Humanure-

It’s a hot topic!

This entry is the beginning of the end of my opus on composting and I would like to take it out with a big bang. This subject is pre-controversial because for 99.9% of America, it isn’t even on their radar. Most would have to stop for a minute and try an figure out the meaning of the word through some recollection of high school Latin. Let’s break it down- HUMAN + manURE= HUMANURE,
or HUman+MANURE= the same thing. I’ll let out a little secret. It’s kinda personal so don’t let anyone look at your computer screen while you read this. Once, maybe twice a day, all the food I ate the day before comes out where I normally sit and it’s like brown, smelly toothpaste. There it is- I’m a horrible person, a parriah, a leper. I know I should go see a doctor, but I have a feeling that maybe this happens to other people too. I’ve seen animals do it, but no one I know even mentions it. Sarcasm aside….

I want to mention That most all of this information, Except my personal experiential anecdotes, has been collected from Joe Jenkins book- Humanure handbook. A thorough, informative, and sensible book, as well as, very well referenced. Everybody should have a copy to pass around to their friends and family. It is also online at- www.weblife.org/humanure/

I have some fun facts about the ‘wasting’ we do here in America. “Waste” is not a noun. It doesn’t exist in nature. “Waste” is a verb and it is something we humans do, and Americans have taken it to a whole other level. I highly recommend the short video clip titled “The story of stuff”. High paced, clear, and to the point. It is worth the 15 minutes to learn a little about the history of our consumerism.
www.storyofstuff.com

If I want to get someone’s attention and open the up to the topic of humanure, I always start off telling them that 5 Billion gallons of water, that’s 5 with 9 zeros behind it, looks like this-

5,000,000,000

gallons of water is flushed down American toilets a day. I really don’t need to say anymore, but incase you’re not already scrolling down to learn how to… humanure your self, let’s see if a few more facts might loosen your encrusted, enculturism.

Americans waste- 1000 lbs of fecal matter and urine/yr
1000 lbs of other material wasted
Total 2000 lbs of waste/year/ American
There are close to 300 million Americans so lets crunch the numbers:

2000 x 300 x 1,000,000,000 = 600,000,000,000,000 lbs wasted by my fellow countrymen and woman per year. That is what Joe Jenkins would call the true “Gross National Product”!

Half of that could be… (should be…. better be!) used for Agriculture, 2/3rds of the second half is paper and yard waste and could be….should be…needs to be…. composted!

Where does it go? The same place that the guy taking down the old school maintenance building (as I write this) is taking all the perfectly good building materials he wont let anyone have for God knows what reason to- The Landfill. Landfills are the single greatest contributors of methane gas. Methane gas is 20- 30x more potent than Co2 as a greenhouse gas.

Lets take a brief look at what we are flushing down the toilet along with 5 gallons of drinking water in the form of unutilized nutrients discarded into the environment. Not only are we not replacing the nutrients and organic matter taken from our agricultural lands, we are turning them into pollution. Destroying our waterways and oceans. This is the fundamental crux of the issue. Why when we could be enhancing our agricultural future, we choose rather, to toxify our home?

Agricultural nutrients we waste and their value:
Nitrogen- 1.5 billion lbs
Phosphorus- 500 million lbs
Potassium- 200 million lbs
The modest value of these nutrients in the year 2000- 19 billion dollars
Meanwhile the price of fossil fuel based fertilizer has doubled since then.
In Asia, Humanure is traded on the black market. Shouldn’t that be called the “Brown Market”?

If it’s not bad enough we are wasting all these precious nutrients and organic matter and turning them into poison, lets do it with fresh drinking water while we are at it. Shall we?

% increase of the world’s population by 2050? Answer-100%
% increase of the world’s water by 2050? Answer- 0% (Actually, it will be less as our aquifers dry up. The same goes for agricultural land as the government continues to bail out, thus enabling senseless, ego driven developers and speculators.
The Average American consumes 188 gallons/day of water
If you include water used for finished products like cars, computers, and crates of corn flakes cartons, it is 1,565 gallons a day. The use of our ground water exceeds replacement by 21 billion gallons/ day.

To address the issue of “toxifying our home” here’s a few more fun facts-
1997 The EPA reports ( the EPA is no alternative, radical, liberal branch of the US Government mind you)
In 1997- 4153 beach closing, 69% are bacteria related
2003- 18,000 days of pollution related closings, 88% are fecal related
2000- 55% of US lakes, rivers and estuaries are unsuitable for swimming or fishing

Hey, just send it down the drain, the waste water treatment plant will take care of it.

Are you as livid as I am about our government and the people we entrust our civil maintenance to? Are you ready to do something? Something big? It’s as easy as planting a fern in your old toilet and putting the seat on a five gallon bucket with some sawdust in it. It’s called taking control of your life and doing something good for your kids, and their kids, this country, and damn it- The Earth! Let’s turn it around, all this craziness, politicians and their do nothing blabbering while the corporations bleed us dry just like the pharaohs did 4000 years ago, just like the Feudal lords did and the Catholic church did 1000 years ago. Folks its time for a “hole” new political “movement” called Humanure. It will change your life, and you will throw the shackles of the machine off of you and liberate all your brothers and sisters!

Ok, before we continue please review the previous chapters on composting. It’s very important to grasp the concept, the magic of what happens in your compost pile, because the key to minimal input humanure maintenance is that you compost everything. Yes , everything. The poop, the urine, the toilet paper. It all goes into the bucket which goes out to your compost bins in the back yard. This, in a couple of years will turn into beautiful, pathogen free soil that will grow great abundant food crops, hold water, and support complex natural diversity. That’s enough for now. I will continue the nuts and bolts of humanure in the next entry.

