On Monday, I started my month-long internship at Earthship Biotecture. Earthships are self-sufficient houses that use recycled materials in their construction, and that are equipped with systems for rainwater catchment, solar and wind power, water reuse, waste control, and food production. What does that mean? It means that once you build an Earthship, you never have to pay an electricity or water bill again. Ever.

Don’t believe me? Good, because I can’t explain it all in a single blog entry. Go read the Earthship website instead, and then watch Garbage Warrior.

I’ve been working on site at the visitor’s center, which was constructed in the 90s as a demonstration building. That’s the entrance in the first photo. Earthships don’t look like much on the outside, but on the inside they’re really lovely.

 
The main room is filled with posters & diagrams of the various Earthship models and systems, plus a demonstration video and press books.

Yes, the TV runs off solar power collected from the roof panels. There are computers running in here too, and an extension cord stretching over to the building site, where it powers all the tools. With enough panels, you can have as much power as you like, even in cloudy areas.

What’s great about this design, however, is how little energy is really being used. Natural light makes it so you don’t need lightbulbs in the daytime, and even in extreme weather the building maintains an even temperature through passive solar heat and thermal mass. Today was cold and windy outdoors, but totally comfortable inside.

Bottle walls are one of the coolest features of Earthship design. They’re literally trash stuck in mud, but they create this beautiful stained-glass effect. That’s the bathroom door, and in front of it is a demonstration water cistern.

Less glamorous but much more important is the Power Organizing Module, which processes all the incoming power and sends it out as DC or AC. Normally this wall would be plastered, but the tires and cans were left exposed so visitors can see the construction technique.

All Earthships have indoor greenhouse areas, which are used for growing flowers and food. The food production techniques are still being perfected, but the ultimate goal is to make it so that you don’t need to buy groceries. It’s pretty amazing to look out over this healthy garden and see how dry and desolate the outside world is.

By the way: look at that window again. See the wooden arch at the far left? That’s part of the new construction.

This structure, and the identical one next to it, are part of Mike Reynolds‘ new additions to the visitor center. You can see that the walls are made of tires stacked like bricks; tires are filled with rammed earth (aka “dirt”) to make them incredibly solid, strong, and temperature-resistant. Non-load-bearing walls are made of cans & bottles, stuck together with cement and adobe.

This wall is just getting started, but you can see the design taking shape. The cans will be plastered over, but bottles will have their ends exposed to let in the light.

Once the wall’s thickness is determined, the bottles are cut with a tile saw and the two fat ends taped together. Then you just cement them in.

But before you can get to the fancy stuff, the tires have to be pounded! That’s what we’re doing at the big building, which will eventually become the new visitor center.

That’s my fellow intern Andrew off to the right, showing how it’s done. Yep, a shovel and a sledgehammer and lots of elbow grease. These things are seriously labor-intensive; pounding one tire takes 15-20 minutes for experienced (and acclimated) workers, so for us green kids from lower elevations, it’s taking half an hour per tire.

That’s Tim, the crew member who’s been managing us, working out the levels. Technically, this is a decorative (non-structural) bottle wall so it doesn’t have to be perfect. But sometimes it’s nice—actually, necessary—to stop hammering for a minute, so we’ve been getting everything good and even.

Tim and the other crew members have been amazingly patient and supportive while Andrew and I learn the ropes and build our strength. Working at 7500 feet can be totally exhausting, and when the winds are high it’s hard to catch a deep breath. But we’re learning and getting stronger, and benefiting from all the knowledge around us. Everyone on the crew lives in an Earthship, and many of them built their own houses. They’re professional and creative, and easy to talk to. I feel lucky to be here, even despite the sore muscles.

On that note, it’s off to bed for me. Tomorrow is a full day of tire-pounding on a new site, with all six interns. I’m gonna sleep all weekend!

