Winter is almost over, and with it the time for introspection also draws to a close. The heavy rains and shorter days have given us time to create a sign system that illustrates our priorities in the garden. In the coming year some focuses like crop selection and soil building will stay the same, and this season they will be enhanced by a winter of planning that we did not have last year.

Education is also a key priority as we enter the 2008 growing season, and one of the primary tools that we developed this winter is our garden didactic system. This collection consists of 23 concept signs and 30 profile crop signs. They will be scattered throughout the garden to greatly enhance its accessibility.

This project was beneficial to the Energy Garden initiative because in the process compiling the content, we were able to summarize our work to date. In addition, the signs helped us to identify the focal points of the garden and the methods that influence its development.

The concept signs consist of:

· Goals of the Sebastopol Energy Garden

· Community Compost Collection

· The Sebastopol Energy Garden Growth Collage

· Square Foot Gardening Method

· Natural Farming – The “Do Nothing” Method

· Cover Crops

· The Water Catchment System

· Drip Irrigation

· Culinary Herb Spiral

· Mandala Garden: The Sheet Mulch Technique

· Methods of Season Extension: Towards a “Four Season Harvest”

· Appropriate Technologies

· Processing and Harvesting Techniques

· Tree Guilds: Edible Forest Gardening

· Garden Cycle Tracking

· Ethanol Production

· The Fractional Still

· Recycling and Compost: Designing “From Cradle to Cradle”

· Chickens

· Biointensive Concepts

· Permaculture Principles

Each sign corresponds to something that is happening in the garden or that has influenced its progression. There are also 30 profile crops that we have chosen because of their ability to help us adapt to Peak Oil. Instead of a lawn, we are selecting a great range of crops to benefit humans and the environment. Please see http://www.energyfarms.net/node/1495 for a list of these crops.

These signs will enable people with a wide range of understanding of sustainability to experience a transformed suburban lawn. When people visit this year, during our second growing season, they will be introduced to a diversity of crops with a large variety of functions. In addition, they will be exposed to techniques and technologies that are easy to learn and have the potential to make a big difference in their lives.

The rains will soon stop, and spring will bring a time of action. We will sow seeds of diversity in the garden and hopefully, inspiration in the community. The Energy Garden is always open to visitors and we look forward to helping more people experience the resilience of the Earth.

Reese Baker, graduate of New College’s eco-agriculture program facilitated the charrette focusing on the Site Access Pathways and Water Reclamation. Given the time, they were able to analyze a little more than half of the property. Their challenge was:

As a group, your goal is serve as a consultant with the objective of creating a design for an in ground water catchment system for this site. Be sure to take into account basic design considerations when creating the site plan. These include the directional flow of water such as runoff from hardscapes and access points such as pathways.

Utilizing the eight principles of rain water harvesting taken from Rain Water Harvesting for Drylands:

1. Thoughtful Observation: Low + High Spots.
2. Start at the top - or highpoint - and work your way down.
3. Start small and simple: labor, materials, etc.
4. Spread and infiltrate the flow of water: swales, keyline, ponds, etc.
5. Always plan for an overflow route and manage that overflow water as a resource: spillways, runoff.
6. Maximize living and organic groundcover: native vegetation.
7. Maximize beneficial relationships and efficiency by “staking functions”: plant used to harvest water could include food, fiber, fuel, wildlife habitat, medicine etc.
8. Plan for reassessment of the system: will the materials be appropriate over the long term?

Their findings were:

1. Incorporate in ground biofilter at the highest point (near road)
2. Replace concrete driveway with permeable pavers
3. Divert runoff water from curb and water through a biofilter and into a small pond or ethanol producing plants near front fence.
4. Use on contour drainage to avoid driveway runoff into garage.
5. Create a dry creek bed from front steps connecting to the back garden.
6. At the bottom, shaded part of the property, create mulch pile under trees for mushroom cultivation.
7. Slow it, spread it, and sink it.

Mark Sardella, our new director of operations here at Post Carbon facilitated the charrette that focused on the design of an Energy Network. Mark’s background is in engineering and renewable energy systems and for the past six years he has focused on local energy solutions. He was also core faculty at Ecoversity in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

His group looked at the social design of a local energy network, and therefore faced the hardest challenge of our four charrettes. Essentially, in one hour’s time, they discussed the transition from the current design of the industrial system to a more integrated and local system that honors all life.

