Fall Gardening Saves So Much Energy – It is like any nontradtional gardening though

First there are places in the US where you can garden year round. Most of the southeast falls into this category. Yes there are issues around water use because much of off season gardening requires watering. But when you look at the exercise and healthy food it can produce, plus the off setting of transportation costs, especially in gasoline costs overall the good out weighs the bad. I would contend with a solar space attached to a house or proper cold frames you can actually year round garden up to the Great Lakes latitudes. But this is not what traditionally has been considered fall gardening. I also might add something will take up later that winter crop covers can be considered both fall gardening but also composting. I also can hear a lot of you saying that you are sooooo glad when the gardening season is “over” that the thought of getting the rototiller out in August or September is too painful to consider. But we all over plant and also underestimate the amount of work and the amout of time involved. To which I say, “Stop it”.  Here is a good primer from East Texans – the home of Stevie Ray Vaughn.

http://easttexasgardening.tamu.edu/homegardens/fallveggarden.html

Prepare In July For Fall/Winter Vegetable Harvest

by Keith C. Hansen, Extension Horticulturist

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I skipped to the gardening part of this article.

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Every time you prepare the soil to plant a new crop, always mix in as much compost as you can get your hands on. Add well-decomposed animal manure, fertilizer and lime if soil tests indicate a low fertility or pH, and work all ingredients into the soil.

Southern peas such as blackeye, purplehull, cream and crowders make a great, edible summer cover crop for building the soil and providing food. The pea vines can be mowed and rototilled under while still green for extra soil building benefits or allowed to produce peas and then tilled under.

Tomatoes and peppers need to be planted soon – by the first of August – if they are going to make a good crop before first frost. What if your garden spot is not yet ready? Buy your transplants now and grow them in a larger container to plant in the garden later.

Get either 6-pack transplants or 4-inch transplants. Put them in a 1- or 3-gallon nursery container filled with potting soil. Do not use soil from your garden. Add slow release fertilizer (like Osmocote or other slow release formulation) to the soil mix. Set the pots in a sunny spot in the yard, not in the shade!

Every time you water, use a water-soluble fertilizer solution instead of just plain water. Your transplants will continue to grow and be healthy, just as if you have transplanted them directly into the ground. Once your garden site is ready, you will have large, healthy tomato and pepper plants to set out. They will be easier to take care of and you will be assured of a bountiful harvest before the first freeze of winter.

Grow fast maturing tomato varieties for the fall harvest. Look for varieties with less than 75 days to maturity, such as ‘Merced’, ‘Bingo’, ‘Celebrity’, ‘Whirlaway’, and ‘Carnival’. ‘Surefire’ is a smaller, processing tomato variety (with thicker skin) which sets and matures all of its tomatoes very quickly, giving you a “surefire” harvest that beats the first freeze. Most cherry tomatoes will bear within 65 days of transplanting.

Timing is very important for a successful fall garden. Heat tolerant/cold sensitive crops need to be planted in time to mature before cold weather slows and stops growth, while cool season/heat sensitive crops are planted late enough to avoid the heat, but early enough to take the first frosts of winter.

The following are optimal “windows of time” for planting fall vegetables:

Beans – 8/1 – 9/1 (lima beans 7/15 – 8/15) Muskmelon (Cantaloupe) – 7/15 – 8/1
Beets – 9/1 – 10/15 Mustard – 9/15 – 10/15
Broccoli plants – 8/1 – 9/15 Parsley – 8/15 – 10/1
Brussels sprouts – 8/1 – 10/1 Peas, English – 8/15 – 9/15
Cabbage plants – 8/15 – 9/15 Peas, Southern – 7/1 – 8/1
Carrots – 8/15 – 10/15 Pepper plants – 7/1 – 8/1
Cauliflower plants – 8/15 – 9/15 Potatoes, Irish – 8/15 – 9/15
Chard, Swiss – 8/1 – 10/15 Pumpkin – 7/1 – 8/1
Collard/Kale – 8/15 – 10/1 Radish – 9/15 – 10/15
Corn, Sweet – 8/1 – 8/15 Spinach – 9/1 – 10/15
Cucumber – 8/1 – 9/1 Squash, Summer – 7/15 – 8/15
Eggplant plants – 7/15 – 8/1 Squash, Winter – 7/1 – 7/15
Garlic – 9/1 – 10/15 Tomato plants – 7/15 – 8/1
Kohlrabi – 8/15 – 9/15 Turnips – 10/1 – 11/1
Lettuce (leaf) – 9/15 – 10/15 Watermelon – 7/1 – 8/1

Seeded vegetables can be tricky to get up in the heat of summer. Soil often forms a crust on the surface after tillage and watering. This “crust” can hinder tender seedlings from breaking through. Here are a couple of tips to help get seedlings up in the summer.