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alternative, art, biotecture, design, earthship, Earthship Biotecture, earthships, ecotourism, energy-efficient, featured posts, garbage, green building, New Mexico, recycling, reuse, sustainable, Taos, volunteer, voluntourism

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On our way out to Polyface Farm, Margie and I decided to stop off at Potomac Vegetable Farms‘ roadside stand, where Margie buys squash and ‘maters in summer months. We thought it would just be a brief visit, but we were wrong: this farm had a story to tell.

Northern Virginia is a world all to itself. It’s beautiful, in a Monticello sort of way: rolling hills, lush maples, immaculate lawns, stately houses with shaded driveways…

Yes, there’s plenty of money out here, flowing out of Washington along the freeways and metro lines. Wherever it goes, up spring crops of “McMansions“: sprawling, elegant-looking but cheaply-made homes with columns and fountains and circular asphalt drives. They’re designed to make the neighbors jealous—and even as the economy faltered, more McMansions were being erected on every available piece of land.

Including, as it turns out, smack in the middle of Potomac Vegetable Farms.

Hiu Newcomb and grandson Stephen Bradford

   

Hiu Newcomb and her husband Tony moved out here to Vienna, VA in 1970. In their words, this land was “rustic” and “wooded”; the turnpike was a two-lane road. They cleared a small field and began running what would become a very successful ecoganic farm. Before long, it expanded: by the late 1970s, the Newcombs were farming hundreds of acres in three separate counties.

Three decades later, Potomac Vegetable Farm has shrunk quite a bit. Part of that was intentional: the big farm was too much work, so they downsized and kept only the original Vienna plot and a bigger production farm in Loudoun County.

But as suburbia encroached, land values rose and even this little plot became threatened. Developers started poking around, making offers—but the Newcombs always said no.

In an effort to protect their land, Hiu and Tony’s daughter Anna created the Blueberry Hill Cohousing project. A small pocket of modest houses bordered on all sides by greenery, Blueberry Hill was designed to use up the farm’s development rights, thus protecting the land from the suburban zombie invasion.

But manifest destiny will not be denied, and the Newcombs could only hoard so much land. In the late 2000s, a field behind the farm (one of the last undeveloped pieces of land around) was sold to developers.

The piece in front went too, and Potomac Vegetable Farm was divided in two: their new neighbors paved an asphalt road right through the middle of the farm.

Now, Potomac Vegetable Farm has an easement to drive their tractors across that asphalt, so they can access their crops.

Hiu and Tony’s grandson Stephen drove us out to see it: we followed the farm road up past the cohousing circle, blowing through a newly-placed stop sign. There were mud tracks across the blacktop, and workers planting landscaping shrubs scarcely looked up as we trundled through the middle of their worksite.

And there it was, a brave little plot of land where the buzzing of insects was occasionally audible between the construction and highway sounds. In the background, Tyvek-swaddled behemoths loomed—but here in the sunshine, we talked cover crops and irrigation.

There’s a perverse satisfaction in the idea that these McMillionaires might have to stop their Lexuses to let a tractor cross the road. It’s a small comfort, I wondered aloud, but it must feel good nonetheless? Stephen smiled slyly and admitted nothing. He didn’t have to: it was obvious. In the face of all this sprawl, the Newcomb family’s staunch refusal to move is nothing short of a rebellious act.

Still, I wonder how long Potomac Vegetable Farm will be able to hold up “progress”. Their other property has similar problems: several farms in the Loudoun County recently fought construction of a new “megaschool” in the middle of their agricultural enclave.

And so it goes… but for now, Potomac Vegetable Farm continues its mission of good food, land stewardship and education. They can be found throughout the summer selling ecoganic produce in Washington DC, and their CSA delivers throughout the area. Three generations of Newcombs work the farm together, and their wares continue to make a difference in the hearts, minds and stomachs of suburbanites.

Including the residents of that new development, who might even pause to think about where their property came from—while they’re stuck behind a tractor in their driveways.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agritourism, alternative, ecoganic, ecotourism, environment, farm, featured posts, gardening, green living, organic, potomac vegetable farm, potomac vegetable farms, sustainable, Virginia

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Joel Salatin has been called “America’s Most Influential Farmer” (Treehugger) and “High Priest of the Pasture” (New York Times). A fascinating mix of farmer and preacher, Salatin didn’t just revolutionize contemporary farming methods—he also used his tremendous gift of gab to spread the word far and wide.

