Happy Earth Day

Well like any would be environmentalist out there I suppose I have to chime in with my two sense on Earth Day.

Hopefully you are somewhere out there doing your best to celebrate the day by planting trees, putting in garden or maybe some other community service.

While I did not get to do anything like that do to my unfortunate work schedule I was able to get a little bit farther on a special summer project I am working on.

I am attempting to build raised gardens beds this summer but not out of wood but out of Cob.  If you don't know what cob is it is basically a mixture of clay, sand, aggregates and straw shaped and dried to form blocks or walls.  This type of earthen building has a long history all around the world and is very durable even in wet climates like England and Oregon.

Its long history in wet climates got me thinking that maybe it could be used as a garden bed medium.  The only key is to make sure the soil it is holding does not get super saturated and cause the cob to begin to come apart.  We shall see as the summer progresses if it works and what kind of garden it will let me have.

Today I took the first step in that experiment by getting some appropriate clayey soil and by starting a battery of tests that will tell me if the soil I have will work to build cob out of.

I am using Building with Cob: A Step by Step Guide by Adam Wesimann and Katy Bryce  as my instruction manual for the summer.  It contains detailed information on the history of cob, the soils you need to do it , building techniques and pretty much everything you would need to build with cob.

Hopefully my crazy experiment will work and I will have successfully built garden beds from cob.

So that's what I have done on my Earth Day, hopefully you have done something for the earth with yours.

Urban Homesteading by Rachel Kaplan and Ruby Blume

Hailed as "ridiculously good" and "a stunner" this book transports you into a world filled with people that are living sustainable self-sufficient lifestyles right in urban landscapes. This book is not a fantasy or a dream for those that imagine a better life but a poignant look at a real subset of American people that are actually doing it. The book takes you step by step through the basic skills of being closer to the land, growing your own food, caring for animals and pretty much anything and everything we have forgotten about living off the land. It provides practical advice to anyone looking to transition from a modern American lifestyle to something else. You will find suggestions for composting vegetable scraps and your own waste along with permaculture design specifications that allow to grow fruit tree's in harmony with annual crops. It also offers insight in natural building methods and how to power this new lifestyle without being plugged into the grid. Finally at the end of the book it delves into the more spiritual aspects of working closer to the land and being in touch with nature.