Sun Tea, Solar Brew, Sol Highball, Photon ____ ?

Making sun brewed tea with mojito mint. Note that where some people see skids, permaculturalists see potential

I couldn’t think up a word meaning drink that started with f (or ph) to put after photon. Oh well, whatever you want to call it, it sure is TASTAY! It can turn a regular summer day into a PARTAY! Sun tea is also easy to make:

1) Fill a large jar (in my case an empty pickle jar) full of water,  preferably distilled

2) Add some tea bags

3) Place in sunny location for 3-5 hours (capturing onsite energy is a permaculture principle)

4) Chill and serve

Of course you can also experiment a bit. You can see that I have added some home-grown mojito mint to the jar. Ah yes, what a great way to recycle a tire and prevent mint from overtaking your garden (there’s gotta be some permaculture in that). That tire, mint, soil and all, was rolled over to its current location after… That’s a story I am not currently at liberty to talk about, but with enough positive interest might be able to convince my better half to let me. It's a good one!

Now an evil disclaimer (you can tell because the print is smaller).  Apparently there is a bacteria, often found in tap water, called Alcaligenes viscolactis. There are some reports on the internet saying that it can propagate in sun tea. That being said I have never been sick after drinking it or heard of anyone being sick either. In the comment sections of the sites I looked at there were no cases of anyone being sick either. As with any food or drink preparations, use common sense. If you choose to make it then don’t let it steep in the sun too long and make sure to drink it right away. More on this matter can be found at:

http://www.thekitchn.com/is-it-safe-to-brew-and-drink-s-114300

ENTER THE MULCH

In this action-packed martial arts, permaculture, gardening thriller a small-time city farmer says “enough’s enough!” and makes the conscious design decision to take on the problems associated with water shortages and weeds brought on by climate change inconsiderate soil digging practices. After enlisting the help of a friendly local arborist who dumps 3 or 4 yards of free chipped wood mulch in his driveway, the gardening hero, along with his favourite hoe, shovel, and wheelbarrow, fearlessly covers his front beds, side beds, potato and bean patch, blueberry hedge row, hosta haven sitting area, and cherry tree dripline with a good 10-15 cm of water retaining, weed suppressing lignaceous goodness. Tension arises when he notices that there is only about half a wheelborrow full of chips left and the rose garden is still in need. Will there be enough? Watch Enter the Mulch and find out!

Will the roses get their fair share of mulch?

Coffee Permaculture Style vs. the Typical Morning Madness

Le Café - Also a great place for a beer!

You know you're getting old when you start making, or at least thinking, “when I was young, we used to ____” statements. While being the singer and guitarist in a heavy, primal sounding rock duo keeps the old feelings at bay, I must admit that these types of statements are becoming more common for me. For example, when I was young we used to make our own coffee. Yup, it's true, we used to make it ourselves. I started drinking coffee in second year university when I had a co-op job at the Ministry of the Environment and our department had a regular, household coffee maker situated on the wall outside my open concept cubicle. The payment system consisted of putting down a tally mark when you took a cup. The coffee making protocol dictated that if you finished the pot you made another. Way back then we even made (and still do make) our coffee at home. No cartridges were used and the percolator did not look like R2D2.  Now it's an everyday occurrence to instead see a 20 car traffic jam outside the Tim Hortons before work. At the risk of sounding unpatriotic (and it is currently hard to be patriotic when being led by the Harper government), I ask the question: is a “Timmie’s coffee really that good that you feel the need to rush and wait in line to get one? And for those that feel the need to answer this question, please don't, as it is rhetorical. I certainly don't want to get up early just to line up to buy a product that I can better make at home at a much lower cost. And I don't think coffee makers are pertinent anymore in government departments or companies –coffee making has been taken over by commercial corporate interests. The days of gossiping around the floor coffee pots are long gone.