Impressively, they were able to come to a general consensus on an approach to take. They decided that focusing on the promotion of the non-dual nature of reality, giving children and the youth a voice, developing local energy descent plans, revoking corporations from their status of personhood, and creating and networking collaborative co-operatives of groups doing similar things (i.e. guilds of people doing childcare, ecological restoration, etc.) Given five minutes to present these were their findings, and their charrette rose to the challenge.

The Energy Garden at Post Carbon Institute was greatly enhanced by the two and a half hour visit from the folks at RDI. Like rich compost, the input of these budding permaculturists will be integrated into our operation here in the future. As we move into winter we will be focusing our attention on the systems for processing the harvests, retaining the water, and designing systems for networking the Energy Farm concept. With mutually beneficial alliances and the combining of resources and ideas, visits like these have shown us that the best harvest of the season has been the input from our community. With gratitude, we keep planting.

As the Jerusalem artichokes danced fifteen feet in the air and the millet waved majestically, the corn and sorghum rustled rhythmically with the breeze coming from the west, the harvest was celebrated. Once a battered and neglected yard, infested with Bermuda grass and trash, after one season of love, intention, and care the demonstration Energy Garden at the Post Carbon Institute was born. Now teeming with crops that even some seasoned gardeners have never seen; the kenaf, switchgrass, quinoa, sorghum, and other plants represent a resiliency and bounty that inspire hope and action. On three days in late September the community learned about and participated in home scale responses to current global problems.

On Tuesday, September 25^th the Permaculture Class from the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center (OAEC.org) arrived with thirty people to see the Energy Garden. Well informed and motivated by the holistic education delivered by Brock Dolman and other teachers at OAEC, the students engaged in an interactive tour and design session at Post Carbon’s Energy Garden. To see the details of the design charrettes please see the blog at http://energyfarms.net/node/1397. The two hour tour was stimulating as the students learned about the context of Peak Oil and the purpose and reasons behind the Energy Farm Network. We here at Post Carbon also benefitted from their understanding of permaculture theory and design as they suggested several great ideas to improve the Energy Garden site.

Three days later, on Friday, September 28^th, the next day of tours began and about twenty people participated in a series of free workshops. They learned about ethanol production, appropriate technologies, and relocalization. The attendees were engaging and several deep discussions were sparked about responses to the coming transition. As the methods for developing the Energy Farm were shared, hopes and fears about a world with less oil were addressed with thoughtful questions and creative group brainstorms.

Our last day of tours was on Sunday, September 30^th. The workshops were the same as on Friday, and they were honed to a more family oriented atmosphere. Forty-five people came over the course of the day and a third of them were children who showed enthusiasm that provoked smiles all around. The day was filled with joy and laughter, making relocalization a reality rather than a mere idea. People harvested vegetables from the garden, used a leg powered Japanese winnower and a mill to process wheat and barley. The bio fuel discussions led to good connections and the sharing of knowledge.

The tours marked the end of summer for us at the Energy Garden. We are excited to transition into the rainy season and we are currently planting crops to feed the soil. As we work in the garden, it is a joy to see cars slow down to look into our “yard”. With time the interest will continue to rise and hopefully these types of gardens will proliferate. Until we see you again, enjoy the autumn.

Arriving thirty strong, equipped with cameras, notebooks and perspectives freshly shuffled by a week of holistic earth care instruction, OAEC's permaculture class toured the Energy Farm. They came a little after ten and over the next two hours engaged in a participatory dance throughout the small suburban site. President Julian Darley addressed the students as they surrounded the front "yard", now in full bloom with broccoli, millet, basil, peppers, and many other beneficial plants.

He spoke about the philosophy guiding the Energy Farm Network and the urgent need to relocalize our food and fuel production. Darley challenged the students with problems about bio fuels produced using industrial agriculture citing the huge amount of land and oil that it takes to grow and process these crops. In his brief fifteen minute intro he gave the students some context related to peak oil and the adaptation process we face in this lifetime, calling this time the "great transition."

Brought by Brock Dolman, permaculture elder and master instructor, this tour was special because it was a large group, very well informed and keen to learn about and address the deeper challenges of such an ambitious project. After Julian finished, we divided the group. Half went on tour of the grounds and the other half engaged in mini design charrettes. After forty minutes the groups switched.

We created four design charrettes aimed helping the students practice their site analysis and design skills. Each charrette focused on a zone of the property. The four charrettes were called the Fukuoka forage forest, zone one patio, sixteen square foot garden bed, and water.

