Categories
Urban Farming

Working with Tools

Curved surform

Photo by Rick Gush

This week, I got to try out my new curved surform—a tool to create pieces for my Adirondack chairs.

I’ve got several projects going at the moment: building a pair of Adirondack chairs, starting spring garden work and prepping my next art project. All of these activities require excessive and repeated tool use. One of my favorite things about the garden is getting to use a bunch of different tools, and it’s the same with my shop. The fact that I can actually make things is part of my pleasure, but it’s the use of the tools that gets me most excited.

In the workshop, I’m cutting out all the pieces for the Adirondack chairs. Each chair has 40 individual pieces, so I’ve been doing a lot of cutting and shaping. In order to have a pair of chairs match exactly, I have to make sure that all the pieces are the same for both chairs. I try to be as careful as I can, but it’s inevitable that when cutting the curved pieces there are some differences.

To make the pieces exactly alike, I screw them together into one block and use a wood shaper to carve down the differences until all the pieces match. The tool I used a lot today was a curved surform. It has a thin steel blade that looks like a cheese grater held in a plastic or metal handle. The tool works very nicely when a board needs to be modified slightly. I’ve used a flat surform a lot, but his is my first curved surform and I’m quite taken with it. Eleven euros very well spent!

As for my garden work, today I pulled up some of the older broccoli plants and started preparing the bed for planting tomatoes and squash next week. The old broccoli plants have big, thick stems, so in order to compost all the refuse, I needed to cut all the old broccoli stalks into short pieces. It took me about 45 minutes to clear the plot of all the old plants and weeds and chop all that up into small pieces. Having a nice pair of pruning shears with an extra large mouth made the work much easier, and I certainly enjoyed having the perfect sharp shears to get the job done.

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Categories
Urban Farming

Lawn Mower Exchange Program a Success

Gas-powered lawn mower

Courtesy iStockphoto/Thinkstock

With rising fuel prices, using a gas-powered lawn mower costs a little extra green this season. From an environmental perspective, it’s also a decidedly un-green activity, with EPA data showing that one gas mower sends 87 pounds of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and 54 pounds of other pollutants into the air each year. It adds up: Lawn mowers (and the 800 million gallons of gasoline we purchase each year to fuel them) contribute 5 percent of our nation’s total air pollution.

This spring, however, residents of one Iowa county got the opportunity to swap their gas-powered lawn mowers for something a little greener. With the help of Polk County’s Lawn Mower Exchange Program, 35 Iowans traded in their old lawn mowers for vouchers that allowed them to purchase Neuton battery-powered mowers at a significant discount.

The program was co-sponsored by Polk County’s Air Quality Division, Neuton, Metro Waste Authority and Midwest Recovery.

The program arose out of Polk County leaders’ desire to involve citizens in a county-wide effort to reduce the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter, explains Jeremy Becker, Air Quality Division manager. However, it was a series of partnerships that brought the idea of a lawn mower exchange to fruition.

“The Polk County Air Quality Division … received a $2,500 environmental stewardship and cost-effective waste management grant from Metro Waste Authority to help establish the … program,” Becker says. Midwest Recovery, an appliance recycling firm, then volunteered to recycle the gas-powered lawn mowers exchanged as part of the program at no cost. Neuton, which has partnered with several other state, county and municipal agencies to sponsor exchange programs throughout the U.S., offered “a significant discount on the mowers, advertising materials, coupons, tracking and approval, I.T. support, and free shipping.”

The program was so successful that funding was exhausted in just 16 days. According to Becker, the program will continue unfunded, with Midwest Recovery continuing to recycle old mowers and the Air Quality Division distributing coupons to participants for a smaller discount on the Neuton mowers. The county is already applying for additional grant funding for 2012, with plans to fund 100 exchanges next spring.

Categories
Urban Farming

Do Anything Yourself

Spring salad

Courtesy Karen Spirer

Try this yummy Sweet-and-Savory Spring Salad (recipe below) from Chef Karen Spirer, who teaches workshops with Skills Off the Grid.

