My Foray Into Vermi-Composting
If you read my previous post about the City of Vancouver’s various programs for handling organic waste, you’ll know that composting with worms is a great option for residents of apartments and condos because worm bins are compact and odor-free. My family is fortunate to have found an affordable house to rent in Vancouver (what’s really rare is that we have a basement; there’s no “mortgage-helper” suite below) and we have a yard that is all ours to garden as we please. So, I do have one of the city-subsidized black plastic compost bins in my garden, but I wanted to try out vermi-composting for myself.
A tangle of worms--are they having a party?
There are several reasons I wanted to start a worm bin; they boil down to convenience, speed, and frequency of harvest. When it’s cold and rainy outside, it’s a pain in the neck running out behind the garden to the big black bin, so my indoor compost collection bucket started to overflow and stink; I tried keeping a larger bucket just outside the backdoor to reduce the number of trips out back, but it just served to attract raccoons and those little buggers soon found that all they had to do was roll the bucket down the stairs and it would crash open, spilling its delicious contents. Having a worm bin in the basement is way more convenient, although I’d have to expand my vermi-composting operation by three or four times my current capacity to be able to handle all my kitchen scraps this way; for now, we still have to make trips to the backyard bin, just not as frequently. In my experience so far, food scraps are digested much quicker in the worm bin than in the backyard composter, probably due, in part, to the steady temperature and humidity levels of the indoors compared to the wild swings in outdoor conditions. Keeping the worm bin indoors means I can have compost year-round, unlike with the backyard bin, which all but ceases activity in the cold of winter. Whereas the outdoor bin produces a harvest of compost once, maybe twice, a year, the worm bin yields smaller but more frequent harvests of a high-quality soil additive fine enough for seed-starting. Aside from the foregoing reasons, I find the ecosystem of the worm bin fascinating to watch. Give me a few more months with my worms and I might be calling them pets.
I’ve mentioned Frank before: he was the original owner of this house and lived here for over sixty years. Well, his family didn’t do such a great job clearing out his things when they moved the old man to a seniors’ home. Going through a garden storage space under the house, I found a large (I’d guess 15″ x 24″ x 8″) Rubbermaid storage container with a tight-fitting lid and I immediately thought of making a worm bin out of it. I knew enough from reading up on it and I already had a source for worms, so I didn’t feel the need to spend $25 getting the bin and tutorial at the Compost Demonstration Garden. Worms and bacteria breathe oxygen, so to ventilate the plastic bin, I drilled holes all the way around it and about two inches below the top edge. For fear that the worms might try to escape, I used the smallest bit in my toolbox, although now I realize this was an unfounded fear: given enough oxygen and moisture inside, the worms won’t brave the dry air outside. They also prefer the dark, and since my bin is clear plastic, I keep it covered with a towel. Still, they congregate in the center where they’re covered with bedding and have plenty to eat. When I first introduced the worms to their new home, I made bedding for them by shredding newspaper–and lots of it because it compacts when wet. I got my worms from a friend (thanks Sarah!) who has the official city-subsidized worm bin that comes with Red Wigglers. She gave them to me in a bucket of unfinished compost so I’d have plenty of bacteria and whatever other microbes are essential to the process (and because it’s impossible to really separate them). The worms settled in nicely and within a few weeks, I could tell their numbers were increasing and they could start to handle small amounts of kitchen scraps.
When the old bedding got really mushy, I added more shredded newspaper.
It’s been three or four months since I started the worm bin and I’ve just last week applied my first harvest of vermi-compost to a soil/vermiculite mixture for starting seeds indoors (the two 2 x 4′ fluorescent tube fixtures that I use also once belonged to Frank). I am able to feed the worms about once a week without overdoing it. Some people say they have preferences for certain types of foods, but I haven’t really noticed. They seem to gobble up anything remotely palatable to you or I; the one addition I’ve made to the bin that they really didn’t seem to like and took forever to digest was plant trimmings from an aquarium. Perhaps the leaves of aquatic plants are too fibrous… Perhaps the pieces were too large… They completely devoured an addition of leftover couscous in record time (I’m talking mere days), leading me to believe that the rate at which they can break down an addition of food scraps has everything to do with particle size. It makes sense: the smaller the pieces, the greater the total surface area exposed to air, moisture, and bacteria, which, as I understand it, have to kind of pre-digest the food before worms can handle it. Now, before adding anything to the bin, I use my big kitchen knife and practically mince it. I’ve even read that some people use a food processor or blender to puree food scraps before giving them to their worms, thus maximizing surface area and minimizing the time it takes for worms to break it down. I’ll try this if the food processor is already dirty the next time I intend to make an addition to the bin; otherwise, I don’t care to wash it.
