• Home
• About the Press
• Ann's bio
• Events
• Links
• Services
• Contact

Essays

• Featured Essays (3)
• Current Essays (9)
• Archived Essays (90)
  • SageWoman (1)
  • Crone Chronicles (81)
  • Astrology (7)

Ongoing Blogs

• M'Entendre (35)
• Urban Farmstead (53)
  • GANG Garden 2011 (2)

Archived Blogs

• 2007 Book Tour Blog (37)
• 2009 Permaculture Garden Workshop Series (14)
• 2010 Permaculture Garden Workshop Series (12)
• ET/UFO (9)
• Indiana University SPEA E400 Sustainability Class projects (3)
• International UFO Congress 2009 (7)

Users

• Register
• Log in

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG Garden 2011, Urban Farmstead | April 3rd, 2011 by Ann

I notice that the herbs aren’t coming up that fast, though they do seem to be there, quite faintly in some cases. Exceptions are borage and calendula, which are well up. The salad greens are great; they don’t mind the cloudy days, or the cold nights. Beets and tomatoes okay. Peppers are just now beginning to sprout. I’ve never tried to grow them before from seed, so don’t know what’s “normal.”

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG Garden 2011, GANG garden 2011, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | April 3rd, 2011 by Ann

After considerable juggling of all six teachers’ time schedules, we’ve finally got our completed schedule for 2011 growing season. Join us, if you wish to learn permaculture and/or have some community fun!

GANG WORKSHOPS 2011

A Project of the Green Acres Neighborhood Association

And an educational project of the Association of Regenerative Culture

At the Green Acres Neighborhood Garden

2601 E. DeKist St.

Workshop space is limited. To pre-register, please contact Ann Kreilkamp

812-334-1987 or arkcrone@gmail.com. Suggested donation per class: $5 to $15.

Shitake Mushroom Workshop

Sunday afternoon, April 17, 1-4 p.m.

This workshop, led by Nathan Harman, will entail a small fee to cover the cost of the mushroom spores which we will learn how to grow on oak logs.

Get Growing, GANG: Start The Garden

Saturday, April 30, 1-5 p.m.

Led by Rhonda Baird and Stephanie Partridge, this workshop will provide an overview of

spring garden tasks. The first half of the workshop will be indoors and the second half,

hands on in the garden. Let’s see how those raised, heavily mulched, lasagna beds we

built last year are coming along. We will cover starting seeds

in flats and direct seeding, transplanting starts, using the cold frame, checking for weeds,

damage and problems, as well as soil analysis and amendment. Snacks and beverages

provided.

Children’s Workshop: Inviting the Little People into the Garden

Saturday, June 25, 2-4 p.m.

Led by Stephanie Partridge and Emily Ginzberg. Tribes all over the world have stories of little people (elves, leprechauns, fairies, spirits, sprites, gnomes, borrowers) and many times they are associated with gardens. Some believe they are peaceful keepers of the plants and help them grow and flourish. Others believe they are tricksters and you must pay homage to them or else they will play with your plants. I believe the little garden spirits, in whatever manifestation, are good in nature and are here to help and have fun. Who better to help invite them to play than children? (We will talk about the fairies, and they hand out supplies to paint rocks bowls, shards. After done we will encourage them to make altars with twigs, leaves, etc.)

SUMMER SOLSTICE COB OVEN PIZZA, POTLUCK AND OPEN HOUSE FOR THE GREEN ACRES NEIGHBORHOOD AND ANYONE ELSE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THIS WORKSHOP.

Summer Assessment, Seed Saving, and Planting the Fall Garden

Sunday, August 7, 9 am – 5 p.m

Led by Nathan Harman and Rhonda Baird. Just as summer crops are planted in spring, fall crops are planted in summer. This workshop will focus on caring for the garden in the high heat of summer,

planting the foods that will be harvested through the coming cool, and seed-saving techniques.

This is the hay-day of the garden and we will hopefully have yields galore. But, the weeds and insects and drying sun are also trying to make their way, so mulch, shade cloth, row cover and other

techniques will be employed as we keep the summer crops vibrant and give our fall crops

a running start. BYO lunch. Snacks and beverages provided.

Harvest and Preservation: Drying, Canning, Freezing, Fermenting

Saturday, August 27, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Led by Jami Scholl and Leea Gauthier. In the midst of summer, it’s easy to think the zucchini and tomato flow will never quit. But cease they shall, and that’s when we turn to the cupboard full of the years stored sunlight in the form of canned, dried, frozen and fermented garden foods. This workshop

will teach a variety of preservation methods useful to the home gardener. We will spend

an hour with slides and handouts and then harvest, process and sample. Learn how to

reduce food costs while increasing nutrition and flavor through the winter. BYO lunch.