While passing through Virginia, I got to hear that gab firsthand at Polyface Farm, where Salatin works his agricultural magic.

Touring Polyface was inspiring enough, but when Salatin himself turned up as tour guide, things started getting really interesting (more on this fabulous bit of serendipity tomorrow). Salatin possesses a rare combination of intellectual agrarianism, down-home humor, vast insight into the relationship between sustainability and production… and once he starts talking, you can’t think of any reason he should stop.

Neither can he.

According to the website, Polyface, Inc. is a “family owned, multi-generational, pasture-based, beyond organic, local-market farm and informational outreach in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.” Salatin goes onto explain: what sets Polyface apart is its “ethic of collaborative interdependence”.

“Some farmers see animals as inanimate piles of protoplasmic structure to be manipulated,” he expounds. “If we treat animals like this, we disrespect humans too.

“There’s an ethic that runs from field to fork… Instead of seeing pigs as porkchops, see them as members of the team and they will then express themselves best on the plate.”

He’s got a point—and though his ideals are poetic, this isn’t just some hippie experimenting with manure. Salatin comes from a line of farmers, and his innovations are so effective that he’s become an agriculture rockstar.

Note: Rockstar or no, eloquent or no, a farmer is liable to be upstaged by his own flock.

These are the happiest, healthiest (and noisiest) farm animals I’ve ever seen. But surprisingly, they’re not roaming free across the land. Instead, they’re kept in controlled areas where they graze for a very specific amount of time before being herded on to the next spot.

unretouched, actual photo:
ungrazed on the left, grazed on the right

As it turns out, free-roaming grazers destroy their own food sources by overgrazing the good spots. Salatin points to the next farm over, where a herd of cows roam over brown hills. Several of them lurk by the fence, stealing bits of food from Salatin’s pasture. His land stays green, even in the current drought, because he lets grass grow undisturbed for weeks between grazing sessions.

“This cycle of disturbance and rest, disturbance and rest, is what I call ecological exercise: stretching and moving the ecology to a new level of expression.”

When Salatin says “expression”, he’s ultimately talking about production. His land produces 5 times as much as the regional average, measured in “cow days” or how much grass a cow can eat in a day. Most farms get about 80 cow days per acre; he gets 400.

Another benefit of Polyface’s methods: no pests, no disease, and no antibiotics. The animals here are healthy and “beyond organic”. How? By relying on the “team” ethic. Here, chickens are not just egg and breast machines: they are pest control technicians, keeping the rest of the farm healthy by eating all the nasty bugs.

Systems like this abound at Polyface. A pair of ducks flock with the turkeys: why? Because when turkeys are young, ducks will automatically protect them from predators. Birds and dogs, rabbits, cows and pigs all work together to keep this farm going, and “when animals do the work, you don’t have to replace things that rust, rot, and depreciate.” Here, the flock takes care of itself, and renews the land in the process. (More on Polyface’s innovative systems in an upcoming post)

“Twenty years ago, I never would’ve thought we’d be here… The exponential increase in fertility has been beyond my wildest expectations.”

that’s a lot of eggs.

So much so, that farmers everywhere are adopting Salatin’s methods. And according to him, every farm that converts doubles its production.

Joel Salatin was profiled extensively in Michael Pollan’s game-changing book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and has been interviewed in just about every major publication. But by far the most inspiring thing about touring Polyface Farm is Salatin himself. In this time of confusion and strife, it’s nice to hear from someone who’s got a real solution to some of our societal ills—and even better to see that he truly loves his work.

When we get back to the bottom of the hill, I ask him my prepared question: “Can humanity feed itself sustainably using these methods?”

His face lights up. “That’s my favorite question,” he replies, “because it’s so fun to answer. Yes we can. It’s gonna mean a lot of people getting out of their cubicles and back into the fields, but we can do it.”