If you look closely, you may be able to see the small white ones.
In my worm bin, I actually have two different types of worms. There are Red Wigglers, which are kind of fat, pinkish-brown in color, and about two inches long at maturity; and, there are lots of skinny white worms no more than half an inch long. At first, I thought the white ones were just baby Red Wigglers, but I did some research and found that this is a common misconception, that they are, in fact, two distinct types of worms. One clue: I’ve never observed an intermediary whitish-pinkish teenage worm. What I have observed is far more interesting and offers a clue to how the worm bin ecosystem works. The large red worms do not flock to new additions of food; they seem concentrated in older, nearly-finished material. Presumably, bacteria and whatever other unseen microbes are in there are the first to attack new additions, priming the pump, so to speak, for the larger decomposers to do their jobs. Then, I observe large numbers of the small white worms starting to break down scraps that are still identifiable as human food. For sure there is some overlap in their roles, but the large red worms don’t usually seem interested until the food is partially broken down. So, their different dietary habits are another clue that they’re not the same species of worm.
The worms loved the couscous. I separate the nearly-finished compost towards the front of the bin.
To harvest the vermi-compost, it isn’t entirely necessary to separate the worms, but if you intend to use the finished compost in your garden outdoors, any worms that go out with it may not survive depending on the climate where you live. It is my understanding that Red Wigglers are not native to the Vancouver area and cannot survive the coldish winters here. Besides, it is desirable to keep as many worms in the worm bin so they can continue doing the work you’re paying them for. Separating them is fairly simple. When I start to see a lot of finished-looking compost around the bin, I just use my trowel to push it close to the front of the bin; any scraps that are still whole and need more time in the bin, I push towards the back, piling them up with the bedding and any new food I’m adding. I drape the towel over the back of the bin only, leaving the front exposed to the light. The next time I check on the worms, the nearly-completed compost at the front will be almost completely devoid worms, as most of them will have moved away from the light and towards the new food in the back. There may still be a few of the larger, red worms still working on whatever remains to be eaten in the front, but for the most part, the worms will have separated themselves from the finished product. I imagine, they’d move out completely given enough time, but having to pick a few out and toss them back when you go to harvest the finished compost is no big deal. A another tell-tale observation that lets me know my bin is working as it should: there is absolutely no odor emanating from the bin. By this I am truly shocked, because you’d expect a box of decomposing food waste to have a major stink about it, but it doesn’t (a stinky worm bin, like a stinky compost heap, would be an indication of anaerobic decomposition and should be remedied with adequate ventilation). In fact, it has the pleasant, earthy aroma of a healthy ecosystem.
City-Wide Composting: Going Green or Going Backwards?
A while back, I wrote an article for the Vancouver Observer about an electric composter dubbed the Red Dragon that was on trial at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. I talked at length with the Garden’s director, Mike Levenston, about this particular composting appliance and about composting in general, as an effective way to reduce the city’s waste and how the city has handled compost historically.
At the time, the City of Vancouver had just rolled out their kitchen scraps collection program, whereby any resident with yard waste collection service could start including vegetable kitchen scraps in their green bin for bi-weekly curbside pick-up. The program was supposed to eventually be able to handle meat and dairy products (good, since it isn’t recommended to compost these in a backyard bin), but two and a half years later there’s been no movement to expand. Also, there was talk about expanding the program to benefit those living in apartments and high-rise condos (where the greatest need for composting en masse exists), but who knows what will come of it.
The city’s kitchen waste collection program is a fine way for the city to appear to be taking a strong stand for the environment, but in fact, accomplishes little. Mike of City Farmer (the organization that runs the Compost Demonstration Garden) pointed out that the City of Vancouver has actually had a program in place for over twenty years to subsidize residents purchasing black plastic compost bins for their backyards. Any Vancouver resident can go to the garbage transfer station in South Van and pick one up for just $25 (compared to $75 or more for similar models available at home improvement stores). If food waste generated by single-family homes is still heading to the landfill in unacceptable quantities, it’s because the city has failed to advertise the subsidization program to maximize its efficiency. I’ve lived in Vancouver for six years and would never have known, until speaking with Mike, that those black bins you see everywhere are part of a city-wide program. Obviously, not everyone in the city has outdoor space suitable for composting, but for those who do, on-site composting is a lot better for the environment than increasing the number of diesel-burning collection trucks on the roads.
