mythology.

What myths could we embrace with that kind of enthusiasm if we can’t, for one reason or another, accept Mr. Bunker’s radical interpretation of the bible. Or the bible itself? What myths can we use in place of the unacknowledged myths of consumerism, global interventionism and debt?

Could we take a cue from the modern-day Druids, and write a new mythology that feels as timeless as the earth? What new traditions would we want to create? What grand purpose would our stories point to; what kinds of behaviors would our mythology encourage and discourage; how would our new mythology help us relate to the world around us? And, how many new stories could be written, and how many new tribes could come into existence, if the idea catches on? If that happened, how would our world change?

If you’re still reading this, you must find this idea somewhat interesting. What do you think? If you helped write the stories that become the foundation of a new community — the kind of community you would enjoy living in — what kind of stories would they be? What stories from other writers, both ancient and modern, do you feel have that kind of power? Which words of wise women and men from the past would you want to include?

Here are a few of the things that would be important to me:

First, I do feel rather strongly that any new mythology should be written by more than one person. When people come together around a story that’s written by just one person, (Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard comes to mind), some rather weird things seem to happen. A mythology needs to be complicated enough, and even contain enough contradictions within it, to allow each new generation to interpret it in new ways. This is the equivalent of the need for diversity in genetics – without this diversity, a tribe might become too rigid in its beliefs and this could make it hard for them to adapt as the world changes.

I would want our stories to revolve around two creatures whose lives are intricately entwined with ours – the honey bee and the earthworm. The way we care for these creatures will determine the fate of human life on earth, so I believe we need to elevate them to the sacred. There should be a provision for celebrating our relationship with these creatures, (it would be nice to include mead in the celebrations for the bees). People with a strong affinity for these creatures might become important spiritual leaders of the tribe.

There are many ancient stories and traditions that celebrate bees. We could borrow some of those traditions, or write new ones of our own.

I don’t know of any cultures that honor the earthworm, but it’s easy to imagine that they commune with the ancestors and with the spirits of the earth, so if we can’t find ancient stories or traditions, we could certainly come up with new ones. Which would, naturally, require a certain sense of humor and a willingness to take ourselves less seriously than normal. Perhaps mead would be helpful in the writing, too.

I would like to borrow the words of wise men and women who have shown a deep understanding of human nature and who honor the relationship of humans with other creatures of the earth. And we shouldn’t shy away from including stories or sayings that may contradict other parts of our compiled mythology, because contradictions are an important part of life.

A few questions we might want to ponder:

• What story or group of traditions and ceremonies would be powerful enough to allow a small permaculture-oriented or integrated agriculture/agrarian community to continue through generations, no matter what happens in the outside world?
• How could that story be large enough, and encompass enough truth, so that the members of the community could use it as a way to determine if their own actions and plans are in keeping with the greater purpose for them and the community as a whole?
• How could the story be made be interesting enough, and complicated enough, so each person and each generation can interpret it in new ways to fit the changes that are inevitable in life?

I do hope that, if you think any of this is worth thinking about, you’ll read Mr. Bunker’s book so you can see what he and his neighbors have been able to do, using the power of myth. If you would like to play with this idea, please suggest some ways that we could work together as a group. I’d also like to know if you were persuaded by Mr. Bunker’s arguments about the un-sustainability of city life. I have learned in this last year that I can’t grow enough food on a small city lot for even one person, which means that I can’t grow enough for my neighbors, either. And they’re not even trying to grow their own. That convinced me that Mr. Bunker was right – we can’t survive in the city if the trucks stop running. If you disagree, please let us know why.

Sweet Onions

I put about 30 pounds of sweet Candy onions in the freezer this week. That’s a random guess, actually – who has time to weight them?

The first few batches were raw – I simply peeled and chopped the onions, two at a time, bagged them up, and threw them in the little freezer compartment of the fridge. It was obvious real fast that I either needed a new freezer or I’d just have to accept that many of the sweet onions I grew this year would rot before I had a chance to eat them.

Fortunately, I picked up my copy of Canning for a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry to look up the instructions for canning tomatoes, and just happened to see the author’s favorite way to freeze onions. Melted onions, she calls them.

It’s easy. I used my turkey roasting pan, which I filled up three or four times (over several days). Lots of tears, in spite of peeling under running water. It helped, I’m sure, but still – that’s a lot of onions.

Once they were cut up and in the pan, I added some olive oil and salt, baked at 400 degrees F, stirred every 20 to 30 minutes, and in about 2 hours they were done. And they really did melt into a much smaller space. That pan was packed full when it went into the oven.

