Tower of Vegetables

Tower of Vegetables, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

Today we planted almost a hundred little vegetables and herbs. We'll be transferring them to larger, re-purposed containers. We used all different types of soil, from commercial seed starter to mixes of soil and compost. In a couple weeks we'll know which work best.

A Datsun?!!?

So up in Oregon there is a man driving one of the most unbelievable cars on Earth. The White Zombie is an electric powered Datsun whose owner has a penchant for drag-racing. See for yourself: Electric Drag Racing.

While an electric car that can beat a GTO off the line and set world records is noteworthy, there are a few things that concern me about it. It says that the White Zombie needs to be charged for 12-25 minutes after each quarter mile race. That means that its basically unloading all of its batteries to go 110 mph. Sure, its faster than the gas powered cars, but they can drive home afterwards on the same tank of gas, while the Datsun in plugged into the grid for a half hour.

What really impressed me about this video was how the owner converted an existing car. That technology seems to be what is going to revolutionize the auto industry. Bailouts aren't going to do much, there are already more cars on the road than our highways can handle. We need to start converting the cars we already own to run on electricity, then find ways to get that electricity from something other than fossil fuels.

Stay tuned for a workshop on exactly that...

(suprisingly) Our Hats Off To Lowe's Paint Dept

Spencer here,

So as Sarah and I prepare for our move to Riverside to start work on the Growcology project, we are sprucing up the place we are moving into in a few different ways. One of which is to paint the house. Determining which paint to use, factoring in our budget and environmental sensibilities, proved to be almost as much of a headache as breathing in the fumes of it in a poorly ventilated area.

That said, we have found ourselves on the other side of this conundrum with a bit of relief.

For those of you with a limited understanding of why most paint is the devil, here is a brief explanation of things to consider about paint:

Paint consists of three primary components. Binding agents, Pigment, and Solvents. All three of which can contain VOCs.

VOCs are Volatile Organic Compounds. They occur in all paint to some degree. They occur primarily in the binding agents. There is lots of reading to find on the internets about the stuff. In a nutshell, they are really really bad for you at best.

In addition to VOCs, another concern in paint can be different toxic pigmenting metals for colors such as yellow and red.

To be a green seal certified paint, a paint must have at less than 50 grams per litre VOCs. To be considered VOC free, it must contain less than 5 grams per litre.

Looking around at different brands of paint and trying to stay under 20 dollars a gallon for paint, without putting something on our walls that might be slowly poisoning us, here is what I have concluded.

There are lots of companies out there that offer a sliding scale: If you want environmentally friendly paint, you had better be ready to pay an upward of 30 to 50 dollars a gallon for something that may be a little runny and hard to apply.

After researching, the only company that I have found so far with a paint that is low voc and cheap is Olympic at Lowes. Olympic premium is rated at zero voc and we paid 15 dollars a gallon for flat and 20 for gloss, semi gloss, satin and egshell.

With that, I say to Lowe's: you may feel and smell like a Target as well as function like a Home Depot. But that said, you are the only one out there that didn't make me choose between affordability and eco-friendliness.

Chickens!

The chicken tractor is now fully operational and has four beautiful lady chickens living in it. We even got our first egg today! A couple Auracana hens and a Golden Lace and Heinz 59 custom varieties are busy tilling up the soil, eating grubs, and fertilizing the orchard around our fig tree.

Two of our most dedicated volunteers, Betty Wayford and Dan, helped us to procure the chickens and put them into our tractor. They've been indispensable in our garden, watering and planting the spring vegetables and sharing their energy and wisdom in building our community garden. Betty, a Master Gardener and caretaker of several community gardens in and around Norco, is also raising another 6 chicks for us at her home to put into the tractor once they're old enough.

Today we also visited another pillar of the Inland Empire gardening community, Oscar Clarke, at his home next to the UCR botanical gardens. He was the founder of the university's herbarium, and worked there for almost half a century. A walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge, Oscar showed us at least a dozen delicious, edible 'weeds' that grow up in the cracks of his driveway, as well as countless rare plant specimens from around the world.

Oscar gave us some great inspiration and leads for future workshops, from propagation and cuttings to recognizing valuable 'weeds' all around us. The century and a half of wisdom that Oscar and Betty bring to gardening is a perfect example of our mission at Growcology. We feel that too few Americans know how to cultivate and grow their food in this era, so it is imperative for us to learn from those who have kept the tradition alive while we still can.

Community Worksite

Things are humming along at Growcology. We picked up a load of goat manure last week, and are busy spreading it and our finished compost throughout the community garden. Over half of the plots are planted for Spring, as we finalize our plans for opening the site to the neighborhood.

The solar system is up and running, and despite recent rains we're generating much more electricity than we're consuming. The property is almost entirely running on solar pumped well water, and the four season's garden is blooming beautifully.

We're busy finding the best teachers in Southern California so that we can invite them to share their knowledge and help you to implement it in your home. The empty field in the foreground of the above picture will be a blank slate for the participants in our workshops, a perfect environment to put shovel to soil and get dirt under your fingers. If you know of any superb instructors, or have any topics you wish to learn more about, email us at Growcology@gmail.com .

Spring Planting

Over the next few weeks we're going to be doing most of our Spring planting. Consulting the old Farmer's Almanac, you can see that its time to plant alot of different veggies here in Southern California. We're gonna need to get barley, beans, beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, collard greens, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, endive, kale, leeks, lettuce, onion, parsley, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, tomoatoes, watermelons, and maybe some wheat in the ground by the end of the month. And thats just the stuff from the Almanac's planting guide, we've got plenty of other seeds aside from these we're going to be planting.

On top of that, we're finishing up preparing 5 different 12 X 12 community plots, and hopefully will get some cold frames up in the next week or two for our seedlings. The barn space needs some remodeling to prepare for our workshops later this spring, and we're soaking the roots of our fruit trees in aerobic compost tea to strengthen them for summer.

If you have any ideas for interesting things to grow, or live in Riverside and are interested in a garden plot of your own, give us an email at growcology@gmail.com and we'll get right back to you.