Thanks to the city’s “eco-density” development plans, more Vancouverites than ever now live in high-rise apartment and condo buildings. Arguably, residents of high-density areas stand to benefit the most from a compost collection service, since space is a limiting factor in how much compost an on-site system can handle. But, if rooftop gardens can become a valued asset in residential buildings, why not on-site compost systems? Even if they’re not planned for and integrated into a building’s design from the start, there’s something to be said for grassroots activism. Click here for one NYC apartment dweller’s story of how she started an on-site composting program for her building. When neighbors, Strata counsels and building managements just can’t be swayed, there’s still plenty that you can do to divert your organic waste from the landfill:
First, the object of my visit to the Compost Demonstration Garden, the Red Dragon electric composter, a sleek, modern-looking appliance that eats organic waste and churns out usable compost in under 48 hours–impressive, but Mike and I agreed it seemed silly to use electricity to do a job nature would gladly do for you, albeit a bit slower.
The Bokashi fermentation system is another possibility for condo-dwellers. The result, however, is not fully composted; food waste still has to be added to an active compost pile, but if you’re a condo-dweller with a community garden nearby or a friend with a compost pile in their yard, the fermentation process will keep food waste odor-free on your balcony until you can deposit it elsewhere.
Last, but certainly not least, composting with worms in compact, odor-free bins. Vermi-composting, Mike informed me, has also long been a part of the city’s program to encourage residents to compost their own kitchen scraps. You’d never know it for the lack of information out there, but the City of Vancouver also subsidizes worm bin purchases made through the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. Included in the low cost of $25 is the ventilated bin, bedding material, worms, a handbook, and a one-hour tutorial to get you started. In my experience, worms definitely have their food preferences but will eat through most kitchen scraps in a couple weeks. The bin remains surprisingly odor-free, requires little to no time or effort to maintain, and produces a high-quality fertilizer that can be used to start seeds or give houseplants a boost. The only drawback is that a single bin is hardly enough to process the kitchen waste of a family of four–we’d need three or four worm bins to handle all our scraps! (Or a big dog…)
Given that the City already has this subsidization program in place for getting people to compost on their own, I just don’t see the need for trucking kitchen scraps around the lower mainland. Certainly, there’s no reason why they couldn’t step up the program, advertise it a little, educate city residents about the need for handling some of their waste–just like they bought ad space in all the Skytrain stations before Christmas urging people to “give memories, not garbage.” Then, they could more effectively deploy collection services in high density areas where the need is greatest and only pick-up items like dairy and meat wastes that can’t be properly handled in a backyard compost system. Heck, the city could start a Go Vegan campaign and eliminate the need completely, if it really wants to be the “Greenest City in the World.”
A Belated Happy New Year to All!
A favorite Southern culinary tradition is the eating of collards and black-eyed peas for luck in the New Year. We ate our Orca beans instead. Yes, this was a New Year’s meal over six months in the making… (We recently cooked up some pinto beans that we grew and dried two years ago. Not surprisingly, the older beans took a lot longer to soften; despite soaking them overnight and simmering them on the stove for two hours, I still found a crunchy bean or two in my chili.)
Beautifully colored beans grown from West Coast Seeds seed.
These beans, simmered low and slow with pancetta and onions in Christmas turkey broth did us proud on New Year’s Day. But, as creamy and delicious as they were, we don’t plan to grow them again next summer. In no way did they disappoint; our concern is only for the limited garden space we have.
The Orca bean is a bush-type plant, as opposed to a pole bean. Pole beans, or runner beans, are well-suited to a tight urban garden because they can be trellised and grown vertically, thereby saving ground space. We ended up with a total of one and one half cups of dry Orca beans and their plants grew on a total of about ten square feet of garden. Next year we’re going to try other pole beans besides Scarlett Runners and maybe save bush beans for a future when we have more ground space.
