A little inspiration

In today's world I find it difficult sometimes to find the motivation needed to pursue the projects that will enable me to live a green life.  But then you here about people like Ceclilia Gatugo who have started a urban farming project called Patchwork City Farms.  Starting with her own 800 sq ft city lot and now expanding outward she is making fresh fruit and vegetables available in neighborhoods across Atlanta.

To read more about Cecilia and her efforts check out this article on MSN

Growing Wild in the City

Until next time my fellow environmentalists

Josh

Wild Flowers of Lakota, ND

 

Composting Leaf Litter

Every year a ritual takes place across the country and the world.  This annual chore takes place usually in the fall or winter months and is either loved or hated depending on how much you did it as a child.  I am of course talking about the wonderful, joyous chore of raking your lawn.  This job is treated by many as a burdensome waste of time with you endlessly raking, bagging and disposing of your leaf litter at the local dump or burn pile. For others it is a great opportunity for to add to the community compost pile in which all this leaf litter can be disposed of naturally and makes a perfectly useful substance. 

If your are lucky enough to live in one of those communities you should take advantage of this service and add to the community compost.  If you live in a community that doesn't have one of these services and you want to create compost you are left to your own means to make it.  I was personally confronted with this very problem in my current location.  I had a yard full of leaf litter, a desire for some compost and no community pile to add it too. 

I did some research and found out that a easy way to make a free/cheap compost bin is to use old shipping pallets.  This was a perfect solution to my problem since I am tight on money the idea of using shipping pallets appealed to me.  These pallets are fairly easy to find too if you are looking in the right locations. 

Some good places to look include.

• Hardware Stores
• Lumber Yards
• Big Box Stores
• Large Grocery Stores
• Distribution Centers
• Manufacturing Plants
• Etc.

In my experience most places will off load these pallets for free if they don't already have a recycling program in place for them.  What your looking for in these pallets are ones that haven't been beat up to much with intact deck boards and solid 2x4 supports.  Also for the purpose of building compost bins  make sure your pallets are as close in size to each other as possible so they line up easier. 

I built my compost bin using six pallets that I got from a local lumbar yard/hardware store.  I laid the pallets our in a rectangular shape with the bin being two pallets long and one pallet wide.  I fastened them together using 2 1/2 in screws spaced as evenly along 2x4 supports as I could.  With the first five in place I then took the sixth pallet and a pair of heavy duty door/barn hinges and attached it to the other five pallets.  With the door in place and secured by a old bungee cord the bin was ready to fill.  By the time I was done picking up the yard I was able to get around 75% of my yards leaf litter into the bin.


The only money I spent on it was the gas in the car to pick up the pallets and little bit on screws to assemble it.  In return I will get nutrient rich compost at a fraction of the cost of commercially bought compost and you can control what was put in the bin. 

In order to help the bin along a balance between wet and dry and the proper amount of nitrogen vs carbon must be maintained in order to decompose at the optimum rates.  Nitrogen is found in green organic matters such as lawn trimmings, salad ends, fresh leaves and many kitchen vegetable wastes.  Carbon is found in the brown organic matter like dry leaves, twigs, dry grass, and straw.  I have found the quickest way to determine something is off is smell.  Compost that is off will have a rotten smell which some people say smell like eggs gone bad.  Compost that is going good will simply smell like good soil and be moist but not sopping wet.  Semi frequent turning of the compost using a pitchfork will speed up the process and will help aerate the compost if it it to wet.

After the leaf litter and added vegetable scraps has been composted I will use it in my gardens and spread out on my lawn as fertilizer. 

Until next time time my fellow environmentalists

Josh 


  
 

My Texas Winter Garden

Do to some circumstances outside of my control I had to take a break in my normal routine and switch around my plans for a bit.  I will living in Lufkin TX for about two months time and this gives me a unique opportunity for me.

I have always wanted to test out cold season gardening utilizing the combination of cold season crops such as radishes, beets, spinach and various lettuces and the protective cover of the greenhouse.  With my budget small and a my space limited I made use of left over materials from a deck railing removal to build a simple triangle greenhouse. 

I then attached the frame to a existing raised bed planting box using a pair of door hinges.  Finally I covered the frame in 2 mm thick plastic sheeting in order to create the desired greenhouse effect.  Inside I planted cherry tomato and two pepper seedlings in the back row.  While these are not typical cool season crops I was curious to see if they would survive under the makeshift protection of my greenhouse.  For cool season crops I planted Detroit Dark Red Beets, Crimson Giant Radishes, Simpson Elite and Mesclun Lettuce, and finally Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach and Salad Select Spinach. 

Results so far:

So far the two pepper seedlings died during a recent cold snap but my tomato is still hanging in there.  The radishes are already starting to sprout as well as some of the lettuce but I seen no signs of the spinach yet.

Since I had extra seeds after only planting those few I decided to also plant some of the other raised beds you can see in the picture above.  I planted both varieties of lettuce and both types of spinach in those beds.  Like in the greenhouse the lettuce has been the first to come up with no signs yet of the spinach.  According to the emergence days on the seed packets this is not a surprising result and  providing I sowed them correctly I should be seeing sprouts any day now.  I am hoping to be able to compare the growth rate of the greenhouse plants to the exposed plants and see how they do against each other and if there is a observable difference.

I will update this blog on the this experiment as it unfolds.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists.

