Maine Gardener: Ferry Beach students elevate garden to a sustainable ecosystem

 

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Posted 25 September 2011, by Tom Atwell, Maine Sunday Telegram (MaineToday Media Inc.), pressherald.com

 

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The Ferry Beach Ecology School in Saco has given a new name to its organic garden.

“We are calling it a ‘sustainable food ecosystem,’ ” said John Ibsen, coordinator of the school’s Food for Thought program. “This garden is our feeble attempt to replicate a natural ecosystem.”

Ibsen showed a bit of a twinkle when he mentioned the new name, but it fits with the school’s goals.

“Our focus is on the science of ecology,” said executive director Drew Dumsch, “and the practice of sustainability. It is sustainability applied to ecology.”

Founded in 1999, Ferry Beach Ecology School hosts students from other schools for as little as an afternoon or as long as a week, taking advantage of the seven natural ecosystems within walking distance of the school and teaching about nature and ecology. It’s located at a Unitarian summer camp that was established in 1901, and uses the buildings when the camp isn’t. So far, 80,000 students have taken part in the program.

The garden is located on a challenging site that was built on beach sand on secondary dunes and buffeted by ocean winds. But the students and staff have slowed the winds by creating woven fences from trees cut down for projects elsewhere on the property.

The soil is improved by a no-till method of lasagna gardening, where layers of organic matter and newspapers are put down and allowed to decompose to create a rich topsoil.

“We teach that it takes 5,000 years in nature to create an inch of topsoil, but we can make it a lot faster,” Dumsch said.

Ibsen stresses putting plants close together, having mulch and compost on the soil and gardening vertically, to make the most of a garden that is about the size of a small house lot.

“Bare soil is like an open wound, letting out soil moisture and soil fertility,” Ibsen said.

He combines the permaculture and American Indian practice of the three sisters with a crop rotation in several plots in the garden. The three sisters are corn, squash and beans. The corn provides structure for the beans to climb, the beans provide nitrogen to the soil for the other two plants, and the squash shades the soil to keep weeds to a minimum.

The planting pattern is more like a forest, Ibsen said, where there is a mixture of plants rather than the distinct rows of a traditional vegetable garden.

After the squash is harvested in October, Ibsen has the students plant garlic, which is supposed to cleanse the soil. This year, he planted some summer squash around the garlic a few weeks before the garlic harvest to make more use of the soil.

Next year, that plot will be planted with peas, rye and vetch, all of which improve the soil.

In another area, Ibsen uses more combination planting with an apple tree as a centerpiece. Rhubarb will improve the soil. Fennel is believed to repel a lot of apple-tree pests. And bee balm will attract a lot of pollinators.

Ibsen was especially proud of a tomato cage that was about 7 feet tall and 6 feet long, made entirely from items taken from a Dumpster at a school construction project.

The wood for the frame came from discarded pallets. The tomatoes climb metal reinforcing grids that usually go into a concrete floor.

All of this is put together in a package that will please older elementary and middle-school students. There are wanted posters for some of the bad bugs, such as Japanese beetles and tomato hornworms.

The little red garden shed has snacks from the garden as well as tools. The woven fences are both whimsical and practical. The mammoth sunflowers are about 8 feet tall with foot-wide seed heads.

Although the garden provides only a small percentage of the food served at the school, the dining hall is used as a teaching tool.

“With the kind of teaching we do here, we didn’t want the cafeteria food to be from Sysco,” Dumsch said.

It costs the school about an extra $30,000 a year to get organic and local food, he said, but donations help pay for it.

One of the major fundraisers for the school will be Eco Appetito, to be held from noon to 3 p.m. Oct. 2 at Cinque Terre, 36 Wharf St. in Portland.

Chef Lee Skawinski and his staff will be preparing locally sourced food, wine and beer. There also will be live entertainment, door prizes and a silent auction. Tickets are $40.

