The Lilies Of The Field

Oh MY. I've been scouting out more edible "weeds" around here ...... we have purslane, lambs quarters, miner's lettuce, chickweed.... all reportedly high in human nutrients. They don't only grow in fields, either; purslane and lamb's quarters are springing up from our urban sidewalks, between the cracks of rubble piles, roadsides and the edges of downtown buildings... with the addition of pigweed seeds- amaranth, high in protein- maybe we CAN live off the lilies of the field, even in a city!

this one's wild black mustard:
the seeds are used to make mustard,
and the greens are, yes, mustard greens.

Here's purslane on the left- growing up from a well-traveled sidewalk.

In the middle you can see a tiny little green sprout- I'm transplanting purslane from the sidewalk to the yard. One of the books told me that purslane has been known to sit neglected in a drawer for a few months- during which time it flowered and seeded- then grow very well after being simply laid down on rocky dry soil. We'll see.

Critical Thinking- Use It Or Lose It

A friend recently emailed re my invitation to view this blog:

“I'd be careful about inviting people to 'be generous' with comments unless you mean to agree with you a lot.Which I will if that is what you want -- like I tell students, tell me what you want -- and if all you want is a 'well done' I can do that now and we'll both be happy-- otherwise I'll spend time and expect the same.”

Well, I love to hear “well done”, and any other wonderful things you have to say to me…. But that’s not something I expect or demand from friends or anyone else. I also like questions, and even answer em, as you can see under post comments. I answered this particular email:

“……what I'm asking for is honest feedback about my ideas and practice- presumably based in YR ideas and practice- I DO prefer evidence-based remarks unless yr referring to yr own feelings and ideas. Frinstance, statements like "thousands of people die each year from badly cured compost" just aren't evidence-based. Well, not in this or the last century. "Thousands of people die each year from water-borne disease, including those which are transmitted through contact with untreated sewage" would be accurate and verifiable, and we could have a discussion based in documented evidence..... anyway, would you really be happy doling out feel-good lies-on-demand to me, yr students, or anyone else? Not me.”

And there it is. I think that many of us hold our tongues - even bite em- because we don’t want to upset the other or ourselves… and that’s often at the expense of a free exchange of ideas and observations; always at the expense of honest expression, which may or not be a very high priority, given any particular conversation. But inhibiting a free exchange of ideas, for whatever reason, inhibits our ability to See and Understand ourselves and our world; our often mistaken assumptions go unchallenged and we believe them to be Fact.

When we don’t ask why something is true, or if it even is true, we’re at risk of accepting “common knowledge” and “the way things are” as simple facts that need no thought or examination. If we accept “ because it’s dangerous…” or “because it’s yucky…” or “because people don’t do that…”, etc, those unreasoned attitudes seem to be legitimate arguments for unreasoned behaviors and practices. Questioning commonly held assumptions seems like stupidity, disloyalty, or just plain silliness in that mode; intellectual curiosity gets damped down and recycled as ignorance. We regularly challenge the legitimacy of political ignorance- I say let's challenge our OWN, and help each other do it!

Growing Food In The City

I've thought that growing food or medicine in deep city environments is just about impossible. No room, no soil, no air, no good. Not true. It's so simple and effective that even I, with a real dirt yard to work in, am doing it. Here's how: take a five gallon container- like a paint can, a wastebasket, a box- and poke holes all around about five inches from the bottom. Fill it up with dry leaves or other dried stuff- I've used straw and miscellaneous garden clippings, too- to around three or four inches from the top. None of this has to be exact. Then put a few inches of soil over that. Water it well. Then.... sow the seeds!

Here's a row of pots with cilantro, peppers, parsley and yarrow growing- we even found a volunteer wild tobacco ( attenuata, favorite of west coast native americans) growing in a wastebasket left over from last year's crop!

This is a closer-up of cilantro growing in a plastic bucket- it's healthy and delicious.

These pots need very little attention or even water. Once they're thoroughly watered, there's a resevoir at the bottom up to the punched in holes; the dry material wicks up the water and delivers it to the roots. We can see the plants get lower & lower in the pots as the material below composts, keeping the roots warm while it rots. The compost then makes good soil for the next growing season. PLUS they weigh maybe two pounds and don't drip water..... perfect for rooftops or indoor gardening.