Amen, hallelujah. Thank you, High Priest of the Pasture.

Come back soon for the semi-incredible story of how I got this personal tour, plus more details on how Polyface Farm’s systems work.

fangrl 4 lyfe!

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, agritourism, beef, chickens, cows, ecotourism, education, environment, farm, farming, featured posts, green living, joel salatin, michael pollan, omnivore's dilemma, organic, photography, pigs, polyface, Polyface Farm, pork, sustainable, tourism, video

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David DeWitt doesn’t look like a farmer. With his long hair, scruffy beard and t-shirt, he’d fit in more at a Phish show than behind a plow. But appearances are deceiving, and David’s comfy mien belies a passion that is influencing the culture of northern Cape Cod.

To wit: in 2009, David helped launch the Truro Ag Fair—an event that exceeded all expectations and brought huge crowds to local farmers’ booths. He runs the Rock Spray nursery, a Certified Natural provider of evergreens and ornamentals. And he manages the First Light Organic Farm, a lush green spot in a hollow of North Truro. Here, David and his partner Arthur Teubner work year-round growing heirloom and hardy fruits and veggies to sell at market.

David’s a dedicated and inspired agrarian, whose passion for farming keeps him optimistic. But farming on the Outer Cape is the sort of Sisyphian challenge that can wear anybody out.

The hard truth:

The soil of North Truro is not strong enough to support agriculture. Without fertilization, it deteriorates shockingly fast.

David points out a patch of sand with a thin strip of fertile loam along the edge. Last season it was a fertile veggie bed—but it was left un-fertilized as an experiment.

“This is what happens,” David says. “You have to keep feeding it organic material, or it turns back into sand.“

This plot was a test run, left untended for a single season. Last year’s rich loam is now useless sand.

It’s always been this way in North Truro. The Outer Cape is really just a spit of sand—but still, farmers lived here for generations. How?

Salt marsh hay.

There used to be a local tradition in this area: at each spring tide, the local community would head out to the bogs and marshes to harvest the grasses. This was called “salt marsh haying”.

Bringing in the marsh hay, circa 1900

Salt Hay Grass/Salt-Meadow Cordgrass
by Littoraria

Salt marsh hay has no weed seeds, and it doesn’t compact as heavily as other types of hay. This makes it an excellent and bountiful source of compost, and it was used for generations as a soil enricher. But haying had to happen regularly, says David:

“There’s so much oxygen in this soil, any added compost gets burned up in six weeks. All the nutrients get depleted.”

That means soil left for two months without fresh compost will become—you guessed it—sand.

The only way to keep things going here is to keep a steady flow of compost coming in. That means truckloads of hay, and that means a lot of work. Last year, David and Arthur brought in a semi truck loaded with leaf mulch. It worked—but it cost money, and it disappeared fast into the hungry ground. Not a long-term plan.

In bygone times, the whole town of North Truro would pitch in on haying days; now, David’s on his own. Without that community support, it’s nearly impossible for him to harvest hay often enough to keep the farm green.

Meanwhile, in Tourist Town USA…

Provincetown’s official population of 3,500 supports a tourism industry that serves millions of visitors each year. City folk marvel at the quaint charms of the Cape, its idyllic beauty and simple pleasures. And then they go out to eat.

Even if tourists were interested in sustainable food (they totally don’t care), they’d be hard pressed to find a locally-sourced meal. Raina Stefani serves David’s produce at her restaurant Terra Luna, but it only makes up a portion of her fares: the rest has to be shipped from the mainland. You can’t squeeze blood from a stone, and you can’t get big vegetable crops from sand dunes. End of story.

Well, not exactly.

David isn’t giving up—in fact, he’s got plans and ideas to refashion North Truro’s farming community. Hence the Ag Fair, and the ongoing experimentation with varieties and soils at First Light. David isn’t alone: he’s got the support (and companionship) of a growing group of gamechangers. If the young farmers and foodies of Truro can organize, they might just be able to get local agriculture back on its feet.