Putting the Garden to Bed and Celebration

Sunday, November 6, 2-5 p.m., then celebrate

Led by Rhonda Baird and Stephanie Partridge. Though there are still winter-hardy plants in the ground, this is the time to clean up and

compost any garden wastes, mulch well, tidy up, and put season-extending hoop-houses

and cold frames over more tender greens. Learn what plants require what degree of care

in this risky weather and just how far into winter they can go. We will also spend time

putting our tools to bed, cleaning, sharpening, oiling and storing to be sure they last as

long and work as well as possible. It’s difficult to get excited about spending less time in

the garden and that’s why we’ll enjoy our second annual harvest potluck dinner and

celebration afterwards!

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in 2011 Workshop Series, Blogs, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | March 17th, 2011 by Ann

Stephanie and me, January 2011

Wonderful, young, creative, and enthusiastic Stephanie and I spent 2.5 hours on Monday — waiting until the waxing Moon went into nurturing, watery Cancer — mixing soil, and then planting seeds in flats. We planted about half the seeds.  The rest will be seeded directly into the garden on April 30, during the second GANG workshop of 2011:

Get Growing, GANG: Start The Garden

Sunday, April 30, 1-5 p.m.

Led by Rhonda Baird and Stephanie Partridge, this workshop will provide an overview of

spring garden tasks. The first half of the workshop will be indoors and the second half,

hands on in the garden. Let’s see how those raised, heavily mulched, lasagna beds we

built last year are coming along. We will cover starting seeds

in flats and direct seeding, transplanting starts, using the cold frame, checking for weeds,

damage and problems, as well as soil analysis and amendment. Snacks and beverages

provided.

Even though I’ve now taken both the Permaculture Design Course and the Grow Organic Educator Series (put on by the local Parks and Rec Department) I still rely on others for their expertise in the garden. Why? Well, there’s just so damn much to learn! Plus, there are always tips from others as to how to make things easier and more efficient. For example, working with Stephanie, I noticed how she worked with saran wrap (used to cover the seeds until they begin to shoot up their tiny leaves). . .

No way I could explain her technique to you, or my bungled technique that had got me cursing. Just know that she made it look easy, and now it’s easy for me, too, copying her.

So I was very glad that Stephanie volunteered for this seed-planting task. She was able to quickly divide all the seeds into two piles: those that would be planted in containers now, and those to direct seed into the garden.

Meanwhile, I rooted around for a container big enough to mix up the potting soil and did that.

Felt so good to get my hands in the dirt. I always forget how good it feels to be back in my body again — at least for that afternoon! (I’ve been zeroed in on writing for my new exopermaculture website, doing what I most like to do, pioneer new ways of being . . .)

So, to continue: Stephanie and I then cleared the kitchen table of its tablecloth, and went to work:

For salad greens —  lettuces, mesclun, tat soi, bok choi, others — we scattered seeds lightly over moist soil and then scattered a bit more moist soil over them. Sometimes filling an entire flat, sometimes half a flat with one type, half with another type . . .

Other seeds went onto soil in rows (and labeled!) — lots and lots of different herbs, plus chard, arugula, mustard  — again with moist soil over them . . .

Still others — many tomato and pepper varieties, plus cauliflower and eggplant, went into flats divided into tiny pots.

Then Stephanie posed with five of the trays (and Emma, sniffing her armpit).

And here are the other five flats (one of them resting on the dehydrator).

Voila! Done! They’ll stay in the greenhouse until we plant them outside, getting misted daily or more often until it’s safe to water them with a watering can (after seeds have rooted).

Next: Sunday, coming right up, a trip out to get horse manure with Stephanie, Mary, and son Colin. Time to add nitrogen to the soil . . .

.

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in Blogs, GANG garden 2011, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | February 2nd, 2011 by Ann

It is such a pleasure to connect with Stephanie and Emily, who both asked to continue working in the garden after their experience here with Melissa Clark’s Fall semester SPEA E400 Sustainability class. I and the garden are so blessed! Both young women are ready, willing, and eager to help design and execute all aspects of the GANG garden this growing season. In addition, it’s wonderful to meet with IU undergraduates who are both excited about the garden and focused on following through with what they said they would do.

Emily arrived hauling an armful of donated gunny sacks from the Runcible Spoon restaurant — and a promise of more! (Thanks, Runcible Spoon! We’re going to experiment with using them as recycled soil-filled containers for hanging tomato plants.)

Emily also reported on her initial research into adding animals into the garden system. We’re still looking at some combination of chickens, ducks, guinea pigs — even a small goat, if possible — and she will now research relevant city zoning ordinances. We’re also wondering which species get along, and how both they and the design and location of their cages can most fully enhance garden processes. For example, Stephanie brought with her the idea that wire-mesh floored rabbit cages could be placed directly above a vermicompost bin, to feed it regularly and automatically with poop.

Stephanie researched the feasibility of utilizing the existing pond to grow and harvest edible fish. She reports that the biggest concern is that the water contain enough oxygen for the fish. We might think about some kind of a pump (a solar powered pump?), and/or nutrient-fixing algae that won’t take over the pond. Bass and bluegill live well together, as do catfish and trout, though different species flourish best at different temperatures. We also need to figure out the number of gallons this pond holds.

