Week 8: An Unscheduled Break

3/26/08

I've been forced to take a break due to ill health. What I thought was a severe case of Fort Bragg Crud was actually something more serious that landed me in the hospital for three days. I'm home now, but still pretty weak. I guess the bottom line is that I am a pretty lucky person, because even though the heart may not be so good, at least the brain still works! So as soon as I can get back into the garden and put my hands in some soil, I will once again be posting and updating this blog.

I did have a chance to email Susan Lightfoot and asked her how the new starts I planted a couple weeks ago were doing. Here's what she said: "The babies are doing great. Sakina thinned them the other day and they're already responding. They'll be waiting patiently for your return." Awwww! Hang in there, babies. I'm coming back!

More later, when I can.

Week 7: Potting UP!

3/14/08

The first thing I did was check on the babies. The little brassica seeds I had planted last week showed some growth. Not just one or two...all of them! And as I had planted three seeds in each tiny cup, two of the babies will have to be removed so the strongest one can survive and grow big. I was just so happy that any of them grew at all, that the thought of thinning out the littles made me a bit weepy. (I'm not quite sure if that's due to motherhood, menopause, Portuguese family ethic, or if it's just me, but getting rid of those babies was hard to do.) Susan assured me that it is all for the best, and sometimes a gardener has to exercise Tough Love.

The task for the day was to Pot Up the tomato starts. This involves transplanting the new plants into a larger container. First, Sakina mixed up some new potting soil which was rich in food and had good pH. The main ingredient was Ocean Forest soil from Arcata which contains forest humus, sphagnum peat moss, fish meal and crab meal (for nitrogen), kelp meal from Norway and fossilized bat guano. Yum yum. To this mixture she added glacial rock dust which helps to remineralize the soil.

I grabbed a big bucket of the soil mixture and headed for the greenhouse repotting table. The repotting technique is similar to that which I employed in Week 2 for the herbs, but the new tomato starts are smaller and more delicate, so much care needs to be taken in removing them from the 1.5x1.5" seed starter trays and placing them into the new 3x4" containers. The process involves putting some of the soil in the bottom of the new container, gently removing the tomato start from its home (I used a little spoon to help lift it out), and then centering it in the new pot, filling in around the sides with the potting mixture. Sakina told me that tomatoes don't mind if you bury them a little deep so that just a little of the stems and all the leaves are showing above the soil. Most of these little babies had long necks, so I covered them up warmly with the new soil, pressed down gently so they would be nice and snug, then gave them a good drink of water. Each container needed to be labeled for the Earth Day sale coming up in April, and Crystal spent a good deal of her time writing up the labels for these starts. Thanks Crystal!

This may seem like a very simple and fast process, but I really took care in making sure that the plants were happy in their new homes. In two hours time, I repotted 60 tomato plants, so that's about one plant every two minutes. With apologies to J. K. Rowling, I fancied myself today as a "potty wee potter." Here is a link to a slideshow of the day's work.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562799249JVNrcJ

Our SL journal lead question this week was whether or not the exercises with Doug Mosel (the speaker from our last face-to-face meeting) gave any insights or tools that could be put into practice with the service placements. I gave this some thought while I was potting up, and I realized that Doug's exercises and Joanna Macy's philosophies provide many insights and tools for me to use, not just at the Noyo Food Forest, but in everyday life. The listening technique is especially helpful to me for when I interact with others. I do hope The Great Turning that Macy envisions will occur one day, and soon. I believe it is essential for us to shift from an industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization. The more people who realize this and begin to make the shift, the faster the Great Turning will occur.

The recent Quiz 6 on world religions made me think a great deal about how cultures of the world view nature. It seems to me that another Great Turning happened centuries ago when so-called Western Religions came into being. With Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, we see a shift from religious beliefs that view humans as part of an interconnected cosmic body, to the belief that God made nature to provide for the needs of humans. If we look at the more ancient religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and the aboriginal (or native) religions, we see that humans do not hold themselves above nature and that there is a feeling of connection to the earth and all other living things. Only in these latest three religions is there a disconnect happening, a feeling that it is okay to use (read: exploit) nature for selfish purposes, without much thought regarding the ethical and cultural implications of such use. In my mind, this was one Great Turning of thought that needs to be Turned Back, so humans again realize that we must reconnect with nature, or risk becoming forever disconnected as we skip down the merry path to extinction.

Shifting gears to a lighter subject, Hey! A few of my little red-leaf lettuce plants I put in the hoop house bed during Week 4 are growing up! Want to see?

Week 4

Week 5

Week 7

Since we are looking at growth in the hothouse, here's my video tour of it. The shaky handheld video quality is only slightly more nauseating than the Blair Witch Project, so I hope you will bear with me.