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Please read the rest. It is good stuff. More tomorrow.

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Worm Farms At Work – You can do it too

If your workplace has a cafeteria or a food service this is serious business and a potential money maker.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2009/04/09/538667/a-posting-about-composting-at.html

Welcome to Get Green, the Herald’s blog about making the newspaper more environmentally efficient and friendly. We offer some of our experiences about the challenges and successes of “greening” the Herald, as well as tips you can use at home. Questions? Comments? Got your own tip to share? Contact Eric Degerman via 509-582-1404 or edegerman@tricityherald.com.

A posting about composting at work

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

I’m not so sure about bringing a case of worms to the office.

However, if it’s good enough for Gail Everett and the City of Richland, I’m game.

And I’ll it will serve as a test to see just how thoughtful my fellow employees at the Herald are.

Last month, I visited Gail — Richland’s environmental education coordinator — at city hall to talk about getting a compost bin started at Herald headquarters.

Lo and behold, she’s not the only one working in her small office. There are a bunch of happy worms dining on her discards of fruit.

With that inspiration, I’ll launch composting efforts at the Herald later this month. I need to acquire a suitable bin, then start creating a new home for some worms. Then, I believe Gail will be adopting out some of her “co-workers” for me to take to the Herald.

Ironically, these worms love newsprint. (Recycle your favorite newspaper joke here.)

— Eric Degerman is the Herald’s online managing editor who makes regular trips each year from Richland to Clayton-Ward in Kennewick so that he can exchange his household recyclables for money to buy beverages produced from Columbia Valley grapes and hops.

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Fall gardening next week.

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The Ultimate Frontier – Composting at work

Yesterday I posted about corporate recycling and how they have to have plastic containers with labels on them to actually do it. Well here is a thought. Take a felt tipped marker and cross out paper and write organics. That way you are composting at work. If you have no organics other than food scraps you may have to mix in some shredded paper or go out side and collect some leaves. You will need a a tight lid and you may need to store it outside, but everything is possible.

http://bubbler.wordpress.com/2007/08/20/composting-at-work/

 

 

Composting at Work

I’ve started a composting process of the food waste at my workplace using a bin that is passively aerated. It’s kind of a prototype, as I am figuring out what kind of mix of inputs will work, how much moisture it needs, etc. During the summer, our kitchen produces a huge amount of food scraps which gets bagged up, thrown into a room, then later heaved up by staff onto our dump truck, driven into town, dumped at the refuse center, where it is then sorted and transported out of the county to a landfill 70 miles away. It’s a ridiculously inefficient process of dealing with waste that generates yet more waste.

The small bin I have currently set up will fill up within a week, so obviously it isn’t anywhere near cutting much waste out. However, once I’ve demonstrated that it works and have figured out the proper mix and all that, I’m hoping that we can expand the operation to cut out a more significant chunk of waste.

The whole science and art of composting consists of a proper ratio of carbon to nitrogen, which ideally should be around 30:1. We have a vast amount of cardboard and newspaper on-hand which I will shred to serve as bulk carbon (further reducing the transport of those materials into the recycling center in town), as well as sawdust and, every now and then, pine needles. The food waste supplies the nitrogen, as well as moisture. I will also pick up horse manure from stables down the road and mix that in there as well to provide essential microbes. It remains to be seen what kind of compost such a mixture will produce—it may be somewhat deficient on nutrients as my main sources of carbon are bland.

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More tomorrow.

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Corporate Recycling In The Workplace – You know they gotta have special containers

Corporate America was slow to come to recycling because they know a shift to a steady state economy means their demise. Still they come kicking and screaming because they can not withstand the the force of history. It would be nice if they recycled real things like electronics and building materials. Sooner or later it will happen. For now:

http://www.recycleaway.com/office_recycling_containers.html?gclid=CILF7Ljj0asCFcsBQAod9jSETw

Office Recycling Bins

We offer unbeatable prices and the best selection of office recycling bins and office recycling containers. From recycling signs and deskside recycling containers, to space efficient and attractive recycling receptacles, Recycle Away has everything you need to expand your office recycling program.

