Food Security and Water Wise Gardening

The healthiest most sustainable way to gain food security is to augment your food supply with a garden in your yard.  Not only do you and your family gain access to fresh veggies, which are at their best in flavor and nutrition picked immediately before eating, but home gardens help ease our impact on the environment.  Healthy soil retains more water, home grown veggies require less water to process, and a yard garden lowers your carbon footprint.

In our garden we have a steady supply of lima beans, kale, carrots, onions, beets, chard, salad greens and herbs.  There is always some seasonal harvest to add depending on the time of the year. Nothing leaves our yard.  We have three living compost piles, and two worm bins crawling with red wrigglers.  We brew compost tea to sell and use in our gardens.    

We also mulch like crazy and we munch like crazy.  We walk barefoot on the spongy soil and graze like rabbits.  And what we don't eat right away we can or share with our friends and neighbors. 

Mason jars are reusable and fermented veggies are really good for you. "Fermented foods that have been through a process of lactofermentation in which natural bacteria feed on the sugar and starch in the food creating lactic acid. This process preserves the food, and creates beneficial enzymes, b-vitamins, Omega-3 fatty acids, and various strains of probiotics."  -Wellness Mama

Become food secure.  It is a shift in consciousness that empowers you and your family with experience and knowledge.  Being able to feed yourself with food you grew yourself is liberating!

Roughly 49 million people live in food insecure situations in the United States.  Roughly 40% of the food produced and brought to market is wasted. A typical meal of industrial produced food requires 200-700 gallons of water to produce.  By turning that wasteful chemically fed lawn into a organic food forest you help yourself, your neighborhood and the environment all at the same time.

A great book to read regarding  food security and growing your own is Food Not Lawns.  Another go to book is A Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture.  Start there and at the same time visit your local farmer's market, volunteer for Food Forward Gleaning projects, and connect with local community garden projects.

People in my neighborhood are so disconnected from the fresh food supply that kids don't know an eggplant from a sweet potato. We have to show them how to get grounded in the truest sense of the word. -Ron Finley

I saw 'Food, Inc.' last night - it was like a horror movie. I'm definitely thinking about my food supply now and how I want to grow my own. -Lauren Ambrose

Mulch Party at Kellogg Park!

Last month in September on Saturday the 26th from 9AM to 11AM, over 30 residents of Ventura came together to spread mulch at the city's latest park at Kellogg Street and Ventura Avenue.

Mulch is especially important before the rainy season to keep rainfall from evaporating too fast. With thick enough mulch (at least 3 inches) water has time to percolate down through the soil into our water table. Mulch is also important because it protects the soil food web from sun exposure. Exposed soil becomes baked and compacted into lifeless DIRT that only the hardiest weeds can grow in.

15 tons of mulch!

Thanks to our friends at RESTORE VENTURA, local landscapers and AERA Energy have been depositing mulch on site during the weeks prior, and during the event knocked piles over with tractors. The kids were STOKED on those tractors!


Thanks to the Ventura Chapter Surfrider Foundation for providing volunteers, tools, waivers, and for being passionate about Ocean-Friendly Gardens :)

Thanks to the Trust for Public Land, City of Ventura staff and local volunteers who make this possible.

Resident volunteers (not all pictured here), County Supervisor Steve Bennett, Mayor Cheryl Heitman, and me on the right. Photo from the official Kellogg Park Facebook page.

DON'T MISS NEXT WEDNESDAY Oct 14 at Bell Arts Factory!

Come show your support Wednesday night by choosing the kids' play equipment, adult exercise equipment, and request an edible forest at Kellogg Park!

Connect here with Kellogg Park on Facebook. Stay tuned for the next mulching event at the end of November!

Cheers, your dancing gardener,
Robert

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/

Bamboo Potato Towers

Potato Towers are an easy way to grow and harvest potatoes in your home garden.  Bamboo fencing is easy to acquire, and is a reusable and renewable resource.  We cut our rolls in half and made two towers for the VCoop backyard garden.  Here is a picture of the tower a week after firstt planting.  We had a bag of potatoes that were sprouting in the kitchen.  We dropped 'em in and they took off.

As the plants grow, we kept adding straw and compost, burying the new growth up to the height of the newest leaves,  a month later the plants have already reached the top!

We'll keep adding pictures here as the tower goes through it's cycle.  Start yours now and grow with us!

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

The Many Benefits of Chayote

From root to fruit to shoot, Chayote is an edible that adds versatility to permaculture landscapes.  A native from mexico, and a member of the gourd family, Chayote is known by many names as it has migrated across the globe and into many diverse culinary dishes.  Some call it Cho-Cho, some Sayote, and some know it by the name Merleton just to name a few.  There are as many ways to cook it as there are names.

For a great selection of recipes, check out Chayote recipes at Pinterest.  Just recently we harvested some shoots from the Art City garden and used them freshly chopped in a green salad with purslane, mustard greens, arugula, and young endive leaves.  These greens were tossed in a yogurt garlic onion dressing with fresh cracked pepper and lemon juice.  Excellent and healthy!

Chayote is easy to grow in our local climate.  Perfect for trellising over border fences, the pear shaped fruit hangs from heart shaped leaves and curling shoots.  Grow Chayote!  It adds a tasty vertical element to your garden.

photo by: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên cc-by-sa

Add Purslane to Your Edible Landscape

One of the best gifts of gardening is discovering that a plant you once thought was a weed, is really a integral part of your edible landscape.  Purslane is at the top of this list when it come to garden uses, nutritional value and culinary versatility. 

Purslane's growing habit makes it a good alternative to lawns or other ground covers.  A study conducted by the University of Connecticut concluded that the plant is effective at organically controlling weeds.  Purslane acts as a "living mulch." In the category of nutrition, the University of Texas at San Antonio finds Purslane contains 10 to 20 times more melatonin, an antioxidant, than any other fruit or vegetable they tested. more omega 3 fatty acids than any other plant source in the solar system, and an extraordinary amount for a plant, some 8.5 mg for every gram of weight.  Purslane also contians:

• vitamin A, B, C 
• six times more E than spinach
• beta carotene, seven times more of that than carrots
• magnesium, calcium, potassium, folate, lithium, and iron 
• and has 2.5% protein per serving.

What about flavor?  Purslanes's taste has a subtle green flair of vitality, so it’s a great addition to many recipes.  We've been eating it raw with Green Zebra tomatoes, goat cheese in pita bread!  Tossed in salads with a cucumber yogurt dressing, it's a crowd pleaser.  Really, it's difficult to understate Purslane's attributes.

This fantastic “weed” is virtually underfoot everywhere, from Ventura to NYC, but most US residents don't know it's there.  So keep an eye out for it.  We're cultivating in our gardens from volunteers we found, and from a few cuttings Ron at Rincon Vitova gave us.  By this time next year, we'll have a living mulch cover crop that sustains many levels of the Soil Food Web, humans included!