Tom Atwell can be contacted at 791-6362 or at:

tatwell@pressherald.com

 

Most Read:

• Sprouting up all over
• In tune and in tempo
• Maine Gardener: Ferry Beach students elevate garden to a sustainable ecosystem
• Maine Gardener: The naked truth: A bare garden isn’t pretty, but you can fix that

 

 

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http://www.pressherald.com/life/homeandgarden/ferry-beach-students-elevate-garden-to-a-sustainable-ecosystem_2011-09-25.html

The Permaculture Revitalization Act of 2011

A Vision by Willi Paul, Planetshifter.com Magazine

 

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Posted 19 September 2011, by Willi Paul, PlanetShifter Magazine, planetshifter.com

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GOAL: To revive, reconnect and re-focus the Country and begin the permaculture’s charge into local, national & global politics.

The mirror sight:

The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams and bridges, warships, hospitals and schools. Its goals were to spend 3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves in 1933-35, and again in 1938. Originally called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1939 and shut down in 1943. The PWA spent over $6 billion in contracts to private construction forms that did the actual work. It created an infrastructure that generated national and local pride in the 1930s and remains vital seven decades later. The PWA was much less controversial than its rival agency with a confusingly similar name, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), headed by Harry Hopkins, which focused on smaller projects and hired unemployed unskilled workers.

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Possible components of The Permaculture Revitalization Act of 2011:

• Projects for Neighbors with neighbors; community building projects for resilience awareness and a new ecological balance
  
• Permaculture Training and Jobs Czar – Cabinet-level Secretary post
  
• Combining jobs and training under one program to promote self-sufficiency
  
• Permaculture design certificate demo projects in all levels of schools
  
• Building more Community Gardens – like the eco village farm, sf
  
• Design and implement training for permaculture design certificate grads
  
• Promote and better connect new Permaculture Guilds
  
• Provide a database of available lands for revitalization & Community Network for Permaculture

Permaculture is a Green Technology, Mr. Obama!

Join – then discuss this vision with us at Permaculture Hub

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Related Work:

Bolivia is set to pass the world’s first laws granting all nature equal rights to humans. The Law of Mother Earth, now agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, redefines the country’s rich mineral deposits as “blessings” and is expected to lead to radical new conservation and social measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The country, which has been pilloried by the US and Britain in the UN climate talks for demanding steep carbon emission cuts, will establish 11 new rights for nature. They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Controversially, it will also enshrine the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities”.

“It makes world history. Earth is the mother of all”, said Vice-President Alvaro García Linera. “It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration.”

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http://planetshifter.com/node/1937

Retrofitting The Auckland Bioregion

 

19 November

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Posted21 September 2011, by Staff, Auckland Permaculture Workshop, aucklandpermacultureworkshop.co.nz

 

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Tutor – Gary Marshall, Finn Mackesy and Rilke de Vos

 

“The question Where are we? has a deep, sustaining ring to it. It is a simple question with a deceptively complex answer”(Robert Thayer). This workshop asks participants to explore what it means to live locally in the Auckland bioregion. Through a series of discussions and design exercises, participants will investigate concepts and design strategies that seek to enrich their neighbourhoods and bioregion. The workshop includes a site visit to an on the ground example of a bioregional design and development initiative and talk with people involved.

Course content

Introduction to – Bioregionalism and Life Place theory; Bioregional and neighborhood audit and stocktake; Design strategies for retrofitting bioregions and neighbourhoods;Re-localization and Transition Culture – the Transition framework and the 12 Touchstones; Local, national and international best practice examples; Integrated Catchment Management, landscape ecology and settlement design.

Learning objectives

• Develop a deepened understanding of the Auckland bioregion
• Develop an understanding of the key principles of sustainable design and retrofitting
• Develop strategies for living locally, enriching and retrofitting the Auckland bioregion for a sustainable and resilient future
• Develop an understanding of retrofitting existing structures
• Apply the day’s learning to a practical design activity
• Identify opportunities and challenges to applying the day’s learning

 

Eco-retrofitting… means modifying buildings and/or urban areas to improve allover human and environmental health, and to reduce resource depletion, degradation and pollution – if not expand the ecological base. It implies an integrated and eco-logical design approach, instead of the mere addition of energy-saving equipment. It also implies a planning strategy that considers not just buildings but whole suburbs, cities and urban infrastructure”  \\ Janis Birkeland