How to Build a Greenhouse
A unique thing about our property is that the original owner, Frank–the man who first moved into this house in the late 1940′s–resided here up until just three years ago. He spent over sixty years in this house, living and working and cultivating this garden that I love but is no more mine than a mountain. It’s obvious he put a lot of love and effort into making this his home–unique little details and customizations that are hard to find in Vancouver’s newly renovated rental properties, which is to say, practically all of them.
The old greenhouse that Frank built. Check out the custom gutter!
One of the things Frank customized was a small greenhouse in the garden in the back. It obviously wasn’t a professional job, but it seems Frank had a good head for fixing and putting things together. He fashioned the greenhouse out of 2′x4′s and irregular sizes of glass, some of it framed out like windows, some of it loose. The footprint of the whole structure measured 5.5′ x6.5′ and we built the new greenhouse the same, but we’re told by a neighbor who knew Frank that he originally built it at least twice that long so that it extended the length of the adjoining neighbor’s garage.
By the time of our inheriting this structure, it was most decidedly decrepit. The sheets of glass making up the roof were hanging dangerously off the edge and I actually didn’t feel safe entering the greenhouse as it stood then. I desperately wanted to have the greenhouse, but it seemed beyond rescue; rebuilding it was really the only option. So, for five weekends last May, I totally played the pregnancy card and got my video-gaming hubbie outside and wielding a hammer. I must say, building a greenhouse was a truly daunting task at first, but I couldn’t believe how easily it proceeded once we got started. Here’s how.
Once we tore out the old structure, we realized there was a lot of rot at the base of the back wall, which is just the south-facing exterior wall of the neighbor’s garage. Soil and debris from the greenhouse was actually mud-sliding into the garage. Our quick fix: a retaining wall, so to speak, of 1960′s orange shag carpet (pulled out of the house basement during the home improvement blitz of the previous months). Really, we nailed a length of carpet to the garage wall and dug the soil out several feet and replaced it on top the carpet layer. Will it hold forever? No, but seeing as this property is due to be redeveloped in the near future, this is impermanent permaculture.
For those who have no building experience whatsoever you cannot simply build a cube of 2′x4′s; it will not stand straight. Any structure will be more sturdy with some cross bracing (like when you put those two metal rods on the back of an IKEA shelf). Sounds obvious, but we were surprised by how strong our structure felt after adding a few angled pieces of wood here and there. Also, using screws would probably be the strongest, but we went for the ease of hammer and nails. The glass pieces were framed in with narrow pieces of wood on the outside and finishing nails inside. The door was made from a frame found under the back porch stairs (stashed there years ago by Frank, I presume) and an old plastic shower curtain. The cherry on top: on the final day of building, while I took a break with Eleanor at the park, Stephen laid a beautiful stone path, put in the retaining boards and back-filled with soil so that it was all done when I returned!
Besides a lot of hard work, this greenhouse cost us next to nothing. Mostly we were able to just use materials we found on site: glass, wood, door frame, shower curtain, stone pavers, blue paint, and corrugated plastic (for a ceiling vent that can be raised and lowered). The only items we purchased were three 12 ft. long 2″x4″s, a bag of nails, and hinges for the door. After the $30 Rona gift card from my mom and step-dad, we spent a grand total of $3.37 on this greenhouse!
The greenhouse after rebuilding.
In its first year, our greenhouse housed a load of basil, four eggplants, four pepper plants, and two incredibly prolific heritage tomatoes. We tried growing Maw-Maw’s okra, but after seeming to transplant okay, all the plants just failed to thrive. They hung on and on and slowly lost leaves despite regular waterings. I think we got a single 2″ okra pod! Oh well! Building the greenhouse was well worth it just for the experience of figuring it out as we went along.
Permaculture Diploma Class Winter Solstice Meeting
I know, the actual solstice hasn’t occurred yet, but the group only meets once a season and we try to do it as close to the solstices and equinoxes as possible. Last weekend’s meet-up took place in the city, for a change. Previously, we’ve met up at Rolling Earth Farm and the Heart Gardens in Roberts Creek and Elphinstone Provincial Park–all on the beautiful Sunshine Coast. I didn’t make it to the second class because the June 26th meeting was too close to Henry’s due date and I sure as heck didn’t want to be in labor on the ferry back to Vancouver. I did, however, take two-month-old Henry to the third meet-up, which was also on the Sunshine Coast. I couldn’t leave him for a whole day because he was exclusively breastfeeding at the time and wouldn’t take a bottle, even if I had been able to pump enough milk for the day. He was a dream–he slept every time we got in the car to caravan to the next location; he slept snuggled up to me in the wrap as we tromped through the forest; he nursed discreetly in the sling while I hiked down a cliff; and he was very pleasant for the short time that he was awake when we stopped at Delvin’s to view a permaculture video. I never thought taking a baby on a trek like that would go so smoothly!
