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.

Fungi!

As the snow melts the work load builds and builds. Cleaning up and organizing outside and preparing to take inventory of the hundreds of nursery trees and root stocks scattered around the property. Inside the greenhouses there is planting everyday and I recently constructed a number of trellises for the beans and peas. I am very excited because I started some Oyster mushrooms two days ago. It was simple and I am excited to see what kind growth occurs. We ordered the spawn from FungiPerfecti. It came as a bundle of inoculated wood chips. I put about three gallons of coffee grinds into a five gallon bucket. Moistened them and then mixed them with the inoculated wood chips. FungiPerfecti provided a 'humidity tent' which I covered the bucket with and now I mist twice daily and wait a few weeks. Easy.

Jerome and I prepared a bed in the Phoenix greenhouse today which was a new variation on the sheet mulching. The procedure went as follows:

1) Cover pre-existing soil and leaves with perennial Mycelium. 

2) Layer of manure and straw. (Cleanings form rabbit coop)

3) Layer of coffee grounds

4) Layer of ash

5) Inoculate with worms from worm bins

6) Cover with lots of leaves.

7) Moisten

It sounds like tomorrow we are going to be doing a whole new variation on the sheet mulching for a different bed so I am excited to see what that will be. It all depends on what is available.  This is a part of Jerome's 'stream-of-consciousness' gardening. Basically there is no stopping.  No beginning or end. 

Top left: The propagation zone!

Top right: Some freshly thinned and transplanted sorrels.

Bottom left: Front door to Cabin where I am staying from within greenhouse.

Bottom right: View of CRMPI from hike down from cabin.

Top left: Jerusalem Artichoke, Nasturtium, Rock wall, Tomatoes, and on the right are the salad greens.

Top Right: Jerome's Archery practice target, soil battery vents, and solar shower.

Bottom left: Over story of Bananas and Papayas. Understory of about ten different vegetables, flowers, and herbs. (All planted just a few months ago.)

Bottom Right: Myself and some volunteers that came up for the day planting out a greenhouse bed. Notice Fig tree looming overhead

some photos

          

 

Ok so here are some images from CRMPI.

 Top left is the 'Sunny John' a passive solar bathroom with composting toilet. Also in the photo is one of many rainwater tanks and some grafted root stocks waiting to be sold.

Top right is a bad photo of the phoenix greenhouse up close and the main house behind.

Bottom left is the Mana Greenhouse all covered in snow.

Bottom right is my little off the grid cabin at the top of the hill.

CRMPI Info

I think a brief explanation of CRMPI is in store. Jerome Osentowski was a winter time ski instructor at vail and summertime sailor in the summer back in the 70's. After a successful summer working on a commercial boat Jerome returned to Vail with $5,000 and a desire for land. He searched out the cheapest chunk of land he could find. With no knowledge of or desire to farm he purchased a half acre on the side of basalt mountain. The selling point was the stream flowing right though the property. He bought the property for $13,000 in 1975 and began building himself his dream cabin in the woods.  Jerome then got really sick for a few years and became interested in the food he was eating. So he started to grow it to ensure optimum health. He built two greenhouses on the property and began selling greens to local stores and restaurants. Jerome was eventually run out of business by Earthbound and other mega-organic corporation farms. As a response Jerome began a nursery business and eventually the demonstration site that is now CRMPI.

There are currently four passive-solar greenhouses and two cabins on site. The whole property is edible landscaping at it's finest. Every tree and shrub you see is intentional and everything is based on Forest Garden principles. The Central house serves as the kitchen, classroom, living room, storage, and housing for Jerome and one intern. A five minute hike through pinon- juniper forest takes you to a joined cabin and greenhouse. This is where I am currently living and where interns generally stay. This is the only greenhouse not planted and though I want to right now, Jerome says we have to wait until the summer due to heating issues and lack of water.  Mana Greenhouse is attached to the central house and is the location of Jerome's 15 year old fruiting fig tree. Phoenix is the only free standing greenhouse on the property and was completed last summer. It is the reincarnation of Pele Greenhouse, which burnt down a few years ago. Inside Phoenix Jerome maintains a semi-tropical climate in which Bananas, Papayas, artichokes, 5 varieties of citrus, peppers, tomatoes, and salad greens grow. This is all maintained through passive -solar heating. 

There are two composting toilets and all water used for irrigation is stored rainwater. There are only four chickens right now, about a dozen or so rabbits, bees, birds, cats, deer, and three humans here at this time.