Have you ever wanted to learn to make kombucha or kefir at home? Do you need to know a little more about beekeeping before you commit to your own hives? Do you need some basics of canning before the next tomato crop? Cameron Kelly can hook you up.

A woman of many talents and interests, Kelly runs an organization called Skills Off the Grid. She sees herself as a middle person who responds to demand by matching people who want to know with people who have those skills. Using the networks she’s developed as a long-time fitness and social-dance instructor, Kelly arranges low-cost, convenient, small-group learning experiences on a wide range of topics. She often works in cooperation with local churches or a Westchester County-owned farm.

The skills people are seeking are often those that many people used to have not so long ago but that our communities are at risk of now losing.

“The people that still know how have no venue to share their knowledge,” she says.

Her own expanding interest in community sustainability, permaculture, gardening and the DIY “re-skilling” movement motivated her to create Skills Off the Grid. She’s also a member of the local Transition movement, which seeks to prepare us for a post-peak oil world. In addition, she was inspired by her visit to the urban gardens of Havana, Cuba, and by a similar organization, Brooklyn Skill Share.

This spring, Kelly will bring the curious together for two-hour workshops with a beekeeper, an expert knitter, a specialist in natural pest control, an herbalist and a pickle-maker. The workshops provide an orientation and a place to begin.

“I became interested in hosting courses and workshops that would teach skills that will allow people, if only in a small way, to ‘get off the grid,’” explains Kelly. “People are looking to learn do-it-yourself, hands-on skills.”

Karen Spirer, a natural-food chef who often runs classes on fermented drinks or food preservation through Skills Off the Grid, offers this easy-to-do-yourself spring salad recipe.

Recipe: Sweet-and-Savory Spring Salad

Use only the thinner, smaller radish greens from the bunch. The rhubarb can be raw or lightly steamed.

Ingredients

Salad:

  • 1 bunch of radishes, thinly sliced with greens torn
  • 6 cups spring mix salad greens
  • 3 scallions, thinly sliced
  • 2 rhubarb stalks, sliced thinly
  • 1/2 to 1 cup mint leaves, whole or chopped, to taste
  • 2 T. lemon zest

Dressing:

  • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
  • 6 T. combination apple cider and balsamic vinegar
  • 2 T. maple syrup (or more to taste)
  • 1 tsp. mustard
  • squeeze of lemon juice
  • 3/4 tsp. sea salt (or more to taste)
  • pepper, to taste

Preparation

Clean and cut all salad ingredients as indicated. Mix them with torn radish leaves and spring mix salad greens. Beat together the dressing ingredients with a fork to emulsify them, and drizzle on the salad to taste.

Serves 4.

Categories
Equipment

When a Tree Falls

Fallen tree
Photo by Jim Ruen
It’s a sweet reward when a tree I’m cutting down falls the way I want it to.

It must be spring! Over the weekend, I donned protective gear—my heavy-duty boots, chainsaw chaps and helmet with face guard and hearing protectors—and got busy sawing. Two large trees needed to come down. My wife and I prefer to leave dead trees in the woods to the bugs and woodpeckers. However, around the house and paths, I prefer taking a tree rather than have it take me as I walk by. 

The first tree to fall was an oak, the dead half of a twin that had been looking more dangerous with each passing year. There was a narrow alley for it to fall without damaging other trees, a stack of firewood or a near by garden shed.

I made the prerequisite cuts, taking out a wedge in the direction I wanted it to go and then over cutting the missing wedge from the opposite side of the trunk, leaving a sheaf of fiber for a hinge.

There is always a moment when the tree begins to shift and time stops. I killed the chainsaw, knowing there was nothing more I could do but get well out of the way. Slowly the trunk tipped, picked up speed and crashed to the ground … right where I wanted it. Oh, how sweet it is when all goes according to plan.