Covered in mulch,
Bill

Warning:composting can lead to….

self-sufficiency, healing the Earth, bike riding, local food, reduced landfill, water conservation, abundance , raising of the water table, growing of plants, healthier and happier children, reparation of the topsoil, reduced consumption of unsustainable self serving corporately pillaged resources, true homeland security, changing consciousness towards service and a greater good, building friends and community, compassion, tolerance, love, peace, joy and other seemingly un-American activities.

When you invite compost onto your life you invite nothing less than transformation on the cellular level.

-What you do with your leftovers is what you do to yourself-
T.Bud Barkslip

Composting 103- The Devotee

I got into a car wreck and my truck was totaled this winter. I have since not owned a vehicle now for 4 months. It’s the first time since I was 18. That’s 28 years! I never would have even considered it possible. My partner has a truck, and though I mostly ride around town to work and such, I find it difficult to move my bees, or more large quantities of organic material with my bike. In order to keep my partner from asking, “when are you going to get your own car?”, all I have to do is periodically get the classifieds out and circle a few promising prospects and leave it on the kitchen table. In the meantime I love not having a car. It has been nothing short of liberation from some of the many yokes of being an American. Such is one of the many transformations in my life since becoming a devotee of my guru- Compost.

My partner leaves town with her truck every week for 3 days so if I need to run errands I borrow it the day before. Now, whenever I use the truck I make sure that when I return it is stuffed full of compostable material. Yesterday, I went on a crusade around town and there was abundance at every turn. A few buckets of coffee at the coffee shop, some recycled cardboard, then many buckets of grain at the local brewery, some veggie scraps at the local coop, and top it off with those wonderful bags of leaves sitting by the side of the road like plump black fruit off the vine. I am a devotee of compost. My heart soars when I come home loaded down. My life has such a deep profound sense of purpose. I am an “Errand Knight”.

Now to construct the Grail Castle of compost.
Locate an underused area that is at least 5′x5′ in your yard, East facing to the sun, preferably shady to hot western sun, is convenient to carry materials from your car, and is in proximity to garden beds. We have ours at the edge of our yard by the driveway so it is an easy unload when I get home. I gather up three pallets. I try to find ones made of oak but that seems to be increasingly difficult. Screw these together in a “u” shape. Like with the suburbanite mouldering pile I line the inside of the pallets with 1/2″ hardware mesh to deter pests starting with laying some down on the ground. If you put these pallets up on a foundation of stone or old cement sidewalk slabs (urbanite), they will last longer, as the bottom wont rot from contact with the soil. It is nice to rig something in the front so you can slide boards horizontally as the pile gets bigger and when you want to empty the bin you subsequently remove the boards for easy access. Then I hinge the screened top and when it is closed and all the boards are stacked in the front it is a sealed bin so no rats can get in or out. I believe that when more of us are doing this in concentrated populations it is important to have good sanitation in respect to our neighbors. The Challis is ready. Now you are ready to make magic.

I start my virgin pile with coarse material like small sticks and brush from a cut tree. Chunks of wood or rocks could suffice. maybe 6″ of this and then 6″ of some high carbon material like leaves or weeds or straw. This will be the bed that absorbs the liquids and keeps the bottom from being anerobically mucky. Now its your turn for Compost Knight Errandry. Get resourceful. Not only are you doing this to improve the soil in your garden but you are keeping waste from hitting the landfill. It is a twofold win. So ask yourself where is there being waste generated. There are businesses being run in this town that care about the Earth and they are open to giving you their food scraps. Then there are others that cant be bothered, but should be anyway. I fully encourage you to approach them and see if they are composting and ask them why they aren’t. Find one of these businesses on the way to your work so you can be regular. Supply them with 5 gallon buckets that you got from the bakery at Ingle’s. Put their name on it and have two sets. One for you and one you can leave for them. Clean them for the restaurant so they don’t get skanky so the health department doesn’t bust their chops over it.

Leaves , grass clippings, garden refuse, bought straw, if you have to, will be your carbon (or brown material) and food scraps and coffee grinds, hair from the barber shop, yourine (yes, your urine is an excellent source of nitrogen and will really add to heating up and breaking down your pile) will be your nitrogen (or green material). Layer these materials like lasagne in 6″ deep layers. I throw in some soil to innoculate the pile with microbes and add minerals. When your pile gets about three feet high and the conditions of warmth and moisture are near ideal, it will heat up. This is an amazing phenomenon. Bring in that material as fast as you can and take a pole and poke holes through the top of the pile to the bottom for air to circulate. You want this to be an aerobic pile. Anerobic-stinky. Aerobic- not stinky. Also, too wet will not serve you, nor will too much green. If it smells like ammonia back off on the green and add more brown. The heat, up to 180 degrees, is caused by thermophillic bacteria and they really break material down fast. !30 degrees for about a day destroys most pathogens and seeds. This is why it is not good to introduce worms until later in the process. After the thermophiles have their party, the the mesophillic bacteria kick in and they are warm to the touch. These guys hang around much longer and I generally don’t like to disturb them. I think flipping compost is completely unneccessary and detrimental to the bacteria. The holes you drove through the heart of your pile will serve to supply air for the aerobic bacteria. In the summer don’t be surprised if you have half a bin of decent compost to add to your garden in a matter of a couple of months.