That's it until next week!

Week 6: Faith, Optimism and Activism

3/7/08

Earth Day is just six weeks away. With any luck, the Noyo Food Forest will have lots of new brassicas, herbs, and flowers to sell at their Earth Day event. Today I tucked broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seeds into their new little beds and told them to grow like crazy in the next six weeks.

Here is the process I followed under director Susan Lightfoot's guidance. First, the potting soil had to be mixed according to the following recipe: 3 parts Just Coir (the shredded coconut husks I discussed in Week 4), 3 parts vermiculite, 1 part worm castings, and 1 part compost. I scooped out the four components in the proper amounts and dumped everything into a wheelbarrow where I thoroughly enjoyed digging my hands in and mixing it all up good. The starting trays are organized in groups of six starts. You can fit about eight of these in a flat. That gives about 48 new plants to sell. I prepared six flats, which is about 288 plants altogether.

After filling the trays with the potting soil mixture and tamping the dirt down to ferret out any air pockets, a slight depression is made in each "cup" being careful not to go too deep. It is important to read the back of each seed envelope for the planting depth, which is about 1/4" for the cabbage and broccoli I was planting. Then comes the tough part for my old eyes. These seeds are extremely small and my fingers are pretty big. But somehow I managed to lay three seeds into each small depression and then cover them over with the potting mixture. I labeled each tray with color-coded markers that described what had been planted. Over the next six weeks, these new seed starts will be carefully watered every day until somebody buys them and transfers the little babies to their new homes.

Susan was concerned about the amount of plastic that is involved in this process. I looked around online and saw a blog about how to make biodegradable seed starter pots out of old toilet paper rolls. You can either peel off the tubes when the starts are ready to plant and recycle the cardboard or let them decompose in the ground. http://suzannemcminn.com/blog/2008/02/20/how-to-make-biodegradable-seed-starter-pots/ It may not be practical to use this type of method in a large nursery or garden like the Noyo Food Forest, but they are looking into ways of reducing the amount of plastic they use.

Here is a slideshow of today's work in the greenhouse:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562716571hbFsTb

This week's SL Journal Lead Questions were: Does your organization work with communities of faith? How? If not, in your opinion is there room for development in this area? Do they work with alternative faith, or do they attempt to promote new cultural myths? I sat down in the garden with Susan to talk about these questions. Here is a video of Susan in her signature pink boots, sitting amid the yellow volunteer wild crysanthemums, which by the way are edible:

Susan is very wise and I always enjoy listening to her talk with such enthusiasm about the Learning Garden and the projects of the Noyo Food Forest. It is a pleasure to hear her speak about optimism and activism in such a positive way, especially in light of the heavy-duty readings we have had for this class in the last couple of weeks. Somehow, listening to her, I get the sense that maybe things are not as bad as they seem. Perhaps there is such a thing as faith and hope and optimism, where people like Susan smile and make things grow. This life amid the death, darkness and despair of a damaged world renews my sense of wonder that anything at all can grow on this spinning chunk of water and rock that resides in an insignificant suburb of a nondescript galaxy.

Week 5: Pitiful, Pitiful

2/29/08

Okay, so I'm not much of an artist. But this week I tried my hand at painting signs. As you can see from this pitiful display, I have much to learn in the fine art of sign painting.

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562665204wRyryogarden.webshots.com/slideshow/562665204wRyryo

The only decent sign was painted by Susan Lightfoot. Bet you can't guess which one.

Due to my mother's illness, my time at the garden was short this week, and I only put in an hour and a half. Many thanks to Crystal who cleaned up after me this week.

I did stay long enough to check out the starts I had planted in the greenhouse last week. I was happy to see that some of them had survived and showed growth. Here are two photos for comparison:




This is from Week 4, 2/22/08

This is from Week 5: 2/29/08

Week 4: On Cultivation

2/22/08

Update to last week's blogpost: Sakina Bush emailed me regarding my reference to the Noyo Food Forest's use of coconut husks instead of peat in the potting mixture. She had this to say:

"About the coconut husk stuff. (JUST COIR is the brand we use) I just thought I'd mention a couple things. While it is true that peat is a precursor to fossil fuels, I think that my main concern about using it is that it is a mined and nonrenewable resource. (Unless you wait a very very long long time.) I am concerned about the environmental and ecological impacts associated with mining peat. I don't know too much about it, but I know most of the peat in Europe has been mined but not much of Canada's. Recycling coconut fiber is better than not using it, but it is shipped long distances from tropical places using fossil fuels, so it isn't environmentally friendly in that sense. Huge quantities of these wonderful potting mediums are used every day in the nursery and gardening industry and I am seeking an alternative we could use in the Learning Garden. I think we might be able to use worms and high heat composting to make a substitute. John Jeavons uses garden compost and soil which is fine if you don't need a weed free medium."