Josh

Using Lawn Clippings as a Weed Barrier

I conducted a experiment a few years to back to determine the effectiveness of typical lawn clippings as a weed barrier in a 12x12 foot garden space. The space had been prepared for planting as follows,

1. Area designated that needed to be tilled
2. Plot was tilled using gasoline rototiller
3. Layed out garden rows and planted corn, tomatoes, beets, green beans, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini in garden
   
   

With the space prepared the next step was to procure the grass clippings. I waited for the lawn to grow extra long and shaggy and then cut it and allowed the clippings to air dry on the lawn. Before laying the mulch I did do some weeding of some of the more robust dandelions and thistle plants since at this stage they were bigger than most of my seedlings After the clippings had dried I raked them up and began to to place them in between the rows of seedlings. I placed about 8 inches of grass clippings evenly throughout the garden plot which covered all of the existing weeds that remained.

What I found out this time.

Over the course of the growing season I did continue to weed in the garden rows themselves. Since I could not place a thick enough grass mulch layer between my closely growing beans carrots and beets to prevent them from growing. My weeding demands were reduced greatly by the application of the grass mulch when compared to the neighboring plots. I did have issues with the more robust thistle pushing through the mulch layer but this was easily remedied by just a little bit of manual weeding with a garden trowel.

What I feel I can conclude at the end the this quickly done and frankly not very scientific experiment
is that the grass mulch did aid in reducing my weed pressure in my garden. A couple things I will change when I do it again is keep up the thickness of the mulch. Over the course of the summer my grass compacted down to about 1 inch or less in thickness and this did not provide some of the benefits I was looking for.

 

What I will change for the next time.

I would also like to start the process the fall before if possible and apply some straw along with the grass clipping in a very thick layer. This thick mulch would slow up planting in the spring but if done correctly it should smother most if not all weeds and greatly reduce the amount of weeding a person has to do. This mulch would also provide a steady source of organic nutrients, water retention and provide habitat for beneficial insects to thrive rather than the sterile relatively lifeless environments most people work with.

I believe that mulch can and should be a healthy part of any garden and if used correctly is go to method for solving a lot of garden woes from nutrient and weeds all the way to pest problems.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists

Josh

View from railroad bridge located in NW corner of Grand Forks County North Dakota

Homemade Bottle Greenhouse

Have you ever had trouble starting seeds in the spring or fall or maybe in the middle of winter if your crazy like me.  Well I know I have and I have been searching for a long time for effective seed starting methods that don't involve purchasing something custom made for the job.  Items like the Jiffy Greenhouse or the Hydrofarm Germination Station are wonderful tools but they don't provide the versatility I like.  These days when I purchase a product I find myself thinking how many different ways can I use this before I throw it away or recycle it.  In this quest to find as many uses for products as I can I find myself becoming a bit of a hoarder.  I kept cereal box's, plastic bags, yogurt cups, tin cans, milk jugs, two liters bottles and the list kinda goes on from there.  Needless to say my apartment at the time got a bit crowded with these items.  But in all that clutter I found my imagination just ripe with ideas on how to reuse all those items.  For the sake of this post I am going to focus in on the humble two liter pop bottle.  Over the past couple years I have found a few key uses for those bottles that I find particular useful.  My first thought was of course fill them with water for water storage.  But that was too simple to elementary for my liking so I tried them and milk jugs as dumbbells.  While the two liters were only four lbs and milk jugs eight lbs that added up with repetition especially when holding them up and away from your body while playing DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) at the same time.  Those songs may only be one and half minutes long but that is a great workout for this out of shape couch potato.  After a while I abandoned that idea because they were proving to be to cumbersome and hard to hold.

The next thing I did was use the two liters as ice packs.  They work great for coolers and can be frozen and thawed with ease.  I also attempted to use them as air conditioning units in a homemade air condition similar to one in the video below.  I don't not claim any ownership of this video I am just using it to illustrate my point.    

 

My attempt was not nearly as refined as this one so that is why it failed so completely.  My latest use of the two liter bottle is as a single cell greenhouse for growing seedlings to place in my Topsy Turvey Planter.  I am using these bottles as mini greenhouses and they are very successful so far.  I am currently growing one cherry tomato, two green pepper plants, cilantro and basil to be placed in the Topsy Turvey planter when they are large enough.  It is my hope that this system will give me some fresh vegetables to enjoy over the winter months that haven't been shipped from the southern part of the US or even another country.  The amount of fossil fuel energy that goes into growing food these days is astonishing enough without including the transportation energy.  I do realize that the Topsy Turvey system will not provide me with enough to make a dent in my food requirements but it is a step in the right direction I feel plus I love a good experiment.

 

Now to make these bottle greenhouses is fairly easy.

 

1. Obtain empty two liter bottle of pop
2. Rinse out and remove lable
3. Cut bottle in half using a sharp knife or scissors
4. Fill bottom half of bottle with desired potting soil
5. Wet the soil using either gently poured water or spray bottle
6. Insert desired seed into the center of the bottle to the indicated depth on seed packet. 
7. Press soil firmly around seed in insure good seed soil contact
8. Cut 2-3 inch vertical slit in bottom of the top half of bottle
9. Place top half over the bottom half of bottle
10. Place bottle with screw on cap removed in either sun or darkness depending on what you are growing.



Bottle Greenhouse with tomato seedlings

11. Wait patiently for something to grow.

I have currently only used this technique to start tomato, peppers and herbs but I would imagine it would work equally well for many other types of plants that you want large seedlings for.  I will keep updating this blog on the progress of this experiment over the winter so that anyone following along will be able to keep track of my progress.

Josh


P.S.

I have also tried other materials as homemade seed starters.  If you want to read more about it check my article I wrote for Infobarrel called 3 DIY Seed Starters for Starting Garden Seeds.

 



The Dream of Off the Grid

Being Off the Grid means different things to different people.  For some it means having all the toys and not being connected to the power or water company and for others it is simple being the off the grid so far that maybe 2-3 people even know where you are.  I personally am a fan of the latter rather than the former, to me being 'Off the Grid" means truly being off the grid without needing the outside world to provide all of my necessities.

