Novel Times, Novel Measures

Happy Earth Day, internet! I don’t know if you celebrate this holiday, but us Earthlings have been paying homage to mother nature on this day since 1970. Quite a tradition. And what better way to celebrate than by planting my garden!

I don’t actually have any pictures yet of the veggies that are now in the ground, but I do have some shots of the finished raised bed. First, for all of you out there waiting with bated breathe since my last post, let me share the fabulous material that I used to finish the frame of the raised bed: yep, urbanite! That’s recycled concrete, in case you aren’t hep to the urban enviro lingo.

My landlords are also doing some landscaping on the front house and decided to tear up some old concrete parking strips that led up to the garage next to my cottage. Well, instead of wasting a lot of gas to haul the debris off to a landfill, I decided to step up and use the concrete as a decorative yet functional framing material. Here’s the pile of concrete post-excavation:

I was working so hard to finish the vegetable bed and get my starts in the ground that I didn’t really take any pictures of the process. Whoops. However, the finished product looks pretty fine, in my humble opinion:

My landlord Paul even thought it looked professionally done. That was sweet of him to say. For my first attempt at working with concrete, I’m pretty satisfied with the outcome. It is not the easiest material to employ for this purpose considering the seams need to be pretty tight so that soil does not seep out through cracks. Thankfully there was some deconstructed granite — granite taken from one site and resued on another — left over from some temporary landscaping in front of my cottage that I was able to use to fill in some gaps and provide some extra foundational support for the concrete pieces.

This phase of Project Garden was completed on Friday — I took the day off for some much needed downtime and to finish up the raised bed. On Saturday, after cleaning up the mess I created during the concrete work, I walked down to Whole Foods and picked up some vegetable starts to add to my collection. I raked out the bed, pulled out some lingering ivy roots and could wait no longer. The moment had finally come to plant my veggies — collards, chard, tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, pepper and assorted herbs to start.

With the first big drops of a late spring rain starting to fall, I bent down over my raised bed and laid out the precious seedlings, in a diamond pattern here, a straight line over there. Watering in those plants, I felt that I was joining with them in some sort of time-honored tradition of mutual inter-species benefit, I agreeing to feed the soil and provide some water, they agreeing to grow tall and provide the fruits of their evolution. Certainly there was a feeling of accomplishment when my work was done that day. But more so was a feeling of contentment and even relief — the relief of knowing that it was still in my power to provide for myself by providing for the health of my environment. For despite the long years away from the field, hunched over keyboard in darkened office, it is still my heritage, as it is for all of humankind, to till the Earth and harvest the bounty of sustenance, of peace of mind, of the simple pleasure of soil in hand.

I’ll post some photos of my new veggie neighbors soon. Until then, just know that they’re settling in to their new environs just fine. And, once again, happy Earth Day to all.

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Filed under: At Home, Sustainability

As promised, here’s a tidy little graphic that illustrates the soil preparation method known affectionately as “double-digging”. Note that the level of the “double-dug” sections of the bed on the left are higher than the untouched sections to the right. This results from a combination of aerating compacted soils as well as the addition of soil amendments. In my case, the extra soil volume created by aeration and both manure and compost amendments necessitated a raised bed to contain the newly alive and enriched soil. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Work continued on my garden by making another fun trip in the ZipCar Tachoma pick-up, this time to American Soil Products. I’ve been hearing and talking about this place for some time, so I was quite excited to finally visit. Upon my arrival, howver, I was somewhat surprised to find a preponderance of ornamental rock material — rows and rows of beautiful boulders sprawl across much of the ASP yard. However, my sights were set on compost and had no time to dally. I quickly obtained my sales receipt to pick up a load of Grover’s organic certified Eco-Compost. I wish had thought to take a picture of the front loader dumping a cubic yard of gardner’s gold into the ZipCar. It was truly a sight to behold. Alas, you’ll have to settle for this shot back at the ranch:

While I was out I also picked up some cardboard at the Berkeley Recycling Center on Gilman for the sheet mulching soon to come (stay tuned for the expose on that wonderful landscaping technique):

After finally procuring all of bulky materials I would need for Project Garden (excluding wood chips, of course), it was time to really dig in. And dig did I. Here are some shots of the work in progress.

By the end of the weekend I was able to finish all of the hard work of double-digging, both in the 8′x4′ area I had already started as well as the 18″x10′ strip that wraps around the back of my cottage.

You may have noticed the wood frame at the back of the bed along the cottage. This is the beginning of the raised bed alluded to earlier. The next step is to finish the frame of the raised bed so that the soil does not wash away during watering or natural precipitation events, and I’ve got just the local, recycled material with which to do it. I think this step is going to be pretty cool, so check back to find out just what that material might be and how things look when the raised bed is complete!

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Filed under: At Home, Sustainability

Work commenced on my garden this weekend. While I did start to get into the nitty gritty of preparing the vegetable bed, I spent a good deal of time tearing apart the crappy table, transporting soil amendments and buying plants. What kind of soil amendments, you ask? The best kind — manure! Check this shit out (ha!):

This is the fabled manure pile up in the Berkeley hills that gardners whisper about. It lives behind a horse stable and is huge. I think this pile of horse crap and stable bedding will outlast humanity. That’s how big it is. So I took a visit on Sunday to bring back some nitrogen goodness for my garden. While I was there a took a moment or two to soak up the gorgeous view:

Manure in hand — not literally, but all of this talk of shit is too much fun to let lie — I began the arduous task of making a vegetable bed out of lifeless soil. The technique I am using is called “double digging.” The “double” part of the name refers to the two feet depth that is reached through subsequent trenches of one feet apiece. The “digging” part of the name refers to the labor necessary to move around this much soil. The result, however, is worth it. Unlike landscape plants, vegetable plants require much fluffier soil so that they can put their energy into the above ground shoots, leaves and fruits that we eat instead of investing lots of energy into their root system. Even for those plants from which we harvest roots, having fluffy soil is key for terrific tubers. Double digging creates an aerated soil with plenty of water holding capacity — perfect growing conditions for delicious veggies of all kinds.

So here’s a shot of the second trench:

Basically, the idea is to work your way along each trench and move a one foot by one foot area of soil into the preceding hole. I’m following a somewhat unorthodox pattern for my trenches. Nonetheless, the important point to note is the brown manure at the bottom of the first trench (to the left) that gets worked into the lower, second trench when I move that section of soil over. Slightly confusing, but very effective. I’ll post more photos and maybe an illustration to better explain the process.

By the end of the day, this is what my plot looked like:

Yes! I can’t tell you just how good this work has felt. Sure there is the excitement of finally getting this project started, and the promise of a sweet garden with fresh veggies gets me smiling. But this is something else, something much deeper and very familiar. For many years I worked the soil, sweating and exerting and sometimes bemoaning the hard work. This weekend, though, I remembered just how vital that work really is and how human it makes me feel. More than human, or, come to think of it, perhaps less. Instead of “working” on my computer or going to meetings — all of which is important in its own right — I remembered that using my body to beautify my environment and provide sustenance for myself and others is one of the most natural and righteous things I can do. Of course, I’ve never forgotten this on an intellectual level, but emotionally, well, that’s a whole ‘nother story. Suffice to say, this weekend felt wholesome and healing and, one more time for the world, just downright good. I’m looking forward to next weekend already.

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Filed under: At Home, Sustainability