Roughly Chopped Onions in Roasting Pan

Here’s the difference between my original raw frozen onions (two in a bag, on the right) and the melted (oven-caramelized) onions on the left (16 in a bag).

Raw and Oven Carmelized Onions in Freezer Bags

I put the cooked onions in ice cube trays, and two cubes equal one onion. Or thereabouts. And now my house smells like onion soup. Which reminds me – maybe that’s what I should have for dinner tonight…

This is a short video showing chickens harvesting azolla from a kiddie pool. Azolla is a tiny water fern that is popular as a supplemental chicken food in the Philippines and India. It’s high in nitrogen because it has symbiotic bacteria that gather nitrogen from the air, like alfalfa and other legumes. This pool is one of three in my garden, and the chickens seem to love the stuff. It reproduces like mad, but I still never seem to have enough.

Since I made the previous walk-through video of my comfrey-fed garden, I harvested my first batch of tomatoes, shown below, and there’s plenty more green ones on the vines. I also gathered six or seven nice big Yukon Gold potatoes from under one of my plants, but I didn’t take a picture. I just ate them

First Tomatoes

Below is a photo of a few ripe mullberries. They have a stem inside the berries, unlike blackberries and other “normal” fruit. Some people think they’re too sweet to taste like much, but I like them. They do stain your hands when you pick them, and you certainly wouldn’t want them growing over a concrete patio – unless you like big dark purple spots. I might try to see if I can use them to dye some wool one of these days. (The ripe berries are almost black in the photo. The red ones will be ripe in a few days. They continue to ripen all summer long – my kind of tree.)

Mulberries

The next photo is a close-up of achocha flowers, slightly out-of-focus. The flowers are tiny but there are thousands of them. As you can see, the bees have found them, but the flowers aren’t turning into fruit. It would be nice to get one or two – they’re supposed to be “slipper-shaped” fruit that tastes like cucumber. Considering the number of flowers and the rate the vines are growing, maybe I shouldn’t wish too hard for fruit – I could end up buried in achocha…

Achocha Flowers, with Bee

And finally, here’s the garlic I dug a few weeks ago. Most of the shallots are still in the ground. Both the onions and garlic did extremely well this year – in fact, I may need to find homes for some of my Candy and Walla Walla onions, since they don’t store very long and I can only eat a few a day.

My original goal was to see how close to self-sufficiency I could get on my small city lot, and I think I came close with the spuds, garlic and onions. I probably have enough corn for three years of corn bread, since that has never been my favorite food. (But maybe I’ll like it better with my own home-grown corn). The squash is still a big question mark – but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I seem to have one of the largest gardens in town, which surprises me, considering the economic situation. Maybe next year people will start planting a bit more.

Garlic

Next on the to-do list: turn the little shed into an aquaculture experiment. I think I found the system I want to try – using fish water for wicking worm beds (large PDF). The fish will take up the center aisle, with a board-walk on top. I saw an article in an old Mother Earth News that had a similar setup, but I haven’t seen it for years. Funny how some ideas stick with you, waiting for the time when you can play with them. As with all my experiments, a bit of luck will probably be needed to make it work.

This video shows how what has happened since I killed most of my grass last year with sheet composting. The garden shown is fed exclusively with tea made from comfrey, a bit of chicken manure, and water. The tea is “steeped” in a black plastic garbage can and then diluted about 5 to one with fresh water before being given to the plants.

Now that most of the plants are grown up and don’t need more fertilizer, I’ll be putting most of the tea directly to the deep straw litter in the chicken’s outdoor pen. That will help turn it into beautiful, mineral-rich compost for next spring’s garden.

Creating a new garden with sheet composting, before and after photos

Greens Growing in New Garden

Whenever I remodel a house, my guests inevitably ask me if I took “before” pictures. Of course, I always intend to, but I forget. However, I do have before and after pictures of the new backyard farm.

The photo above is an “after” photo, showing two beds at the bottom of the new garden where salad greens and mustards that I planted about a month ago are now growing well. The seeds wouldn’t have sprouted very well if I just threw them on the new compost, so I made a thin layer of bagged steer manure and peat moss. I was surprised by how well the seeds came up, and the plants are doing very well, even though the hay and straw haven’t had time to decompose yet. Ruth Stout was right – plants (and worms) love alfalfa hay. I hope that next year I’ll have plenty of well-cured home-made compost, so I won’t need to buy any more peat moss.

