Vermiculture In The Workplace

Before the term vermiculture was coined, before we had written language, and before we started drinking coffee, worms were hard at work breaking down organic materials and returning nutrients to the soil. We love building soil, and we love good coffee.  So when we met Chris Shepherd of Cafe Altura at a worm composting workshop, we were happy to continue the connection by bringing a worm bin to his workplace.  Chris and his team are enthusiastic about keeping a worm farm going on-site, and we are stoked to help them out. 

Ventura Cooperative's soil restoration efforts rely on vermiculture to build soil diversity and nutrient rich materials to feed plants in the gardens we take care of. Sometimes it can be frustrating to keep a worm colony alive and well, so we provide consultation visits with each worm farm we deliver, to make sure everyone benefits in the transition, including the worms.   

Setting up a worm bin is easy, it's the maintenance that takes a bit more finesse.  What you need is a box, moist newspaper strips, some compost and worms to start.  We provide all these items and a worm colony already established in the farm.  We knew Chris would have ample coffee grinds, which is a great addition to the scraps and other items worms like.  We set up the worm farm right next to the Cafe Altura staff kitchen area, to make it easy and accessible for everyone to use.

After about a month, we came back to Cafe Altura to check on the farm and answer any questions. We took the farm outside and harvested the castings together.  It was in perfect condition.

By having a hands on visit, we were able to share valuable information with Chris' team.  We considered what worms need to live. Moisture, air, food, darkness, and warm (but not hot) temperatures. Bedding, made of newspaper strips or leaves, will hold moisture and contain air spaces essential to a thriving worm habitat.  Everyone was able to see this knowledge at work in the vermiculture environment which helped a lot.  And they were able to take super rich castings back home to their gardens.

We're excited!  Chris and his team at Cafe Altura are located by the Surf Brewery and a few other businesses that are interested in starting their own vermiculture habitats.  They are early adopters and eager to create a more sustainable culture in this area.  Let's help them out! We traded some of our service costs for their organic coffee.  Come on over and have a cup, it's really good!

Special thanks to Madison Choate and the Resource Conservation Partners for connecting us all!

Relevant Links:
Cafe Altura
Resource Conservation Partners

Weather Stormwatch Ventura 2016

Here in Ventura we're getting ready for the first El Nino storm this season! Hope you are too. The forecast is calling for heavy rains and wind, high surf on the beach, and snow in the mountains.  If you need any help preparing, or with sandbags, flooding, fallen tree limbs, etc. let us know. Call Ventura Cooperative at 805-765-1892.  

For day by day details on the expected weather local to Ventura follow this link:
http://www.weather.com/weather/5day/l/USCA1193:1:US

Ventura Cooperative Delivers Mulch and Soil

There is no reason not to do it if you care for your soil, your plants, your environment and the earth.  We'll make it even easier by doing it for you.  Get a truckload of public mulch delivered and spread out in your yard.  You watch.  We work.  Let's make Ventura a beautiful and soil rich community one landscape at a time.

When we're finished your garden looks great because it's healthy and protected, and ready for the El Nino rains everyone is waiting for.  Protecting the soil is the most overlooked way of restoring balance to the ecosystem.  Learn more here: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/12/04/world-soil-day-champions-untapped-resource-solve-climate-crisis

Mulch, mulch, and more mulch!  Everything in the food soil web benefits.  From humans to micro-arthropods!  Here at Ventura Cooperative, we made a lot of rich soil in 2015, and we want to continue making more in 2016.  

Get your mulch delivery today! Call 805-765-1892 or e-mail venturacoop@gmail.com

Cooperative Development: housing, property, farms, festivals!

Happy October! Here in Southern California the weather has finally gone cool. We've had some random heat waves every week or two that have split my nascent pumpkins and baked to death some of the bushes I planted for a client. We had highs in the low 100s a few times but usually in the 90s. We likely won't spend much time above 80 until next year. Now I can safely plant my winter greens!