I do not believe that I can do everything and provide for myself by myself.  You can survive that way but I have come to learn that is no way to live. 

I found this video on You Tube that I believe shows this desire to be self sufficient and live on your own.  Its about this fellow born and raised in New York that relizes that the simple rustic life is the life for him.  He sets out and pursues this idea with a vengence by buying a plot of raw land and builds a home from the ground up himself.

 

This video shows what someone is capable of when they put there mind to it.

 

Enjoy

 

Josh

 

 

  

My baby steps in food preservation.

Hello again all my fellow environmentalist. 

I wanted to share the news about a recent huge step for me in my life.  While many of you out there are doing this right now and have done it for years this was my first foray into the world of food preservation beyond the refrigerator/freezer.

Yesterday I completed my first solo canning session.  I made of  six pint jars of Bread and Butter pickles as they are called and I can't wait to see the results.  The recipe I used calls for 6 weeks of sitting before the pickles are ready to consume so that puts of my first taste test to the end of October but I cannot wait.

This may seem like a trivial thing to be excited about to you seasoned canning veterans but for me it is but a first step on my journey to live a sustainable life.  The technique of canning along with other forms of preservation like drying, salting and root cellering are critical in my desire to build a more sustainable down to "Earth" life.  This coming spring I plan on growing food on a massive scale in order to feed a hungry group of four people on mostly what we produce.  This goal might be to much for me this first year as i have much to learn about growing food in this new area but i know my past experiences will serve me well.

 This early step of pickling and canning cucumbers is simply the beginning of what I know will be a lifelong journey.  No one person can learn or do everything that they might need in order to support themselves and their loved ones comfortably but i am making it a life's journey to have a go at it.

If you are like me at the beginning of a journey toward self sufficiency and sustainability i wish you the best of luck.  If you are seasoned veteran i welcome and advice or comments you might have. 

I will let you know how my first experiment in canning turns out in six weeks time.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists.  

Window Farming

Update 9/27/12

Just a little update on my attempts at using hydroponics.

I have come to the conclusion that right now hydroponics is not something for me.  This is due to several factors including the cost of the setup and when I really started to think about it it really doesn't fit into my plans.  I want to develop a self-sufficient sustainable lifestyle and I don't feel I can do this with hydroponics.  I will not deny that they can produce wonderful healthy food but they are more energy needy than I care to deal with.  Nearly all the systems I was looking at required to use of electricity to keep sufficient water and nutrients flowing over the plant roots.  I do not want to be reliant on electricity for my food production.  It defeats the purpose of what I am  trying to accomplished by getting away from electricity and fossil fuels that support my basic needs.  So the hydroponics are out but I am curious about using those hanging pots for the production of tomatoes and strawberries.  I believe that will be my next step in the attempt to grow some food products indoors during the winter. 



Has anyone else been following he growing movement out there of using hydroponics to grow plants in windows?

I personally found out about 6 months ago but have not been able to try it out for myself until now.  Since I moved out of my old small apartment and am now in a nice big house with a spacious unfinished basement and some west facing windows now the time has come I think to give this a try.

I will start my attempt by following the plans for the most basic setup at Windowfarms.Org.  The 3 plant system will give me a good place to start and will let me practice and improve my technique before I get bigger.  In compliance with my green and sustainable life view I will be doing this with as many recycled materials as I can and will be growing the plants using organic nutrients and the least amount of power I can get away with. 

I like this idea because one I like to grow plants and this will provide a great medium for that.  Two it will get help me eat fresh home grow produce all winter long without having to resort to the grocery store.  Finally it will help clean and purify the air in the house since it could use some cleaning with two cats a puppy and a few people living there. 

I will post updates as they occur and hopefully in the not to distant future I will be eating fresh produce from my personal hydroponics garden.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists.

Josh

What is going on with our trash?

 Does anyone else get the impression that people think that when we throw something away that it really goes "away" Well if you are one of those people I am sorry to disappoint you but the things you throw away really don't go away. Instead it ends up in our countries soil, waters, plants and it animals. If you are fortunate enough to live in a area that has a recycling program that will take some of this waste from you are lucky indeed. Even with recycling programs in place about 165 million out of the 250 million tons of trash that we produce is discarded and buried underground .


The trash we discard is brought to landfills across the country where it is crushed into a compact layer and buried underground soil. To the right you will see two pictures I took at a recent sewer installation. What they show is trash such as pop/beer cans, plastics bags, scrap metals, and bit and pieces of indeterminate garbage. As near as we could figure the trash was from sometime in the 70's and has been buried and forgotten about for the past 40 years. The person who is having the sewer installed didn't even know it was there


When most trash is recyclable and over 56% of municipal solid waste (MSW) is organic matter like kitchen scraps, food waste, paper, cardboard, old houseplants it makes very little sense to bury it with uncompostable or hazardous materials.
To put perfectly decomposable food scraps or other organic matter (O.M) in the trash is both a waste both ecologically and a economically. Those scraps should be disposed of locally in a some sort of composting system whether that be the standard pile in the back yard or a more advanced system using a composting bin or barrel to break down the organic matter. Depending on what system you have and what sort of organic matter is in the system the O.M. can be broken down in a couple of months or a matter of weeks. Some of the more advanced systems such as All Seasons Indoor Composter are able to be in your kitchen right next to your trash can and through the miracle of technology and design can produce good compost very quickly.

Some other good alternatives would include either a worm composting bin or rotating drum composters. I personally am a fan of the the rotating drum bins since I have seem them in action and I know they produce great compost and "compost tea". The compost tea is a nutrient rich liquid and can leak out of these bins and when caught in some convenient buckets, it makes a great liquid fertilizer. I personally have not had much success with worms bins in my attempts to use them but I feel that was the fault of my technique and the homemade bin I created. I think with some of the commercial bins that are available and the proper variety and amount of worms a worm bin is a great indoor or outdoor composter.

