Permaculture Design: Vision Plans for Sustainability

With the long hot summer in front of us, now is the time to assess your landscape and make new plans for fall planting.  Take the time that you have to observe and interact with what you have on site, and create a vision for the next big step in your garden and drought tolerant landscape.  At the same time watch how your environment interacts with the heat, look for plants that will establish through the fall and winter next year.  Look for ways to capture and retain water in the rainy season to come.

A permaculture vision plan done now will answer most of your questions and save time and money when it comes to implementation.  Don't wait.  Now it the time to slow down, stay in the shade and contemplate the future while enjoying the present!  Call us if you want a consultation.  We have the knowledge base and experience you need to bring your dreams into reality!

Tips:  If your wanting to plant something plant pumpkins for Halloween.  Top feed plants with compost and mulch those areas that are thin and need extra protection.  Then root soak with compost tea.

More tips:  Go for a hike in the local area and observe how native plants are dealing with the heat.  Nature is your best teacher!  Go for a swim in the ocean, and bring back a 5 gallon bucket of seaweed to add to your compost pile.  In Ventura, we live in a virtual paradise of natural resource.  Integrate your everyday actions with permaculture principles!

Our suggested drink for hydration:  Cool filtered water with fresh mint sprigs and a few leaves of lemon verbena.  Ahhhhh!

Relevant Links:

Seaweed Mulch
http://eartheasy.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-use-seaweed-to-mulch-your-garden/

Green Thumb Compost Tea Workshop

There is a buzz brewing around compost tea in Ventura these days, mainly due to the efforts permaculture advocates David White of the Ojai Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Ron Whitehurst of Rincon Vitova.  Because of these two soil revolutionaries, we've been able to build a momentum that brought 30+ folks together at Green Thumb Nursery for a hands on compost tea workshop.

We set up two microscopes, brought soil building and permaculture books and manuals, handouts, and a few attendees went home with a gallon of tea teeming with microbial life.  Samples of local soil allowed people to see and smell the difference between the tired soil of industrial farms and the super soil of living compost.

We were excited!  Most everyone attending had active compost piles in their backyards, but few had attempted making actively aerated compost tea.  This is why these workshops are so important.  The connections we make create a network of shared knowledge and experience.

Just like the connections in the life of the soil food web, we're better when we're feeding each other.  So come out and grow with us.  Actively Aerated Compost Tea is brewing with potential.  Over the next few months we'll be building measuring and adapting our knowledge of the science and the art of AACT.

Ventura Coop can deliver AACT to you directly, or help you establish your own brewing system.  Contact us at 805.765.1892 for more information.


Related Links:
Ojai CRA, Dr. David White
Rincon Vitova, Ron Whitehurst
Soil Food Web, Elaine Ingham

  

Ventura Coop Glassware! Made in the USA

Check out these VCoop custom logo's imprinted on made in the USA glass apothecary and mason jars!  You may have seen them around town.

 

The 22 oz. apothecary jar comes with a liquid tight lid, and is good for iced drinks, infused oils,  or storing seeds.  Our 16oz. mason jar is the classic jar, versatile and stands the test of time.

We're proud to make this glassware available locally at the Refill Shoppe, the Ventura Visitor's Center and Palermo Coffee Shop.  If you'd like to order through us, send us an e-mail and we'll set you up. venturacoop@gmail.com 805.765.1892

Compost Tea: Life Under The Microscope

After attending the Center For Regenerative Agriculture's workshop on compost tea with Elaine Ingham as the featured speaker, we're totally geeking out on the science behind compost tea.

It is amazing to see life under the microscope.  Microbes swimming, spinning and squirming around pieces of fungal strands and small pieces of debris.  It's a moving universe of activity.

Soon we'll be posting pictures of what we find down there.  Though we're being scientific about our approach to brewing tea, we're still trusting our sense of smell and touch.  Organic gardening is a perfect blend of head, heart, and nose.

Come see us at the 4th of July street fair, or at the Ventura County Fair.  Or call us at 805.765.1892.  We've got some in the brewer for you!