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The Kaleidoscope Collection

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More tomorrow.

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Recycling and Fall Gardening – Yes they have things in common

I was at a food meeting yesterday at LLCC and Wes King pointed out that composting and fall crop covers are actually recycling of the ultimate sort. Taking organic matter and letting it turn back into soil and crops that will turned under in the spring are so to speak, nature’s way and direct recycling. This as opposed to taking stuff to a center where they then ship it off to an actual reprocessing plant many miles away. Since it is October what better things to discuss. First up composting at work and yes it can be done.

http://greenliving.nationalgeographic.com/compost-work-2971.html

How to Compost at Work

by Jeannette Belliveau, Demand Media

If you’re already conserving energy, reusing and recycling paper and purchasing green office products at work, the next big step can be composting on the job and using it to green the surrounding landscape. If your office property permits use of the grounds in this manner, you can compost on site, and if it doesn’t, you can still pursue other avenues to keep the compostable food waste from going into the garbage. (See References 1)

Getting Started

Assemble a workplace “Green Team” with committed leaders managing your office compost program (see References 3). Kick things off by publicizing your switch to a three-stream waste system, whereby the office will provide separate receptacles for trash, recycling and compost (see References 1, p. 98). An educational poster or exhibit near the lunch room can explain the program (see References 5). Place sealable containers for compost in your office kitchen, food preparation area or snack room. These can be 13-gallon kitchen waste cans or smaller lidded buckets (see References 3). Employees can add coffee grounds, tea bags, vegetable wastes and eggshells to these bin (see References 1, p. 126). Avoid adding meat and diary waste.

Process

A designated member of the Green Team can collect the food waste daily from the snack room and other collection points and place it in the central container or directly into the composter. It’s better to assign this duty to a Green Team member rather than custodial staff to better keep an eye on what is going into the composter, recommends the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Your office may be able to switch to collecting food waste two to three times a week depending on how much volume you see. (See References 3)

Composter Types

Your composter set-up should match your needs and business aesthetics, recommends Trish Riley and Heather Gadonniex in “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Greening Your Business (see References 1).” Options include a compost tumbler or plastic compost bins and digesters if you have access to garden space and want to avoid the tumbledown look of a loose or fenced compost bin. If you don’t have a yard or grassy area for the compost, you can use an electronic composter that dries and automatically stirs the compost or a worm bin. (See References 2, p. 20)

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More tomorrow.

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Climate Change Messed Up My Vacation – Well not completely

I tried not to say too much about our recent 2 week vacation, but I have to tell you that I think people are being too paranoid. The last time we did a big vacation, I posted from wherever we were. This made it obvious we were gone and even where we were exactly and nothing bad happened. This time I just hinted at it and again nothing happened. I just checked the stats and my being gone and not posting did not effect them either which bums me out but that is another story.

But how did the destabilization of the weather ruin my vacation. Well to start with I called people in Montana and asked them about the best time to schedule an off season vacation there. I had originally planned on the last week in September and the first week in October. Everyone there said that could be dicey so I moved it back to the last two weeks in September. Had I stuck to my guns we would have had to miss a day or two to morn Cate’s fathers death but we would have also missed a late season heat up. As it was, everything after South Dakota was packed. Hotels, tourists sites, you name it. The prices were expensive, and the little kids were jumping around the hotel rooms. To top it off the road through Glacier National was cut in the middle for road work so we drove around the park to Kalispell. This was the farthest point on our drive and exactly when we receive word of Frank’s demise. So that meant that we got in the car and drove for 4 more days. Cate did see glaciers and we did stop at the Crazy Horse monument on the way back, but it was warmer in Montana then it was in Illinois.

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More tomorrow.

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Transition Community In Houston – One of hundreds around the US

I leave you this week in Houston. An oil ton if there ever was one. Got to love a group that is trying to do without hydrocarbons altogether. They claim they are moving to a new site BUT I couldn’t get there yet, so here is a sample of their old site.

http://transitionhouston.wordpress.com/

Movin’ on…

The website subgroup of the Outreach and Education Action Group has been working on an updated website for Transition Houston for some time, and all that effort is paying off!  We are going to concentrate our information share and move content to the new site:  www.transitionhouston.org.  Please bookmark that location and check with us often for news about Transition in the Houston region, Neighborhood Initiative and Action Group updates, calendar, newsletter archive, and more!