The second tree was a 40-foot basswood snag, a victim of a lightning strike that took its top. Like the first, it too laid down exactly where I had hoped, just to the backside of a garden bed. Having pulled and pushed more logs into place than I care to recall, to have it fall so perfectly was truly a delight and a great way to begin my spring tasks.

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Categories
News

Strategize Spring Gardens

Cabbage
Courtesy iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Cabbage transplants do well in the garden in early spring because they can withstand cooler air temperatures.

Gardening in early spring can be a real gamble, especially for those living in northern climates, where weather can be unpredictably cold or wet. But farmers hoping to get a head start on their crops can keep in mind some early spring growing strategies.

“Learning when to plant is a matter of reading each seed packet or understanding the catalog lingo,” says Richard Hentschel, a horticulturist with the University of Illinois Extension.

There you’ll find information about plant hardiness zones, which can help guide your decision of when to plant. Even within one state, there can be a difference in growing days. For example, there are about 40 growing days’ difference between northern and southern Illinois, says Hentschel. When deciding on a plant date, factor in whether you’ll be planting seeds or transplants, as growing transplants presents additional challenges in cool weather. 

“Another bit of needed information is the historical and somewhat mysterious frost-free date for the area you live in,” says Hentschel. “Everything is referenced to that date for your first planting. These are very specific dates, yet each year, the gardener will have to decide if it is better to postpone the planting one day or several.” 

Kick off your garden in early spring with cold-hardy vegetables that can survive evenings when a freeze is still possible. Early spring vegetables, such as kale, spinach and leafy lettuces, prefer to germinate and grow in cooler soil temperatures. Other vegetables you can start in colder soil include asparagus, onion sets and rhubarb. Tubers, like the potato, also prefer to start in cooler soil temperatures, then emerge when air temperatures are warmer. If planting transplants, you can start with broccoli and cabbage transplants, which withstand cool air temperatures.

“This group of seeds and transplants go in the ground four to six weeks before the average frost-free date,” Hentschel says.

For vegetables like these, plantings must go into the ground deeper to accommodate tuber development or permanent planting of asparagus.

Two to three weeks after planting cold-hardy vegetables, you can plant frost-tolerant vegetables, which can survive a frost but not a freeze. These include beets, carrots, Swiss chard, radishes and parsnips. Transplants to consider at this time include herbs, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage.

Planting both cold-hardy and frost-tolerant vegetables can present difficulties early in the season if the garden soil is still too wet. If this is the case, you might have to dig individual holes for transplants and use dry soil or bagged soil set aside just for this purpose.

“A similar strategy can be used for the rows of vegetables you are planting,” Hentschel says. “You can use sand to cover the smallest of seeds if you feel the soil you have is too heavy.”

Categories
Animals

Did Ewe Know?

Sheep
Photo by Sue Weaver
In most European folklore (besides British) black sheep are bad luck.

Mom has been collecting trivia about sheep to go in the book she’s writing. She said I could share some with you. Isn’t this fun!