Stephanie highly recommends a Readers’ Digest book, Back to Basics, for anyone interested in simple, sustainable systems for survival. From this book she gleaned that crushed eggshells give necessary calcium to broccoli and cabbage, and that coffee grounds repel root maggot in carrots. She suggested that we ask neighbors for their eggshells and coffee grounds, while telling them what they can be used for. This feeds into another suggestion (she arrived full of them!):

to make rain-proof note cards for each plant in the garden with its name and bullet points about why we plant it in this location and its nutritional value. Yes! let us make just coming into the garden an educational experience, especially for children.

To this, Emily had a bright idea: to ask her bio professor about organizing field trips to the garden with MCCSC schools.

Adding fuel to the creative fire, Stephanie trotted out another of her ideas, one instantly dear to my heart: host a Children’s Workshop this spring, for making fairy altars and charms that invite the Little People in. We might do this while an adult workshop is taking place. Both Stephanie and Emily eagerly signed on to teach this workshop, and I am thrilled to be doing it, as it builds in a multidimensional aspect to the garden, being both metaphysical (meta-physical = invisible!) and aesthetic. She also showed us a design that would incorporate my stubborn idea for an art-class project to sculpt a totem pole into a round table design (the pole fitting through a hole in the table). At the top of the totem pole she envisages a tee-pee like structure for hanging and climbing plants. (Let me note that Mary Wheeler had a similar idea last year; that meme is gaining traction!)

At this point Stephanie, who, I’m very happy to say, has a lot of experience with gardening, showed us her initial draft design for this year’s planting, focusing on companion planting to both cut down on weeding and enhance healthy plants. For example, she told us, tomatoes, basil and cucumbers all grow well together, because they like acidic soil.(Last year, one of our teachers, Nathan Harman, had instructed us to plant basil between the tomato plant, but I hadn’t realized why.)

Her design had been made off the map from last year’s garden, and we have made new beds since then. So the next step was to go into the garden and correct and refine the map, plus deciding what other things to plant, and where.

Her planting ideas also got us excited:

• grow herbs for a Tea Garden in front of my house, including: pineapple sage, cinnamon basil, mints (pepper, chocolate, apple. . .) lemon grass (or lemon thyme or lemon balm), mullen, echinacea, chamomile, and lavender.

• Make one of the beds a “night garden” (for flowers that bloom at night), and place it near the picnic area, possibly even outside the fence.

While in the garden, we wondered what do with kale and chard (kale, especially, was very successful last year, but needs a new place to bed), and what plants like to grow with them. We decided to plant a large variety of greens, again in the shaded areas behind the trellises, and add both artichokes and an asparagus bed (can be part shade). We decided to experiment, not only with tomatoes, but also with hanging mint and cucumber plants. And we may plant some tomatoes in the same place they were in last year (the jury is out on whether or not tomatoes are the exception to the usual rule of rotating plants to new beds so that they go back to the original bed only after three years). We’ll also add peas along the fence.

After our adventure dreaming in the dormant garden, Colin joined us in time for our final task, ordering seeds.

But first, Colin wanted to talk about water, and the fact that the city was going to charge 50% more for water this year, and how much water we used last year, watering three times weekly during the drought. Not only that, but our watering was shallow, and thus did not inspire the roots to grow deeper. He wants to find a way to conserve water and have it reach deeply into the root zone. Not sure how yet. Swales down the middle of each bed? Some kind of modified drip irrigation system? Stay tuned, he’s an inventor.

Back to the seed catalogs. We had just opened the new Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalog (a good one, employee-owned, and identifies some of its seeds as organic),

when Colin threw down the gauntlet. Why are we buying from a catalog? How about buying seeds locally? Oops! Of course, assuming we can get them all here.

So we ended our energy-filled afternoon there and then. Stephanie said she’d look up local seed companies, and finish the design, incorporating not only what we planted last year, but also add the herbs basil, lavender, tarragon, oregano, dill, cilantro and parsley into the beds. Plus these flowers: jasmine, nasturtium, sweet cicely (attracts butterflies and roots taste like anise), amaranth, wisteria, and evening primrose.

The day after we met, Stephanie reported back in: Here are the local seed companies from which we will order our seeds when we meet two weeks hence, again on a Sunday, February 13, at 4 p.m.: Nature’s Crossroads and Wiley House. If they don’t have all that we need, we’ll go back to Johnny’s. (Even better, would be a seed-sharing party among permaculturists, but I’m not the one to organize it. Any takers?) Meanwhile, we plan to do a seed-saving workshop this year. It’s about time we added this obvious function into the GANG’s slowly-developing sustainable permaculture system.

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in Blogs, ET/UFO, M'Entendre, Ongoing Blogs, Uncategorized, Urban Farmstead | January 23rd, 2011 by Ann

Note: I tried to finish this post yesterday in time to post it on January 22, when giant Jupiter entered fast Aries, but just wasn’t fast enough. Reality keeps slipping behind . . .

This story begins January 4^th, with the first New Moon and solar eclipse of 2011. January 4^th also happened to fall within the aura of the third and final Jupiter/Uranus conjunction of its 13-year cycle, a fact significant to me, as you will see.

So, to begin.