\\ LINKS+ REFERENCE MATERIAL

Life Place, Bioregional Thought and Practice Robert L. Thayer, 1999

A Field Guide to Auckland: Exploring the Region’s Natural and Historic Heritage Cameron, Hayward and Murdoch, 2008

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built Stewart Brand, 1994

Bioregional Congress Relocalisation How Buildings Learn (video)

 

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http://www.aucklandpermacultureworkshop.co.nz/retrofitting_the_Auckland_bioregion.php

Tutor – Gary Marshall, Finn Mackesy and Rilke de Vos “The question Where are we? has a deep, sustaining ring to it. It is a simple question with a deceptively complex answer”(Robert Thayer). This workshop asks participants to explore what it means to live locally in the Auckland bioregion. Through a series of discussions and design exercises, participants will investigate concepts and design strategies that seek to enrich their neighbourhoods and bioregion. The workshop includes a site visit to an on the ground example of a bioregional design and development initiative and talk with people involved. Course content Introduction to – Bioregionalism and Life Place theory; Bioregional and neighborhood audit and stocktake; Design strategies for retrofitting bioregions and neighbourhoods;Re-localization and Transition Culture – the Transition framework and the 12 Touchstones; Local, national and international best practice examples; Integrated Catchment Management, landscape ecology and settlement design. Learning objectives Develop a deepened understanding of the Auckland bioregion Develop an understanding of the key principles of sustainable design and retrofitting Develop strategies for living locally, enriching and retrofitting the Auckland bioregion for a sustainable and resilient future Develop an understanding of retrofitting existing structures Apply the day’s learning to a practical design activity Identify opportunities and challenges to applying the day’s learning

\\ LINKS+ REFERENCE MATERIAL

Life Place, Bioregional Thought and Practice Robert L. Thayer, 1999

A Field Guide to Auckland: Exploring the Region’s Natural and Historic Heritage Cameron, Hayward and Murdoch, 2008

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built Stewart Brand, 1994

Bioregional Congress Relocalisation How Buildings Learn (video)

Permaculture Humanure Toilet – Another great example

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Posted 14 September 2011, by Christian Shearer, YouTube, youtube.com

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In this informative and entertaining short video, Taiga Marthens leads us through the ins and out of her humanure compost system at her land in Driggs, Idaho.

 

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywvjQOJp-Rg

Permaculture institute celebrates 25 years in Basalt

Basalt permaculturist Jerome Osentowski collects the fruits (and vegetables) of his labor at his greenhouses. Scott Condon/The Aspen Times

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Posted 18 September 2011, by Scott Condon, The Aspen Times (Swift Communications, Inc.), aspentimes.com

 

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BASALT — There’s a Garden of Eden carved into the piñon and juniper forest on the sunny south side of Basalt Mountain, a one-acre paradise where fruit trees and grape vines flourish outside and greenhouses cradle everything from fig trees to particularly prolific passionfruit.

The Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI) is celebrating its 25th year, an amazing feat considering permaculture’s overshadowed status in the gardening world and a catastrophic fire in October 2007.

The paradise is the creation of Jerome Osentowski, who has been involved in growing food in one way or another for more than 30 years and is recognized as an expert in building greenhouses and successfully filling them.

Perhaps the crowning achievement of his career is what he has accomplished — with staff, friends and volunteers — at the 1,800-square-foot Phoenix greenhouse, so-called because it replaced a greenhouse that burned down four years ago. It’s an amazing place, 2.5 miles from downtown Basalt, that makes visitors feel like they’re in a tropical jungle, sans the dangers.

A passionfruit vine dominates a section of the overstory, racing along 40 feet on a trellis in one direction and 20 feet in another. It was allowed to climb all over to shade the greenhouse interior from the sun and keep it cooler during the summer. The vine will be cut back this fall so the sun heats a flagstone patio and stone gabion walls on the north wall of the greenhouse. The rocks will release their heat after dark and help stabilize the greenhouse during the long nights of fall and winter.

