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/

Compost Tea Foliar Spray

Spraying with Compost Tea (A Brief History of Why)

When plants evolved from the water to live on land, they partnered with the microbial life in the soil and in the air.  Certain species of bacteria and fungi became the distributors of the plant’s food, and the doctors that helped them fight disease.  Plants need biologically pre-digested nutrients; it is easier for them to feed.  Like humans, they digest food that has been prepared.  Actively Aerated Compost Tea boosts the microbes and the nutrients needed to make this network thrive.

Healthy plants have a strong immune system that includes a ‘bio-film’ of microbial life from leaf to root.  Humans do too.  Head to toe.  To make use of these biological principles to feed and protect our plants, we can spray with compost tea.  I'd suggest a swim in the ocean for you humans instead.

When we spray plants with VCoop's compost tea, the droplets envelope the plant with living organisms.  The web of life of which the plant (and all life) is a part of is strengthened.  The results: Large, mineral rich vegetation with healthy leaves, decreased disease, and weakened insect attacks.  Happy plants and gardeners! Even better, apply when trees are preparing to bud, cuz compost tea feeds the delicate new growth directly and helps protect the baby leaves until they are more developed.

Note:  Plants that have been showered with compost tea have higher “Brix” levels – a measure of the carbohydrates and mineral density in the sap.  The healthy plants are better able to ward off attacks.

Actively Aerated Compost tea cannot be over-applied and does not burn leaves.  The microbe-rich droplets drip down to improve the soil below.  I usually root soak the plants too!  For growers who regularly use compost tea, there is nothing better.  The main drawback is making the brew.  Whew!  That's where Ventura Cooperative Compost Tea comes in.  We have a constant supply of tea made locally for local gardeners.  Bubblin' up right now.

Get some!  Now is the time to foliar spray with compost tea, when the buds are young and spring is on its way.  I'm spraying all our trees consistently over the next few weeks.  It give me the reason to keep an eye on their growth too.  Now is also a good time to graft new wood on fruit and citrus trees if you have them.  Remember we are all a part of the soil network.

I'm going surfing after, and bringing some kelp back to my compost piles.  Stacking functions, it's the permaculture way.

See you in the Garden!
Jason

Sheet Mulching Ventura

Sheet Mulching is the best way to restore vitality and to build health in the soil. While putting to sleep traditional lawn landscapes, this permaculture tactic provides a kickstart to the "Soil Food Web" in which annual and perennial plants can thrive.  The foodweb helps conserve water, saves money, saves time and reconnects us to the living earth.

Paul Herzog and Robert Barnett use the burrito method along the edges of Paul's backyard

To begin, layer soil amendments, compost, mulch, straw, yard clippings and cardboard (see diagram above) on top of the exisiting sod and existing soil and water with compost tea.  The life and the nutrients in these layers decompose into rich soil. The richness leeches down into the lower layers and soon the land is rejuvenated.  The grass and the weeds are smothered by the layers above and become food for microbes and arthropods. Think of sheet mulching as a large horizontal compost bin.  There are many methods of sheet mulching, but the aims are basically the same-soil restoration and water conservation.

One way to keep unwanted plants from growing out along the edges, iis to use the "burrito method" which creates a double layer of material to suppress the weeds.  Paul Herzog and Robert Barnett are sheet mulch superheros using the burrito method in Paul's backyard.  See picture above.

Any time of year is good to sheet mulch, but the best time is in during the rainy season.  The rain soaks through the layers and stays in the yard.  Sheet mulching acts like a sponge, keeping the hydration where it's needed.

Soil restoration is a radical action in our current system of consumer based chemically driven quick fix answers.  Let's get to a deeper solution.  The word radical is derived from the latin word "radicis" meaning root or going to the origin or essential.  We can help you get down to the roots.  The radical roots.  The essential basics of healthy living begin in the soil.

Relevant links:
Surfrider Ocean Friendly Gardens
Urban Soil Summit
Soil Food Web

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

  

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!