Nearly everything that goes to the dump these days could be saved, repurposed or disposed of in a much better way than had been done in the past. All metals should be salvaged and if not usable in their present state should be melted down and remade into something new. Any wood scraps can either be burned as a biomass fuel or chipped up to use as garden mulch and even plastics should be recycled or "downcycled" as is most likely the case into something else.



We have to do more as a society to curb the amount of trash that we put into the ground where is does no one any good. We can do this by moving past the the throw it away mentality that has been drilled into us over the course of our lives.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists.

Josh


Sources:
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/municipal/index.htm

Long Time No Post

My oh My it has been to long since I was able to bring anything new to this blog.  I have been through quite a transition they past few weeks as I packed up my life and moved to a new area.  This has left me with a new appreciation for the trials and the strength of migrating animals. 

Peregrine Falcon
Photo from Wikipedia Commons

How migrants can do it every year of their entire lives is beyond my comprehension. Take the Peregrine Falcon for example (one of my favorite raptors).  This amazing raptor travels around 15,500 miles per year from its breeding grounds in Alaska to it wintering grounds in South America.  That is a bird that gets around :).  Just the thought of making a 7,500 mile trip twice a year makes me a little sick to my stomach and I like to travel.  Maybe its just the thought of having to walk that far.  I say that because it truly appreciate the distance that bird travels on its wing it would only be right that I walked it.

Maybe that is something we should do as a species instead of thinking that we are separated and above the Earth and its inhabitants.  Maybe we need to put ourselves in their hooves, wings fins and stems, just so that we can truly appreciate the Earth and all of its wondrous life.  I think that to many people take advantage of this planet, they do not truly appreciate what it means to be a member of the large family called Earth.

I fear that very soon, probably sooner that any of us think that something is going to happen that will push humans and the Earth past a tipping point.  I believe that the lack of appreciation for the Earth and its other inhabitants could lead to this push and potentially our downfall as a species. 

But where does this lack of appreciation or caring come from?

I believe one of the reasons is that we just don't pay attention anymore to our surroundings.  When was the last time you just sat down and listened to the birds or felt the wind blow across your face.  When we pay attention to something we learn to appreciate it.  So if we don't appreciate the planet and we are unable or unwilling to pay attention to it where does that leave us?  Remember the tipping point I mentioned above, some people believe we are past it, some believe were aren't.  Then there are the people like me who simply do not know.

Whether we are past a tipping point or not is regardless at this point.  We simply must start to pay attention to the world around us.  Listen to what it is telling us so that we may yet be able to pull our butts out of the collective frying pan.  This whole idea reminds me of the old saying about a tree in the woods.

If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to listen

Did is make a sound?





Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Falco_peregrinus_-Nova_Scotia,_Canada_-eating-8.jpg
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/peregrine_falcon/id

Hypoxia- Scourge of the Gulf

Have any of you heard of the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone?

I know I sure have and what I heard made me so concerned that I did a paper and a presentation on it in my Wetland and Riparian Ecology class on the very subject.  For those or you that don't know anything about the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico please read on and I will do my best to inform you on the very subject. 

According to the U.S Geological Survey the definition of Hypoxia is as follows,

Hypoxia – “Hypoxia occurs … when oxygen concentrations fall below the level necessary to sustain most animal life. Hypoxia results when oxygen consumption, primarily through decomposing organic material, exceeds oxygen production through photosynthesis and replenishment from the atmosphere.” - Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force, 2004

While not the most detailed of definitions it strikes right to the heart of the matter.  With a lack of oxygen present in the water aquatic life can no longer be sustained in that location which forces the local fauna to either relocate or perish.  This can be a huge issue in bodies of water ranging from your local swimming hole all the way to the worlds oceans.  This issue affects alot more than just the life in the water but it also effects life on the land, mainly us.  The reason behind this is the impact to commercial fishing and local tourism when all the aquatic life either dies or goes away.  Fishermen in the Gulf have suffered extreme economic hardship because of this phenomenon which is a ongoing problem and not one that can be easily cleaned up.

How does it occur?   

Well as according to the definition above it occurs when oxygen levels drop below sustainable levels because of excessive consumption by decomposers.  But that just leads us right into another question of what is all this stuff that is decomposing.  Well its mainly your run of the mill algae and zooplankton that grow to feed on all the algae.  Just to clear up one thing algae and zooplankton blooms are nothing new to the Gulf.  They have been occurring for a very long time and there is only one thing that has changed in recent history which has caused the rash of hypoxia.  I'm sorry to say that it is us, human beings once again shooting ourselves in the foot by not thinking about what exactly we are doing. 

http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/earth/html/md14.html

How are we doing it?

We are doing it with all of the nutrient rich runoff that is being dumped into the Mississippi River drainage system.  The same system that contains some of our most heavily used agricultural land such as the Corn Belt our industrial base and a much of the U.S. population.  All of these factors add up into a perfect storm of nutrients that get dumped into the system.  These nutrients come from over application on farm fields, industry dumping with out proper filtration and the growing use of commercial lawn fertilizer that is applied by Joe Citizen in his quest for the perfect green lawn.

What do all these nutrient do?

The nutrients do exactly what they are made to do, fertilize.  The problem is they are not providing nourishment to crops or your lawn and garden but are instead causing a glut of algae to grow in the Gulf which far exceeds any natural algae bloom in size.  Then when their life cycle is complete these algae and zooplankton die and they start to decompose using up oxygen in the water, causing hypoxia.

What can be done?

A two pronged attack is key to mitigating this problem.  We must educate the general public in the facts about hypoxia so they are made aware and secondly we must change how we go about  managing our waste and fertilizer. Education can and should be done through,

• Public forums
• Town Hall meetings
• Blogging
• Articles
• News stories
• Coffeehouse conversations
• Any way possible to get the information our there.

