Eco-Fair

I'm the one in the blue hat, 2nd from left. (Photo Anala Miller)

 Fruit Tree Planting Workshop

Nice and early this Saturday morning (4-16-11), I attended the fruit tree planting workshop that was held in front of the Sustainable Living Building. The weather was freezing and windy, but we stuck it out and dug big holes 6'x6' that went about 2' deep in the middle for each tree (and its accompanying guild) . It took a little bit for my fingers to thaw out during digging after the freezing wind initially froze them till they were numb. Digging with shovels, removing the soil and gaining a few inches extra height by collecting a heavy layer of mud on the bottom of my boots, I finally had a first-hand experience of the "clayey" soil that makes up our surroundings at MUM.

It was hard work, but it was really awesome and fulfilling to connect with the earth and the community of folks who came to the work shop. I had to leave the workshop just as all the holes were done being emptied, but I have since been able to see the finished outcome of the people who stayed all afternoon to finish the planting project. Before I left the workshop, however, I did get some quality time with the other members of the fruit tree guild: comfrey, clover, Egyptian walking onion. Using my hands and a hand shovel, I helped separate clumps of these plants into workable sizes to replant along with each new fruit tree. I wore my finger-less gloves that aren't intended for gardening, and when I took them off, I found that all the first halves of my fingers (the parts not protected by the gloves) were brown from soil.

I had a great time at the fruit tree planting workshop and look forward to digging more in the garden! :)


Compost Workshop

The wonderful info-sharers at the Compost Workshop

Sunday afternoon at Eco-fair, I attended the compost workshop on hot compost. I learned some really wicked stuff about the components of healthy soil (fungus and bacteria and lots lots more) that do amazing things like help things grow and prevent soil erosion through keeping the structure of the soil.

The ratio of woody to greens to nitrogen-rich materials for a hot compost pile is 50-40-10. There were a lot of numbers happening for the ratio stuff, and I think I got it right. If there is something wrong with the following, I will correct it asap! When your pile reaches 130 degrees F, you should  turn it  every three days, if it 150, you should turn it every 2 days, 160 degrees F, you should turn it every day, and if it reaches 170 degrees, you should turn it immediately because that is the temperature that it becomes in danger of spontaneously combusting! (if a compost pile combusts, you need to treat it like a chemical fire, and NOT put water on it). The woody material should be at 50% moisture, and you determine this by taking a handful of it and squeezing it. If a few drops run down and drip off your knuckles, that means the moisture is at 50%.

The more I learn about permaculture, the more I learn about the importance of soil nutrition. The compost workshop was a great hands-on experience in the compost building, and I can't wait to for the how-to's of compost to solidify more in my mind. It will help the more I hear about it and the more I just experience it first-hand! Unfortunately, I wasn't dressed for compost pile constructing (I don't know what I was thinking), so I watched the workshop leaders and several volunteers construct the pile. It went like this: a layer of woody material, a layer of greens (in this case, it was food waste from AnaPurna Dining Commons), and a layer of nitrogen-rich material (here we used horse manure).

Before I moved here to Iowa to go to MUM, I lived in San Francisco, where I attempted a few projects in container gardening. I read on the internet about container composting for limited spacing, and tried it out to re-use and replace nutrients in old potting soil. I believe this project was mostly successful, because the soil that resulted was beautiful color and texture, but I do think something about the overall make up of the soil was off because some plants I repotted with this soil died immediately (though some did survive). At any rate, I learned at the Compost Workshop on Sunday that compost containing only kitchen scraps is a little tricky, so I wonder how I could go about a project like this in the future with more knowledge of soil nutrition.

I hand a great time at Eco-Fair, and felt very lucky to live on campus so that everything I wanted to experience was easily accessible! My thanks to all the organizers of Eco-Fair for putting together a wonderful weekend of inspiring events!!

Rescued fallen jade stalks from sidewalks in SF. March 2010