After two full years of not doing ceremony, when I woke up on January 4^th I was surprised to find myself strongly impelled to dust off my tiny, handmade Peruvian rug, unfold and center it on the living room floor, and carefully arrange upon it candle, crystals and other sacred objects. Then, bowing to my impromptu altar, I sat on the floor to meditate.

Nearly three weeks have gone by since that little ceremony.

And now, today, January 22, after one full year during which Jupiter and Uranus both slogged their way through watery Pisces, Jupiter enters Aries.

Jupiter will race through Aries in less than five months, igniting both chaos and high, high creativity. Then Jupiter will settle down in June to ground the new initiatives in Taurus for one full year .

Meanwhile, in March, Promethean Uranus will also slam into fiery Aries, just as the Mayan Calendar enters its final, culminating cycle. What took billions of years, then millions of years, then thousands, hundreds, decades, mere years, will compress into just 260 days — in a yet again 20-fold time acceleration.

Can we do it? Are we prepared internally to process experience so quickly it will be as if we must pivot from one paradigm-shattering event to the next, on and on, and on? Are we resilient? Have we moved into equanimity no matter what the shock that shudders through, with no let up, no breaks, and no time to leisurely assess import?

Way back in the summer of 2010, the first conjunction between Jupiter and Uranus paralleled the Gulf Oil catastrophe and we were confronted with our sudden, drastic, empathic communion with all of life — plant, animal, and human — in, on, and around the Gulf of Mexico, its air and water currents spiraling out to contaminate the globe.

During the third and final Jupiter/Uranus conjunction, again in watery Pisces early this month of January 2011, we were confronted and confounded by the start of still ongoing bird, fish, and now even large animal kills in various locations around the globe.

Pisces symbolizes (among other things) the fluid media within which all creatures on earth are immersed. Jupiter (large) and Uranus (sudden change) together in Pisces: sudden, drastic changes of state in fluids, whether that be water, or air, or our feelings. Who knows, maybe even the composition of our blood and lymph and spinal fluids are altering . . .

(Various theories try to account for the ongoing kills. I intuitively favor the theory that an gradual pole shift is causing Earth’s magnetics to create sudden, powerful disturbances in seemingly random telluric and atmospheric pockets.)

Besides its larger, collective import, the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction in late Pisces squared (occurred 90° from) my 27° Sagittarian Sun. So I knew that I needed to expect the unexpected in my own life.

During the meditation part of my January 4, New Moon/New Year 2011 ceremony, I cleared my mind into spaciousness and waited for a message. Within a very short while an inner voice whispered a single word: respond. That’s it! Just “respond,” soft, strong, and clear.

I had to admit that I was “expecting” more, even something profound. But, no. Respond? Huh?

Yet I must have unconsciously absorbed the message, because on January 12, only eight days later, I noticed that the creator of a website that I deeply admire was inviting people with writing skills and interest in the topic of extra- and interdimensional phenomena relating to the 2012 Ascension Process to join him. Instantly, with no hesitation, I responded.

His call and my response then launched a short, intense cycle of experience with this man which then, suddenly and unexpectedly, closed! — on the day of the Full Moon! — thus fulfilling the promise of the ritual.

Our partnership had seemed full of high promise. Both of us “expected” it to continue. I felt excited about the prospect of co-creating with this new partner for his website’s audience on a subject dear to my heart.

Instead, to our surprise, within one week our partnership was over.

Did I feel shocked? Yes. Surprised? Yes. Disappointed? Not really. Instead, it felt as if I had learned to pivot precisely around a single point and emerge, not only intact, but refreshed.

I had gone through that experience with enthusiasm, and apparently no attachment. Had I not gotten excited, had I remained “detached” to protect myself  “in case it didn’t work out,” I wouldn’t have experienced shock; nor would I have undergone the transformation that the shock ignited.

That short cycle felt like my 2011 initiation, into a series of who knows how many other shocks, unexpected surprises, about-face reversals, during what soothsayers of all kinds predict will be a year of massive, unsettling change. The ocean of humanity’s collective unconscious is roiling with gigantic, colliding currents, and we must learn how to surf.

It helps to view experiences in terms of their cycles — and consciously appreciate each one throughout its entire process — beginning, middle and end. Usually the length of the cycle is not known beforehand. I have learned to commit to each cycle on trust, to immerse myself fully for the duration — be it three minutes, three days, three weeks, three lifetimes — who knows? It’s all good. It’s all alive.

For I have learned that only when a cycle has closed can I stop to breathe in the full flavor. For its gestalt or pattern does not click into place until the circle closes. And even then, of course, as time goes on any experiential cycle embeds within larger and larger experiential cycles, all of which continuously morph in meaning. Nothing stays still. The frameworks that we use to order experiences pop, and pop again.

During that one very engaging week I learned that I am to help forge a conscious bridge between certain individuals and groups, both of whom are at the leading edge of human consciousness, but whose fields of awareness have, so far, been polarized. Let’s call these fields, for short, “above” and “below.”