Plants Love Ventura Cooperative Compost Tea

This is one of the gardens we watered with compost tea.  Gerardo Gallegos asked us to come and apply 40 gallons of our actively aerated tea on all his new plantings.  He remembers when this oasis was an untended lot.  His work is amazing!

Compost tea has so many positive attributes.  We use it in all of our gardening projects.  Learn more about it here:  http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2002082739009975.html

We have the best clients and garden partners on the planet!  We played with McCartney in his back yard, took pictures, talked about community gardens and watered the earth with approximately 69,578,463,376,002 beneficial organisms.

See you again soon!

Edible Landscape for Rosie and Macks

On Saturday we helped Rosie and Macks get a good start in their backyard garden.  We prepared late into the night before, putting finishing touches on the vertical gardens and mixing soil. When we made our morning delivery of compost and mulch, Rosie was ready with coffee and pastries.  Yeah!  All throughout the day we worked together, DIY style, planting, mulching and designing a garden that will have room to grow in the future.  This is why we do what we do.

Saturday was a windy day, which was perfect in a way, because we wanted to know how the vertical pallet gardens would respond to heavy gusts, as they were hanging approximately three feet down off the eves of the garage roof.  It worked well.  The pallets were heavy enough to withstand the wind, and they added the extra color Rosie wanted in front of the open wall.  Later, Audra and Rosie placed a variety of herbs, flowers and edibles in the grow boxes.  We accomplished what we set out to do, and we were all happy with the installation.

Macks built a raised bed (complete with wire gopher proofing) and we filled with a layer of rough compost, and then top amended with a custom mix of Venture Cooperative compost, worm castings and coco mulch.  In that mix we planted heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, kale, and zucchini, and then watered with compost tea.

We also mulched the border gardens and garden work area, outlining sections with locally sourced rocks, making a the garden come alive in the moment.  Already new ideas about what to do next were being dreamed up.

Not only did we begin a beautiful new backyard garden with Rosie and Macks, more importantly, we began a new friendship.  We're looking forward to working with them again soon and taking it to the next level.  Until then, Keep Growing!

Grow Your Own: A Raised Bed and Tower Garden Experiment

Soil or aeroponics?  Why choose?  There are advantages to both.  In Daniel's case he is running an experiment in his front yard to see which one he likes best.  

As spring begins and the planting starts, he has two systems of growing.  One, a raised bed he designed and the other a tower garden that is a pilot system for a school gardening program.  In each system he plans to produce a yield that will provide healthy meals for his family.

Originally, the plan was to build the raised bed in the back yard, high enough off the ground so that he could work standing up.  The direct sunlight was better in the front yard, and because of that we trimmed some hedge and built it by the driveway.  By converting a sprinkler head into a bubbler irrigation system the bed is now watered on a timer.  

Daniel was also gifted a tower garden to experiment with as a pilot project for a local school's gardening program.  This is a perfect opportunity to see side by side how different grow systems work.  The tower garden is a soil-less system.  The nutrients are carried to the plant roots by an oxygenated water system the pumps water to the top of the tower from a storage basin at the bottom.  It is on a 15 min on/off timer.  

Placed side by side in the front yard, these two systems are going to provide an excellent opportunity to measure the success of two different grow styles.  Ventura Cooperative is happy to help Daniel as he endeavors to grow his own food.  Permaculture begins here, front yard gardening!

Learn more about Tower Gardens here.  

https://www.towergarden.com/

For more information contact Ventura Cooperative at:

http://venturacoop.blogspot.com/p/contact-us.html

Ventura Cooperative Brings White Sage to NH

Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't.  "Live Free and DIY" is on the Ventura Cooperative logo. It's our version of the famous New Hampshire "Live Free or Die" state motto. In honor of this connection, we brought white sage to the granite state as the start of our coast to coast trading initiative.

White sage is hand gathered and native to California.  Hard to get in New Hampshire. What's difficult to fine in California--small batch locally produced maple syrup. That's where Ventura Cooperative comes in. We're building NH-CA trade partnerships to support locally made goods in both states.