Photo showing most of the new 700 square foot garden:

Sheet Composting - Basis for New Garden

The photo above shows the sheet composting, built of layers of alfalfa hay, bagged steer manure, and oat straw. I know most people would be appalled, since it looks so messy and not at all the way a backyard garden is “supposed” to look. But I’m quite excited about it. The soil in my backyard was very much abused by previous owners – trucks were parked on the area closest to the alley, and an RV was parked near the house. The clay was so compacted beneath all the heavy vehicles that even grass has a hard time sending down roots.

The new compost will settle down so it will probably only be three or four inches thick by next spring, but it’s a start. And by next spring it will look much more like real soil instead of piles of hay – especially after the beds are covered with new veggies and flowers.

I tried to follow the instructions in the No Work Garden plan, although I couldn’t get as much manure as the writer suggested. I also made my garden larger than he suggests, since I’m trying to work towards food self-sufficiency, (just to see if it’s possible). The new garden takes up about 700 square feet, although the paths take up more of it than I would like.

And, naturally I didn’t make a nice square garden with straight paths, like I was “supposed” to. I basically drew the garden on the ground while I brought in the hay and straw. Some writers say the beds should go north to south, some say west to east – but they all say it doesn’t really matter very much — so I just decided to have fun with it. Besides, my outdoor sculptures should look better sprinkled around a garden with nice curved paths, if I can figure out how to safely waterproof paper mache. (No success yet, but I’m working on it).

The paths are covered with straw, although I would have preferred wood chips (straw is cheaper).

Here’s the “before” picture:

Backyard Before Garden Was Built

You can see in the “before” picture that the grass wasn’t doing very well. In fact, in the part where the RV was parked several years ago, it has been impossible to get anything to grow except a native weed. I’ve tried grass seed mixed with clover, after rototilling and adding lime and fertilizer, and a few of the seeds came up but then withered in a few weeks. If it wasn’t for those weeds (which even the chickens refuse to eat) there would be nothing green at all in that spot. I do hope the sheet compost will add enough good soil on top of the bad soil so I can at least grow a few flowers in that spot.

I planted a bed of garlic a week ago, and it’s coming up nicely. I bought the Combo Pack of seed garlic from Peaceful Farm, so I should have plenty of garlic to share with friends and family next July. The new hedge plants I bought from Lincoln Oakes Nurseries this spring, along with the elderberries I planted several years ago, should be high enough by next fall to screen the neighbor’s old truck and garage.

Next on the list of “things to do”:

The next part of the project will be to build a decent-looking barrier to keep the dogs and chickens from running wild through the garden next spring; to turn part of the grape arbor into a small greenhouse; and to start growing micro greens for my winter salads. I’m getting quite excited about green smoothies, after I learned that many green plants — especially those in the cabbage family — have been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes, which runs in my family.

I’ve never been very good at eating my greens, but I’ve discovered that the green smoothies are actually quite tasty. The micro greens are supposed to have even more of the good stuff than larger leaves, and they’re easy to grow in a sunny window sill. That means I can start my movement towards food self-sufficiency earlier than I planned. So far I haven’t seen many smoothie recipes that use the micro greens, but I’m sure I can substitute for the greens in the new Green Smoothie book that was delivered to my house a few days ago. The seeds should arrive today. I’ll keep you posted.

Another thing I want to do is learn more about growing perennial vegetables. I really like the idea of planting once, and eating for years, but so far the only perennial food plant, other than berries, that I have on the place is rhubarb – which I rarely eat.

Dogs Plus Chickens – Peace, So Far…

The dogs and chickens are doing well together. I was a bit worried about the Australian shepherd, who seemed to be way too interested, and not in a good way. However, it turns out that the retriever is the one who “herds” the chickens around a bit more than I would like, although the chickens don’t seem to mind. The Aussie leaves them alone, fortunately. The chicks get to spend a few hours wandering around in the yard every day. Below, you can see one of the chicks having a conversation with the retriever – I wonder what she was saying…

Chicken and Retriever

Problems I’ve run into so far:

Forget finding anyone to deliver manure here in this small agricultural town. The one fellow in town who advertises that he’ll haul stuff is not interested in hauling smelly stuff. Renting a pickup for $45 so I can go get free manure seems a bit silly, for some reason. The chickens and the alfalfa will have to provide all the nitrogen unless I can find a way to trade in my Hyundai for a pickup – and that’s not likely since I’ve been using it to haul dogs, alfalfa and straw for years. I think I have to keep my little car, whether I want to or not.

