soil climate battery

The top left picture shows me looking over the second half of the soil climate battery being put in. The first layer of tubes has been put in and two layers remain. The other photos show more examples of the climate battery as well as display the importance of community in low-budget, high maintenance projects. In the last photo Jerome decided we were done with doing dishes so we ate our sandwiches off comfrey and banana leafs from the greenhouse.

The Soil climate battery was being put in for a forty foot growing dome that is being put in at a local high school. The school provides agriculture classes and will be using the produce. This is also the site of the two acre CSA Farm School. The soil climate battery is a low energy heating system that is used in all of Jerome's Greenhouses. Basically tubes are connected in layers to tunnels with output and input tunnels at each end. There are fans being run off solar panels at the ends of each tunnel. The fans on one side suck down hot air in the day, where the heat is stored in the soil. At night the fans are set to go so that the hot air is released back out into the greenhouse. This keeps the soil at a moderate temperature and helps prevent frost. It is also extremely low energy when compared to conventional greenhouse heating and cooling systems.

I was excited to be involved with this project because I had been studying this heating system, but was unsure how the installation took place. It was encouraging to see how simple and cheap the whole system is. 

-speaking of comfrey leaves, I started making batches of my own comfrey compose tea to use as fertilizer. There is a lot of quack grass coming up everywhere and I just learned that this 'weed' can make a great compost tea for fertilizer as well. 

Left:

Pond on property with duck-house. This pond is located on the eastern side of the property. It is half surrounded by terraced Forest Gardens and the bench from which the photo was taken, has a trellis overhanging with hops. Ponds uses are many including;

- Reflects light onto terraces

- Slows and sinks all water running onto the property. (We can irrigate from the pond.)

- Fish and ducks!

Photo Right: this is a bad picture, but I was trying to capture the propagation technique of layering. This is a branch off the fig tree. The center of which has been scratched and covered with dirt and leaves. This will hopefully form roots and we will eventually be able to dig this up and use as a new tree. We have also been talking about experimenting with air layering. 

The work keeps piling on for me here and I am so thankful to have Justin, the new intern, here to help. These weeks are by far the busiest of the year for Jerome and I look forward to the ease of summertime harvesting, watering, mulching, and relaxing. I feel right now as though I am working at more of a nursery than a farm. Hundreds of starter seedlings flood the greenhouses and outside hundreds of more fruit trees are being lined up. Jerome has been ordering rootstock from a variety of nurseries and today we got some blackberry and elderberry starts that were potted up. Tomorrow we are getting grapes in and next week more fruit varieties. All of this nursery has either been pre-bought for the CSA Farm School project in carbondale or will be sold throughout the summer. 

Besides the nursery work there has been multiple outside beds to mulch and get ready for planting and pruning of all the fruit trees that need it on the property. 

The steps for pruning go as follows:

- Understand the internal process of the tree. This means understanding that in the spring the tree is moving stored energy in the roots up the tree into the leaves. If a tree is pruned correctly than more of the rising energy will end up in the fruits, rather than in branches.

- First remove all dead wood from the tree. (Easy to identify)

-Identify and remove branches impeding growth of other plants around the tree or branches on the tree. Remove branches impeding a human flow zone. 

- Remove branches that are inferior to other competing branches.

Pruning is not necessary and unpruned trees can produce beautiful fruits, but by pruning a tree we are generally able to consolidate the trees energy into more fruit.

Spring time is in full effect as green things are poking up just about everywhere and there are figs on the fig tree! Yesterday Jerome, Justin (new intern), and I piled into Jerome's old truck and took a field trip down to a big ranch in the valley. I stood under the sun, watching horses run at the base of rising mountains, admiring the  100+ year old orchard and began to in-vision what the true western homestead was one day like. We were there to pick up manure, which we filled the whole bed with, and to cut scion wood off some of the very old apple trees in the families orchard. the scion wood is being refrigerated and will be grafted onto some rootstock  in a few weeks. The pruning/grafting workshop has been postponed for a few weeks due to late season cold weather. 

I used the gathered manure today on the outdoor terraced beds, which in my opinion should have been mulched in the fall and wintered over. I covered the manure with leaves and we will plant directly into this sheet mulch in a week or two, after adding worms. I used humanure from the composting toilets and leaves to mulch some trees in the forest garden.