I can fully understand the need to use this compost as fast as possible as our soils are so damaged and are screaming out for these nutrients. So go ahead and sparingly put out your precious compost. (Trust me, you will no longer take for granted top soil, and what it takes to make it. You will now feel a lament so deep, as it were your own soul (soil) eroding, when you see the degradation of topsoil by money chasing shortsighted developers and farmers who let millions of tons of it wash away every year.) If you can, however, wait. This is the path of the true compost devotee. For a compost pile is like a fine bottle of red wine and haste does not serve the consumer well. It must age. at least a year. Two is even better. This gives the fungus a chance to kick in and these guys are unfathomably sublime and magical. Did you know that in a well established undisturbed forest the micchorizea extend the root systems of the trees 700 to 1000 times! Yes, the fungus acts symbiotically with the tree roots and becomes, in effect, an extension of the trees roots. This is what is being fostered in the maturation of your compost pile. The compost not only becomes a storehouse of nutrients and moisture retention for you plants but also becomes an fungal innoculant for the plants provided you don’t till or plow. Oh, I could go on an on but that is your journey. The journey of the compost devotee.

Last installment-The final movement of my grand opus on composting.

worms-

The urban dweller has no reason to be excluded from the cycle of life. Cities are coming around with community gardens, green roofs supporting endangered wildlife, to water catchment and rain gardens…. Feeling a little disconnected on the 56th floor? Live in a building that doesn’t allow pets?
You can compost in the city with no yard. a small 2′x2′ box could take care of your compost and you can have 10,000 pets! You can have a mini farm on the 56th floor! Never underestimate the power of the earthworm.

….nor does as lowly an animal exist that doth do such noble work. The advancement of civilization has been built upon the backs of this pack animal the earthworm…

I call worms my urban hogs because they wallow in mud (sort of), I feed them my food scraps, and they thrive. I then take their “castings” (worm poop) which is ph balanced and jam packed with ready available nutrients and side dress my house plants, seed starts etc. There are many good books to choose from (”Worms eat my garbage” for one, or my favorite “Earthworms”; Rodale press) on the use of worms as bio-digesters in the home and it is surprisingly easy and fun. Start off simple and small. Use a flower pot. Darwin was fascinated with the earthworm and studied them for nearly half a century. He had pots full of them all over his house. Dude was no slacker either.

Start With a flower pot or comparable container that drains. Get some shredded newspaper from work. You know, the kind they throw away, and gets sent out to the ocean. A little bit of dirt from the park should have enough dog pee in it to jump start some worms. Hmmm. where are you going to get the worms there in the city? Good question and you got me there. Perhaps Google and mail order. You want what is called the red wiggler. It’s a smaller red worm than the night crawler, and thrives in rich compost piles. The night crawler which lives in fields will not do well in a compost pile and will perish. I got my worms from a Quaker friend’s compost pile. I prefer Quaker worms. Quieter than the others. Mail order will get you some, heck we have a vending machine for fishermen outside a tackle shop here in Asheville and you can get them 24/7! Red wigglers, gotta be red wigglers.

Now the cool thing about food scraps and even humanure is as long as you cover it with some organic material it doesn’t smell. So when I add food to my worms I usually scratch some of the material off the top and bury the scraps and cover, not unlike my cat. The finer the scraps are chopped, the more easily the worms can access the food and the quicker they will break it down. The best is to take a couple of days worth and blend it up into a worm smoothie. In the beginning you may not have enough worms so again go slow and see what the optimum moisture level is, how much food can be eaten. The worms will reward you with the abundance of their numbers, quick digestion of your scraps, and rich castings left behind from their handiwork.

The harvesting of their castings takes full advantage of their dislike of light. When your box is full, simply place it under a light and the worms will bury down into the dark. You can now skim a layer of castings off the top until you see the worms again in which case they will be chased down even deeper enabling you to skim more castings off. So on and so forth until you get to the bottom. Fill again with shredded paper or leaves or what ever may be handy and being thrown out. What to do with the castings?

You have a remarkable substance at your disposal. Magical. Fairydust. Miraculous things will spring forth from it. Buy a plant that is suitable for your conditions and plant it, or put it around your existing plants. Take it outside and sprinkle it around a favorite tree whirling around in circles while you recite it Hafiz poems exhaulting gratitudes of God and life. What if, in an almost full worm box, you sprinkled wheat or rye grass seed and placed it in your sunny window? It would grow and within a couple of weeks could be harvested for wheat grass juice. Or peas for pea greens in a salad. A friend of mine gets$ 50.00/lb for pea greens. Radishes grow really fast. People spend zillions of dollars for exotic medicinal plants and the ones that grow around you, the simple ones you take for granted, are a 1000 times more powerful. Shorten your supply line! Just the act of growing wheat in a pot full of worms will change your attitude about life completely. Health, vigor, love, connection, abundance will come your way. I guarantee or your money back.

Here’s a place to start looking for info on worms:
www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/1973-09-01/How-to-Raise-Earthworms-For-Fun-and-Profit.aspx

The supreme good is like compost,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places
that people disdain.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking keep to the simple.
In conflict be fair and generous.
In governing, dont try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to be simply yourself
and dont try to compare or compete,
everyone will respect you.