Not only must be educate people we must change how we manage our waste and nutrients through a variety of ways including,

• Controlling nutrient applications(especially in urban settings)
• Better filtration standards on industrial and municipal waste.
• Restoration of natures kidneys a.k.a WETLANDS (from 1780-1980 we lost over half the nations wetlands to drainage and development)
• Creation of artificial wetlands
• Planting riparian buffers and vegetative barriers to catch and filter nutrients

I just mention a few of the possibilities because the sky is the limit for what can be done to reduce the impact we have on the Gulf of Mexico and the local communities there.  So if you live in a area of the country that drains into the Gulf do your best to be a good steward and support local wetland groups and refrain from lawn fertilizer and other nutrient rich wastes.

If we all do what we can to lessen our impact to this and many other issues that face the natural world we just might make a difference yet.

Until next time my fellow environmentalists

Josh
 


Sources:

http://toxics.usgs.gov/definitions/hypoxia.html
http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/wetlands/wetloss/findings.htm

Enjoying the Small Things

Breath In


Breath out


I feel the cold winter air caress my lungs as I step out onto my deck this this clear winter morning.  I walk down off my deck into the snow covered yard and feel the crunch of snow underneath my boots.  The wind blows in from from north bringing promise of cold day and more snow.


A life is all about enjoying the little things.  From the touch of cold winter air in your lungs to how the grass feels under your feet.  This is doubly important when your goal is to lead a environmentally conscious green life.  To be be able to enjoy the little things that the natural world has to offer is the key to finding the desire and momentum in order to live a green life.  It is so easy here in America to get distracted by other entertainments or to become hard to amuse.  With all the TV, movies, Internet and other numerous ways to entertain ourselves and enjoy our lives available to us we forget all about the world around us. 

The world that protects us from the harsh cold of space, captures the Suns energy and provides us the food and shelter we need to live.  It is so important that we learn to appreciate the natural world for all the parts that make it up.  We must learn to appreciate the Sun the rain the wind the soil the plants and the animals for all that they are.


Without the Sun we would live on a cold barren lifeless rock.



Without the rain nothing would grown and all life would cease to exist.



Without the soil plants would have no home and we would have no food or air.



Without the animals we would have no one to share this wonderful planet with.



We must appreciate the natural world not the false world we create around ourselves.  If we bury ourselves in the false world we will loose touch with what nourishes us to our very core.  So please after you are finished with this post get up go outside and go for a walk, sit under a tree, listen to the birds and breath in the wind as it blows over the grass.  Feel the connection to the natural world and let it inspire you to do whatever you can to pass on a better world to the next generation.


Until next time my fellow environmentalists

Josh

      

Great Cardboard Garden Experiment

Hello fellow young environmentalists I just wanted to let you know about a new experiment that I am trying.  I am attempting to use cardboard as a weed barrier/ weed preventive in my community garden plot.  I am placing the posts and pictures that track my progress under my Gardening tab at the top of the page since it will be a long running experiment and I don't want it to get lost in the shuffle of my main page.  Please feel free to follow along and post any comments under my Gardening Page tab. 

While you are there take a chance to read my post about 4 Alternatives to the Front Lawn.  I hope you enjoy it and I welcome any comments about the ideas presented there or about any topic related to building a green and sustainable life.

Your fellow environmentalist

Josh

Headwaters of the Mississippi River 
Photo taken by Katherine Schliep

3 Thought Provoking Alternative Lifestyle Films

Some of the following films due contain some harsh language so I would not recommend watching them if you are younger than 18.




I love documentaries.

I just had to come out and say that. I figured the time was long past for gilding the lily or beating around the bush so I just decided to say it. For those of you out there like me that also love documentaries I hope my stepping forward will help you come clean with your documentary addiction. Its ok don't worry, there are enough of us documentary lovers out there that you will not be at a loss for friends if your current ones decide to disown you upon finding out about your "problem". Anyways I suppose I should actually get to the subject that all brought you here. The three thought provoking films that I wish to discuss all center around the theme of a alternative lifestyles. They cover ideas from building your house out of garbage to living without electricity in New York City. I was intrigued by all these films and they helped shape many of my ideas and dreams about where I want to take my life.
And they are....

1. Garbage Warrior
2. No Impact Man
3. Off the Grid

Garbage Warrior
This is a film put together by Oliver Hooge and it follows the journey of a New Mexico architect by the name of Michael Reynolds. Now what Michael and his "green disciples" have been doing is building passive solar off the grid self sustaining households using garbage. They scavenge materials such as worn tires, glass and plastic bottles, wood and then using the landscape where the house will be built and the very soil that is there they will build a fully functional house from the ground up. When these "Earthships" as they are called are completed they essentially are a self contained biosphere that creates their own energy, captures water, and provides space for people to grow there own food. If you would like to read more about Garbage Warrior here is the link to the website
http://www.garbagewarrior.com/
Also for your viewing pleasure you can watch the whole thing here and if you enjoyed it so much and want it for your collection it can be found at this location

No Impact Man
This documentary is personally one of my favorites mainly because of the lengths that Colin Beaven and his family are willing to go to live this no impact lifestyle. When this film was made he his wife and there 2 year old daughter had started on a program that was designed by Colin to wean them off of modern life and all it impacts. Not an easy task given that at the time Colin and his family live in New York City. This film while lacking concrete advice or technical expertise is full of heart and really shows what aspects of modern life have taken away from our quality of life. One of my favorite quotes from the movie was said by Michelle Conlin
"...We have no TV, no lights, no electricity, no air conditioning. Those were the things that kept us inside. Were kind of forced outside all the time now... The days feel like they last forever."
The first time I was watching the movie and I heard her say that it hit me like sledgehammer it just made sense. So to sum it up this film it more about the philosophy behind living a no impact alternative lifestyle than the cold hard facts. But I still think it is a great thought provoking film that deserves at least one viewing or in my case going on my fourth view after I watch it again after I'm done with this article.
For those of you with Netflix Instant watch you can watch the whole documentary there if not the trailer can be found here and if that trailer wasn't enough to whet your appetite it can be found here as well.