Living In The Middle House

So now I’m living in the Middle House. We call it that because it’s one of three houses on one lot- yes, the middle one. The Middle House suits my practice: I have no independent electricity (extension cords, yes- I’m not doing without) running water, insulation, or conventional heat source. I’ve spent a few Springs & Summers here already, going “inside” to the Front House, which is fully functioning on the grid, to spend winters with my beloved housemates, who support me fully in my practice without wanting to join me out here- and who could blame em! It’s not easy or necessary at this point. I hope I’ll find the grit to stay out here this Winter… living here without (some of ) the usual comforts of grid life is a great motivator to explore alternatives.

Lack of $ is also a great motivator…. Some day I hope to set up solar panels and rainwater harvest for drinking water; until then, I get to explore available alternatives….. making it up as I go along.

Thankyou, Today!

I’m really experiencing the results of so many small steps today… I’ve been stumbling along for the last 2 ½ yrs or so with a BIG cloudy barely conscious voice murmuring “you don’t know enough, have enough, aren’t together enough…. wait, wait, wait until you have this or that….” Well, whatever, it’s always there, and like the rest of us living with nagging inner voices, I soldier on the best I can. Pretty damn good, too. Usually. Anyway, I’ve been rummaging around in the garden; the spring vines are beginning to twine over the Seat of Earth to make a shady canopy for summer naps, the green beans are spiraling up their poles- butterflies and bees, ladybug and beetle! The I Ching says it’s not effective to look to results, just do the right thing; theoretically I get that, and practice Getting it; but I’m not there yet, and GOD this is satisfying!

Eating the Wild World

The main thing I remember about Euell Gibbons is the joke about his having purple testicles from eating grapenuts. Now I wish I'd paid more attention to what he was actually saying..... I've been reading & rereading some of the books in the KSF library about uses of native plants; it looks as if we could be enjoying huge wild meals, including grains & greens, of course, but also wild rye & oat & barley & wheat flour.... there're simple directions for winnowing & roasting & grinding; Charlotte Bringle Clarke in Edible & Useful Plants of California says her method of harvesting & processing takes 1/2 hr to get enough barley flour for a loaf of bread. I'll post as soon as I've tried it. So far, I've identified barley, oats, a little wheat, lacepod, miner's lettuce, amaranth ( who knew amaranth is just pigweed?!?) bay laurel, pepper tree, bracken, cheeseweed, radish, and squaw root, all growing in vacant lots or public places.....

I've been researching heavy metals & polluting toxins taken up by plants on the roadside. So far, I can find information on levels of toxins in roadside dirt- same as the atmosphere- and the alarming ability of plants to suck up heavy metals, but nothing specifically about roadside plants. I did find out that industrial waste and atmospheric pollutants and insecticides and pesticides used in industrial agriculture stay in the soil and get sucked up by plants if they're water soluble, like cyanide and selenium; mercury pollution seems to be mostly in fish. So at LEAST eating roadside plants, exposed to maybe more car exhaust but far less pesticides, is as safe as eating agribusiness food...... I never knew we could eat so well- off the land, in the city!

Good News on Global Warming

I heard George Manibot on Democracy Now ( http://www.democracynow.org/ ) last night- his book is "Heat: How To Stop the Planet From Burning". My housemates had already heard of the book, but it's new to me- and I thought the interview was thrilling. For one thing, he's talking about, in some detail, the actual nuts&bolts of how changing human habits can reduce global warming; he's even optimistic. Well, maybe not optimistic- at least his ideas seem reality-based and well researched. Possible. We hear quite a bit about how impossible it is to reduce emissions without destroying The Economy, imposing dreadful hardship on Americans, etc; this guy tells us, very simply, that that's NOT true and then goes on to tell us why- and more importantly, how.

I agreed with everything he said with one major exception: when Amy Goodman asked him what individuals can do, he said that green lightbulbs are all well & good, but it's more important for us to see ourselves as citizens rather than consumers- right on, I say- and organize, push & pressure politicians to toe the save-the-planet line. Well, if that's the case, a lot of us are doomed to ineffectiveness, since we don't organize or demonstrate or, some of us, even vote. Not to say that's right or wrong; some of us just don't. Maybe we can become Citizen Consumers: vote directly with our little dollars, write to corporations we buy products from- thank them for less packaging and anything they do to curb emissions; decry them for continuing bad practice; contact information is usually in the box, isn't it?