  • According to werewolf lore, dining on the flesh of wolf-killed sheep transforms humans into werewolves.
  • In western European folklore, if the first lamb of the season was first seen facing the viewer, that was a good omen; away, the reverse. If the first birth was twins, so much the better (unless one or both were black).
  • In some parts of Europe, meeting a flock of sheep while on a journey is said to portend good luck.
  • According to Icelandic folklore, if the earth remained buried in snow all winter, the new season’s lambs would be white. Open winters spawned colored lambs, and patchy snow cover meant spotted ones.
  • Teamsters once clipped strips of wool to their dray horses’ collars to avert the dreaded evil eye.
  • In Iceland, anyone who walks three times around a sleeping sheep will have his fondest wish come true.
  • In British folklore, black sheep were said to bring good fortune, whereas the opposite was true in most other European countries.
  • Throughout the Celtic lands, stories were once told of wee sheep (sometimes with red ears) raised by the fairy Sidhe that rose up out of the earth and vanished into the sky when frightened. There were also Celtic fairies like the Phynnodderee, a Manx hobgoblin, that helped drive sheep home when a storm was brewing; Yan-an-Od, a kind old shepherd spirit in Brittany, who tended and guarded flocks of sheep; drunken Irish Clurichauns that stole and rode sheep and sheepdogs to exhaustion in the dark of the night; and Scottish Boobries, wicked water birds that preyed on cattle and sheep.
  • Shepherds in Europe and the United Kingdom were often buried with a tuft of wool in their hands, sometimes signifying their devotion to their charges and sometimes to show they were shepherds, thus excusing occasional lapses in church attendance because they couldn’t leave their flocks during lambing.
  • Icelandic shepherds once believed that if sheep gnashed their teeth during the autumn gathering, the winter would be long and hard. Gnashing teeth in the summer portended a gathering storm.
  • The Dineh people (some people call them Navajos), whose word for sheep, dibeh, means “that by which we live,” say Changing Woman, daughter of First Boy and First Girl, created sheep out of white mist, white shell, turquoise, abalone shell and jet.
  • In olden days, sheepy body parts were used in country remedies. Healers treated children with whopping cough by allowing sheep to breathe upon them. Applying sheep lungs to pneumonia suffers’ feet was thought a cure. Ashes from burned sheep bones were used to heal cuts. People suffering from adder bite were cloaked in freshly slaughtered sheep’s hides. In Iceland, ram urine blended with honey was thought to cure dropsy, and people dabbed ash from burned ram mutton on their facial eczema.
  • In Outer Mongolia, a favorite hangover remedy to this day is pickled sheep’s eyes in tomato juice. Icelandic shepherds hoping to chase hangovers fried up a batch of sheep lungs to down on an empty stomach.

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Categories
Animals Poultry Urban Farming

Baby Jo: Baby No More

Chicken
Photo by Audrey Pavia

Baby Jo, my home-grown hen, is all grown up.

I remember the first time I saw her. She was a little gray ball of fuzz, no bigger than a mouse. She was following her mother around, peeping constantly to make sure Mom knew where she was at all times.

I wasn’t happy to meet her. I didn’t want another chicken, and went through a lot of trouble every day to pull the eggs out from under my broody hens to make sure none of them hatched. But this particular hen had managed to find an impenetrable hiding spot. I had no idea where she was. I knew one day she would reappear with a brood of chicks at her side. I was relieved when it turned out to be only one.

Had I known Baby Jo was a hen, I wouldn’t have been upset at all. But I had no way of knowing, and the last thing I needed was a third rooster in my yard.

We began calling her Baby Jo right away because her mom was one of the Jo’s (Betty Jo, Bobby Jo or Billie Jo—we couldn’t tell them apart), though we didn’t know if she was Baby Jo or Baby Joe. It wasn’t apparent for quite a while that she was indeed Baby Jo and that we were lucky enough to have acquired another hen for our flock.

Baby Jo spent the first part of her life at the bottom of the pecking order. Once her incredibly doting mother stopped taking care of her and let her be a grown-up chicken, the other hens began putting her in her place. She was chased away from newly discovered scores of food and would get picked on just for being too close to one of her aunts.

But then, one day, Baby Jo got lucky. A few of my hens and one of my roosters came down with avian pox. The Jo that came down with the sickness  got it bad and had to go to the hospital. I then I had to keep her separated from the flock for almost a week, locked away in a cat carrier in my bedroom. When I finally returned her to the group, the other hens made it clear that she was now low-hen in the pecking order. Baby Jo was finally above someone in rank.

Although Baby Jo is fully integrated into the flock and even climbed a bit on the social ladder, she is still different from the other birds. She’s the one hen who insists on roosting on the outside edge of the coop every night instead of inside on the roosting pole like the rest of the flock. When I go to the coop at night to shut the birds in, I have to pick her up and put her inside. She squawks in protest each and every time.