-tao te ching

Soil Searching 101-the suburbanite
Soil Searching 102- worms elevating life on the 56th floor
Soil Searching 103-the devotee
Soil Searching 104-humanure -a ‘movement’ towards enlightenment for the advanced pilgrim

In nature there is no such thing as “waste”. “Waste ” is a man made word. Really a verb. It’s what we do in that moment and we are personally responsible for that action. Not a noun that is a separate entity. Nature utilizes everything. Energy stored in things is released in each step as the material is broken down in continually simpler forms to its most elemental form in which it is assimulated and pulled back into the cycle again (mostly by plants). Somewhere in the last century we vered off the path of the natural world, cycles, spirals, returns and headed down the linear path of consumption and waste. We live on this island called Earth and it is getting smaller and smaller each day. Yet, we demand more of it as our population exponates. We give little back in the form of reusable resources. We are quite juvenile in our behavior. Like little kids we say “me, me, me, I want it now” and we grab. We throw tantrums called wars when dont get what we want. We treat this Earth like a disposable diaper and we smell because it is the only one we have.

I believe solutions start small. Every journey of 10,000 miles starts with a single step. I suggest for a step ever so small, is to stop when you are throwing something away. Ask yourself when you are in the kitchen, “will what I have in my hand decompose? Chances are if it was connected to something edible the answer is yes. This is a great place to start. Take this handful of scraps and put in a bowl on your counter top. This will be your valiant steed that will carry you to a doorway through which you may enter on an incredible quest in search of the Grail castle (your compost bin). This a sacred journey that will fortify your soul (soil).

Having a bowl with a lid of leftovers, scraps and coffee grinds on your counter top will now motivate you to ask more questions, and asking questions is a sign of intelligent life. You may ask yourself questions like, “where will it go now? because it is going to get nasty soon.” You have a few days, depending on the time of year, but you need to ask the question, “what to do?… where to do?… how to do?… Most importantly “why to do compost?” As this is the question that gives you, the errant knight, a sense of duty and the courage to ‘carry it out’, even under the harshest conditions of sleet and cold and regress.

Why to do compost?

answer: For us and our children to exist on this planet we must do everything we possibly can, “no matter how small” (*1), to replenish the Earth to our best ability. There is an amazing power in the cumulation of small deeds. In meditation we practice mindfullness by returning to the breath. 100 times in a half an hour if need be. Some long hair hippie dude about 2000 years ago said not to forgive seven times, but “7 times 70″ (*2). That is how we achieve focus, discipline, and bring change to our deeper being. Change is accomplished in very small seemingly insignificant, but consistent increments. They add up and that begins to change the way you live and interact with the world. Composting is a practice. Its meaning is in the intention and the discipline of changing lazy, apathetic habits of not caring and not taking personal responsibility for your actions in the world. If you compost for awhile, the next thing you know, you give the compost to a plant and then the plant gives you more flowers than you know what to do with and you give some to a neighbor, and that plant attracts a butterfly whose wing flaps…. and well, you know the rest of the story. It’s true, and you know it, and it will change the world. I will add one scientific fact that might help jump start your interest in composting. We American’s have used up more than 1/2 the topsoil of our agricultural land in the last 100 years. Top soil is what feeds us. It is our soil (soul). It is sacred. More people need more topsoil, not less.

*1-Horton Hears a Who- Suess, Dr.
*2-Christ, J.

Soil searching 101-The suburbanite-

What to do?

Step One-Just start. Like jumping into a pond in the summer. You can tip toe in or you can double flip off a rope swing. it’s your choice. I suggest beginning with the simple act of asking yourself when you are about to throw something away “is this natural vegetable matter? …can it decompose?…. is it man made?” What if I didn’t throw in in the trash which goes to the landfill, and is buried in a landfill closed from our living system not to be utilized again. What if I didn’t looked at this handful of potato peelings and coffee grinds in disgust, but as something more precious than gold (cant eat gold, never could, never will). How can I take an active role in turning this handful of lead into gold? This begins an “alche-mystical” trip of discovery and questions that lead to more questions, a few answers. conversations with neighbors and families and the building of neighborhoods and communities. Yes, taking that first handful of compost and simply putting it in a bowl on your kitchen counter instead of in your garbage. Be grateful for it and ask all the questions. That is step one. Breathe, relax, take some time to take it all in. You have four or five days grace period before step two becomes crucial.

Two step (Texas)- left-right-left….and right, left-right-left…. and right

Step two- OK. In about four or five days it becomes clear that the leftovers would be better outside. Compost 101 is the suburbanite tract so I will assume you have a little yard or some patch of ground in your dominion. Find a place in your yard that is convenient to carry kitchen scraps to , but is out of the way of outside activities like playing sports, sun worship, mowing and maintenance. “Ewwww, What about rats and bugs, vermine, plague and pestilence” the voice in your head asks that sounds half biblical, and half like your mother? This is a good point and is guarded against with a simple hoop made from a 4′ wide x 4′ length of 1/4″ hardware mesh. Rats can get into 1/2″ mess so go with the 1/4″. Roll up a length of the mesh into a tube and connect the sides with wire or the mesh itself. Take a scrap of mesh and cover one end of the tube. This will be your bottom. Again use wire to sew the pieces together, or ends of the mesh bent over. Stand up the mesh tube and cut another piece of mesh that will serve as the top. This is your Grail Castle. If you have problems with infidels, marauders and dogs, pound some stakes in the ground around the Castle and staple the Castle to them. (Not the marauders, the mesh) That’s pretty much as simple as I can make it. There are going to be people with all different situations and here is where you get to be creative and make the journey your own. There is no dogma in compost, just dogs and what you need is always right at hand.