Yesterday I went with a founder of the Ventura Food Cooperative to visit the Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative. The tour was insightful with lots of great conversation on the walks between their 5 houses. Some buildings were multi-apartment style and others were large houses with private and shared rooms. All had shared common areas, like kitchens, gardens, and study halls for students to enjoy in community. The SBSHC has been around for decades and owns all their buildings. Members' rent and dues cover the costs of property taxes, repairs, two staff positions, and with the largest portion being the repayment of loans used to purchase properties.

Almost everyone I speak with is interested in cooperative housing and property ownership. Some folks dream of forming a rural intentional farming community, others a shared house for social activist-entrepreneurs, urban farmworker housing, and some an interfaith community like a kibbutz. Depending on the needs of the group, either a partnership of residents would own the property, a nonprofit (as in SBSHC) might own it, or the property is simply owned by locals.

My own dream is to found a farm and retreat center for service-members transitioning out of the military and chronically homeless veterans who want to learn to make and market value-added products and to be regenerative land stewards. I'm calling this project the Warrior Scholar Agroforestry Academy.

I've learned a lot in the last few months about community-financed bonds & investment, such as those by the Centre for Social Innovation, who arranged 100s of supporters to raise $1.4 million in 4 months to finance the purchase of a multi-use building in Toronto. That means locals own the building and reap the benefits of property ownership and giving a home to social-good organizations.

There's talk in our permaculture circles to similarly finance the development of agrihoods - sustainable human settlements. More on this as it becomes available!

Coming up: Lompoc Cooperative Development Project's Santa Barbara County Cooperative Development Festival (October 10th) and Ventura's Really Really Free Market (third annual! November 8th at Kellogg Park). Come celebrate the gift economy with us (we need more coordinators! that's you!)!

For more information on these topics, check out the following links, thanks to the staff at the SBSHC:

Lots of resources at the North American Students of Cooperation and registration for their Cooperative Education & Training Institute just opened. The event is from October 30th to November 1st in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

October is Co-op Month! Watch the video about what a Cooperative is at the Cooperative Network.

Thanks for reading and for growing with us!
Robert Barnett
Permaculture Designer at Ventura Coop since Dec 2014

Ventura March Against Monsanto

Monsanto has become synonymous with corporate corruption and ecological destruction as activists all across the globe point to the company's practices as the prime example of negligence and greed.  With their Seminis Seed headquarters located in Oxnard, Ventura is at ground zero for raising awareness of Monsanto's destructive behavior.  

Join us and the world Saturday May 23rd in front of Ventura City Hall for a march through the street and post rally workshops.  From 9am to 2pm you'll be a part of the solution, not the problem.  Seed swaps, Solar Ovens, Compost Tea, Live music and more all throughout the day.  Say "No More GMO's" and keep you, your family friends and the world healthy and chemical free.

Relevant Links:

Top 10 reasons why Monsanto is Corrupt to the Core:
http://www.seattleorganicrestaurants.com/vegan-whole-food/Monsanto-corruption-gmo.php

March Against Monsanto (MAM) Main Page:
http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/events/

Ventura MAM facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1542525792702623/1582302602058275/

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

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

People's Climate March Ventura

Sunday, September 21, people of all ages will march in solidarity with the March in NYC calling on world leaders to take action against global warming. 

Schedule (Subject to Change)
8:00 AM Breakfast at Ventura City Corps
8:30 AM Live Telecast of NYC People's Climate March 
10:00 AM Rally at Ventura City Hall
11:00 AM March to ventura pier
1:00 PM March Back to Ventura City Corps for lunch
2:00 PM Free Film Screening: "Disruption"
3:00 Climate Workshop
5:00 Open Mic
6:00 Dinner
7:00 March to 101 overpass for Overpass Light Brigade

facebook event page
https://www.facebook.com/events/262543147278483/

350.org event page:
http://act.350.org/event/peoples_climate_attend/8107

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!