Along with the passionfruit vine, the lush overstory in the greenhouse is completed with papaya, guava, avocado and dragonfruit plants along with four types of citrus trees. The banana plants, with huge leaves drooping down like elephant ears, command the entire west end.

The understory looks like a Rocky Mountain garden gone wild. There are common plants — peppers, cucumbers and sweet potatoes — but they reap the constant benefits of a warm, humid environment.

“We take what’s outside, put it inside and bump it up a few climate zones,” Osentowski said.

The subtropical environment of the Phoenix greenhouse won’t drop below 40 degrees at night, and it stays between 70 and 80 degrees during the day. A sauna heated by a wood stove is attached to the greenhouse. Warm air will be released from the sauna into the greenhouse during the coldest periods of winter. Numerous vents keep it cool during warm weather.

Solar panels provide the power necessary for the greenhouses; CRMPI is off the grid.

Mixed in with the veggies in the understory are exotic varieties of plants: fragrant night-blooming jasmine, Chinese date trees and aromatic medicinal plants like ginger.

Osentowski said he and his staff follow the forest-garden model where there are layers of cohabiting plants outdoors. “We try to mimic that,” he said.

All spaces are filled with plants. Sometimes they don’t work out in a particular place, but usually they find their niche.

“We’re not trying to play God,” Osentowski said. “We’re doing some logical mimicking of nature.”

The soil beds in the south section of the Phoenix greenhouse, clear of the lush overstory, is laid thick with annuals and winter salad greens. The diversity of plants means there is always something to harvest — “phases of abundance,” as Osentowski calls them. The idea, he said, is to avoid being one-dimensional like agri-business and most other greenhouses.

A smaller Mediterranean greenhouse adjacent to Phoenix is dominated by a massive fig tree that Osentowski calls “the grand dame” of CRMPI. The fig started from an 18-inch-high cutting 15 years ago and is now a twisting tree with numerous branches that take up roughly 100 square feet and produces mouth-watering fruit.

CRMPI is constantly building the soil of its greenhouses with leaves from the orchard outdoors and from rotting vegetation from the indoor plants themselves. When a huge leaf falls off the banana plant, it’s best left at the base of the plant to provide nutrients rather than tossed out. Tidiness isn’t necessarily a virtue in the greenhouse. Mulch covers the soil beds and certain areas are devoted to particularly thick mulch, where worms are added in heavy concentration. They break down the mulch and create rich humus.

A small pond on the property is home for ducks and tilapia. The soil from the pond is occasionally scraped up and used as fertilizer, as is the manure from chickens and Nigerian goats on the property. The “waste” goes back into the system. That sustainability is central to the permaculture concept of whole systems management.

Osentowski teamed with other instructors to teach CRMPI’s 25th Annual Permaculture Design Certification Course in August. The two-week course teaches students the essential elements of permaculture so they can better design and maintain sustainable systems such as forest gardens and greenhouses.

Osentowski said public interest in permaculture is picking up. The New York Times ran a lengthy article this summer about its growing popularity, and Osentowski and his staff have received a book contract to write about the system and CRMPI’s history.

Still, permaculture hasn’t been embraced to the degree Osentowski thinks it deserves.

“The floodgate hasn’t opened. It’s still a small movement,” he said.

He senses it will grow, particularly if the economic challenges continue to plague the world for years to come. Osentowski is proud that CRMPI has its own woodworking shop so the staff can create what it needs. It produces its own food. Passive solar and solar electric systems supply the power.

“We’re the ultimate survivalists, really,” Osentowski said. “The beauty of CRMPI is it’s built on a shoestring budget, it works and it’s replicable.”

scondon@aspentimes.com

 

 

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http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20110918/NEWS/110919857/1077&ParentProfile=1058

Permaculture (How to Design Systems for Sustainable, Community Living) – Bill Mollison

 

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Posted16 September 2011, by Staff, Sterling Insights, sterlinginsights.com

 

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WHAT IS PERMACULTURE?