Step three-

Getting the mix. Taking out compost is a bi-weekly routine so keep up the good work of saving every piece of organic material you can. This includes cotton clothes as well as yard waste. I wouldn’t put too much yard waste in your compost bin as this material isn’t desired by critters and can be piled up unprotected in some corner of your yard and actually provide cover for wildlife. I would only put in enough grass clippings and finer material to mix in with very wet kitchen scraps. A problem most composters have is the mix being too dry. Though not crucial, the microbes work better in a moist environment so feel free to add water when the weather is dry. I could go on forever so I pass you on to the myriad of information that help you on your crusade of soil searching.

Next-soil searching 102-worms elevating life on the 56th floor

Things are changing. Reckon they always have, Sometimes for awhile, sometimes forever. One way to look at this is “Taking a break”. When a child misbehaves it is told to take “Time out”. Rather than punitive physical punishment. The student has to go away from the action and spend some time in reflection. Whatever fevered frenzy that the kid has gotten himself into is stopped and the ramification is temporary banishment and isolation. Not to mention the humbling humiliation of his power being stripped. Ideally the cycle has been broken and order has been restored. The acting out of one or a few individuals has been extinguished and the power has been reclaimed by the teacher*.

No doubt you have noticed some drastic changes in the weather. Most noticeably last winter’s abnormally warm temperatures followed by “The Easter Freeze” that killed most of this summer’s fruit, and much of the tender foliage that had been coaxed out by the unseasonable 80 degree temperatures the week before. Strike three is the worst drought in anyone’s memory. Little good can be spoken of these events, but I will. I see opportunity all over the place. These events, a shot across the bow.

In the Edible Park the trees were densely planted and have created such a thick canopy that there was little sun or air to stimulate fruit buds and fungus was rampant. We cleared out a lot of material and opened the park up, yet many of the trees remain afflicted with brown rot and black knot and scab. All moisture loving diseases. The brown rot, particularly devastating to the stone fruit like plums , peaches and cherries, is wintered over in the mummied fruits on the ground. This year with the drought there has been a break in the cycle of the spreading of pathogens by rain and moisture. Secondly, with the freeze, there was no fruit what so ever, thus no mummies to overwinter the pathogen spores. In our garden our tomatoes never got blight and the slugs were nominal. I wish I could say the same about the mosquitoes but their’s is a story of the cycle not being broken by the lack of cold winter temperatures. In my pear orchard in West Virginia I have been battling the repugnant fire blight disease for 5 years now by cutting out large disease afflicted limbs in my trees like diabetes amputees. Fire blight’s primary entry into my trees is through the blooms. Since my trees were in full bloom during last spring’s Easter frost they were 100% killed and though I didn’t have any pears to take to market this Fall, there was a reduction of fire blight in my orchard by 95%!

Absence does make the heart fonder, and my pears will taste even better next year. As does drought. Very few people complain these days that it rained during their day off. Gratitude for what we do have is essential to a joyful life. Sometimes we need a little “time out “ to find it. We have a choice to focus on what we don’t have or we can be empowered and get innovative and come up with creative systems that make our supply lines more resilient bringing in more golden eggs without killing our beloved goose. Diversify! Redundancy is a basic permaculture commandment. Have more than one system suppling your basic needs. What if you only have one friend and when you need help moving, and they are out of town? That is why a well connected community will thrive when a fragmented one will perish. Buy local produce and cultivate small farmers in your area. Don’t put all your celery in one desert. What if they cant bring you celery from Arizona anymore when gas prices soar, the deserts salinate and the Colorado river dries up?

I think of our region of the southeast in a devastating drought with the forecast of below average rain this winter and unusually warm temperatures. Atlanta’s reservoir are at a critical level. What will they do? There is already so much information on water conservation measures in the house and outside (and I’m sure you all are following them stringently), but something you can do and a resource more people are tapping into is catching rain off their roofs. (We have six 350 gallon tanks on the corners of our house.) They say clean water will be what people will fight over most in the future. Heck, New Mexico and a couple of other dry western states have made it illegal to collect rain water off your roof! That’s how valuable it is! Simple systems like a rain barrel on the corner of your house or a beautiful rain garden in your yard to catch the flush of a rainstorm and slowly seep it into your soil will help your yard immensely, reduce storm water surges, keep our waterways cleaner, and if we water our gardens with it reduce the stress on our municipal water reserves. That’s pretty good. At least five great benefits came from one small simple action.

My brother has air conditioning on his house in Florida with a constant flow of water draining out. He could easily pipe that overflow to a spot in his yard and plant the grapefruit tree his wife wants there, and not have to water it by using up the precarious Florida aquifers that are being filled in with encroaching seawater as they are drained for human consumption. Folks, what I’m trying to say here is be creative and resourceful. Do it now when we still have all this abundance because the Earth is not an infinite resource. Are you the 1st little pig or will you follow the way of the 3rd little pig. Making your house strong and resilient . Be creative and dare to think outside the (TV) box**. Work WITH what we have (our natural systems) don’t drain them. Use this abundance we have to create systems that will sustain us with the minimal amount of effort in the future. Like ….. hmmm… Urban agriculture for example.

*For those metaphor challenged folks out there-We are the kids, the fevered frenzy is our insatiable self consumption, the teacher will be nature, and the choice is ours

** Is it appropriate to anyone else that TVs themselves are becoming shallower in depth?

I enjoy playing music, but I rarely feel inspired to play alone. Music is one of those muses that is best shared in a group. When you get together with fellow musicians and play together something happens that is bigger than the group. The “groove” that we get into is cathartic. It can be reached by oneself to a level, but there is a more thorough clearing and release with more people. When I am in a “jam session” it is important to listen to others find the common beat all the while trying to weave in my own style. There is my style, the other musicians styles, and the tune where we all meet. If we are all listening to one another we draw from a larger pool of creative resources. New ideas and new ways of looking at a melody or rythym appears as from nowhere. It is fertile ground… dancing on the edge of my style. Inspirational and creative.