It’s been more than a year, and Baby Jo is fully grown now. She is much bigger than her mother and both her aunts, and looks more like her father, Mr. Molly, than she does her mom. Two days ago, she finally laid her first egg. That’s when I knew my fuzzy little chick was truly grown up.

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News

Garden-to-Table TV Show Goes On Air

P. Allen Smith
Courtesy Hortus, Ltd.
P. Allen Smith will host a new show about turning your garden produce into a meal that can be savored.

This weekend, on April 2, 2011, garden designer and Hobby Farm Home Garden Home Solutions columnist P. Allen Smith will debut his new 13-episode public television program. P. Allen Smith’s Garden to Table follows in the footsteps of the popular P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. Inspired by his new book, P. Allen Smith’s Seasonal Recipes from the Garden, Smith will focus on teaching viewers how to grow their own produce and prepare fresh, garden-inspired meals. Each episode features growing tips, recipes and decorating ideas. 

“There is a natural connection between the garden and the table, and that’s what this show is all about,” Smith says. “The culture of food in America is changing—there is an emerging part of the population that is asking about their food—‘Where did it come from?’ and ‘How was it raised or grown?’—and many of them are taking that task into their own hands. I want to see these people succeed, and this show is a great way to teach them.” 

Highlights of the show’s first season include a tour of Smith’s orchard and delectable fruit recipes, an episode dedicated to the wonderful world of eggs, everything you wanted to know about salad greens, and how to turn even the smallest space into a mini-farm—beehive included. Smith will welcome guest chefs who are stars in the local-food movement to demonstrate recipes with ingredients straight from Smith’s garden. And a few of his own family members will stop by to share some of the delicious recipes he enjoyed growing up.

Smith has garnered a loyal following in the 10 seasons of P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home, and the producers of his new show guarantee the same level of satisfaction. As a trusted authority on all things garden, Smith’s next natural step is taking what he grows to the kitchen and to the table.

Smith’s work is inspired by a childhood spent on the farm raising and showing livestock and poultry, and he promotes good stewardship of the Earth. In 2009, he founded the Heritage Poultry Conservancy, an organization dedicated to the preservation and support of all threatened breeds of domestic poultry. He’s also the author of several books, including the Garden Home series (Clarkson Potter/Random House).

Categories
Urban Farming

Future is Bright for Solar

Solar panels

Courtesy Hemera/Thinkstock

The solar industry aims to power 2 million U.S. homes by 2015.

Solar was a bright spot in the U.S. economy in 2010 as the fastest-growing energy sector.The U.S. solar-energy industry’s total market value grew 67 percent from $3.6 billion in 2009 to $6 billion in 2010, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight: Year-in-Review 2010 report released by the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research.

In total, 878 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity and 78 megawatts of concentrating solar power were installed in the U.S. in 2010—enough to power roughly 200,000 homes. In addition, more than 65,000 homes and businesses added solar water-heating or solar pool-heating systems.

The U.S. photovoltaic market made the most significant strides in 2010, with installation totals more than doubling from 2009, according to the U.S. Solar Market Insight report. This expansion was driven by completion of significant utility-scale projects, expansion of new state markets, declining technology costs and the federal treasury’s section 1603 grant program.

The 1603 program, a U.S. grant program for solar- and renewable-energy projects, helped fourth-quarter installations surge to a record 359 megawatts and was critical in allowing the solar industry to employ more than 93,000 Americans in 2010. Originally set to expire at the end of 2010, the 1603 Treasury program was extended through 2011.

In addition, market diversification was a distinguishing characteristic of U.S. solar-energy development in 2010. Sixteen states each installed more than 10 megawatts of PV in 2010, up from only four in 2007. The top-10 states for PV installation in 2010 were California, New Jersey, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina and Texas.