Permaculture (permanent agriculture/culture) is the use of Ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing, technology, & community development. The objective is to produce an efficient, low-maintenance, productive integration of plants, structures & people, to obtain on-site stability & food self-sufficiency in the smallest practical area.

See also: http://www.heathcote.org/PCIntro/2WhatIsPermaculture.htm

WHO IS BILL MOLLISON?

Bruce Charles ‘Bill’ Mollison (born 1928 in Tasmania, Australia) is a researcher, author, scientist, teacher and naturalist. He is considered to be the ‘father of permaculture‘, an integrated system of design, co-developed with David Holmgren, that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture, architecture and ecology, but also economic systems, land access strategies and legal systems for businesses and communities.

He received the Right Livelihood Award in 1981 with Patrick van Rensburg.

Bill Mollison, father of Permaculture, gives insight into the techniques, practices and benefits of the most important interdisciplinary earth science of our age.  Watch the following videos to learn about his concepts:

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofKTgmW_FAg

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0v3jrjEtUI&feature=watch_response

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwZiikke5HI

 

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNKuF7VZFVY&feature=related

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCvmffZbDOk&feature=related

THE PERMACULTURE CONCEPT – Part 6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2_EdEOYLiQ

 

DRYLAND PERMACULTURE STRATEGIES – Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W15RRvKyJSk&feature=related

DRYLAND PERMACULTURE STRATEGIES – Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIelsCmdTA8&NR=1

DRYLAND PERMACULTURE STRATEGIES – Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGotaEnwqic

 

BILL MOLLISON BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements (with David Holmgren, Trasworld Publishers, 1978) ISBN 978-0938240006
• Permaculture Two: Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture (Tagari Publications, 1979)
• Permaculture – A Designer’s Manual (1988) ISBN 978-0908228010
• Introduction to Permaculture (1991, Revised 1997) ISBN 978-0908228089
• The Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition (1993, Revised 1997) ISBN 978-0908228065
• Travels in Dreams: An Autobiography (1996) ISBN 978-0908228119
• The Permaculture Way: Practical Steps To Create A Self-Sustaining World, with Graham Bell (2005) ISBN 978-1856230285
• Smart Permaculture Design, with Jenny Allen (2006) ISBN 978-1877069178

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http://www.sterlinginsights.com/insights/latest-insights/permaculture-bill-mollison

Sustainability gets cozy and to the point

 

 

Posted 04 September 2011, by Curtis Wackerle, Aspen Daily News, aspendailynews.com

 

One problem with the environmental movement, according to Eden Vardy, founder of the nonprofit Aspen T.R.E.E., is that it’s too often focused on energy, which is an abstract, intangible concept to most people.

So that’s why getting your hands dirty at T.R.E.E.’s Cozy Point Ranch Sustainable Farmyard is so important, and instructive, to the hundreds of kids who have come through in the demonstration project’s first year as part of the ranch’s summer camp programs.

The plot of land carved out of horse pasture next to Cozy Point’s equestrian facilities, which is owned by the city of Aspen, located off of Highway 82 just downvalley of Brush Creek Road, is an outdoor classroom. The curriculum is the philosophy of permaculture, which teaches that agricultural ecosystems should be self-sustaining and self-sufficient. Some 50 varieties of plants, along with chickens, turkeys, pigs and goats are the textbooks.

Anything that might be thought of as waste has a purpose, such as the animal poop used for fertilizer and the compost piles that add nutrients to the soil. Smelly and spicy plants like arugula are planted next to more sensitive ones like tomatoes to deter pests. There also are techniques to adapt to Aspen’s high-altitude climate, such as lining the raised garden beds with basketball-sized rocks, which act as thermal insulators, trapping in enough heat to extend the growing season by a week or two, Vardy said.

A young boy used to joke with his father upon returning from the supermarket with a car full of groceries — “Hunt good. Many buffalo,” the boy would say, in a faux-Native American voice.

Fact is, the joke was about as close as the boy came to grasping the disconnect most people have between their food and its source.