The above: I include here those who are aware that we are not alone, that Earth is being constantly visited by extra-terrestrial and interdimensional visitors, most of whom are waiting an invitation to help, and in fact are already helping to ameliorate the damage we have done, and to ultimately transform this planet into a veritable Garden of Eden.

The below: I include here those who work to understand and practice the principles of permaculture as applied to both earth and human communities (including the Transition movement), and who assume that we humans are alone in a mighty and valiant struggle for survival on a planet that we have ruined.

Many of the “above” people, with their heads in the clouds, want to think that ETs will save us, if we can just be patient and trusting, and hold out until formal disclosure of their presence.

Many of the permaculture people “below” keep their noses to the ground, while focusing with unusual energy and creativity in concert with nature to ensure that at least a remnant of humanity survives.

Both “above” people and “below” people realize our planetary situation is drastic, and both experience fear. Those who are aware of their own inner processes (and that includes the more evolved in both “above” and “below” groups) work to transform this fear internally, lest they become part of the problem. They know that fear constricts, and that when fear recedes, love abides. They know that the alternatives are stark: separation, or oneness.

To create a bridge between the “above” and the “below” in this context is to shift from separation to oneness.

The “above” people see Earth in her cosmic context, and long to commune with the stars and our galactic visitors (or to observe and hear about others doing so), all while waiting for Ascension that supposedly arrives in either October 2011 or December 2012. The “below” people don’t have time for such absurd nonsense; they argue that only hard, unrelenting, creative, intelligent work, on the ground and in our communities, might turn the situation around — if its not already too late!

For years now, I’ve focused in both directions, feeling internally split. On the one hand, I was attending UFO congresses and devouring channeled and ET material on the internet; on the other hand I was busy doing, organizing, and promoting permaculture.

Though my inner work — especially via daily tai chi and yogic practices — has resulted in a sense of my body/mind/spirit as an antenna linking heaven and earth, I had yet to translate that vertical hook-up into “real world” activities. Instead, while talking out loud about permaculture, I have been privately preoccupied with the cosmos.

So now, all that changes. Thanks to a week-long cycle with a wonderful fellow to whom I responded, I became highly aware of this split within myself, and vowed to bridge it, heal it.

Jupiter entered Aries today, January 22, to be joined by Uranus in that sign on March 13, four days past the beginning of the final 20-times-faster, only 260-day Mayan cycle on March 9 that ends in October 28, this year. These shifts ultimately auger the brilliant ignition of a creative fire that will fuel humanity until Uranus leaves Aries, in 2018.

Many new initiatives begin roll out. Here’s one:

www.exopermaculture.com. Stay tuned.

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG garden 2011, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Ongoing Blogs, Urban Farmstead | January 16th, 2011 by Ann

Actually, these photos were taken in mid-December, 2010, during one of the bitter cold snaps, but guess what? It’s still snow-covered, a month later.

Today son Colin and I sat down with Emily and Stephanie, two IU students who want to help this season with the garden. (Damn! Forgot to take pictures!) Both are recruits from the Fall semester E400 SPEA class, and the four of us had a terrific time talking about what we want to do and dividing up tasks.

The overall goal is to continue utilizing the garden not only to grow food, but to serve as a demonstration and education site for permaculture as well as an inspiration for community in this neighborhood and beyond. To our great surprise and excitement, Stephanie has a lot of experience as an urban gardener, and if another position doesn’t pan out, she will be able to serve as the actual Director for the GANG garden this year. Even if not, we are thrilled to have her expertise, as well as the enthusiasm of both Stephanie and Emily in our garden gang for this year’s season. Though we won’t decide on what workshops to present until February (one of our teachers is out of town and out of touch), here’s what we have in mind for this year in the garden.

For the various parts of the garden, here are our plans:

For the pond:

• Terraform and contain all overflow from the garden.

• Direct water from the SW roof corner of my house into the pond.

• Stephanie — or was it Emily? — will research the possibility of growing fish for food: what kind and how many for this volume and what do they need.

For the garden beds

• Colin will create a hanging plant apparatus along the south wall of the fence to demonstrate hanging plants utilizing recycled materials (used coffee bean burlap bags and old tee shirts?). We will grow tomatoes and possibly beans (and what else? Emily will research) as hanging plants this summer that can also trail down the fence.

• We will extend old beds and create new beds.

• Stephanie knows several sources for manure and will see that we get some to get more nitrogen on the beds soon.

• Stephanie will research companion plants, nitrogen-fixing plants, and plants that attract predator bugs and bees to incorporate into an initial draft design of the garden that she will bring to the next meeting.

• We will utilize one bed for the experiment of scattering various kinds of seeds and just seeing what wants to grow there and then.

Garden Improvements

• We will put together a wooden cart to hold extra produce that will be chained to the outside of the fence during harvest season, with a sign asking that those who take the produce give us their veggie scraps and leaves in exchange to help grow our compost.

* We will expand the vermiculture process by deconstructing the existing compost barrels (they don’t work fast enough), enlarge the holes in them, and bury them, for vermiculture; we will also place pvc pipes with holes in them in different spots in the garden that will vermiculture in place (again with worms, newspapers or leaves and food scraps).