Off the Grid
Last but not least we have Off the Grid by Les Stroud of Survivor Man fame. This film covers the the transition of Les Stroud his wife and two children from a typical Canadian home to an off the grid homestead in the Canadian wilderness. They completely retrofit an old barn into a home along with erecting additional cabins to provide more space for his family. I really liked this one for its technical aspects such as the wind turbines solar installations, and how they retrofit the old barn to meet their housing needs. It's a good solid documentary that touches on the nuts and bolts of building your own off the grid power and water systems as well as some aspects of land management. To watch this documentary you can check it out here. If this one is a real interest to you can you must add it to your collection you can find it on Amazon

Well there you have it 3 thought-provoking documentaries that hopefully got those neurons just firing away in your brain. Please feel free to post comments on this article telling me what you think of the films I mention above and if you have any you would like to see added to the list.

Em"Powering Small Communities Part 2

If you have come across this post before part 1 feel free to scroll down the page to read that one first

Transportation

Planes Trains and Automobiles, maybe some of you remember that old gem of a movie though maybe some of you are to young to know.  It is a tale about a man trying to get home for Thanksgiving.  But frankly I am more interested in the title of the movie than the movie itself. 

Planes, trains and automobiles are the backbone of the American transportation system without them the country would not be as it is.  But I am willing to argue the point that maybe they are being used to much and are no longer simple a mode of transportation but are now a way of life.  A way of life that has been documented to have impacts to the environment.  The one I wish to discuss in this post however the use of automobiles. 

I live in a small town of about 750 people for about 2 years now and I have noticed one thing about the people of this town, they love their cars.  I have seen reasonably healthy younger to middle age people drive the 2 blocks to grocery store and pick up 1- 2 bags of groceries.  Does that seem insane to anyone else?  Why would you spend the money on the gas and wear and tear on the car.  Now I realize that 2 blocks is not far so the cost would be minimal to your wallet but what about the cost to your health if such habits continued.  The real irony of all this is I have seen a 80 year old man walk about half a mile to grocery store while walking his dog to pick up the same amount of groceries.  The way people think and act about their health and the environment these days frankly astounds me.  Such wasteful usage of our precious transportation resources and our own bodies just doesn't make any sense.

For a small town like mine I believe a two pronged approach is needed to stop and reverse this wasteful uses of our resources.  The first thing to do would be to establish a education program that outlines the true cost of using vehicular resources so frivolous ways.  It would cover the,

1. Inefficiencies of in town driving
2. Wear and tear on car from short drives
3. Health dangers
4. Loss of exercise opportunities
5. Loss of social interactions
6. Other various environmental impacts. 

This education would also highlight the positives behind walking, biking, car pooling and the use electric golf carts.

The second would be to develop a infrastructure that would support the usage of non-polluting and more efficient transportation.  This would include developing better sidewalks to support the usage by pedestrians and bicyclists.  For those that don't have bicycles a rental program or free to use system should be established to provide bicycles to any one that would need them.  I would also like to see the usage of electric golf carts increase for the use of transporting goods or people that are sick or elderly that may have need of them.  While I realize that golf carts would be powered by coal burning plants they are more efficient than when compared to internal combustion engines (ICE).  Coal plants on average are around 34% efficient while a standard ICE is only around 26% efficient so the shift to electric powered vehicles in town would be worth it.  Plus if the community were to implement the energy saving and production methods I covered in part 1 of this post they would be able to power these carts on renewables eventually.


Lifestyle

This would be the hardest to change I believe.  We Americans have become accustomed to a fast paced high energy lifestyle and boy oh boy do we love it.  But a change must be made if we are to survive as a society.  This way of life cannot be sustained and that is a fact we cannot avoid for much longer.  So how to bring about this change is the question that must be answered.  I believe that education will be key to bringing about this change.  People cannot be made to care about the environment.  They must be shown how their actions and lifestyle has impacts far beyond just what they can see.  They must be show that when they throw something in the trash that doesn't mean it is gone.  They must be shown that we are rapidly using our finite resources that cannot be replaced.  They must be show how to live a different life. 

To live a different life is the reason I have started this blog and why I share what discover with the world at large.  This blog is coverage of my journey towards living a sustainable life.  It is a journey that will take me the rest of my life.

Please feel free to comment on this post and offer any suggestions you might have on how Em"Powering" Small Communities might happen.  
     

Sources:

http://web.mit.edu/mitei/docs/reports/beer-emissions.pdf
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/atv.shtml

http://www.passivhaus.org.uk/standard.jsp?id=37

http://205.254.135.7/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=86&t=1

Inspirational Moments

Hello again my fellow young environmentalists.  I was sent a video today that really drove home the beauty of the planet that we live on. 

It was very inspiring to me.

It shows that everything no matter how small is a part of this planet and should be respected and taken care of.  Whether you believe in creation or evolution I believe it is our duty to be good stewards of the land, we are the Earth's caretakers not its master.

Please enjoy the video 

Em"Powering" Small Communties Part 1

I believe that this country is soon coming the point where we will have to make a decision on how we will manage our energy demands in the future. We can continue with the model we currently have or we can switch to a decentralized smart grid. I personally am a proponent of the latter since it will allow more flexibility and innovation where people and communities acquire their power from. Having a decentralized smart grid will enable people to look at the resources they have at their disposal and plan accordingly. With that thought in mind I wanted to try and crate the bare bones of a plan to make this happen.