Back to work

Last Sunday some past students of Jerome's came up and we planted the last three greenhouse beds. We also transplanted three young Kiwis. Since the planting was finished I was given a few days off, which came right a long with some great weather. I started working again today and spent the majority of the day transplanting and watering. I first thinned out 5 trays of sorrel and marigold starts. This was the first time I used any kind of store bought soil here at CRMPI. Jerome had me plant the thinned out plants into a extra fine peat starting mix. I almost killed all of the transplants by leaving them in the greenhouse with me where they were getting fried! Luckily I got them in some shade in time. It was a very hot and sunny day, my first of the kind up here, and it taught me the importance of regulating and ventilating the greenhouses. Jerome showed me the multiple openings in all the greenhouses that need to be open and shut as the day goes on. It is important to have everything shut, doors included, before the sun starts dropping so we can charge them for the night.

My other transplanting was just transplanting broccoli and cauliflower starts into 4 inch containers. I foolishly didn't put enough soil in these and am going to have to go back and fix them tomorrow. As you can tell I made multiple mistakes today. My head seemed to be drifting away with the good weather, but I will have to pull it together because tomorrow will be a lot more transplanting and some planting from seed. Oh, and a quick fix on my earlier post about worm bins: The best method is to have three of those 15 gallon containers and to stack them after filling them. After a month or two you can separate them and then make more buckets by taking worms out of them and starting new batches under them same procedure. 

Thanks for reading and I promise pictures will be up soon.

Putting down some roots!

The past few days have been filled with the next best thing to harvesting...planting. I have planted three separate greenhouse beds with a wide variety of plants. Each beds contain at least 6 or 7 different vegetables or herbs. This produces wide biodiversity, which helps control pest, enhances the soil, and is just plain more fun than linear rows of the same crop. The plants I have planted are; Peas, Beans, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cilantro, Marigold, a Italian Salad green, and some flowers. As you can tell these are all colder weather crops. Do to the irregular frosts at this high altitude it is necessary to plant these hardier annuals even in the greenhouse. When these are done than the sun lovers, aka, tomatoes, melons, basil, peppers, etc. will go in. 

before planting each bed there was a 'ritual of Jerome's' to be performed. The beds which had a layer of leaves on top were moistened, coffee grounds were then spread, followed by another moistening, than another layer of dried leaves, more moistening, and finally planting. After planting the plants were watered with a mixture of water, fish emultion, and a mycorrhizal fungi especially adapted to bind with the coffee grounds. This last part was a new experiment for Jerome. He usually uses wood chips as a host for the mycorrhizal.

Today is Thursday the 11th  and my fourth day working at CRMPI. I will have photos up hopefully in the next few days. The two books I have been reading and taking notes from most lately are; Secrets of Plant Propagation 

by Lewis Hill

Permaculture: principles and pathways beyond sustainability

by David Holmgren

The work has remained steady and I am excited for tomorrow because I will be doing my first planting. There has been a lot of 'spring cleaning' as we clean and reorganize the house, property, and greenhouses. Jerome is a firm believer in the forest garden model of farming, heavy sheet mulching, and he attributes all success to his worms. Jerome's worm bucket making process goes as follows:

Step 1) Find some local worms

2) Get one or more 15 gallon nursery pots

3) Place layer of straw/hay/leaves on bottom

4) Place nitrogen source i.e. kitchen waste or stable cleanings (manure)

5) Add worms

6) Add coffee grounds

7) Place top layer of straw/hay/or leaves

8) Moisten

9) Keep moist

A basic rule of Jerome's is that if worms are alive in the soil than seeds can be planted and plants grown.

Jerome inoculates wood chips with Mycelium and uses this in soil. Mycelium helps plants assimilate needed nutrients.

I have been working a lot with the tomato plants and these are some notes from the work:

- When pruning tomatoes it is important to differentiate from vegetative growth and fruiting growth. Tomato plants will just get bigger and bigger and can take up a lot of room so it is good to prune back vegetative growth, which is identified by broader leaves and lack of flowers or fruit.

- Tomato plants can be cut back to practically the stalk, then transplanted to a pot to be moved or sold and will continue to produce despite the shock.

well, I got lots of notes from the books but I will incorporate them into writings later hopefully.

Thus, it begins

Bouncing up a muddy, rutted road I can't help but wonder; am I lost, again. But not to worry because lost or not this is a beautiful drive with a spectacular view. I continue to climb and slide around muddy turns until I come upon an old mountain cabin and a little sign (piece of paper) simply stating, 'CRMPI.'  I take a few minutes to breath some pure mountain air and admire the heavy clouds above and lightly falling snow. Silence fills the open space around and I set to knocking on doors, hoping somebody is home. I am then greeted by Jerome and Danita with warm soup and hot tea. Jerome is the founder/ owner of CRMPI and has been living here for 35 years. Danita is a past student of Jerome's who has returned to live and work here because of a deep respect for the place. She has been here all winter and though snow still covers the ground and yesterday's high was 38*F her and Jerome fully recognize that Spring is arriving and are both very excited. They also agree that I have arrived at the perfect time. I couldn't agree more.