Vardy, 25, who was raised in Aspen, founded Aspen T.R.E.E. three years ago to address that disconnect between modern society and the natural world and animal kingdom that surrounds and supports it. Critically, the organization focuses on positive solutions, as Vardy identifies too much negativity as another of the environmental movement’s ails.

“We focus on sustainable solutions,” he said. It doesn’t hurt to be creative and artistic while you are at it either, Vardy, believes, as “that will inspire people.”

T.R.E.E. stands for “together regenerating the environment through education.” The nonprofit is responsible for the annual Tuesday-before-Thanksgiving free organic community meal served at Aspen High School (this year’s birds are trotting around Cozy Point right now) that serves up to 700. It also offers programs such as custom garden consulting and “nature nannies,” which is basically a child care service that specializes in introducing kids to the outdoors and wholesome foods. T.R.E.E. also will build you an earthen pizza oven.

Vardy became interested in the concepts that would form T.R.E.E. a decade ago as an Aspen High School student. He took science teacher Travis Moore’s ecological literacy and resource efficiency course “and got really excited,” he said, and pursued the field in college. At Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., Vardy earned a degree in sustainable food systems, and he has a master’s in integrative ecosocial design with a focus on regenerative leadership and nonprofit management from Gaia University. Part of his master’s coursework with the nontraditional university included setting up a permaculture demonstration site at a school for AIDS orphans in Uganda. He also has worked in Asia and Israel on sustainable farms.

Aspen called Vardy back, however.

Eden Vardy, director of Aspen T.R.E.E., explains the unique features of the garden. Raised garden beds are curved to mimic nature and maximize capacity in a minimal space while improving nutrient control, as well as providing easier access to participants in the program. Designed as a sheet mulch garden, soil is comprised of composted manure, topsoil and peat moss from the Ice Age dig in Snowmass. The large rocks bordering the garden help contain heat and extend the growing season in Aspen’s colder climate.. Photo: Chris Council/Aspen Daily News.

“It’s so beautiful here, it touches my heart,” Vardy said.

Aspen also is  “such a magnifying glass,” he said. The idea was that if he could get T.R.E.E. successfully off the ground here, the concept could be packaged and exported to other communities. One day, Vardy hopes to see, for example, a Los Angeles T.R.E.E. and a Miami T.R.E.E.

He has now returned to Aspen High School and Moore’s classroom, where he is leading 72 hours of coursework on permaculture design, as part of the ecological literacy class.

“It’s quite an honor to go back to the class that started it all,” Vardy said.

T.R.E.E. had a similar permaculture demonstration site last summer at the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies’ Rock Bottom Ranch near Carbondale, which it still maintains.

Earlier this year, Monroe Summers, head of the company that manages Cozy Point Ranch for the city, contacted Vardy about setting up a demonstration site at the ranch and contributing to the ranch’s summer camp offerings.

The reality is that Cozy Point’s equestrian focus only appeals to a certain segment of the community, Summers said, so the ranch tries to broaden its outreach when possible. T.R.E.E. and Vardy, who were introduced to Summers by Seth Sachson of the Aspen Animal Shelter, seemed like a good fit, he said.

T.R.E.E. was established and working with the campers by July. Summers gives T.R.E.E. the land for its demonstration project at no cost, and in exchange, T.R.E.E. provides instruction in “healthy living, local foods, animal husbandry and so forth” for interested campers, Summers said. The “We-Green-Riders” program in particular, which introduces 4- to 6-year-olds to basic equestrian skills while getting them some time in the garden, “took off like gangbusters,” Summers said. Cozy Point’s summer camp business this year was double or triple what it was last year, which was the camp’s first year, Summers said.

The nonprofit has similarly grown, with a budget that has doubled in the last year, Vardy said. He brought on six interns to help out this summer, and the organization is overseen by a five-member board of directors and an advisory committee that includes pro skier Nick DeVore and former Pitkin County Commissioner Patty Clapper.

T.R.E.E. is currently funded by about a 50-50 split of donations and earned income for products and services. Vardy said he’d like to see that become more of a two-thirds, one-third breakdown in favor of earned income.