The town I currently live in is small rural community in a North Dakota which has its own municipal utility company. This fact I believe would be crucial to making a transition to a self-sufficient community. I say this because of the forces driving a public utility vs. a private utility. A public utility exists only to provide a service to its customers while a private utility is only concerned with making a profit for its shareholders. There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to make a profit but I don’t believe it would lead to a friendly environment to creating a self-sufficient community. I am going to approach this problem in a multiple ways since there is no silver bullet to solving the energy crises. The subjects I shall talk about will be Buildings, Energy Usage, Transportation and Lifestyle

Building

The first subject I want to cover is buildings. Building in the USA from industrial to home, use about 41% of the annual generated energy in 2011. This adds up to 40 quadrillion BTU’s (British Thermal Units) or just for the visual of it 15 zeros.

40,000,000,000,000,000

I don’t know about you but that is one impressive number to me, but just to put it another way in case it hasn’t sunk in yet. If that number represented miles you would be able to go back and forth from the Moon 16.5 billion times. So to

Community Center

For buildings I am going to highlight a community center that was built in recent years in my hometown here in North Dakota. It is a typical metal pole barn building that was built to code according to construction standards. While these standards are sufficient to build a effective building that do not take into account every option that is available for making it the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly it can be. On that note I would like to mention the Passivhaus movement. The philosophy behind this movement is as follows,


“A Passivhaus is a building, for which thermal comfort can be achieved solely by post-heating or post-cooling of the fresh air mass, which is required to achieve sufficient indoor air quality conditions – without the need for additional recirculation of air.” (passivhaus.org)

While this sounds fairly simple it does require quite a bit of planning of the building design, materials and placements for maximum energy gain. This will typically limit the full application of this principal to new buildings. I believe for a community to begin to live an energy independent future a building standard such as the Passivhaus or the LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Desgin) will have to be applied to all new construction projects. Also a program that promotes energy efficiency in existing buildings would be a must. This program would provide both funding and technical assistance to homeowners or business owners to replace lights, improve insulation, install new efficient windows, better heating and cooling systems etcetera.

I believe to kick start something like this a demonstration project would have to be established in the community in question. One to demonstrate new building techniques such as solar gain using southern exposure, passive geothermal loops to heat and cool the building, solar panels on the roof to gather energy, and many other techniques that are too numerous to tell here. The second would be to find a willing business or homeowner to apply as many energy saving measures to the building as they are willing to do. The next thing to do would be to keep track of the energy usage that each one of these buildings has and compare it baseline numbers from either comparable structures or the usage before the improvement were made. This data can then be used to demonstrate and educate the community on how beneficial in the long run these techniques can be and how they can be applied on a small scale.

Energy Usage

Electricity, it’s always all about the electricity. Whenever I listen to politicians, government officials or fossil fuel energy proponents I always here a couple for recurring themes.


Theme 1-There will always be more.

True enough we have gone from wood to coal to oil back to coal and now especially here in the States we are starting to get involved with natural gas. There has always been something new to supplement or replace what has begun to wan. But that is not always going to be the case. What oil is still coming out of the ground is getting harder to get at and we may not be able to keep up with demand as supplies wan. The same will eventually be true for coal and natural gas.

Theme 2-Renewables will not meet current demand.

This statement is true there is no denying it. There is no way we can meet demand with current renewable technologies. There is no one silver bullet to our energy needs, well there was but we have used up a good bit of it. So what options remain but to either continue on our current path of energy consumption or reduce it.

Theme 3-To try and change will kill the economy

Again there is truth to that statement; a complete over hall would be expensive and frankly not possible given the current political and economic climate. But we have to consider the future cost of our way of life and the fuels that power it. The way things are right now are not sustainable forever and while I might not live to see the full impact of it I fear for the existence of my children or grandchildren.



West Face of Communuity Center


The way the empower small communities would be to start small so the themes mentioned above will either not be a issue or be negligible. What I think would work for my location would be a combination of solar and wind power with possible biofuels and maybe even hydrogen thrown in. I am going to use the community center example again. This building is placed at the edge of town with a decent southern aspect and great west aspect to the roof. That roof could be utilized for double duty, both being a roof and providing a anchor point for solar power generation. It could also be a location for one or two smaller wind turbines that could also be used to generate power. This same principal could be applied to any new or existing municipal buildings and could be enhanced if the buildings were designed with this thought in mind.

The second half of this equation is the conservation of energy that I talked about in the buildings section. Old homes and buildings would need upgrades to energy efficient technologies since they were built in an energy cheap area.


What I envision would be to take the money saved with these enhancements and apply it to more enhancements until everything and everyone that wants the upgrades will have them. I believe it would cause a cascade effect that could eventually change a whole community over into being energy self-sufficient.


See Part 2 for my ideas on Transportation and Lifestyle.

4 Alternatives to the Front Lawn

This week I want to discuss alternatives to the tradition grass lawn.  While a turf lawn serves many purposes it is not the most environmentally friendly option out there due to its very nature.  This nature could include it being; monoculture, high maintenance, not effective wildlife habitat, contribute to nutrient loading in streams, etc.  While I do not aspire to do away with lawns entirely it does seem that some have gotten a bit big for their britches and serve no no purpose besides existing.  The topics I will cover in this post include, rain gardens, urban gardening, shrub/tree plantings and native plantings. 