• Emily will research the idea of creating a raised tank for holding water that courses along the culvert along Overhill to gravity feed the garden. She will also research how to filter this street water.

• The cob oven project is unfinished; Colin and Nathan will complete it in the spring; we will then hold a bake-out in the garden for the SPEA class that built it in the Fall of 2010.

* Animals

• Emily will research: ducks, chickens, and rabbits (for their eggs, manure and meat), rabbits and large peruvian guinea pigs (meat and manure). Which ones can co-habit, and how? What does each species need? What will the coop that holds them all look like?

Longer-range:

• Fall 2011: E400 SPEA class will focus on designing a building a greenhouse for the west half of the south wall of the DeKist house, with a self-watering system from the roof.

• Another SPEA project for the future is a vertical garden for the west side of the DeKist house.

The four of us, and anyone else who is interested, will meet again, January 30, 2 p.m., to decide the final design for the garden beds, look through seed catalogs and order seeds.

After our meeting we all went into the garden to sprinkle Alyce the rabbit’s poop on the beds and harvest the kale, still hearty after the bitter cold and snow, protected only by row cover and black bags of leaves on west and north side. Amazing! We each got a bag for our dinner tonight. Also the little Asian greens are still okay under their row cover and protected by leaf bags; but the plants in the cold frame have not done nearly as well in the bitter cold.

Live and learn . . .

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG Garden 2010, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | November 22nd, 2010 by Ann

This story continues to unfold as I write it, like so much these days. How to tell the tale? Where to cut into the flow to limit and shape a linear thread? (As my favorite philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein once commented, “It’s hard to start at the beginning, and not go further back.”)

Here’s one way to begin.

Three weeks prior to the Cob Oven Workshop with the Indiana University/SPEA students (see last Urban Farmstead blogpost), I decided on the spur of the moment to finally make the three-hour drive to New Harmony, in the southwest corner of Indiana. I’d heard that this little town was founded as a utopian community, and ever since my move to the midwest from Wyoming I’d wanted to check it out. Finally, after eight years, one day I woke up and  just decided to drive there. This surprised me. All of a sudden, to decide to go that very morning?

Well, by the time I was heading home from my afternoon in this wonderfully preserved little town on the Wabash River , I realized I’d just been treated to another instance of what I call “divine choreography.” The timing of my visit to New Harmony had anticipated our upcoming cob oven workshop. As usual, this synchronicity made me feel safely held in the arms of the universe.

(To those who wonder, “What is my path?” I respond: Look in front of you. What is there? Keep walking the path you’re already on. And do it consciously, with awareness. Be alert for synchronicities —  startling connections between events in time and/or space. The more you expect synchronicities, the more they show up, each one like a little voice whispering, “yes, that’s it. You’re on the right track!” Simultaneously, synchronicities both illuminate meaning and center it within an inherently mysterious universe.)

A wonderful synchronicity had linked this day with the workshop. For when this utopian community was conceived by its founder, rough-hewn, charismatic German pietist George Rapp, an outdoor oven was built on every block. Since I imagined our cob oven, built in the GANG (Green Acres Neighborhood Garden), as of use to those in the neighborhood, I felt both stunned and thrilled to come across this specific example of the utility of a shared resource.

Here’s a (blurry) shot of the front of one of the New Harmony ovens there (theirs were faced with stone).

Here’s a shot that shows how deep the oven was.  (As I recall, the guide said they could bake 30 loaves in one firing.)

Here’s how they housed the oven, with room for heated air to escape.

And here’s what it looks like from afar.

Notice the garden beds in the foreground (photos from late October). Now, just to give more context, here are a couple of photos of a model of New Harmony as it was between 1814 and 1824, the year when the approximately 700 members of a pietest sect from Germany that had built the town from scratch decided to sell the entire town and return to Pennsylvania (where they had built an earlier town, Harmony, as distinguished from New Harmony). Why did they leave? I asked the guide. She didn’t know.

Notice the common gardens in between the buildings in this first photo. The community (in which all goods were held in common)  owned 20,000 acres surrounding the town, and planted some of it in grain, grape vines and fruit and vegetable crops. And they raised cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens and horses, some inside the boundaries of the town. The large building in the foreground housed single women or single men.

To me, it’s amazing to think that 700 people would, in ten years, carve a town out of the wilderness, including mills and factories and most of what was needed to live a self-sufficient life, — plus spend lots of time listening to their founder’s sermons and holding regular, sacred sing-alongs! Clearly, these people knew what they were doing before they got there, and were applying known skills to a new project.

I emphasize this fact because, what is of great interest to me, this town was the focus for not one, but two utopian experiments!

The first group left in 1824, for reasons which, apparently, are still not clear to historians, having sold the entire town to another man, also European, who saw it as a chance to carry out his own utopian experiment.