With school back in session, the summer camp programs at the ranch have wrapped up. In the coming weeks, Summers said he plans to sit down with Vardy to debrief on the season and talk about how to improve and grow the partnership.

Ideas in the works include building a four-season greenhouse at the ranch, to add some variety to the concept of eating local in the winter months — otherwise true locavores don’t have much to choose from other than eggs and hunted game meat.

Other ideas include a Cozy Point farmers market, a bigger community garden and collaboration with the “slow foods movement.” Vardy also is testing out a number of different strains of quinoa in the garden, to determine what is best suited to grow in the high country elements.

“We have the sunshine, we have the land, the soil and good fertilizer — and we’re looking for ways to capitalize on that,” Summers said. In regards to T.R.E.E., “We see our role as a facilitator and a sort of big brother, to help them reach their goals and aspirations. They are young and just getting started, but they are doing some things that are really important.”

curtis@aspendailynews.com

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/148902

Home and Garden Digest, Sept. 3: DIY Solar Projects workshop at Love Apple Farms

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Posted 03 September 2011, by Staff, Santa Cruz Sentinel (MediaNews Group), santacruzsentinel.com

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Garden Co. marks 25 years with saleThe Garden Company Nursery and Gift Shop in Santa Cruz is celebrating its 25th year as an independent, family-owned business.

To celebrate the milestone and thank the community for its ongoing support, The Garden Company is holding a weeklong sale culminating in a weekend of speakers and activities at the nursery on Sept. 10-11. For more information, visit The Garden Company at 2218 Mission St, call 429-8424 or visit www.thegardenco.com.

DIY solar projects focus of workshop

Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz is hosting its first Easy Solar Projects workshop, 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24.

This class provides the basic skills needed to get a small solar project up and running, from implementing solar-powered lighting to installing solar pumps for backyard ponds. The class will also discuss design fundamentals and where to buy solar components.

The two-part class includes a lecture on the basic concepts and vocabulary of solar engineering, and a demonstration of how to install solar-powered lights in an outdoor setting using Love Apple Farms’ chicken coops as the project.

The workshop will be led by Thomas Wittman, who has been using solar power in various forms since 1982. He also has designed, lectured and built systems for the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UC Santa Cruz.

The workshop will be at Love Apple Farms, 2317

Vine Hill Road. The class is $55. Visit www.growbetterveggies.com.DIG event centers on homesteading

Eager to start homesteading in your urban or suburban lot? Wondering how to fit everything into the small space? A DIG Gardens workshop and book signing set for Sept. 10 with Urban Homesteading’ author Rachel Kaplan aims to teach the elements that make up a homestead and how to combine them in whatever space you have. The free session will offer basics in permaculture design, as well as some basic DIY projects.

Kaplan is a Bay Area-based homesteader, psychotherapist and educator. She lives on a small homestead called Tiny Town Farm with her family, their chickens, rabbits and bees.

The Urban Homestead Design Lab starts at 2 p.m. DIG Gardens is at 420 Water St. in Santa Cruz. Call 466-3444 or visit www.diggardensnursery.com.

Kaplan is also having a book signing at the Capitola Book Cafe at 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11. The cafe is at 1475 41st Ave. Call 462-4415 or visit capitolabookcafe.com.

Antiques classes coming in Los Gatos

Bob Bortfeld, owner of Vintages of Los Gatos, is teaching a class this fall on antiques and collectibles in conjunction with Los Gatos Recreation Department.

The six-week interactive classes will be organized around different antiques and vintage collections. Topics for the sessions are: special collections; silver objects; porcelain and pottery; vintage jewelry; and ephemera. Each session will discuss the history of the topic, styles and materials, plus the basics to be able to decipher the age and provenance of an antique. Each class will end with a chance for attendees to show their own antiques and collections.

The class will be 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesdays from Sept. 27 through Nov. 1. at the Los Gatos Adult Recreation Center. Call 408-207-4904 or visit www.lgsrecreation.org.

Wilder history day shows ranch life

Learn about life on the ranch by participating in a family living history day at Wilder Ranch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17.