There was a pretty recent statement or report from the UN on global warming- it said in part that individual efforts ARE important. I'll try to find that reference; meanwhile I'm trying on metaphors like" individual efforts are the sands that make the beaches, the cells that make our blood..... the drops that make the sea...... the leaves that make the tree! The bees that make the honeywee! OK enough. We get it. My point is that when we think our actions don't count, watch News in horror and think but what can I do?, we get overwhelmed and stop even looking at it, much less try to behaviors. At least I do.

Naturalizing food and Medicine

One thing I realized about centering my efforts on my own back yard is that we really can't take it with us. Knowledge, yes..... infrastructure, NO. If we were thrown out of the house, or it burned down, or we were earthquaked out of here, it'd all be gone. Or useless if we were far enough from here to count. SO I've begun trying to naturalize food & medicine crops.... aloe vera, tobacco & poppies so far. I save the seeds or cuttings and throw em out where it looks like they can grow- public access places that don't get regularly poisoned off and benefit from rain and other water run-off, like the sides of canals, railroad passings, and parks. We'll see how it goes- too soon to see any results yet. I think of Johnny Appleseed, engineers spreading California poppies across the land, the wild flower people who plant the roadsides; if this works- or maybe if it doesn't!- I'll try fruit trees next.

Fruit

We have eight fruit trees cheerfully growing fruit now- apple, pear, nectarine, lemon, olive, loquat, fig, and one grafted tree called "fruit salad"- it's got peaches, plums and apricots on the same tree. Also table grapes and native wild grapes.... the fruits are tiny & full of promise now- if they truly reach maturity, that's a LOT of food, so I'm learning about fruit preservation- jam and drying and brandy preserve are my favorites. We'll see how it goes!

Walls of Rubble

Our growing beds are mostly raised a few feet from the pathways, making it easier to maintain em- less stooping, easier to add compost and mulch, easier to harvest. The fact that we don't walk on the soil keeps it from getting compacted, too. There're a lot of ways to raise garden beds- our first raised bed was built of log cabin style stacked 2 X 4s with the spaces woven in with long crocosmia leaves to hold the soil; then we just piled up the earth, and it was fine, except for a little erosion.... and the chickens. They love to scratch around in the beds, disrupt young plants, and strew mulch in the paths. Well. So much for piles. Now we're using found rubble for garden walls. Chunks of cement and brick and occasional stones are easy to find in an urban area; I pick em up in vacant lots, building sites, and roadsides- throw em in the trunk & carry on. Broken cement is the best; it usually has flat top & semi-flat bottom, so it's easy to stack... and looks terrific!

The True Inspirational Story of Chicken Little

Chicken Little was walking through the woods one day when an acorn fell on her head. We don’t know why she mistook that acorn for the sky falling- maybe the little acorn was as big as her little head? Maybe she’d never been in the woods before? We don’t know why she thought the sky was falling, but we do know what she did about it- She immediately warned her friends Foxey Loxey, Henny Penny, Snakey Bakey, Possum Lossum, Chicken Licken, Turkey Lurkey, Roley Moley, and the rest.
They laughed at her and went on about their business. Later in the day, Little’s friends were walking together- maybe still laughing about Chicken Little- when they came across her on the road, lying there on her back with her feet in the air. We do know they laughed when they saw her: “Chicken Little, what are you doing? Do you really think you can hold up the sky with your little feet?” Chicken Little replied with dignity: “one does what one can”. That's the kind of people I want around me!

Worms, Mighty Friends of the Soil

WORMS are a big surprise to me…. Their amazing abundance in the earth, for one thing. Where can they possibly come from? They seem to appear overnight in the ground; hundreds of them if they like the conditions: plenty of rotting worm food, dirt, and moisture. They aerate the soil- at least they will if they can get there in the first place- then add their nutritious “castings”, really worm scat by another name. They add potassium to the soil, adding that excellent nutrient to plants we grow in it….. they’re good chicken food, too.

Check these guys out! This photo's from the mulch pit, one turned over shovel-full!