The “Fukuoka Forage Forest”, named after Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, focused on the back part of the lot under the apple trees and adjacent to the fence. The students came up with several good ideas to implement in the zone furthest from the house: cob benches for seating in the gazebo, an outdoor kitchen to process food, a cob oven, an outdoor shower, more worm bins, incorporating bees, temporary fencing for chicken forage, mushroom cultivation, introduction of ducks to the system, a possible pond under the largest apple tree, birdhouses, creation of roof structure over the chicken coop for roof catchment and shelter for birds.

The zone one patio refers to the area closest to the house in the back. Currently, hot and inhospitable with crushed rock and concrete, the area is relatively neglected considering the proximity to the house. The students focusing on this area envisioned; an arbor on the porch, a trellis of kiwi and grapes, planting a fast growing shade tree, breaking up all the concrete except under the patio and doors, using broken concrete for pavers to make paths, using the fence to grow vines on, cultivate bamboo, sandbox in corner with cob walls with planter pockets, planning a soft ground cover, hanging pots from the eves, building a culinary herb bed.

The charrettes that focused on water produced an assessment of the incoming water and cited some of the future tasks for addressing the issue further. They mentioned: municipal water input, runoff from street and driveway, conservation techniques, the need to get an accurate square footage of the every roof on property to calculate water catchment capacity, a need to find the highest elevation on roof for downspout, a need to find a place for storage tanks, how to handle wastewater, and they looked at ways to “slow it, spread it, and sink it.”

We currently have six pocket gardens that are four feet by four feet. We challenged the students to create planting plans that focused on a theme. One group chose to create a plan with a medicinal focus, and the other focused on companion planting with a 60 % calorie, 30 % carbon, and 10% vitamin ratio. The group that keyed in on medicinal plants decided to sow in a spiral pattern with echinacea in the center followed by chamomile, lavender, jewelweed, nettles, mullein, ginseng, purslane, plantain, yarrow, selfheal, valerian, comfrey, ginger, garlic, and dandelion. The 60/30/10 group decided to plant in a symmetrically opposing pattern of strawberries, spinach and lettuce, calendula, pumpkin, amaranth, and scarlet runner beans on trellises.

The hour and forty five minutes was extremely productive as it exposed the students to the desire to create an energy farm network and it also provided some key input as to future improvements of the land here in Sebastopol. Everyone seemed to leave energized and motivated and it was great preparation for the community tours on Friday the 28^th and Sunday the 30^th. In closing, Julian reminded the group that in order to adjust to the coming changes we need to “reduce consumption and produce locally” and that these two things are inevitably intertwined because as we begin to produce locally we will reduce our consumption and as we reduce our consumption because of peak oil we will have to produce locally. May our net work guide the way.

Post Carbon Institute is having an open house in Sebastopol to demonstrate the flourishing energy garden and home grown veggies!

Since our arrival in Sebastopol from Vancouver in March, the Post Carbon Instittue has been hard at work building a demonstration Energy Garden as part of the Energy Farms Network. By replacing the barren lawn with a productive, bio-intensive growing system, we hope to inspire others. Currently we are conducting research and demonstrating methods for growing fuel, food, and fiber at a small scale. Click on the image below to view the open house brochure.

You need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the brochure.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Volunteer Day

Saturday, June 16 at 11:00 am

Learn how easily raised beds can be integrated into your garden. Participate in all aspects associated with making and planting a raised bed, from constructing one using recycled lumber, to filling it with compost and top soil, and planting and laying drip irrigation.

Community Open House

Saturday, June 23 from 11:00am-4:00pm

Please join us in the garden for tours and drinks.

Volunteer Day

Saturday, June 30 at 11:00am

Participate in helping maintain the garden. We will be: turning the compost, harvesting, weeding, planting, thinning fruit trees, feeding the chickens, and watering. Come experience a day in the garden.

We visited the W.I.S.C (Willits Integrated Services Center) Garden this afternoon to harvest onions, beets, and faba beans. The community garden had a jump on the farm at Brookside because they had planted fall crops of onions and garlic. The care takers of the garden have asked us to harvest and distribute these crops in trade for overseeing the site while they attend a permaculture course. These fall sown crops are ready to come out of the ground and are a timely supplement to our spring sown produce.

Click here to get a look at the W.I.S.C. Community Garden and the great onions and garlic.

After the Earth Day presentation about the Willits Energy Farm at Brookside Elementary School we have noticed an increase in the number and frequency of volunteers to the site. In the presentation we pointed to a great opportunity for the community to continue to get involved with the evolving project by joining us on the farm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today I looked up from planting potatoes with Jason to notice four people weeding the strawberries, one person sitting in a comfortable chair and watering the fruit trees, and two other people raking and carting loose sod away from future seedbeds.