I have some good coffee memories from when I did my PhD in Québec. In the mornings, we made super-strong coffee in the lab coffee pot and our supervisor could sometimes hear us laughing over our morning brew as he came up in the elevator, despite it being located at the far side of the hall. I remember my next-door neighbor enjoying a tiny cup of espresso while leisurely standing in his front yard doing nothing but soaking in the sights and sounds of the neighbourhood. When I did go out for coffee the atmosphere was much different than here. At one local café it would take about 20 minutes for your cappuccino to be made and when the owner brought to you he would serve it with pride, as if it were a great masterpiece. And it was. I made the mistake one day of asking him for a decaf and was sternly lectured on the merits of “real coffee”. That was the first and last time that I made that mistake. Coffee at his shop was an experience and not just a robotic routine.

With these thoughts in mind, I humbly present to you “Le Café”.  I constructed it in my backyard between nectarine and peach trees that I planted with my kids a couple summers ago. The bricks were picked up free from the side of the road following a tip from a friend who saw them and knew that I like to scavenge and reuse building materials. They only took about an hour to lay. While they are not entirely level, I think that only adds to their old world charm. The soil I dug while laying the bricks became the raised beds that encircle Le Café. The beds are planted with Shasta daisies, Echinacea, sage, and chives. I also added some night scented tobacco, as I thought that their evening perfume would add to the atmosphere while enjoying a glass of wine on the café on a moonlit night (and that maybe I could use their nicotine containing leaves in an organic bug spray...).  And that brings me to the aspect of design that was the driving force behind building the café.  It wasn't so much about typical landscaping elements such as plants or colors, or even standard Permaculture design concepts such of us multiple functions, or stacking of elements. Instead it was based on how I wanted to feel - I wanted to create an experience, a place to slowly drink my home brewed coffee and just enjoy the beauty of the gardens around me. Designing in this manner is perhaps best conducted by asking yourself a couple of questions: What kind of life do I want to live? What do I want to see myself doing?  Waiting by myself idling in a car to go through a coffee shop drive-through is not one of my answers to these questions. Judging by the typical expressions on the faces of the people in said lines I can’t see that is high on their list either, they just have never really thought about it.

In contrast, let me share today's morning coffee experience with you. I am sitting in the café writing this entry and so far have been visited by a robin that sat on the top of the Mulberry tree, a cat that was peaking out from underneath said tree, albeit not at the same time as the robin, in the play area that my daughter has constructed that we refer to as “the restaurant”, a squirrel that was climbing over the clay oven’s woodpile, as well as several chickadees, sparrows, cardinals, and goldfinches that have flown over in their morning travels. The kitchen window behind me also opened up and I was treated to a sweet good morning hello from my daughter. Now this is how you have your morning coffee! Permaculture is about designing a sustainable lifestyles and I will argue that my manner of having morning coffee is more in line with this than the typical morning madness.

Please feel free to share how you are designing the experiences that you want to have into your permaculture and life plans! 

The Problem is the Solution: We Must do it for the Children!

http://transitionculture.org/2009/01/07/the-problem-is-the-solution/

One often repeated, and somewhat puzzling, permaculture principle is that of “The Problem is the Solution”. What this means, or at least what I think it means, is that problems are challenges that provide unique opportunities to change. For example, the cartoon shows the “problem” of rising gas prices. One of the solutions to rising gas prices would be to use alternative modes of transportation including bikes. Now think of the advantages of riding a bike. They are cheaper than cars, do not pollute, do not have to be insured, don't take gas, and provide you with (perhaps well-needed), exercise.  Of course there are problems with riding a bike as well, but these once again are opportunities to find unique solutions for.

One of the biggest problems facing the world is that of overpopulation. The problems associated with increasing populations are nothing new; Thomas Malthus wrote about them some 200 years ago. He basically stated that if a population exceeds the resources available then it will be reduced through “misery and vice”. In biological terms, this is related to the concept of the carrying capacity of a given area of land, i.e., the number of organisms the resources of a given area of land (or water) can support. Populations crash, and by crash I mean large numbers of individuals in the population die, when the carrying capacity is exceeded.