Activities and demonstrations include draft horse wagon rides, branding, hand-made tortillas, ice cream, tasting baked goodies from a wood burning stove, roping skills and lawn games.

Wilder Ranch is two miles north of Santa Cruz on the coast side of Highway 1 at 1401 Coast Road. Call 426-0505.

Sept. 11 dinner aids farm apprentices

Support the training of new organic farmers and gardeners by attending the gourmet “farm-to-fork” field dinner at the UCSC Farm on Sunday, Sept. 11. The event supports scholarship funding for the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems apprenticeship program.

The dinner features a five-course meal created with organic ingredients from the UCSC Farm and Garden and other area farms and ranches.Tickets are $125 each. Call 459-3240 or visit www.casfs.ucsc.edu/farm-to-fork-benefit-dinner.

Singer marks 160 years, seeks stories

Singer Sewing Company is celebrating its 160th anniversary by inviting consumers to share their Singer stories online at www.mysingerstory.com and find out more about their own vintage machines.

Visitors to the website will be qualified to win an anniversary sewing machine to be released in January that mirrors machine designs of the past while incorporating the latest technology features.

The website includes a feature that allows people to learn where and when their old machines were manufactured by entering a serial number.

The patent of the first Singer sewing machine by Isaac Merritt Singer was issued on Aug. 12, 1851; the 160th celebration will continue through August 2012.

Love Apple lends Habitat a hand

Chef Stephen Beaumier of Quince in San Francisco will create a farm-to-table dinner Oct. 2 at Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz as a benefit for Habitat for Humanity’s newest affordable housing development in Scotts Valley.

A farm tour led by Love Apple’s Cynthia Sandberg starts the event, followed by an al fresco dinner at communal tables set among the vegetable gardens.

Habitat for Humanity Santa Cruz County has built 34 homes over its 22-year existence.

Tickets are $200 per person. Visit www.habitatsc.org or call 831-469-4663 for details.

Filoli’s fall festival Oct. 1 in Woodside

Filoli welcomes the public to the historic site’s annual Autumn at Filoli Festival on Saturday, Oct. 1. Activities will include live music, docent-led nature hikes, fall art projects, puppet and magic shows, face painting, and outdoor games and activities for kids. The festival, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., also includes fruit tasting of rare heirloom pears, apples and grapes from Filoli’s orchard.

Admission is $20 for current members of Filoli; $25 for nonmembers; $5 for children ages 5 to 17; and free for children 4 years and younger.

Visit www.filoli.org or call 650-364-8300, ext. 508. Filoli is at 86 Cañada Road.

Email digest items to homeandgarden@santacruzsentinel.com.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_18819269

How Nature Makes Soil, And You Can Too (Video)

Image credit: Ecofilms Australia

Ecofilms Australia

Posted 26 August 2011, by Sami Grover, TreeHugger (Discovery Communications, LLC), treehugger.com

From helping to convert arid, salty desert into a productive permaculture garden, to reminding us of the astounding fact that there are 40 tons of life in just one acre of soil, Geoff Lawton knows a thing or two about the magic of soil. Here he reveals a few choice places where nature likes to make soil (it’s not where you’d think!)—and tells us how to take advantage of that in your own garden.

I am assuming this clip was filmed as part of Geoff’s Permaculture Soils DVD, which looks to be a veritable feast of information, tips and inspiration for those gardeners who believe in the old adage that if you feed the soil, the plants look after themselves.

Certainly the notion of looking to the bottom of your pond for valuable soil, before you go buying in top soil stripped from land elsewhere, is about as simple and as important a tip as I can think of. The fact is that nature is busy making soil in the most surprising of places—sometimes all we have to do is look.

Thanks again for the inspiration Geoff. Get more fascinating permaculture footage over at EcoFilms Australia.

More on Geoff Lawton and Permaculture
Dirty Movie Reveals the Secret of Soil: Geoff Lawton’s Permaculture Soils DVD
From Arid Desert to Abundant Garden: Greening the Desert Revisited
40 Tons of Life in Just One Acre of Soil

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/how-nature-makes-soil.php