Once again, the new Transition Houston website:

www.transitionhouston.org

 

There are several other options for connecting with us.

We are on Ning.

We are on Facebook.

We are on Twitter.

And you can subscribe to our Newsletter!

Permaculture goes mainstream, hope rises

Sometimes little things give hope that progress is possible, and that maybe “if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time,” to quote the Cheerful Disclaimer.  This last week the little thing for me was the discovery of permaculture by the New York Times.  Now, I’m not so naive to believe that seeing permaculture in the mainstream press is going to make a lot of difference immediately, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see a surge of interest in permie classes across the country with long-term benefits to both participants and the environment (FYI, classes are offered here in Houston by the Permaculture Guild of Houston, through Urban Harvest).

I think the important point is that awareness is growing in our country:  awareness of our ecosystem impacts, awareness of the lack of sustainability in our lifestyles and economy, and also awareness of that which is missing in our lives–community, connection, purpose.  Permaculture is a positive response to that growing awareness, as is the permaculture-based Transition movement.

There are a couple of opportunities to join with others in our Transition Houston community this week and next.  Please avail yourself of these options to increase your awareness and find connection with a community of folks working for a resilient Houston region.

Transition Houston Hub meeting, Tuesday, August 2, 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Green Film Series Presents Blue Gold: World Water Wars, Tuesday, August 9, 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Transition Houston Hub meeting, Tuesday, August 2, 7:00pm to 9:00pm
We hope to see you at Tuesday’s Transition Houston meeting, which will feature a guest speaker in addition to news from the Transition Neighborhoods and Action Groups.

We are very fortunate to have Peter Wang, League of American Bicyclists Cycling Instructor, as our guest speaker.  Peter is considered a local biking expert.  He’s everywhere as a go-to guy for media interviews about bikes, and has been involved in a lot of bicycle issues.  He is risk-averse–exactly the kind of guy you would want to help you practice being safer!–and has taught a lot of these safety classes.

Peter will present a video screening followed by a discussion. The video is Enjoy The Ride, about essential bicycling skills.

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More whenever.

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Transition Communities Up North – Get going Canada

I love Brit speak. Some groups are not undecided they are mulling things over. Anyway there is a great list at the end of this article so go check it out.

http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/canadas-transition-communities/

Canada’s Transition Communities

23 Sep

No 67 Posted September 23, 2010

IMPORTANT UPDATE, Jan. 7, 2011: Ten *NEW* communities added to the List of Canadian Transition Communities (below).

What is a Transition Community?

The following text is excerpted and adapted from Ball’s research paper, Transition Towns: Local Networking for Global Sustainability?

The Transition Movement, promoting an action-based approach to (local) sustainability, has in the past four years grown to incorporate a large network of individual Transition Initiatives. Informed by ideas and values within environmental organizations, yet, in its practical organisation it is distinct from past models of sustainability by incorporating broad grassroots support in a diverse range of places within the framework of a coherent networking model.

Sustainability challenges the dominant, market-based capitalism of industrial society, on economic, social, environmental and ecological grounds, citing devastating ecological and environmental exploitation. Sustainability, in contrast, calls for production and consumption within long-term ecological limits.

While local sustainability has become a politically important goal, in practice neither top-down government nor grassroots community models have gained widespread uptake or success: the former have failed to connect with or involve a grassroots public; the latter generally have few resources and limited capacity.

The Transition Model, a non-governmental community-led model, advances an action-based approach. With its fast-growing network of Initiatives, the Transition Movement is akin to a non-profit franchise operation, combining the advantage of a centralized support base with the capacity and resources of a decentralized networking organization.

The Transition concept, co-founded by Rob Hopkins, who has a background in permaculture, builds upon a core thesis: that the modern industrial capitalist economic and social system, based upon cheap oil and resources, is unsustainable, making a major restructuring of economy and society imperative, and inevitable. Transition contends that citizens and communities need to act proactively and positively at the local scale, in a process of ‘Transition’ and ‘Powerdown’ to build localized and resilient communities in terms of food, energy, work and waste. The vision holds that decarbonized local communities will be resilient in their capacity to “hold together and maintain their ability to function in the face of change and shock from the outside.” Transition is modelled to be a self-organizing community-led model, for people to “act now and act collectively.”