Discussions on the growing world population and the dangers it poses can be somewhat numbing with all the facts and figures that you can find on the Internet. For example, the world's population is at, or is fast approaching, 7 billion people. A billion is a number that I find hard to comprehend (is nothing compared to a trillion, which is a number that is commonly thrown around when discussing the debts of countries…). To better perceive the immensity of a billion, David Schwartz in his book “How much is a million?” writes: "How big is a billion? If a billion kids made a human tower, they would stand up past the moon. If you sat down to count from one to one billion, you would be counting for 95 years. If you found a goldfish bowl large enough hold a billion goldfish, it would be as big as a stadium."

Comparison such as these put the large size of these numbers in perspective. You can also put things in perspective by looking at how things change through time (my background in paleoecology, the study of past ecosystems, makes me particularly sensitive to historical changes). For example, my grandfather on my Dad’s side was born in 1898, at the time when the world population was at approximately only 1.6 billion people. This means that in only 100 years, in the lifetime of someone that I knew, the world population has more than quadrupled! There will come a time when our population will exceed the Earth's carrying capacity. It is very possible that we already have and are only surviving thanks to one time infusion of stored solar energy commonly referred to as fossil fuels. In any case, no one can argue with the fact that you cannot have unlimited growth on finite resources.

So, how does this all relate to the permaculture principle that the problem is the solution? Well, one way of looking at it is to see that children are the problem. After all, if the population is growing them they are the ones that are increasing in number. If humans are to continue living on Earth then our children (and their children, and so on) will have to be able to live on it in a manner that is within the Earth's carrying capacity. What better way to do that than by teaching them the knowledge needed to design sustainable human habitats based on ecological principles and observations? In a word, Permaculture!

With this in mind, last week I started designing permaculture lessons that I could teach my two kids. While they have been subject to many informal lessons while we garden or talk about world issues, they have not been taught permaculture in a formal manner. To help develop the lessons, I took a lesson plan template that I had from teachers college and modified it so that I could create permaculture lessons in an organized manner. The original template had a box where one listed the Ontario curriculum expectations that would be covered in any given lesson. I left this box in so that I could match my permaculture lessons with the Ontario curriculum so that when I eventually, hopefully, someday, have a teaching position, I can easily bring permaculture to a wider audience in the classroom.

Teaching my own kids permaculture is directly aligned with permaculture's prime directive, “The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children. Make it now". It also follows several permaculture principles in addition to the previously mentioned The Problem is the Solution. It has a Local Focus that follows the concept of “think globally, act locally”.  It makes use of Onsite Resources, namely, my kids. With only two students, it starts at a Small Scale, but can be scaled upwards by teaching the lessons in the classroom and sharing the lesson plans with others. I would also like to state that it follows another permaculture principle that I have humbly coined, which is a call for action: Positive Steps Despite Pessimistic Predictions. This neologism reminds us that the race isn’t over yet and to keep going despite the odds.

In my next blog I will write about the outcomes of my first lesson with the kids. Will a third student be added? Stay tuned to find out...

My kids in the garden a few years back

Propagate Good Times!

Propagate good times! Come on! Were going to propagate and have a good time! I am sure that I'm not the only person that sings this tune while taking stem cuttings to propagate new plants. There are a wealth of books and Internet sites that concern the proper way of cloning plants through stem cuttings and I do encourage you to peruse them. You will learn about soft cuttings (current year stems), hard cuttings (previous years’ growth), rooting hormones, rooting mediums, etc. Knowledge is power and these techniques will help you ensure a high degree of success. However, an over-abundance of information can lead to paralysis through analysis, where you don't take any actions because you are stuck trying to find the correct or best method of doing something. Sometimes you should just do it! In its simplest, propagating is cutting a bit off a branch or stem, stripping the leaves except for a few at the top, and placing it in container of soil or bottled water. Many plants and shrubs will give good results with this technique regardless of whether or not you are using soft or hard cuttings. If it doesn't work, you have only lost a cutting…