I wanted to note this information as a reminder that sometimes what may seem environmentally friendly, may not actually be in reality, when the impact of transportation and other hidden factors are calculated in.

Today in the greenhouse, I transferred some of the lettuce starts into a bed that I helped prepare. First, an old bed had to be "fluffed up" and prepared for planting. Susan taught me the "Arabesque" method of forking a bed. You step straight down on the fork, press forward and then pull back, gently lifting the packed dirt so it is light and loose. (If you wish to extend one foot out behind while you press forward, be sure to point your toes and watch your turn-out.) After the bed was completely forked, I added a healthy amount of fresh compost and some organic fertilizer blend and worked them into the soil. The bed also had to be built up, meaning raised higher than the pathway and evened out so water would not pool in low spots. The starts were retrieved from their containers by use of a six-inch metal implement that pulled them gently out of their temporary beds. Incidentally, the container for the starts is an ingenious design that prevents the new sprouts from becoming rootbound. Nevertheless, some of the lettuce starts were not healthy enough to be transplanted, so I took the ones that looked most likely to survive and planted them in the bed in three rows, about two hand-widths apart. Altogether I planted 32 new lettuce plants.

Here is a link to a slideshow of the day's work:
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562646860FURkbc

After the planting, I sat down with Sakina and asked her the SL Journal Lead Question of the week: What are the long term goals of your Service Placement organization? How do they hope to help shape our future? Sakina said:

"Our long term goal is to ‘cultivate’ a healthy local food system. 'Healthy' meaning sustainable, affordable and accessible; 'local' being the key. We try to create all the conditions so it will grow by itself. The three approaches to healthy cultivation of a food system are: (1) Opportunities for education, so people can learn how to garden and grow food; (2) Enterprise, so that somehow
while we are doing all this we manage to make a living; and (3) Community involvement through volunteer work, celebrations and events. "

The Noyo Food Forest tries to hook up people who want to buy food with people who want to grow it and to connect people up with land they can farm. Cultivating this kind of future for our community will make us healthier and stronger as well as being kinder to the environment.

Week 3: Learning & Doing

2/18/08

Before I began my hours of service at the Noyo Food Forest this week, I gave a lot of thought to the SL Journal Lead Question of the week: Whose fault is the state of the environment? Though it is questionable whether the assignment of "fault" can serve any useful purpose, I think every human being on the face of the earth must bear some responsibility. We cannot exclude anyone. We all contribute to the state of our environment; there is no escaping the reality that humans -- and all living things -- impact the world around us in some way. The pivotal question is how can we, as a species, repair the damage we have done and return the world to some semblance of equilibrium.

I had a chance to discuss this with Susan Lightfoot today and asked her how the Noyo Food Forest addressed these issues. Here is what she had to say:

Today I continued to repot herb starts in sanitized six-inch pots. As I worked, Susan instructed a high school student on how to begin the starts using a mixture of pulverized coconut husks and vermiculite. She explained that the potting mixture needs to be light and airy so that the delicate seeds can push up to the surface. Normally peat is used, but peat is a precursor to coal formulated from decaying organic material, and we use too much of our planet's fossil fuels already. By recycling the shredded husks of coconuts, we can avoid using peat and the baby seeds can make their way just as easily to the sunshine.

Once the containers have been filled with the coconut/vermiculite mixture, a small depression is made with a forefinger and three or four seeds are dropped in and covered. Over time and with careful (but not excessive) watering, the seedlings will sprout and soon be ready for repotting. The Fort Bragg High School student is making a senior project out of his time at the Noyo Food Forest, and he is following the recommendations of food production researcher/developer/teacher John Jeavons of Willits in his book, "How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine." http://www.johnjeavons.info/

This week's experience was a delightful combination of learning and doing. The thoughts that Susan shared, the enthusiasm of the high school student, the instructions for starting seedlings, and the now-familiar process of transplanting starts into bigger pots was most enjoyable and made me feel like I was contributing, if only in some small way, to the betterment of the environment.