Having just one feed store within many miles is also an obstacle. Our local store ran out of non-medicated chick feed this week, and they don’t know when they’ll get more. Since we’ve known for years that feeding antibiotics to livestock is one of the prime reasons for the new drug-resistant human germs, I’m surprised that it’s still legal to sell medicated feed. I guess that shows the power of the pharmaceutical lobby. I may need to make a trip across the mountains this week if I can find another store within a hundred miles that carries the good stuff. One of the primary reasons for having chickens (other than their nitrogen production capabilities) is to have safe eggs to eat. I’ll get them some non-medicated feed, even if I have to order some online.

Over 100,00 people bought the popular book Worms Eat My Garbage, and thousands of people have purchased shiny new worm bins and their first pound of red worms. All these folks begin with high expectations of turning their kitchen scraps into high-quality plant food. Unfortunately, the results I’ve seen among friends and coworkers has not met these high expectations.

That’s unfortunate, because a properly managed worm bin doesn’t just create great compost — it’s actually quite fun to go visit your little herd of worms every day. In fact, red worms are the closest thing to livestock that many city-dwellers will ever own.

Done right, a worm bin is a blessing. Done wrong, as it often is, a worm bin is a curse.

Perhaps too many people forgot to actually read Mary Appelhof’s book, or they forgot to look at the instructions that came with their bin. Somehow, (perhaps almost inevitably), things begin to go wrong.

People usually give one of the following reasons for giving up on their worm bins:

1. The worms didn’t eat the garbage fast enough, or;
2. The bin stinks, or;
3. There were flies breeding in the worm bin.

Instead of worm compost, these folks were making a small pile of garbage, often in their kitchens. Quite naturally, garbage stinks, and it draws flies.

And there’s a perfectly good reason why the worms can’t eat the food scraps fast enough — they don’t have any teeth.

One reason that the common red worm, Eisenia foetida, is also known as a manure worm is that they need the bacteria, fungi, and other microscopic beasties that make up the largest percentage of any manure pile. These invisible critters transform dead plant and animal matter into a mushy or liquid state that can then be sucked into one end of the worm. Specialized bacteria also live inside the worm’s gut and digest the material more completely.

As you can see, the worms are the animals in the bin you can actually see, but they’re the least important animals in the bin. A good, productive worm bin is home to billions of bacteria, algae, protozoa and fungi that do almost all of the work.

Then, if all goes as planned, the material is finally pushed out the back end of the worm. That “end” product is worm poop, and it’s the product that everyone who owns a worm bin hopes to harvest in large quantities.

Unfortunately, a lot of worm bins get tossed out long before that can happen. Let’s look at a few of the reasons why.

First, many people don’t put any soil at all in their worm bins. Worms have no teeth, as I mentioned previously, but they do have a gizzard. Their gizzard works just like the one in a chicken – it’s a strong muscle that uses tiny pieces of ingested soil or rocks to grind up the food before it’s passed on to the gut. Without soil, the worm’s gizzard can’t work properly.

The lack of soil also reduces the variety and numbers of bacteria in the bin, which may be even more problematical for the worms. It’s this bustling, ever-active population of micro-fauna that worms rely on.

Most bacteria in soil are aerobic, meaning that they require air, just like we do. Worms like aerobic bacteria. Most of the bacteria that survives in a soggy garbage pile ends up being anaerobic, the kind that doesn’t need air. This causes fermentation, and fermentation stinks.

The only way I know of to keep a worm bin working the way it should is to recreate a healthy cold compost pile inside the walls of the container. This means that the carbon/nitrogen level must be right. This allows the food scraps to slowly decompose without heating up, which would kill the worms; and without fermenting, which will draw flies and upset the neighbors.

Many people use shredded paper at the bottom of their worm bin, but I never do. The paper absorbs as much moisture as it can, and then eventually gets pressed into an airless, soggy mess. A better choice is sawdust, because it absorbs moisture without packing down so much, and unless you create a little swimming pool inside the bin there will be air spaces between the damp bits of wood. The worms can easily move around in the sawdust, and they love the microbes and fungi that come attached to the sawdust. Obviously, you wouldn’t use sawdust that came from pressure-treated lumber.

Worms also like bedding made from 1/2 peat moss or coconut coir, and 1/2 bagged steer manure. This material is often easier to find in the city than fresh sawdust.

Next, I would add at least a handful of good garden soil, then begin adding a small amount of food scraps. If at all possible, allow the food scraps to compost down a bit before you place them in the bin – remember, worms have no teeth, so they can’t even begin to munch on your old lettuce leaves until the microbes have turned them mushy. If pre-composting the material isn’t possible, that’s OK – just remember that it will take bit longer before the worms can go to work.