As a woodworker, my work depends on cultivating a fertile and diverse context to be creative. Trying to op[ ]en to new ideas, new ways of looking at things I allow myself to get excited about different hobbies. I really enjoy flower arranging. Particularly, a style of Japanese arranging called Ikebana. I am interested in metal work as well. I took some Ikebana classes last year and at the same time I was taking a welding class at the local community college. Needless to say, there were two very different demographics represented at these classes. The Ikebana class was entirely woman 50+ years of age and well heeled. The welding class was exclusively men and mostly the NASCAR bunch. It struck me if I could bring these two arts together I would have something really unique. Aside from a new genre of racecar driving in high heels, it has resulted in one of the most lucrative lines of furniture I have created in the last 20 years! It’s about integration of diversity and the confluence of the depth and richness of working out conflicts and prejudices and creating something new and unique.

To explain this visually I would draw a circle and label it “A” I would draw an second circle and label it “B”. I would overlay part of “B” over “A” and shade the space in between calling it “C”. You really only have two elements, but some alchemistic magic has happened and you now have three elements at the price of only two.

To explain this euphanistically one might say, “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

“C” is not about “A” playing louder and faster than “B” nor is it about limiting my self to only working with wood and staidly using traditional styles and lines. “C” is not about domination, fear, or narrow mindedness. “C” is about sharing, diversity, working together through conflict. It is holy ground where there must be surrender and faith that something bigger and better will manifest if I give up a little and make some room for something else, another idea, a different rythym, my partners feedback… *gulp*.

No place does this play out more universally and graphically than in nature:

What I refer to as “the edge” is “C”. Anytime you have an “edge” in nature you have the most diversity, richness and abundance. I look at the edge of my backyard on these sultry summer nights where the garden meets the woods and there is a spectacular show of glowing flashes of luminescent delight. Lightning bugs love the edge of the tree line. Look at a pond where water meets dry land and look at the tangle of flora. The land creatures come to drink water, the water creatures come to the shallows to breed and a entire other family of critters, the amphibians, can only live in “C”. How about the Ocean. Is that universal enough? We all know about estuaries where the fresh water meets the salt, and coral reefs…is the horse dead yet? Naaaaay, it isn’t even out of the gate yet!

Permaculture is a philosophy and a practice that looks at existing successful sustainable systems in nature and tries to emulate them in agricultural practices as well as social practices and environmental practices. One of those concepts is the “edge”. Since the edge creates such diversity and abundance in nature why not make as much of it as possible? Emphatically, those permaculture rascals do! Just the other day I was rescuing my leaf mould (rotting leaves and mycilium) and worms (I am completely enamoured with them as was Darwin his entire life) from my old garden (*1). I noticed that on the edge of my leaf pile where it met the grass, was the most worm castings (digested leaves or “worm poop”) and the largest worms. I suspect they like going between the grass and the leaves. To read about the edge is one thing, to see it in nature is another thing, but to create it in a garden and see the results be congruent with the laws of nature is really a thrill! ( Ok, half a beer gets me drunk and I dont get out much, but it’s still really cool.)

Practice of this concept, maximizing edges, is as easy as planting tree. A tree has edges all over it. An abandoned field on my farm in West Virginia was ransacked with a tractor, plow, herbicides and corn for a number of years and the soil has been completely denuded of fertility. The only way to get it to even grow some grass would mean the introduction of beaucoups of fertilizers. There is an ash tree in the middle of this field and I went under it last time I was back. Mind you, the entire field was parched, cracked and devoid of life, yet under this tree the soil was moist and the grass was lush and green and there were animal tracks. A tree creates microclimates, which are full of edges. You have full sun on top of the tree you have shade in the bottom of the tree, you have dappled shade mixed in. You have protection from predators, you have opportunity for predators, you have a source of food being produced by this tree in the form of leaves fruits and seeds. It’s all about Habitat, habitat, habitat.

Edges are everywhere. Where your neighbor’s property meets yours. Where your driveway meets your lawn, where the lawn meets your hedge where the hedge meets your house. Consider playing with your edges like putting some curves in them, if space affords it. From the observations of my leaf pile, extending your flower bed edge by meandering it, the more prolific your worm activity and castings will be. Castings have amazing properties that retain moisture, are PH balanced, and make nutrients most available to your plants. This means healthier plants lower fertilizer and water bills. If you have a water feature, meander the shoreline rather than having a perfectly straight edge. Diversify the depth levels of the pond and this will support a wider variety of plants. Plant a tree on the edge (not the dam) to create shade and shelter… I built a pond on my farm in West Virginia and made the banks as steep as I could to minimize cattails and to keep the water deep and cool for swimming in the summer. I also put catfish in there and feeder minnows for them. All was fine as long as I fed them, but since I dont live there anymore and feed them regularly, the feeder minnows are all but gone and the catfish have become stunted. If I had made some more shallows and more edge then the feeder fish would have had more room to proliferate and would have ultimately made the catfish more productive. The pond is not a sustainable self-supporting organism if I want to have catfish there. I am dependent on the shipping in of expensive bags of catfish food, which is heavily dependent on fossil fuels from the growing of grains to the shipping and packaging to the running of the grain mills, to trollers unsustainably farming fish meals from the ocean…. I have in fact simulted monocropping in my pond. If I had used nature’s model by creating more edge, more diversity, that pond would be able to support healthier catfish with no effort or expense on my part. It is, however, still a great place to swim.