Here is a link to a slideshow of today's events and activities:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562539077MXlFrp

Week 2: The Fine Art of Repotting

2/8/08

Today Sakina told us the story of how Noyo Food Forest began. About two years ago, Susan Lightfoot and some other local women decided they wanted to create an organic community garden where people could stake out their own beds, plant and cultivate their own organic vegetables. They were contacted by Steven Lund, the Fort Bragg Unified School District superintendent, who proposed that the group use the school's garden in exchange for fresh vegetables for the school cafeteria. The project then became more of a community service garden where people would help to grow things organically for the school. Sakina joined the group on the first day they met at the new location by Fort Bragg High School. One year ago, the Noyo Food Forest became incorporated as a nonprofit corporation and chose its board of directors. New elections are slated for next month. The idea of the community garden is still a main goal of the Food Forest and work has started on this project in the Noyo Basin by Thanksgiving Coffee.

After hearing about the background of the SL organization, I was given the task of sanitizing six-inch pots in preparation for repotting herb starts. I gathered about 100 dirty pots which were scattered here and there and washed them down with the garden hose. I transferred them to a sink in the potting shed where I washed them with organic soap called Kiss My Face. This is some fantastic stuff and I'm going to get it for my home. It is made from certified organic aloe vera and herbs and is 100% biodegradable and not tested on animals. Then I rinsed each pot in a large bucket of water with a quarter teaspoon of bleach. Finally, the pots were again rinsed and allowed to drip dry. This is quite a process for pot cleaning, but it is important to get all the previous occupants of the pots out before putting in new ones.

Sakina partnered me with Maria, one of the special needs students who works at the Noyo Food Forest on Friday afternoons. She was a great potter (and I got to practice my Spanish) and we had a good time together in Greenhouse #2. Our goal was to transfer oregano, rosemary and thyme to bigger pots. Here's the process we followed: Take one empty (and very clean) six-inch pot and place fresh soil in the bottom. Pull one herb start from the flat and turn it upside down, gently removing the plant from its small square plastic lining. Remove the wadded up roots from the bottom of the start and place the plant into the six-inch pot. Carefully add more soil all around and press down to remove the air. The plant should not be placed too low or too high in the pot. Done!

Too soon, it was time to go. It was such a lovely and soothing process. I love working in the greenhouse. I found the entire process from washing pots to transferring the herbs a very contemplative and pleasing experience. Here are the photos from this week's visit to the Noyo Food Forest:

http://good-times.webshots.com/slideshow/562409719wfWxwU

As to the question of an eco-hero or an eye-opening someone, I think Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring would have to be mine. She spoke up about an important subject at a time when it was not at all popular to do so.

Week 1: Meditational Weeding

2/1/08

Today was my first visit to the Noyo Food Forest. I met with Susan Lightfoot, a delightful woman who gave me a thorough orientation about the nonprofit organization and the organic food growing project. She founded Noyo Food Forest three years ago. There are seven people on the board of directors, and about 200 people are on their email list. Between 10 and 15 people volunteer to work there each week, and Fridays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. are their community participation days. Their mission is to cultivate a healthy local food system by providing opportunities for education, enterprise and community involvement. They transform vacant land into gardens where they grow organic foods for sale at a reasonable price to the public. Currently, their Learning Garden near the Fort Bragg High School provides organic vegetables to the school cafeteria, which offers a great alternative to the "nachos and pizza" the school was previously offering students. The Noyo Food Forest has various programs that offer instruction in organic gardening to students and community members. They are starting a new Community Garden near the Thanksgiving Coffee Company in the Noyo Basin. This will be a communal garden that will also support the local food bank.

Today my afternoon was split into three sections: (1) Orientation; (2) Gardening; (3) Meeting. During the first session, I learned about the history of this nonprofit organization and got a sense of what the project was all about. During the second phase, I spent over an hour on my hands and knees weeding one of the garden beds in the hothouse. It was a pretty cold day outside, and I felt sorry for poor Crystal who was outside in the cold shoveling manure into the neatly organized garden beds, but I was nice and warm in the greenhouse, weeding away. It was very soothing and meditative. I enjoyed it very much. After the weeding was concluded, I joined a meeting in progress, where Susan, Sakina Bush (the organic gardening expert) and George (a member of the board of directors) met with students from the school to talk about planning their Earth Day festivities. When George reported that he was going to "try" to convince the people at the Fort Bragg City Council meeting that the Georgia-Pacific land should be turned into a "green" area for locals, Susan piped up with the mantra of the day: "Rid yourself of the word 'try'." She told us that we weren't "trying," we were "doing!" I offered a few suggestions about contacting the various groups at the College of the Redwoods to help with Earth Day (i.e., the Student Government, Grupo Latino, the Oceanography Class, etc.), and then it was time to call it a day.

All in all, I felt that my first day at the Noyo Food Forest was a very productive and informative experience and I look forward to next week.

My photos from today can be seen here: http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/slideshow/562341456uJTTGU