Rain Gardens

Like the name implies these are gardens designed to catch rain runoff from building, pavements or even other vegetated services such as Kentucky Bluegrass lawns that don't provide any or enough infiltration of water into the soil.  These rain gardens are designed using native plants that will provide a variety a vegetation types including native grasses, flowers and maybe even small shrubs or trees depending on the size of the garden.  If located properly these will catch most of the runoff from a house and lawn area and trap the water in the garden which will allow it to infiltrate into the soil.  In urban or suburban situation this can greatly reduce storm water runoff into cities system and what water does reach the is cleaner that what would have gone down the storm drains.  In Burnsville, MN they conducted a experiment to see how well rain gardens to capture storm water runoff using two similar watershed located near each other in the town.  One they left as a control and the other they installed 17 rain gardens in the neighborhood to capture both runoff from individual lawns but to also capture from the gutters along the street.  What they found after the gardens were installed was a that street contributed 90% less storm water than the control street.  Not only is that reduction a boon for storm water management it also reduced the amount of sediment and nutrients that were flooding into Crystal Lake.  To top it all off is designed correctly, they can be very aesthetically pleasing and are a great addition to any front yard.  To read more about the Burnsville, MN study check out this link http://www.landandwater.com/features/vol48no5/vol48no5_2.html.


Urban Gardening


This is one that is personally near and dear to my heart.  While I have not yet had the pleasure of doing this yet it does seem like such a fun way to interact with you neighbors and the rest of the city.  Urban gardening can provide a myriad of environmental benefits from the creation of a diverse vegetative patch amongst other lawns to growing your own vegetables and fruits and the health benefits that those food will provide.  This can be done similar to any garden that you might have in your backyard but please take care to find any utilities before you start to prepare the site and make sure that your city does not have any ordinances against the establishment of urban gardens.  If you thought I was joking about the ordinances just check out this article http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2011/07/10/oak-park-garden-another-family-fined-for-growing-food/

Other options for urban gardening include raised beds, container gardening's or if your really tight on space you could even do hydroponics.  For how to build a raised garden bed I am personally a fan of this article by Popular Mechanics,
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/how-to-plans/lawn-garden/4308264 

For those apartment dwellers out there I am a big fan of the following hydroponic system.  It can either be a bought kit or with a little DIY'ing it can be a neat weekend project.
http://www.windowfarms.org/


Trees and Shrubs


This one is fairly straight foreword you would just have to pick up some of your favorite shrubs and trees and plant them in your front yard.  This is defiantly a long term investment and it would be prudent to do a little research to make sure that the sapling you love wont become the tree you hate.  Some things to consider will be the growth form of the plants, how tall they will get, do the limbs break easily, what sort of flowers,leaves or fruits do they produce and many other things that I will not cover.  Others things that should be taken into account would be local ordinances that may or may not prohibit or limit what you can plant.  This one can also be friendly to your wallet in the long run  because of the heating and cooling cost that trees and shrubs can provide if planted in the right locations.


Native Plantings


This one is very similar to the tree's and shrubs in that you would plant local native grasses, flowers and other plants that would mimic local native ecosystems.  This would provide a low maintenance seasonal cover that would be very attractive to see and potential very beneficial to wildlife such as birds and butterflies.  One this I would like to mention under this is Xeriscaping.  Xeriscaping is done with the main intention of water conservation and thus is a more prevalent concept in the western part of the USA.  Many of the concepts of Xeriscaping can be applied to create native landscapes but they are not necessary.  If this is something that is interesting i would suggest consulting with a University Extension agent or the local NRCS office for suggestions of local native plants that would be effective for you needs and location.  If Xeriscaping is something that interests you you can read more about it at these locations,
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07228.html

http://www.plant-materials.nrcs.usda.gov/pubs/ndpmcpu6598.pdf

Similar documents such as these can be found at either your states land management agency sites or federal land management sites dedicated to your state.


Well my fellow environmentalists I hope this post finds you all well and continuing to strive towards whatever your environmental goals may be.  I look forward to hearing from you about this post with any suggestions or comments you might have. 


Josh Larson

What does it mean...

I have one question for the world at large and it is one I ask myself on many occasions.

What does it mean to be a young environmentalist? 

One conclusion I have come up with so far is that we are not simply a rehashing of the environmental movement of the 60's and 70's.  While I do not disregard or simplify their accomplishments the people that are a part of that generation of environmentalists brought us landmark legislation like the Clean Air Act 1963, Endangered Species Act 1973, and Clean Water Act of 1977.  They also were instrumental in creating Earth Day on April 22nd 1970 which is today a worldwide enduring celebration of the beauty and fragility of the Earth.  These were important accomplishments and I take my hat off to these people but I feel that the momentum of those heydays of environmentalism has been lost. 

I believe that to be a young environmentalist today is to want to save the world.  For some of us that means you want to simply be a good steward of the land.  For others it will mean you want to make broad sweeping changes to the way society operates and it most likely burns you up inside when you can't do anything and you feel helpless.  I know that is how I feel right now.  I am striving right now to make changes in my life that can have a positive impact on the planet.  I can only doing little things at this point in my life.  Things such as riding my bike and walking more, growing peppers and chives in my windows, planting a garden in the summer and buying locally grown food. 

For my last conclusion about what it means to be a young environmentalist.  I believe that to be a young environmentalist today is to be a example and a educator about another way to live.  I live in a small town in rural America and despite my natural surroundings it is not the hotbed of environmentalism you might think.  Everyone drives big trucks and and never walks, hardly anyone grows there own food and it is usually healthier for you if you don't mention conservation or heaven forbid Climate Change.  My point in all this is that from the moment I moved here over a 1 1/2 ago I have lived a different life here than everyone else.  I have been noticed for it to.  I have become that "biking guy" or that "guy that walks everywhere" and my personal favorite the "guy that gives away fresh garden produce".

Well that's all I have today young environmentalists.  I hope there are others out there that feel the way I feel and that your are making some sort of impact in your communities and your lives.  I welcome any comments and stories about what you feel it means to be a young environmentalist and any comments about anything really.