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More tomorrow.

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Why I Have Been Posting About Transition Communities – The basic arguement

Today I found two articles that define the pros and cons of Transition Communities. I would tend to call one selfish and foolish. I would call the other one “heads up”, but that is just me. I do not want to take up the space with both complete articles so I will post a taste of each.

PRO

http://peakoilmatters.com/2011/09/14/a-vision-for-the-post-peak-oil-future-pt-6/

In a harsher future we’re now in the process of consigning our children and grandchildren to, this is okay?

When so much power and prosperity is confined to so few, what then? As more and more is stripped away from more and more in order to protect the few, greater inequality will result, and a much larger percentage of those so far unaffected by that disparity will then fall into the have-nots, including our children and grandchildren—and perhaps many more of us.

Of course we ought to be legitimately worried about what massive debt will do for the prospects and opportunities of our children and grandchildren, but if we aren’t also doing all that we can right now to provide the programs and resources and opportunities and investments to innovate and grow starting now, they’ll be faced with the double whammy of the burdens of great debt and no viable means to address the problem! What a wonderful prospect … but thank God the wealthy will be okay!

“What is the crisis we face today? We have an economy scarred by mass unemployment, falling wages, and growing insecurity. In the downturn, a staggering 40 percent of American households have been afflicted by unemployment, negative home equity (‘under water homes’ worth less than their mortgages), mortgage payment arrears, or foreclosure. In November 2008, one quarter of Americans aged 50-59 reported that they’d lost more than 35 percent of their retirement savings.

“The [wage] imbalances were obscene before the recession, with finance capturing 40 percent of corporate profits, the wealthiest 1 percent capturing half of the benefits of economic growth, the US running soaring trade deficits, even in high technology products, with China and the world. Our decaying infrastructure, broken health care system, declining educational performance in relation to the industrial world all preceded the fall….

“The right question we need to ask, I would argue, is what is the new strategy, the new foundation for an economy that offers hope for rebuilding America’s economic vitality in the competitive global market place? This requires a clear and bold strategy for revitalizing American manufacturing. It requires investments in areas vital to our future — in modern infrastructure, in education and training, in research and innovation. We need to capture a lead in the green industrial revolution that is sweeping the world. It requires new trade strategy, shackles on financial speculation, empowering workers to capture a fair share of the productivity and profits they help generate to help rebuild America’s middle class. We have to figure out how to afford this, financing what we can, changing priorities and raising revenues where needed. But this is a far different question than just how we get our books in order.” [3]

As Mr. Borosage noted at the conclusion of the passage just quoted: “It is hard to get the right answer when you ask the wrong question.”

CON

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/06/12/bjorn-lomborg-explains-how-to-save-the-planet.html


A Roadmap for the Planet

Jun 12, 2011 10:00 AM EDT

How we live today is clearly unsustainable. Why history proves that is completely irrelevant.

From the 18th through the mid-19th century, whale oil provided light to much of the Western world. At its peak, whaling employed 70,000 people and was the United States’ fifth-largest industry. The U.S. stood as the world’s foremost whale slayer. Producing millions of gallons of oil each year, the industry was widely seen as unassailable, with advocates scoffing at would-be illumination substitutes like lard oil and camphene. Without whale oil, so the thinking went, the world would slide backward toward darkness.

By today’s standard, of course, slaughtering whales is considered barbaric.

Two hundred years ago there was no environmental movement to speak of. But one wonders if the whalers, finding that each year they needed to go farther afield from Nantucket Island to kill massive sea mammals, ever asked themselves: what will happen when we run out of whales?

Such questions today constitute the cornerstone of the ever-louder logic of sustainability.

Climate alarmists and campaigning environmentalists argue that the industrialized countries of the world have made sizable withdrawals on nature’s fixed allowance, and unless we change our ways, and soon, we are doomed to an abrupt end. Take the recent proclamation from the United Nations Environment Program, which argued that governments should dramatically cut back on the use of resources. The mantra has become commonplace: our current way of living is selfish and unsustainable. We are wrecking the world. We are gobbling up the last resources. We are cutting down the rainforest. We are polluting the water. We are polluting the air. We are killing plants and animals, destroying the ozone layer, burning the world through our addiction to fossil fuels, and leaving a devastated planet for future generations.

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More tomorrow.

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