Creating an edge socially is easy as well. It could be as simple as waving to your neighbor. Or instead of going to a box store to buy a shovel, asking that same neighbor if you can borrow a shovel to plant your new pie cherry tree. What has happened is “A” (you) have taken a risk and overlapped with “B” (your neighbor). The surprising conversation you have, sharing of information, building of community, money you saved not buying a shovel, and safety in knowing your neighbor is really a nice person is “C”. Tutoring kids in school is creating an edge, as is helping a community volunteer organization, as is giving blood. So is asking your kids what is important in their lives, so is listening to them without saying anything. What if “A” (US) quit trying to dominate “B” (them)? What if “A” tried to understand “B” better and then “C” what might happen? “C” rarely costs anything.

Here’s a challenge to the choir. I propose the creating of another edge- a cultural edge. Instead of criticizing mainstream monocropping, industrial agriculture (”A”). We could accept it and allow it to overlap it with permaculture (”B”). What would “C” be? Another permaculture idea is to use small and slow solutions. What if farmers set aside 10% of their farm for research and development? Creating new edges and niches. A scientific mixing pot to experiment and play with unique plants and animals and see what thrived on their farm’s unique ecosystem. Quite often “C” shows up in the form of some unpredictable beneficial that alleviates the burden of expense of pest control and fertilizer. Pay particularly close attention to the edge of “C”. Maybe there will be a “D”?

To learn more (learning is one of the great and most fertile edges of all) come to the southeast regional permaculture gathering at Celo, North Carolina this summer Aug 3rd -5th. Contact Sam Ruark at ruark4peace@hotmail.com or call 828-675-0863. There is a yahoo group as well at groups.yahoo.com/group/southeasternpermaculture/

*1)B.T.W. The potatoes I planted in there did quite well despite the drought and my garden partner and ex K.G.B. agent Laura and I, got 3 shopping sacs full of 5 varieties of potatoes from one row of unwatered plants. The purple ones did surprisingly well!

Ever’thinz gwoin’ to seed
As my winter and early Spring garden begins to “bolt”, that is, sending up it’s flowers preparing for its next generation, I begin the ritual of saving next years seeds. Really, its my rope. Safety rope, as well as, the rope that rings the bell of my independence. I don’t save them all and I dont save them from a lot of things I eat, But saving seeds of some basic food staples gives me great satisfaction and pride (the good kind). It’s so easy. The hard part for me is when I try to genetically engineer my plants. For instance, I try not to eat my best ears of corn, or biggest garlic cloves, or the last heads of red lettuce that bolt. These are characteristics that I want to cultivate in my plants. Granted, I don’t get that deep sense of resolution one gets from entirely plowing up a bed and freshly planting another. I must steer around the few gangly looking plants that are in the process of going to seed. They flower, and that is pretty, and I get some beneficial insects attracted to the garden, but then they fall over, look weedy, and in constant threat of being trampled. There is something of a lesson in tolerance and patience that harkens to a Buddhist teaching of haveing compassion and respect for all aspects of a being’s life. The reward is that I am on the road to be more patient and respectful and I have a little bundle of the promise of next year’s food supply in my own hands! With good returns as well. When I plant 1 kernal of my sweet corn I’ve been growing for the last 22 years I get a return of 2 ears averaging 136 kernals on each. That’s a return of 1:272 in 60 days! On top of that, every year the plants are better adapted to the soil and weather conditions that they are grow in making them easier to grow and be more productive. Keepin’ it local, baby.

Iss-sooo-eee-zzz

Some seeds that I find easy to save and perpetuate are: corn, beans, skwosh, red lettuce, arugula, and tomatoes. The bulbs are garlic, potatoes, sun chokes, dahlias. My sunflowers, dill and red mustard seem to volunteer year after year so I don’t bother with these.
When harvesting, select a couple of plants that have the most desirable characteristics. Let them just do their thing. Flower, seed, get old, gray and wrinkly just like you and me. Continue to water and care for them, maybe honor them by staking them up, and plant the next succession of veggies around them. Last Fall I planted chard in my carrots and as I ate the carrots the chard grew to fill in the space. This Spring I’ll take up my lettuce and plant my corn etc. They will flower and go to seed amongst the young’uns like grandkids visiting the grandparents. When the seed heads get brown it will be a good time to harvest them. Pluck them off the plant and continue to let them dry in a shady, dry spot. When they are crispy and fall away from the husks, crumble them up and separate the seeds from the chafe. I like to wrap them in paper with name and date and put them in a glass mason jar with a bean sprout top on it on it, but poking holes in a mayonaise lid will suffice for letting some air in. I also put a piece of brown paper bag over the jar and then screw the lid on and that guards against moths and other sneaky little varmits. Store them away on a moderately forgotten shelf. That’s it. It’s really satisfying to have even one strain of favorite veggie that is uniquely yours. I think after 10 years you can name it yourself. More and more there are people doing the same thing with their favorite seeds and I hear about all these seeds swap now. A great opportunity for us in the gardening community to come together and share stories, experiences, and genes. You are not A-L-O-N-E out there in the universe. (Hmm, I wonder if anyone ever reads this blog? Mom…? Dad…..?)