I have been learning a lot about soils lately and come to the conclusion that the most important factors are: keep your soil covered 

Lots of organic matter.

Plants require 18 chemical elements to grow (9 micro/ 9 macro nutrients) Plants get these nutrients through mineralization, which is caused by soil organisms decomposing organic matter into mineral forms that plants can use. Good soil has strong soil aggregates which promotes better drainage, aeration, and water storage. Aggregates are destroyed in the process of tilling. Aggregates can be developed and stabilized through a sticky gel secreted by hyphae. Hyphae are the root like hairs sent out by beneficial mychorrizal fungi. Mychorrizal fungi enters roots and is fed sugar by the plant in exchange for gathering more nutrients and water for the plant. 

I had no idea how important sustainable soil practices were in regards to carbon emissions. Carbon stored in the earths soils is three times that which exists in the atmosphere and loss of soil releases massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. I have been getting interested in large scale grain farming and want to research the potentialities of small scale grain growing.

Everything going good, but I cant believe the speed in which April is flying by.

A new intern has arrived, which is exciting. Someone to share the work with is good, but I am a bit reluctant to start sharing the cabin which I have been greedily enjoying alone. Looking forward to have someone to work with though and outdoors work has picked up so there is plenty for both of us to be doing. Started pruning the fruit trees. Right now I am just identifying and removing deadwood from the trees. Jerome is going to go around and marking the trees he wants pruned and I will go around and prune marked branches. The prunings are fed to the rabbits which eat the bark and buds off. They are then mulched. 

We have started adding to our aquaculture tanks. I just put in a bundle of water lettuce collected from RMI's ponds and the tanks will be ready for fish in a few weeks. We had a few volunteers up the other day and got a lot of work done. Thinned out new starts, planted more seeds, built a bench for the sauna, and put the conduit bender together and began bending conduits for a small outdoor hoop-house. Weather remains springy with a flux between sun and clouds. Looking forward to Thursday and Friday because we are going down to the high school and planting a cover crop,  with some students, on the two future agricultural fields.

So things have slowed down a bit up here due to some pretty crazy winter weather that has come through. Wouldn't be surprised if we got a foot of new snow by tomorrow. This is actually a good thing though because it is undoubtedly one of the last big storms and will soak all the outside sheet mulch and fill the pond. It also stalls the trees bloom a little bit which is a safeguard against frost later on. Jerome has been commenting on how this is the most 'difficult' time of the year for the greenhouses because the weather is so unpredictable and can change quickly. Thus constant monitoring is needed, especially because of all the new starters. We have approximately 30 trays of seedlings and sprouts around the greenhouses and they need to be watched quite a bit. Our biggest problem with them has been mice eating the seeds out of the trays. Our solutions so far have been locking the cats in the greenhouse and setting traps. The most effective trap is a five gallon bucket filled half way with water and peanut butter smeared around the edges. A piece of wood leans against the bucket and we have been able to get quite a few little mice with this technique. 

I took inventory on all the rootstocks outside and Jerome has ordered a few hundred more. We just got some fig cuttings in the other day and we potted those up in one gallon containers. Been meaning to ask Jerome why he didn't just take cuttings from his own fig. I'll ask him tomorrow. I worked a paid Job with Jerome last week at the Rocky Mountain Institute. RMI is a think tank for energy efficiency and it was a treat to be able to work there and meet Amory Lovins. 

They have a passive solar home with a interior greenhouse acting as a living room. Some plants growing include; banana, avocado, pineapple, coffee, papaya, ginger... and more. Jerome and I came in and built the wall on their pathway higher for more board space and then began putting down all the soil remedies. Manure, coffee grounds, worms, leaves, mycelium, and water. We moved two of their bananas and did some planting. 

I have begun reading Robert Harts book, 'Forest Gardening' and it has proved to be the most informative resource for me thus far. 

Scavenging at the dump!

Jerome and I made a trip to the dump yesterday and it was a true lesson in 're-use.' Jerome explained how he has built both cabins with scraps from the dump and I was stunned to see the amount of quality wood and other building supplies that were laid out for grabs. We collected a truckload of wood chips from the dump, which will primarily go towards pathways as well as some good treated lumber. The weather is heating up and today was a full day of sunshine. A few volunteers came up and we seeded about 20 starter trays which will be going into the greenhouses as well as the gardens for the CSA farm school. Had today off so I went for a great hike and I look forward to another full week of work.