History of the Chickens at Kentucky Street Farms

CHICKENS! So I finally got some chickens. I'd been thinking and talking about it for a long time- a possibly viable independent source of food, I figured. Oh BOY was I right & wrong about that.... First I talked about it a lot & listened to opinions from everybody who'd give me one. A LOT of people gave me their opinion; the responses I got, in order of frequency, boil down to four basic categories: 1. Uhhhh..... you want chickens? Why would you want chickens? 3. Just don't name em; you won't be able to eat em. 4. well, they won't last long, dogs/racoons/possum/rats'll eat em and 5. Chickens- what a great idea.....

Then I went to the City to find out about local urban chicken laws. I'm wary about this kind of stuff; I have a running movie clip in the back of my mind in which I am, for whatever reason, standing in front of a HUGE podium, peering up into the misty reaches of Law or Convention, wringing my shackled hands, pitifully croaking out " But your Honor....." or "but Officer....." or "but darling, we already talked about it, didn't we?!? " There's a similar little clip that plays sometimes involving the Neighbors..... Anyway, I went to the City to see what I might be in for. The man at the desk cheerfully told me that the City codes do NOT allow livestock in the City Limits. Chickens are, yes, considered livestock. But here's the real deal, he said- it's OK as long as the neighbors don't object.

I'd already talked to most of the neighbors about it by then; see opinions, above- I'd told em I didn't intend to keep a noisy rooster, and murmured .....surely they won't be noisier than the dogs....... I was amazed. I thought there'd be major opposition, a class thing maybe, like chickens'd be the stereotyped equivalent of cars on blocks in the front yard or something. BUT four families here have kept chickens in their lives and love emI checked out my housemates attitudes directly- they'd been mostly silent while I talked about it for months. QR said “ I don’t have nothin to do with no chickens unless they're fried”, and David was OK with it as long as he didn't have to be involved. OK. I can handle it. I WANT to handle it. I still didn't have any chickens.

We have three laying adults now- Sparkle, Stripes, and Bellina. Sparkle's colored deep oil-slick black; Stripes & Bellina are white with black in their neck ruffles and tails- Stripes has red in her back feathers, and Bellina has no middle toenails. They're so-called yardies; it means they don't have known bloodlines- just whatever the hen picked up from the rooster. Also two pullets (pre-laying hens), Black Tail and Henny Penny, who're identified Rhode Island Red and New Hampshire Red.

They earn their keep even without giving us delicious eggs; they chomp up snails and assorted other garden pests, tractor the garden ( I put up short wire fencing to keep them away from growing beds after they’re planted, or to keep them IN growing beds that need cleaning out & leveling). They’re good company in the garden, too; they cluck & purckle around wherever we’re working. Now I see why so many people love them! Even QR puts them to bed at night with poetic petting and crooning.

I recommend a few to anybody with a little yard space- or, if you have no yard, chicken diapers are available for indoor birds- no kidding- check em out at http://www.avianfashions.com/index.html.

Humanure I

HUMANURE. Yes, human manure …… I was a little freaked out about it at first; after all, isn’t human feces not only yucky, but, well, dangerous?!? According to Joseph Jenkins (www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html) the answer is NO… and the science supports him. Common sense, too: if it came out of a healthy body, can it be pathological? Depends on what you do with it… any manure, left on top of the soil, can grow stuff if it stays wet enough and definitely attracts flies. COMPOSTED manure is safe- and makes beautiful, rich compost in pretty short order. After all, many of us have used cow or chicken manure, nicely packaged
and not too expensive in $ terms, to enrich our gardens. Surely commercial manure from commercial animals comes with all the commercial additives used to raise them…. So what’s wrong with our own shit? If we’re healthy in the first place, nothing. After all, if there was a pathological essence in our own shit, very few of us would be here now, since most of our ancestors didn’t have indoor plumbing as we know and use it today.
Here’s what I do:
This elegant, comfy Victorian commode chair sits in an old armoire. It’s frankly the most comfortable toilet I’ve ever used: tall enough to suit me, sanitary, discreet (when the door’s closed) and ODOR FREE, as long as the deposits are covered with clean material- I’ve used straw, sawdust, or cocoa hulls…. And no one, however fecophobic, has been able to find it by smell alone! When the bucket underneath is full, the whole shebang goes into the compost, is covered with straw, and rots merrily away in short thermophilic order. It gets HOT.

Here' a picture of some finished humanure compost: fragrant- smells like fresh, fine soil- because that's what it is!