Anyway, last weekend’s meet-up took place in Vancouver. First on the agenda, we met at Strathcona Community Garden, which is one of the oldest in the city. It is quite large, sprawling in a delightfully ad-hoc manner, and boasts a mature espaliered apple orchard consisting of several dozen dwarf heritage varieties. While there, a couple of us shared with the group on the progress of our mapping projects. Mine were very well-received. I think my architectural background shows in the readability and quality of detail of my base map and sector diagrams. The mapping component of this course is an exercise to get the designer thinking about the different properties of a landscape–sun and shade; wind and water flow; circulation of people and animals in the space; and, in the case of an ultra-urban environment like mine, sources of noise, litter, and pollution. Understanding how these affect the landscape helps the designer know how to mitigate negative effects and use available energy and resources wisely.
Our next stop was the Purple Thistle Center in East Van. They’re a non-profit, youth-run center for arts and activism. After checking out their guerrilla garden across the street, we went inside to get warm, had some snacks, and did a design exercise focusing on the suburban environment that most North Americans have inherited. Environmentalists like to blame the suburbs and the extensive sprawling network of roads they necessitate for the twin problems of traffic and greenhouse gas emissions (not to mention millions of collective man-hours wasted every year by people sitting in traffic). It’s been said that the suburbs kill culture and art and community… But, maybe it’s time for a re-visioning. Maybe the suburbs aren’t so bad in themselves, if people would or could stick around during the day and create a community, by bringing in businesses and shops, by encouraging home business and start-ups–ways of working that don’t entail an hour drive into the city.
One thing suburbs have going for them is lots of fairly cheap land that could be used for food production. Let’s face it: farming isn’t exactly a lucrative enterprise and land for urban farms and community gardens is constantly under pressure from the urban real estate market and property development. Until society chooses to value wholesome agriculture and uphold its place in our communities, farming will by and large continue to be relegated to the cheapest, most marginal lands further and further out from the center of human culture… as if agriculture can be divorced from culture. Besides encouraging the conversion of every lawn to food-producing gardens, other ideas we came up with for “greening” the suburbs included: creating pocket markets for the swapping of goods, crafts, or produce between neighbors; weekly or monthly street closures for music and arts festivals to bring people out into the streets; creating community kitchens; using permeable surfaces for parking to increase rainwater absorption and mitigate flooding by run-off; using old rail-road rights-of-way for walking and biking paths; adding bike racks; getting schools involved in gardening; planting fruit and nut trees in the boulevards; reforesting vacant land; painting traffic-calming street mandalas a la Portland; creating space in local strip malls for a local-only store, micro-loan credit union, and co-operative where residents can rent space. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, but you can see from this list alone how many low-hanging fruits there are to start greening the suburban landscape.
While the class went back to Cottonwood Community Garden to compare it’s permaculturally master-planned lay-out with the more organic (no pun intended) flow of Strathcona Garden, I had to rush home to nurse Henry down for a nap. I got back just in time to caravan to the next location, SOLEfood Farm on the Downtown Eastside where our lovely hostess, Sara Dent, runs an urban PDC course. A group affiliated with the organization United We Can started this inner-city farm in 2009 on property leased from the Astoria Hotel next door. It consists of dozens of long and narrow raised beds on an old parking lot. 
Despite consulting a landscape architect on the lay-out, they have significant drainage problems–proof that even the pros are sometimes still learning as they go. The gardens looked somewhat dreary on a cold almost-winter day; everything was covered in plastic hoop houses, so not a lot of color until you peek underneath and see beautiful stands of collards and rainbow chard.
The greenhouses they use for growing tomatoes in the summer were chock full of seedling trays yielding an abundance of salad greens. Throughout the fall and winter, they’re still seeding something every single week! What a goal to set in my own garden!