Their main opponent? The tourism and real estate industries, which insist upon turning every arable inch of the Cape into somebody’s backyard. The same population that would consume the food produced here is actively inhibiting its production.

No surprise there. After all, what’s the point of farming on the beach?

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agritourism, cape cod, community, environment, farm, featured posts, gardening, Massachusetts, organic, sustainable, tourism

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Added Value’s community garden in Brooklyn.
See more photos from New York’s community gardens

So there I was in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood. Just out of the way of public transportation and once heavily controlled by the Mob, this area has become somewhat of a car-oriented wasteland in recent years. Blocks are wide, full of brick buildings and parking lots. A brand-new Ikea sparkles in one corner, beckoning Brooklynites with all its fabulously disposable wares.

And right next to the Ikea? Why, a huge, flourishing community garden!

A garden grows in Brooklyn.
See more photos from New York’s community gardens

The Added Value Urban Garden is a volunteer-driven, youth-oriented community garden that also happens to be planted right on top of the asphalt here in Brooklyn. The farm is funded with grant money and is considered a public land in New York—which means that it’s open to everyone. Two days a week, volunteers come from all over town to help with planting, weeding, composting and harvesting. During the summer, a weekly farmer’s market brings in cash and public interest. And in between, Added Value works with young kids from the neighborhood, providing paying jobs.

That paid work is incredibly important. I talked to a Red Hook teenager who used to make money selling water on the streets. That’s a sight better than selling drugs, but still not a great job for a 14-year-old. He heard that the NY Department of Youth and Community Development was helping kids find work, and went down to the recruiting office looking for better work. They placed him here at the Red Hook garden, where he’s now a leader in the youth program.

(...)
Read the rest of Try This at Home: Join a community garden (444 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, Austin, buy nothing, Chicago, community, Detroit, diy, education, environment, gardening, green living, locavore, New York, outdoors, sustainable, volunteer

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Yesterday I told you all about Farmer John’s struggle to save his family’s farm and preserve his unique identity (The Real Dirt on American Counterculture: How Farmer John made ideals come true).

From a family farm, the place has grown a lot. These days, Angelic Organics does a lot of education, from on-farm training to urban workshops to sustainable-building courses. See all they do here.

I visited an urban garden in Chicago’s South Side, just one of many teaching gardens founded with the help of Angelic Organics. It was a sunny day and the birds and bees were out. Here are some photos of the garden and the things living in it:

The next day, we drove out to Caledonia to visit the farm where Angelic Organics began. Unfortunately, it was a gray day and the Learning Center was mostly deserted. The farm itself is off-limits to tourists, with good reason; unfortunately, this meant there wasn’t much for us to see. We wandered around the grounds a bit, pet the goats, and went on our way.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, agritourism, alternative, animal, biodynamics, Chicago, chickens, community, counterculture, ecotourism, ecotravel, education, environment, farm, farming, flowers, gardening, Illinois, insect, locavore, organic, outsider art, photography, radical, sustainable, teaching, travel, voluntourism

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Still from “The Bug” music video
photo courtesy of AngelicOrganics.com

In honor of Burning Man—which I’m reluctantly skipping this year—I’d like to talk a little about the counterculture in modern America.

After leaving Chicago, I stopped by Angelic Organics: a bastion of creativity in conservative Northern Illinois, a leader in organic and biodynamic agriculture, and the subject of a PBS documentary entitled The Real Dirt on Farmer John.

Teen John
photo courtesy of Angelic Organics

John Peterson grew up on this farm in Caledonia, near the Wisconsin border. His father died when he was young, and he wound up running the farm himself by the time he started college.

“To me, farming is poetry, drama. It’s a source of infinite fascination.”
- Farmer John Peterson

In school he met the counterculture: 60s idealists and artists, revolutionaries and back-to-the-landers. Farmer John believed in the importance of agriculture, and he was astounded that some of the city kids had never touched hay; he was also enamored of the free-spirited creativity they brought to his life. He opened the farm up to friends who wanted to visit and work, and created a place where openness, artistic expression and creativity mixed with hard work and good food. His farm, in many ways, realized the dreams of a million hippies—and it worked. For a while.