When you add a thin layer of scraps be sure to always cover it with a layer of sawdust or chopped straw. This layer of carbon-rich material will prevent flies from finding the compost, and it will help keep the bin from stinking. The carbon also helps prevent the composting material from getting too hot. If the bin seems to be warming up too much anyway, you can slow down the composting process and cool it down by mixing in some good garden soil.

Red worms love a good compost pile. Creating a good compost inside a very small worm bin is not easy, but it can be done with patience and common sense. And if all else fails, you can always do your worms a favor and liberate them into a proper compost pile at the bottom of your garden.

For a more scholarly overview of this issue, see The Role of Microbes in Vermiculture (scroll down to find that section).

This spring was cold and wet and very, very long. The only two things I wanted to plant this year were a few tomato vines and some winter squash, but the ground was so cold and wet I couldn’t plant them until the middle of July.

Now, with Labor day just one week away, only one tomato has started to turn pink. The squash plants are setting fruit, and a few of them are even reaching a reasonable size, but they won’t have time to get ripe this year. Actually, I knew they wouldn’t ripen, but I like the look of the vines winding their way around the yard, so I planted them anyway.

It was this haphazard, “I know this won’t really work” attitude that let me see that I’ve probably been raising squash the wrong way for years.

We’ve all heard about the “three sisters” — the mainstays of the Native American’s garden: corn, beans and squash. And we’ve all seen the reasons for growing these three plants in the same bed: the corn gives the beans something to climb on and shades the squash, while the beans provide additional nitrogen to the soil.

So why, then, does every seed packet of winter squash, regardless of variety, say they need full sun? And why have I planted every winter squash seed just the way I’ve been instructed to by the packets, until this year?

This year, I grew the vines just for ornamental purposes, so I wasn’t picky about where the seeds were planted. I also didn’t jump to water the plants at the first sign of wilting leaves, either, like I’d always done before.

My “experiment” wasn’t done on purpose, and it was far from scientific — the three hills of squash are three different varieties, and the fertility of the soil is probably different in all three places because they’re so far apart, although they all got a generous bucket of worm compost at the beginning of the season.

One group of squash plants is in full sun, the second one receives shade from the garage in the afternoon, and the third group is behind a spring-flowering butterfly bush that grew a lot more this spring than I expected it to. For that reason, the third group of squash, winding through the flowers behind the bush, receives light shade all day long.

Here in the inter-mountain west, the sun can be brutal and the air temperature stays above 80F or 90F for many weeks at a time. Almost every day since the weather warmed up, the leaves on the squash plants in full sun have wilted by 10am. The plants that receive afternoon sun wilt in the morning, but quickly perk back up in the afternoon. And the plants that spend their entire day under light, dappled shade have never wilted at all, in spite of receiving less water than the other two.

The air temperature also seems to have a big effect on the leaves, because the wilted leaves on the plants in full sun will perk back up within minutes if they’re simply given a light misting of water. In our dry country, a fine mist will lower the air temperature almost immediately by 10 degrees or more. I tried this originally on a day when the squash insisted on wilting just a few hours after it had been deeply watered. Water in our town is expensive, so this is a trick I’ll be remembering for next year’s garden.

So, until I learn differently, at least some of my winter squash will, in the future, be planted the way the Native American’s taught us – in light shade.

I’ve been reading up on composting, of manure, among other things. (I just finished Gene Logsdon’s Holy Shit: Managing Manure To Save Mankind, such an interesting read that I temporarily put aside an unfinished murder mystery – and a good one, at that.)

One thing that’s mentioned in a lot of the books I’ve read lately is that compost needs time to “cure.” Like, up to a year after the material looks like good compost. I think I first saw it mentioned in one of Eliot Coleman’s books on commercial organic gardening, but I’ve seen it in other books, as well. But you certainly don’t see it in the commercials and ads for compost tumblers.

Coleman, Logsdon and others say that compost shouldn’t be rushed. That’s because there are  phytotoxins in immature compost, which can be toxic to plants and prevent seeds from sprouting. Not the weed seeds, unfortunately…

In fact, you can evidently tell if a compost is “mature” by trying to sprout seeds in it. If you get as many baby plants in a flat of compost as you do in a test flat using commercial potting soil, the compost is ready to be spread on the garden. If more seeds sprout in the potting soil, the compost needs to do it’s thing a bit longer.

And for that reason, lots of folks who seem to know what they’re talking about suggest that chopping things up into little pieces and using a compost tumbler to get the compost done in 14 days or less is going about it all wrong. Too many of the nutrients will be burned off in the rush, and the compost still takes a year to cure once it’s in the ground before the plants can make full use of what nutrients are left.

So – in compost, as in many things in life, it seems that slow is better. Which is good, because it fits my style just fine.