Once the sun set, it started getting really cold, so we wrapped up the day with a tea and snack at Organic Lives, a vegan raw-food cafe and store at Quebec and 2nd Ave. The food looked great, if a bit pricey. But, hey, you get what you pay for, right? It’s not easy finding places to dine out that are in keeping with the ethics of permaculture. Two thumbs up!
Ethical Oil?
I just listened to an interview on CBC Radio’s The Current and I can’t resist putting my two cents in. Host Anna Maria Tremonti was speaking with Katherine Marshall, the new spokeswoman for the Ethical Oil Institute (what appears to be nothing more than a greenwash machine for Canada’s highly controversial oil sands).
The issue is that oil extraction from the tar sands is detrimental to the environment of northern Alberta, polluting drinking water and spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an alarming rate, not to mention the destruction inherent in any pipeline project to get the oil to refineries in the US. The same can be said for oil extraction no matter where it occurs around the globe.
Marshall’s point in calling Canada’s oil “ethical” is that, unlike Canada, most other oil-exporting countries are not liberal democracies and do not have legal rights and protections for women and children or occupational safety standards for workers. Marshall’s position, and that of the “Ethical Oil” campaign, is that when we buy oil from conflict areas like Nigeria and the Middle East we are, in effect, condoning human rights abuses around the world–therefore we should only buy Canadian oil because, clearly, human rights trump the environment.
The point that host Anna Maria Tremonti kept trying to get at and which Katherine Marshall kept adroitly dodging is that we do not buy oil just from countries but from companies, most of which are Western-owned and operate in Canada and the US as well as conflict zones around the world. So, what’s the difference when you buy Shell oil if it comes from Nigeria or from Alberta? Marshall contends that if companies are responsible for environmental destruction, low wages, and occupational hazards then it is the fault of the countries in which they operate for not having stricter legal controls. (Nevermind that most developing nations cannot enforce strict controls or tax polluters and abusers due to the straitjacket of structural adjustment reforms imposed on them by the World Bank and IMF; that’s a discussion for another time.)
In order to avoid tacitly supporting human rights abuses, Tremonti asked if Marshall and the Ethical Oil Institute think people should boycott the oil companies that work in conflict zones. No, she said, the “Ethical Oil” campaign was merely about opening people’s eyes and getting them “interested” in the issue of where our oil comes from and how it is obtained. “Interested”? What, I ask, is the point in getting people interested if not to affect some kind of change? And, if change is to be had, why not boycott those responsible? Marshall argued in the interview that it is up to the countries, not the companies, to impose tighter controls, as if oil companies are champing at the bit for a chance to live up to higher ideals of worker and consumer safety and it is government regulations that prevent them from doing better. I say it is clear that oil companies only act on environmental and worker health and safety regulations when they absolutely have to (i.e. when they operate in developed nations with higher standards). Perhaps, developed nations should be able to impose their higher standards on Western-owned companies no matter where they work.
Rant over! I couldn’t help myself; this Marshall woman was so illogical and no seems to want to state the obvious: that true leadership doesn’t just decide who or where to buy oil from, a true leader wouldn’t be afraid to tell his people that some serious belt-tightening and a drastic re-evaluation of the level of material comfort we expect out of life is necessary now and in the future.
Our Thanksgiving
One of the best things about being American in Canada is having two Thanksgivings! (I’ll admit, before moving here six years ago, I didn’t even know Canada had its own Thanksgiving Day.) So, having gotten the taste for too much turkey and stuffing out of systems in early October, we decided to make a truly personal harvest celebration out of the American holiday. Besides, my very unfussy in-laws were staying with us and it was nice to share with them the fruits of our labor.
The feature of this year’s big American Thanksgiving Day meal was spaghetti bolognese, made with our own oven-roasted heirloom tomato sauce and seasoned with dried and fresh herbs from the garden. Just minutes before dinner, I picked a salad of crisp romaine and arugula (both of which are quite cold tolerant and still hanging in there despite a few mild frosts to date). For dessert, a classic pumpkin pie, made from scratch using the Maw-Maw pumpkin that we grew. I don’t know what variety it was; Maw-Maw gave me the seeds and said they’d grow a good eatin’ pumpkin–and they did!