But the 60s ended, and times got rough for Farmer John. By the 1980s, he’d lost most of his land and had been ostracized from his community by a series of nasty rumors about his lifestyle and friends.

For small-town kids like me, the rumors sound familiar: it’s a cult! A satanic cult! They’re a bunch of gays and druggies doing animal sacrifice! I heard the same rumors about members of my own community, and accepted them as fact. So did many people in John Peterson’s hometown.

In the film, he talks about the pain of living as an outsider when you’ve done nothing wrong—which, in his case, was compounded by massive debt. Over the course of several years, Farmer John was forced to sell nearly the entire farm: he found himself destitute, hopeless and friendless in a town where his family had been pillars of the community.

(...)
Read the rest of The Real Dirt on America’s Counterculture (580 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agriculture, agritourism, alternative, art, biodynamics, Chicago, counterculture, ecotourism, education, environment, farm, farming, featured, featured posts, film, Illinois, locavore, organic, outsider art, permaculture, politics, radical, starving artists, sustainable, teaching

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Please note: NO ILLEGAL ACTS were committed during the course of this exercise. Though it did feel strangely badass.

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adventure, community, environment, featured posts, flowers, gardening, guerrilla gardening, Kentucky, Louisville, nature, outsider art, summer, video, volunteer

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Hostels, done right, are some of my favorite places to stay. They aren’t always awesome (see Abominable Snow Mansion), but the ones that have their act together are great places to meet people, live (and eat!) for cheap, and generally get the most out of whatever town you’re passing through.

I’d heard that the Austin hostel was one of the good ones, and as I read more about it, I decided it was definitely worth visiting. I didn’t need a place to stay, thanks to my friend Rhoda Hell’s generous housesitting offer; instead, I just walked down to Town Lake to check the place out. And I’m happy to say that not only is it an excellent hostel, it’s also a great example of a green business. In fact, it’s been designated as a Sustainable Living Center by Hostelling International.

(...)
Read the rest of Austin's Green Hostel (725 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: alternative, Austin, energy, energy-efficient, gardening, green building, hostel, lodging, recycling, review, solar, sustainable, Texas, tourism, travel

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Catherine Gockley, owner of Fire Mountain Farm and Apiary, didn’t start out as a farmer. She didn’t even start out wanting to be a farmer. But once she sets her mind to things, they get done: having decided to become a grower later in life, she spent ten years learning and working to reach her goal. Fire Mountain is a beautiful example of an organic, chemical-free farm built on small acreage and with a reasonable budget— and Catherine made it all happen on her own gumption.

A bit of background: a trained geologist, Catherine worked as a backcountry ranger in Denali and Yosemite before deciding to become a grower. She found a couple of farms in the hills of California where she could work and live, picking up skills and experience from the landowners. She took a special interest in beekeeping, becoming an apiarist and even teaching chemical-free beekeeping workshops. And then she took the plunge, buying four acres of sloped, sunny property on the Pitcairn Mesa.

Catherine was my rideshare from Boulder to Paonia. I thought she was fabulous and fascinating, and I was intrigued by the idea of visiting a brand new organic farm. How do you get started setting up a small farm? Where do you begin, and where do you go from there? So I invited myself over to get a better look at Catherine’s method.

Fire Mountain Farm is small, but it’s the perfect size for Catherine: soon she’ll be able to support herself completely on this little piece of land. Here’s how she began.

(...)
Read the rest of How To Start an Organic Farm – a visit to Fire Mountain (739 words)

© jessicareeder for Uprooted, an eco/travel blog, 2009. | Permalink | 12 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agritourism, chickens, Colorado, community, environment, farm, gardening, how-to, organic, Paonia, permaculture, rideshare, sustainable, travel, voluntourism, WWOOF

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