Cost declines were also an important factor in the 2010 solar expansion as technology costs fell and the industry matured further, capitalizing on greater economies of scale and improved installation practices. In the residential segments, installed annual PV-system costs declined 8 percent.

“The U.S. PV market saw a breakthrough in 2010 and is emerging as a global demand center for both suppliers and project developers,” says Shayle Kann, managing director of solar at GTM Research.

According to Rhone Resch, SEIA president and CEO, the report shows that solar energy is one of the fastest growing U.S. industries, offering growth opportunities to businesses of all sizes.

“This remarkable growth puts the solar industry’s goal of powering 2 million homes annually by 2015 within reach,” he says. “Achieving such amazing growth during the economic downturn shows that smart policies combined with American ingenuity adds up to a great return on investment for the public.”

Along with analysis of the U.S. PV market, U.S. Solar Market Insight: Year-in-Review 2010 provides visibility into the concentrating-solar-power and solar heating-and-cooling markets. The 75-megawatt Martin concentrating-solar-power plant installed in Florida is the largest to go online in nearly 20 years and foreshadows a pipeline of more than 9 gigawatts of concentrating-solar-power projects under development. In addition, 2010 marked the first time the federal government approved permits for concentrating-solar-power plants on public land.

Meanwhile, the solar heating-and-cooling markets grew in 2010. The top-five states for solar water-heating installations in 2010 were California, Hawaii, Arizona, Florida and Puerto Rico, while the top five for solar pool heating were Florida, California, Arizona, New York and Illinois. Fluctuating natural-gas and heating-oil prices will determine the future of these markets.

Categories
Urban Farming

Growing Good Neighbors

Kiwi

Photo by Rick Gush

The male kiwi in the garden between my house and the neighbors’ is finally starting to leaf out!

I have neighbors whose garden adjoins ours at the top of the cliff in a narrow area that was a neighborhood refuse pile before I converted it into part of our garden. They had planted an old lemon tree on the site years before. The lemon was almost dead when I arrived on the scene and the whole sliver of ground was covered in construction debris, cigarette ashes and used kitty litter. In the process of making the garden in this underused space, I ripped out the lemon because it wasn’t worth saving. This removal caused some serious indignation on the part of my neighbors. They weren’t happy about their dump area being usurped, and they were concerned my garden could attract vagrants who might decide to climb onto their terrace.

In general, they made a big stink, and there was talk about their getting a city order to make me stop working on the garden and to deny me access to the garden via their building’s little parking lot. It wasn’t at all encouraging to think that I would have enemies on one the edge of the garden. 

Some of my family and friends were ready to make a big deal of this issue and request a counter-injunction that would make them clean the weeds on their terrace wall above the garden, but I refused and would not argue with these neighbors. In fact, I spoke to the owner of the narrow piece of ground and obtained permission to do whatever I thought best in making the new garden. I smilingly assured them that they would like the new look.

Fast forward five years, and these same neighbors are now some of my biggest fans. He gives me an extra bag of concrete every once in awhile, we swap produce from our gardens, and we greet each other cordially on the street.

In the garden, one of the plants that is just now leafing out is my new male kiwi vine. (I have two female kiwis growing well, but the male I planted with them was stunted and unhappy.) When I encountered these neighbors at the Ag Fair earlier this year, they told me they were considering buying a kiwi vine, but said they only had room for one vine. I explained to them that most kiwis need both males and females growing nearby in order to pollinate the flowers and make fruit. They were stumped until I volunteered that I would buy a new male for our garden and plant it near to where our gardens join, in such a way that they could enjoy growing kiwi fruit with only one vine.  

So today, while the kiwi is first leafing out, I saw my neighbor in the street, and he told me their kiwi was also leafing out nicely and that they could see where I had planted my new male kiwi close to their garden. We chatted for awhile about the weather and so forth and then wished each other a happy spring season.

Personally, I think my refusal to combat with these neighbors years ago is certainly bearing nice fruit.  

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