Danbury General Store received our first delivery of white sage. It's a family run business with lot's of locally produced goods. The store is located right next to Ragged Mountian Ski Area.  Be sure to stop in and check out what they have to offer. Look for more locally harvested items and products to be traded in the future.  Have suggestions?  Contact us here.

DIY Rainwater Collection Barrel

This is a great basic design for a economical and efficient rainwater collection system.  In Ventura, as in the rest of California, we are facing serious drought conditions.  You'd be surprised how much water comes off your roof in even the lightest rain.  You're handy?  DIY  You're not?  give us a call and we'll install it for you.  

Chipping Away at Permaculture

As our next step in creating a permaculture landscape in Ally's yard, we asked our friend Don to come over with his chipper to help with breaking down a huge pile of brush. Instead of having all the brush hauled off to the landfill, we decided to keep it onsite and use the resource for mulch and compost building.  It's part of our permaculture ethic, to close the loop and reuse as much as possible.

Don purchased the chipper with this is mind.  Whenever we have a need to chip up a bunch of organic debris, he is the person we call.  He's been helping neighbor's and friends since he started in his own backyard last summer.  It's a great piece of equipment for small to mid-size jobs.  Easily portable and economical, and makes really nice mulch.

Earlier in the week, our crew had cut down a volunteer pine tree and trimmed vines and hedges all around Ally's yard.  The trunk and some of the branches were too big to chip, so we cut them into lengths to be used as firewood.   Most of the rest of the branches we cleaned for mulching. The rest we lopped up into big compost piles.  After about 6 hours of work we had about 5 yards of rough compost and a dozen bags of fine mulch to be used in the yard.

Thanks Don!  Now we can move on to the next phase of Ally's edible landscape--building raised beds and compost bins.

Mulch for California Drought

2013 was the driest year on record for California.  2014 is looking like it could continue to produce emergency drought conditions across the state.  As we prepare for our spring and summer gardens, water use is a major concern, and heavy mulching this year is a number one priority.

Ventura Cooperative Garden Services sources mulch locally, delivers and installs it for you as needed.  Keep the water in the soil around the roots of your plants.  By the truckload or by the bag (reclaimed and reused whenever possible.)  Get some compost or compost tea too.  Check out Vcoop's garden services menu here.

Art City Winter Solstice Planting

Paul Lindhard from Art City Studios on the westside of Ventura asked us to help organize a community planting on a lot adjacent to the Ventura River Bike Path.  We organized some of the finest permaculture gardeners in the city to come down and help out.

Art City is a stone working art community.  Paul had dozens of pallets of shist.  These large stones we used as borders for raised beds all along the parameter of the lot.  We ordered 15 yards of Agromin's premium compost and Green Thumb donated starts to plant in the beds.  Here is a quick video of us preparing the site for a Solstice planting party.  If you get the chance, go down to Rex and Dubbers and check it out!

TEDx Ojai-Dream Me, Build Me, Make Me Real

On September 21st, Jason Brock will be one of the speakers talking about redefining community environments at TEDx Ojai. The event is part of TEDCity2.0, and local organizers will be streaming talks from NYC as part of a day long exchange of ideas and inspiring thought.  Jason, one of Ventura Cooperative's founders, will be speaking on time banking as a way to help build networks of trust within our local economy.

Join him and other local cultural creatives in this all day event.  To request an invitation click on TEDx Ojai icon above.  Be sure and enter the word TIMEBANK in your request to receive a 20% discount.  All the details and information can be found on the website for the event.

Your participation is what makes the dream a reality.  Be the change.   These ideas are worth sharing.

btw-Sign up for the Ventura Time Bank as an attendee and get a 1 hour credit in your account.

DHiT Guerrilla Gardening Flashmob Video

With this video, get some inspiration from the guerrilla gardeners in the Hague, The Netherlands.  Of course we have our own version of GG'ing in Ventucky--We have The Green Action Group .  It's always nice however, to get some perspective and some solidarity from our fellow Green Resisters.  Keep Growing!

Green Action Group Facebook Page

Heads Up!  Want to be in the Green Action text loop?  Text @greenactiongroup to 23559 and sign up.  Then you'll get and be able to send on the ground green action updates.  Show up with a shovel and some bananas.