The pictures below show some red currant and black elderberry plants that I propagated by simply sticking stem cuttings into containers filled with either sand or potting soil. I save the containers that plants come in to propagate plants, but have also used empty Pringles cans. In my backyard or on top of my fridge there are always a few containers with cuttings rooting in them. It is a great way to extend your garden plants and save money. In the In addition, the rooted plants also make great gifts, particularly because they cost nothing!

Now get out there and propagate some good times! Out of curiosity, does anyone else sing “My Mycelium” to the tune of “My Sharona” when they are cultivating mushrooms?

A red currant plant that I rooted in a sand-filled juice carton

Red currant and black elderberry rooted in potting soil

Paul Jasinski’s Foundation Books

The other day in an earth science class that I was teaching I mentioned that there are a number of books that I regard as my “foundation books”. These are the books that have shaped (or confirmed?) the way that I look at the world, how I interpret it, and how I respond to it. Some people in the class wanted me to post a list of the books. For better of for worse here they are:

Ishmael – An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn
The Story of B, Daniel Quinn
What makes Quinn’s books interesting is his ability to step back and see things that we are so immersed in that they seem to be the natural order of things. He is like an alien anthropologist examining the earth and its inhabitants. These books deal with how and why our culture is destroying the world. Ishmael has a really interesting take on the Garden of Eden creation myth and how it ties into what we call the agricultural revolution, one that really makes sense. Another important point is that it is not humanity that is flawed, but our civilization. There is a difference between the two.

It think Daniel Quinn’s other books are better written that Ishmael but I would still start with it, as it is a quick read with some really deep concepts. The Story of B expands on these concepts in a much better literary fashion. All of Quinn’s books have something to offer.

Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
I like this book because it is kind of scientific parallel to Ishmael and deals with how civilization has developed over the last 13 000 years. He discusses the preconditions that were necessary for the agricultural revolution and why it didn’t happen in other areas of the world.

Collapse – How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond
I think it is kind of funny (well not really funny) how our society seems to have an “it could never happen to me” attitude to disasters and cultural collapse. There have been many societies that previously flourished and then collapsed due to combinations of climate change, resource overuse, and a lack of societal response to warning signs of an upcoming disaster. This book provides several examples of these collapses. It is a good follow up to Guns, Germs, and Steel, which focused more on the build up of civilizations.

Shovelling Fuel for a Runaway Train: Errant Economists, Shameful Spenders, and a Plan to Stop them All, Brian Czech
A great book looking at economics from an ecologist viewpoint (and there really is no other way if you want to have a planet to live on). This book basically says something simple: you can’t have unlimited growth on finite resources. He argues for a zero growth or steady state economy. Besides linking the economic and ecological systems, he also discusses how changes in societal perceptions and choices could help overthrow our current system. What would happen if rich people, instead of being looked upon as powerful and successful, were regarded as wasteful and as resource/Earth destroyers? What if this was part of the “mating game”, where people did not want partners that were rich because they had an understanding of what this actually meant to the Earth and the rest of society? Well, for one, I would likely be a hell of a lot more popular.

Permaculture – A Designers Manual, Bill Mollison
Switching to the applied and practical, permaculture is a design system for constructing sustainable (i.e., can survive (and thrive) through time) human settlements and agricultural systems that use principles derived from observing natural systems. This is the classic permaculture “textbook”. Even after having it for years I am always finding new stuff in it or reinterpreting things that I have already read before. The key point of this book is the word “design”. Let’s design something that works. Right now our systems are not working and they don’t seem to be led by design. Also key in this book is The Prime Directive of Permaculture, which is, “The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children”. What would happen if all of our decisions and designs were shaped by this directive? Get this book and start designing and implementing a positive, sustainable future.