The volunteers mentioned how impressed they were to see what had grown from what, only a few months ago, was a grass covered field. Friends and strangers were having conversation as they weeded among the strawberries and most people were smiling as they worked. This afternoon the site acted as a hub of interaction, stories, and effort. I don’t know what to expect from future volunteer sessions but I was glad to see what occurred today. By witnessing the participation and apparent community solidarity my pride and energy has been boosted as we continue to manifest this demonstration project in Willits.

Volutneers Working Together on the Strawberries

Support Your Community

Earlier in the week Rachael Adaire came down to the farm site to help transplant the cabbage. It is great to have her around because she is savvy and has worked by herself and with others to start two previous CSA projects. After joining us in February, she is the newest member of the team at Brookside Elementary working to develop the Willits Energy Farm. Rachael is participating in this project as part of a work study program from Mendocino College. During the course of this semester, she will develop an on-site mycelium habitat as well as source parts and help inform decisions on the irrigation system. At the end of her work she receives college credit, (and if we can), a positive recommendation.

Rachael is also working on another farm project in Willits that is intended to grow food for the soon to be built “green hospital”. I have talked with people from that developing project and they too are impressed by her hard work and positive attitude. Both developing farms in the community have been gifted with Rachael’s efforts and we are glad she is willing to share her time. Thank You for Demonstrating Community Cooperation, Rachael!

Side Note: For those who might be interested, Mendocino College has accepted the site at Brookside Elementary into the organic gardening curriculum. Organic gardening courses will be able to use parts of the site to ground the practices of their organic gardening courses. I think the site will be available to the college at the end of 2007.

Rachael and Friends

The Little Lake Grange hosted a workshop related to local food producers. A diverse group assembled to discuss issues including: Access to Markets for Farmers and Ranchers, Long Term Possibilities for Connecting Local Agriculture and the Community, and Production Diversity for Food Security. Two volunteers took notes and recorded responses to topic headings. The discussions and these notes are in the process of being sorted and typed into a useful form. When I receive my copy of the notes I will post it.

Farmers and community members arranged chairs into a circle, introduced themselves and then participated in and listened to discussions about key topics. As people shared their perspective new points were mentioned and much common ground was found. This session brought people together in a context of cooperation that was intended to improve the connectivity of the agricultural oriented sectors of the community and to potentially expand market penetration of locally grown produce. Many communities have a Grange and it serves as an excellent meeting place to facilitate such meetings. What might happen if these sorts of conversations were taken up in your community?

I want to share note worthy aspects of this meeting:

-Farmers talked about integrating farms together: (ex. A neighboring farmer grows hay to fuel the horses that pull the plow on another farm. In turn that farm produces vegetables and grain.)

-An interesting point made about the changing demands of the consumer. With all the negative reports of chemical herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers some people are demanding more nutritious, organic food. The consumer demand for organic is a change because usually farmers are in a position to struggle to sell their produce. This is an example where the market is consumer driven vs. farm driven. Organic and “beyond organic” farmers may find themselves in a good position to meet local demand and grow their food in a way that is wholesome for the body and the planet.

-Participants voiced a unanimous call for a reconnection of the public to locally grown food. This education would illustrate best practices and how organic food need not be trucked 1500 miles to reach the consumer. Consumers need to know about local sources of food in their own community. Steve Decater, from Live Power Community Farm located in Covelo, provides CSA boxes for subscribers. However, most of his produce goes south to San Francisco. This is a long distance and is becoming increasingly expensive over time. Perhaps if more people had information about the benefits of local agriculture and produce then Steve might sell the majority of his produce locally.

-There was a discussion related to gaps in the Willits food system. The gaps included: Dairy, Stone Fruit, Grains, Nuts, Quantity of Local Vegetables, Dry Beans, and Vegetable Oil. In relation to grain, there is also a lack of silos that could store the grain, small scale threshers, and seed cleaners. Grain and dairy stood out as significant gaps in the Willits food system.

-When the topic of growing biofuel to meet petroleum demands was mentioned the farmers seemed resistant and hesitant. It was then mentioned that the biofuel would be used to power on-farm machinery, not necessarily for export to the transportation infrastructure. Farmers were more open to growing small portions of biofuel that would not compete with their food production if it could be applied for on-farm use. On the other hand, farmers were very open to using solar power to drive their irrigation systems. Additionally, each farmer seemed very excited about the possibility of having an energy audit performed on their farm to see where they might reduce their dependence on petroleum. They said someone else would have to do it because they didn’t have the time.