This man, Robert Owen, was reared in Wales and had made a fortune  in Scotland where he had instituted a number of social experiments aimed to better the conditions and education of those who worked in his factory. Owen’s vision was not religious, but secular, and drew 900 people, most of them artists, writers, scientists, and other intellectuals, to this prosperous little town in the wilds of Indiana. Crowding into an infrastructure built for 700, they valued the life of the mind over manual labor. Tellingly, this version of utopian community ended after two years. Simply, they didn’t know how to DO. They didn’t have the skills needed for life on the frontier as a prosperous commercial center for grain and yarn and lumber and liquor.

Notice the orchard bordering the town on one side.

Here’s a gorgeous little park. (They also built a large, living labyrinth out of hedges, which are by now quite high.)

Frankly, I was amazed at the design, industry, and varied skill that went into the building of this town and all its variegated activities, in the middle of what was then the American frontier.

The question, “Why did the first group leave?” still haunts me. As does the juxtaposition between visions, life styles and skills of the two groups: both utopian; both with strong leaders, yet one religious, the other secular.

Despite losing at least 200 of their members from malaria during the first few years of their residence in Indiana, and, despite their preference for celibacy, the first group stayed for ten years, then returned to Pennsylvania where I heard they built yet another new town, and where they continued for another 80 years!

The second group, though larger to begin with, had to give up within two years. Simply, they didn’t have the skills! Given that my leanings are utopian, too, I ask myself, in our transformation of neighborhoods into villages, how can we create the best of both their worlds? I, too, am an artist and intellectual who prefers the life of the mind. And I share this predeliction with many of my contemporaries with mystical, utopian leanings. Yet without the various hands-on skills to provide the basic necessities of food, water, shelter, clothing, and commerce, no contemporary community can expect to survive on its own. Do we have what it takes? If not, given peak oil and climate change, can we learn in time?

And that brings me back to cob ovens. I find it interesting that one of my sisters and my daughter-in-law have both been inspired by the cob workshop to look into the idea of building cob ovens in their neighborhoods and for their schools. Somehow, in demonstrating the process of communally building an outdoor cob oven meant to be shared by many, we may have hit a communal nerve. YES!

BTW: do check out New Harmony, if you live nearby.

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG Garden 2010, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Indiana University SPEA E400 Sustainability Class projects, Urban Farmstead | November 18th, 2010 by Ann

Read more

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in GANG Garden 2010, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Indiana University SPEA E400 Sustainability Class projects, Urban Farmstead | November 15th, 2010 by Ann

Nail biting

The day before the cob oven workshop dawned clear and bright. And . . . nothing had been done to prepare the site! I was not nearly as aware of this as Colin, who a few days prior, while digging a 3-foot hole for the beam that would support the roof, asked whether I’d connected with Nathan, the workshop teacher. I emailed Nathan and, just in the nick of time, the night before the day before the workshop, he called us both. To Colin, in his casual way, he drawled, “Well, I realize this is the last minute. . .”

We’d had a big meeting a few weeks prior (see the post that reads, “From Fulmination to Transformation,”), and I thought all was well, but then, ever since, nada! And I knew that the final design that SPEA E400 undergraduate Sustainability Class had sent in, though incorporating our edits from that meeting, probably wouldn’t be what Colin and Nathan would work from. I thanked the student team for their efforts, and warned them that the design and dimensions of the cob oven would probably be unknown until the actual act of constructing it . . .  And, moreover, that the roof of the cob oven wouldn’t get built until we knew how much area it had to cover.

A lot was riding on this prep day. Professor Melissa Clark’s Fall semester  undergraduate Sustainability Class had been geared towards partnering with the Green Acres Neighborhood Garden on this project; the cob oven had to get done before Thanksgiving break. The students had been researching both cob and city codes, writing a blog, doing preliminary work on their final report, as well as finalizing the design. Would — could! — Colin and Nathan pull through in the time remaining? And what would it mean to pull through? I had no idea the kind of construction required just to get the site so that the oven could be constructed the next day.

The Process: Smooth as Silk!

Late morning on this day before the workshop, they met near the cob building site, the inside corner of what we used to call “the Berlin Wall” (until it had its final paint job).Luckily, these guys know and like each other, are both experienced carpenters with similar ideas and ideals, and love to collaborate. First, while Nathan measured the beam for the roof, they talked about what they’d like to see happen:

Then, they went and got a few more supplies and tools, had something to eat, and knuckled down to work, starting in the early afternoon.

I’d look out my kitchen window once in a while, where I could see them working in a focused and unhurried manner, talking quietly.

Twice I wandered down to take another photo:

Shortly after 5 p.m., the sun was just about to set, and it was clear that this wouldn’t get done that day. I wandered down again. Nathan had just left and Colin was cleaning up for the night. He expressed confidence that they would get it done tomorrow morning before the students arrived at 11 A.M. (Really? I found it hard to believe, and unfortunately, forgot to take a photo of what the project looked like at that point.)

Then, voila! the next morning, they converged at 10 am, and fueled by my muffins, completed it in one hour, just in time for the students to arrive.

And they didn’t even break a sweat.

Whew!

Next up: the workshop, itself.