I also suggest reading David Holmgren’s books including Permaculture – Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Holmgren is the co-founder of permaculture and offers a bit of a different viewpoint. The Earth Care Manual – A Permaculture Handbook for Britain and other Temperate Climates by Patrick Whitefield is another good book. In fact, I think you should read them all.

Gaia’s Garden – A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture, Toby Hemenway
This is the book that I would have liked to written. It is permaculture at the garden scale and shows how to design a garden that mimics natural systems for maximum outputs and minimal inputs. Learn about no-dig gardening, polycultures, garden layers, importance of biodiversity, edible weeds, garden guilds… A must have for any gardener.

The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming, Masanobu Fukuoka
This book outline’s one mans journey from scientist to a sort of farmer/monk. He developed a system to grow rice and grains with no pesticides or fertilizers. While his methods would have to be adapted to other crops and regions, the point is that food can be grown in a sustainable, non-destructive manner. To me his philosophical outlooks are just as important as his farming techniques:

“If we do have a food crisis it will not be caused by the insufficiency of nature’s productive power, but by the extravagance of human desire”.

“And the scientists, no matter how much they investigate nature, no matter how far they research, they only come to realize in the end how perfect and mysterious nature really is”.

So these books (along with perhaps The God Delusion and Zorba the Greek) pretty much sum up my viewpoints and perspective of the world. It should now be pretty easy to figure out my motives for wanting to transform my yard into an urban garden and why I don’t really care what the neighbours may think (in fact, I would argue that those who are not urban gardeners are either not thinking or are simply uniformed). As always, I am interested in hearing your thoughts and views on these books or the subjects contained within.

SCREW THIS! I'M STARTING A PERMACULTURE BLOG!!!

I have been putting off starting this blog for about a year now. Coming from an academic background, where anything you write may be picked apart by your peers, there is an element of fear regarding writing what I believe, know, or am learning, about permaculture. Today I've decided to ignore that fear and just write. If it isn't perfect, who cares? It's better just to get it out there.

What is permaculture you ask? Permaculture, a contraction of permanent agriculture or culture, is basically a design system that integrates the landscape, plants, animals, and people to create sustainable human environments and futures. It deals with connecting the various elements of a system in such a matter that energy flows are maximized and recycled with the goal of creating a high output, low input, self-sustaining whole.

Why do I believe this is important? Well, I don’t think the system that we have now is working or sustainable, meaning that it will not last. Take a look at the news or read a paper: global warming, ozone depletion, poor air quality, pollution, threatened species, extinct species, collapsed fisheries, timber resources depleted, antidepressant use on the rise, increased risks for cancer, genetically modified crops, oil reserves running out, wars over oil and people still driving SUVs, multinationals who don't give a damn about us when times are good but want to be bailed out when things go sour, lower sperm counts, earlier female puberty, water shortages, contaminated waters, mad cow disease and the list goes on and on. Something just doesn't seem right here. In fact, that is not a correct statement. Something is definitely wrong. Furthermore, it doesn't appear like it is getting better. What can be done about it? Can we rely on governments to solve these problems? Sure we can. When (and if) the majority of the general public decide that these issues are important, than politicians will take up these causes and act on them. Until that time arrives, they won't. I think that politicians are largely a construct of the society that they live in. Change society and the politicians will change.

With that it in mind I think of Henry Rollin’s saying, “All it takes is for one person to stand up and say screw this”, (or something like that). Permaculture is a vehicle that allows me to do this, to say this isn't working so I’m going to try to design and do something that does. Things WILL change for the better if enough people start taking steps in the right direction. If not, well at least I tried...

The PRIME DIRECTIVE of permaculture: the only ethical decision is to take responsibility for your own existence and that of our children.

NOTE: The picture is of the garden that I started this summer at our new house. The drawers were rescued from the garbage and made into miniature raised beds in which the kids grew beans and lettuce.