That our Thanksgiving meal contained so many ingredients from our own garden made it feel like a true harvest celebration! Oh, and, I gave thanks for my family, especially the newest member’s trouble-free beginning.
Canning Experiments 2011
Home preservation of food was beginning to look like a lost art… until the recent upsurge in homesteading and DIY skill sets. I’m certainly not immune to the trend, but home canning also holds a uniquely fond place in my heart. Ever since I can remember, my grandmother has grown and canned all her own tomatoes, green beans, and fruits for making jams (in addition to all the veggies for fresh eating and for freezing). As a kid, I sometimes got to help her snap beans or shuck corn or mash strawberries. What I didn’t know was that those were already foreign experiences to most of my peers (80′s kids).
When I grew up and moved to another state for university, I had to face life without Maw-Maw jelly for the first time. Having tried store-bought, I gave up on PB&J’s for a long time because nothing quite compared. I know the difference isn’t just that Maw-Maw picked her berries at their ripest and used only natural ingredients in her jams; it’s also the memory of picking and cooking with her and the very familiarity to me of her land. Now, I’m continuing the tradition in my own home… and my family’s loving the results!
Last year (2010) I found a hot water bath canning set at The Salvation Army on 12th (I love their bargain basement!) and got started canning right away. My first attempts at jam included a tart tayberry delight that spread beautifully over Sunday morning french toast and a thick blueberry-rhubarb jam we like to call “bluebarb.” The rhubarb came from the front yard and the berries came from a U-Pick in Richmond, so not only was everything local and fresh, but we had a great time picking at the farm! On our way back from the U-Pick, we stopped and bought about twenty pounds of dill cukes and I made so many jars of delightfully garlicky dill pickles that I’ve still got several quarts a year and a half later. Also, I made a mango chutney when organic mangoes were cheap at the supermarket. At least they were in season!
This year I’ve discovered that Canadian Tire sells everything you need for home-canning, so I finally picked up the accessories I had to do without last year–jar tongs (very helpful!), wide-mouth funnel, and a magnetic wand for lifting rings and lids out of hot hot water. I attended a salsa-canning workshop this summer to learn more and ask some questions, like “Why did two of my jars bust when processing my tomatoes?” Answer: imperfections in new glass, chips in old glass, cold contents were added to hot jars, hot contents were added to cold jars, jars touched while in the bath, or some combination of these factors. The class was very informal, hosted by a foodie neighbor and really just a great time gabbing with some friendly ladies. I left with a recipe for canning peaches that sounds amazing; I can’t wait to try it next year!
This year, despite being hugely pregnant then having a newborn strapped to my chest five or six hours a day, I managed to prep and process the following:
- 8 1/2 pint jars tayberry jam (U-pick berries)
- 8 1/2 pint jars bluebarb jam (U-pick berries and garden rhubarb)
- 7 pints peaches in light syrup (Farmer’s Market peaches)
- 4 1/2 pint jars grape jelly (our neighbors have a grape vine)
- 4 1/2 pint jars plum preserves (plum trees in our backyard)
- 5 jars of various sizes diced German Red Strawberries (our favorite heirloom tomato)
- 3 quart jars oven-roasted tomato sauce (from homegrown German Red Strawberries)
- 10 pints applesauce (from fruit scavenged along 17th Ave. at Clark Dr.)
- 5 1/2 pint jars roasted green tomato salsa (the last tomatoes from our garden)
Wow! Looking at that list, I’m rather impressed with my efforts this year. Of course, nothing quite compares to the sense of satisfaction seeing those colorful jars lined up on my kitchen shelves. And, every time I open a new jar of jam or cook with my home-canned tomato sauce, I’m pleasantly reminded of Vancouver’s gorgeous but too-short summer.
For pictures of this year’s canning successes (and one failure), click here.
Getting Started With Permaculture
So, I’m taking this advanced permaculture diploma course. The first meeting was last March (2011); meetings are held each season as close to solstices and equinoxes as possible. There are readings to keep up with, but mostly the work is self-directed. At the end of two and a half years (ten meetings covering three full growing seasons), each student will submit a condensed version of their progress journal, including maps and pictures, to one of the international permaculture accrediting organizations.
As a record-keeping component of the course, I was thinking of starting a new blog–one devoted entirely to permaculture projects and the progress I make over the two and a half years of the course in converting my property into an urban mini-farm producing food year-round. In the end, I’ve decided to stick with Rain Rain Go Away because there really is no better name for a Vancouver-based gardening blog.