Currently Reading:
Urban Farmstead

Posted in 2010 Permaculture Garden Workshop Series, GANG Garden 2010, Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG), Urban Farmstead | November 9th, 2010 by Ann

The afternoon of November 7 felt clear and cool, ideal weather for our final workshop of the GANG’s second gardening season. Gathering in the picnic area . . .

for our instructions at 2 p.m. I, for one, felt somewhat lethargic and lacking energy. After consulting with teachers Nathan and Rhonda earlier that week, that morning I had typed up the final list of tasks (and a few questions) to be tackled before 5 p.m. (and darkness). The list was daunting:

• cut up vegetable debris and either compost in place or elsewhere.

• seed heads into black bags

• muck out pond from sides

• what to do with barrel compost?

• time to get out compost from worm compost?

• tall flowers into black buckets

• remove debris from south wall (some on garden beds, what?)

• NE corner piles: what to use and how?

• remove tomato stakes

• shore up bracing for blackberry bush trellises

• make new bed? Or widen some beds?

• cardboard either on old beds or new beds

• make straw bale cold frame against south wall

• screw on top to wooden cold frame

• plant cold frames? (seedlings in greenhouse, use compost in NE pile)

• leaves on beds

• horse and rabbit poop on beds

• wood chips on paths

While Rhonda and Nathan were going through the list with the workshop participants, I surveyed the scene with my phone camera.

Notice the huge pile of leaves in the SW ferrocement corner. Colin and I and Jean, a neighbor who had never before worked in the garden, gathered them from the five nearest lawns. A few of the bamboo tomato stakes show here. We would remove them all, since we will put tomatoes in new places next year. Since the stakes were wired together, that was a bigger job than it looked.

Notice the lemon grass on the left, still flourishing. We would dig it up and take it into the greenhouse for the winter. And notice the amaranth. Still so tall and grand and colorful. We would have to cut off all its seed heads before chopping for compost. The amaranth probably took longer to do than anything else, since there was so much. But the pollinating bees and beneficial wasps (they eat insects) love it. So even though some think it an “invasive,” amaranth is welcome in the GANG.

A few days prior, Nathan had warned me that it looked to be a hard frost that night. So my son Colin and I got up the rolled up row cover, and cut up lengths of it to shelter the still flourishing spring-planted kale (that we had  saved while tiny from slugs with little containers of beer, remember?). Notice the black bags. They’re full of leaves and will remain in place until spring, providing thermal mass and wind protection for the kale. (I just learned this technique from the fabulous GOES course (Grow Organic Educator Series), a meaty, fact-filled, 13-week, 3 hours per week, course put on by B’town Parks & Rec. I highly recommend it!)

For this winter cold frame (built during the 2009 workshop series), which had been planted again (this time with the top off) last spring with curly kale and collards, we decided to cover the kale (since it too, was still flourishing), cut up the collard remains in the other side of the cold frame, and plant with chard and Asian green seedlings grown for that purpose in the past three weeks. (Colin screwed its top back on the next day.)

For great seedlings, here’s another tip from GOES course, given by one of the Strangers Hill organic farmers: scatter seeds on top of already moistened soil, then sprinkle more soil over them (if they germinate in the dark), tamp down lightly and mist. Cover tray with plastic until the first seed germinates, then remove plastic. Continue to mist, keeping moist (like twice a day!) until seedlings are rooted enough not to float. But why are these seedlings so VERY perfect and beautiful? Because I also added my own urine to the mist, about one ounce per pint. Permaculturists say that human urine has the very best PKU mix. So why not recycle close to home?

Colin and I had also covered still flourishing spring parsley, and fall plantings of lettuce and Asian greens.

Okay, time to break the lethargy, get our butts in gear and fan out. Butts and fannies ahoy!

Even moi.

From this time on, the afternoon flew by as we worked together seamlessly in the low-lying November sun. Here’s Colin with Nathan’s little nature sprite daughter Lulu, taking a break.

And here’s Maya, Rhonda’s daughter, my favorite little Amazon, thoroughly enjoying herself, as usual.

In no time at all we had completed cutting up and placing plant debris to compost and were well into our final task of the day, scattering first horse manure, then leaves, then straw on the beds — to mulch them, add nutrients, and build soil.

5 p.m. DONE! We had been working as one, bodies, minds, and spirits aligned with what was needed to complete and enhance nature’s nourishing cycle for one more year. Two and a half hours later, we emerged all together, as if from a common dream.  And voila! The results:

All that remains is to scatter wood chips on the paths.

I’ll have the IU SPEA Sustainability students do that next Saturday, when they come to the GANG garden for this semester’s project, to design and construction a cob oven. It will be built the corner against the ferrocement fence, guided by Nathan, Scott, Colin, myself, and their intrepid teacher, Melissa Clark. Stay tuned.

Afterwards we warmed our bellies and tickled our palates with thick soup, salad, homemade apple sauce, baked purple yams from the GANG garden, persimmon cake, apple cake, apple cider and red wine. A wonderful afternoon and evening. How good it is to work and play together on a task we all can get our hearts and souls behind.

Just writing this post fills me again with joy and gratitude.