Of course, there is more to permaculture than gardening, but gardening is a large part of what we do. But, gardening to a practitioner of permaculture doesn’t just mean planting out the same old annuals season after season. What we’re after is a perennial “forest garden” comprised of layers of edible and medicinal plants. We go heavy on native species because their adaptation to a given climate makes them easy to maintain with what water, energy, and nutrients are already available in the landscape. Permaculture is about making conscious design decisions–frequently in imitation of natural processes (bio-mimicry)–that economize our use of locally available energy and resources and minimize (or, ideally, eliminate) the need for external inputs of all kinds.
As designers, we are always asking ourselves, “How would Nature accomplish this?” Say I want to create a new bed for edible plants where currently there is a lawn. I could do the back-breaking work of digging out the grass, removing vital soil and nutrients in the process. Or, I could “sheet mulch” the area where I want the new bed, saving myself a lot of time and wasted effort. To do this, you simply lay sheets of cardboard directly onto the lawn to keep weeds and grass from coming up through your new bed, then cover with layers of compost, manure, soil, and leaves. Over time, the layers settle and the natural process of decomposition by bugs and worms incorporates your former lawn into your new garden bed without you having to dig it out. As in Nature, energy isn’t wasted on a task that will take care of itself given time.
Sheet mulching isn’t rocket science; you use what you have on hand. When I sheet mulched half my lawn to double the size of my veggie garden, I used brown paper lawn bags, out-of-date road maps, and some nasty old carpet padding of mostly natural fibers. I had just moved to a new property (new to me, that is) so I didn’t have compost hanging around from the previous season and leaves and manure are either scarce or problematic to acquire without a vehicle, so I ended up ordering a truckload of compost/garden soil blend delivered to my house. I consider it a very worthwhile, albeit expensive, one-time external input to get me started on the road to creating my urban mini-farm.
One of the basic tenets of permaculture is “obtain a yield.” There are definitely things I’d like to change about the layout of the garden addition, things I think I didn’t get quite right this first year and will try to address before a major plant-out next spring. But, in the end, I can’t complain about the harvest: several rows of perfectly straight carrots; thick bunches of arugula and chard; pounds and pounds of zucchini; prolific cherry tomatoes; soy beans enough for two plates of edamame; three types of beans for snapping and drying, and the best-tasting cucumbers I’ve ever had. There were even sunflowers and millet for the birds!
Sheet mulching the garden addition was just the beginning. In subsequent posts, I’ll be expanding on other projects we tackled this year just to get up and growing, including the seed-starting set-up, the greenhouse rebuild, and messy experiments in canning to preserve the harvest!
The Next Chapter…
It’s been two years since I’ve posted to Rain Rain Go Away. A lot has happened in that time.
I completed the yoga teacher training that I last posted about. We did a kind of “Life in Balance” stream-of-consciousness writing exercise, in which we were asked to envision ourselves one, three, and five years down the road–what kinds of things would we hope to accomplish in that time? What roles–professional, social, familial, etc.–could we picture ourselves in? Three things that came to mind that day have now come to fruition:
1. To have another baby.
Baby Henry was born two minutes to midnight on his due date, June 28 of this year. He weighed in at a whopping 10 lbs, 9 oz! but still his birth was a gentle and drug-free VBAC. He is an absolute joy to have around!
2. To be a role model for youth, particularly girls.
For almost two years I have been volunteering as a Farm Friend with UBC Farm’s Landed Learning Project leading school children through the process of creating a garden–from planning what to grow to seed-starting, transplanting, and finally harvesting, cooking, and eating what they’ve grown. Working with the kids from Tyee has been amazingly rewarding and I have learned a lot in the process. I promise to write an extensive post about this program at some point in the future.
3. To complete a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course.
I received my PDC last fall from James Richardson of the UBC School of Landscape Architecture. For the uninitiated, permaculture (think permanent agriculture) is a term coined way back in the 1970′s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren to describe their principles of sustainable habitat design. I am now involved in a two-year advanced permaculture diploma course, a kind of practicum that puts into action the design principles taught in the more theoretical PDC course. I’ll be posting about permaculture a lot more in the future, since it is the subject of my Next Chapter.