If you are just getting started with saving seed from scratch, I recommend that you start at a local seed swap with local varieties that have been proven by local gardeners Heirloom varieties gotten from companies that are interested in preserving genetic diversity and our food heritage are another good option and between the two is a balance between local authenticity and a solution to possible inbreeding. Sources for heirloom seeds are High mowing seeds at the French Broad food coop or mailorder at Jonny’s seeds. At the big box stores hybrids are available but they are too genetically unstable for saving as seed, often sterile and revert to having undesirable characteristics. A plan of obsolescence that keeps the people dependent on seed companies and less dependent on their community. I’m shocked at the copyrights being slapped all over our seeds. This year’s fruit tree catalogue of age old varieties had trademarks on them because of a “sport”. (Some small difference that had shone up in an orchard somewhere amongst the millions of clones.) I saw no difference at all in the pictured fruit, and since they want to sell “their” variety, the original variety is now unavailable. In the future if someone wishes to propagate that tree they will have to pay royalties. They stole trees that should be in the public domain. With there being less and less small local propagation nurseries it will be a matter of time before these few corporations will have trademarks on all the fruit trees. If we dont start perpetuating our local heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables we will have passively let our birthright to essential food sources be taken over by companies very far away. Where’s the freedom is that?

So now I get to tell you a true story about me and my corn.

Once upon a time in a holler far, far away a young man determined, and border line hell bent, lived in a rather bumpy province reffered to as West Virginia. Suspected by most to be the place where the movie “Deliverance” was shot he met a local woman, Phyllis. She was one of them Hilton girls up second creek over in Hollywood (where the stars shine all night). Well, her pappy was of the old mountaineering breed that, even in the eighties of the last century, continued hunting, trapping, and digging sang and yeller root. Kept a garden as well, for as long as those Hilton girls could remember. Grew ’bout everything, but had a some corn, pop and sweet, that Phyllis was particularly prideful of. It was small, and good and it was her Daddy’s. No doubt he’d gotten from his, and his his. Well, this young man traded a few kisses for a few of these kernals and planted them. In a year or two had him a good size patch. He began to notice differences in the size of some stalks and ears, and when a particularly large ear showed up that he was partial to, instead of eating it he pollinated with it, and amongst its progeny, choose the biggest ears for to dry for seed. It wasn’t another year or two when some of the stalks began to show two ears on a stalk and then the second ear started to fill out. Over about 10 years the stalk went from givin’ one ear about 2 inches long to two ears about five inches in length. He then left of the place in the summer planting out but not taking care of his garden and after a few years the corn seed stock dwindled and was gone. Phyllis’s Pappy died and she too let her seeds go. Everybody’s lives had gone to seed. The corn line severed forever.

One day ten years later…

….the now not so young man returned back to his old home place from the city a little more polished and while cleaning up for his new girlfriend came upon a small glass vile with 20 corn Kernals in it untouched by the marauding mice. Could it be…the old corn seed? So excited, and being the 4th of July when the corn is supposed to be knee high, the man quickly set the seeds soaking in a teacup. planning on planting them out as soon as he got back to the city in North C’lina. Waking up the next morning to pack his belongings all the seeds were gone! after 10 years of not getting eaten by the mice they had finally got them. Solemnly, he packed up his things and when he picked up some clothes on the couch, there laid the seeds. All of them in a nice little pile ready to be packed up. The mice had stashed them for a later date. Been March, a hungrier mouse wouldnt have waited.

The man returned to his C’lina home in the city and watched to see if the corn would sprout. Two did. lacking any garden beds, he planted his seeds in pots. He spoiled that corn. Treated it will the best organic seaweed ferilizers he could find and they faired well and soon tassled. You have to remember when you grow a small corn patch, and this was as small as you could get, and get away with calling it a patch, your going to have to pollinate it yourself. Which is a good tool for genetically selecting the best plants. When the silks begin to appear at the end of the newly forming ears, break off some of the tassle on top that has spread open and yellow powder falls freely from. Touch the silks with it and repeat this as many times as you can remember until the silks die. You will get a lot more kernals on you ear than with wind and random chance. Now in a big corn patch there’s so much pollen floating around that you don’t have to do anything. There is a lot of pollen out there that is hybrid or genetically engineered that could pollinate my corn and pollute its genes. Probably has. They say that even in the most remote farms in Peru where there are ancient lines of local corns grown, genes from genetically engineered corn have been found in them. So its a good idea to pollinate your own corn. Keep it local, Baby.

It wasn’t just those little hard corn kernals that germinated, something in that man germinated as well. Connected him with a line. Something that seemed to have been lost was still retrievable because ever since that man got back his corn he started farming again. Squeezing it in any niche he can around his little c’lina city home, his work place and community parks. If you want a couple of these seeds just write me in the comment form. It wouldn’t be right for me to be alone in the universe with Jim Hilton’s corn seeds.

GRASS- LOVE it or LEAF it?

4/2/7
Grass? Thanx, but no thanx. You may find something endearing about grass, and I’d bet a dollar, if you asked yourself “what?” chances are, it was marketed to you. Even though most of them are flat, those beautifully lush monocropped lawns come at a steep price. They are heavily subsidized by the petrochemical companies of which a multitude of the ag chemicals are derived. Basically, a lawn’s greenness comes from someone else’s greyness. Not to be incongruent, they are also devoid of any biodiversity. I’m a prairie boy and have had the great pleasure to seek out a few of the remaining remnants that was once our great undisturbed prairie like Riding Mountain Provincial Park in Manitoba, Canada. Hearing about the grasses that once existed is like reading the bible. Actually getting down on your knees to look and feel the tangled mat of virgin prairie is like climbing Mount Sinai and meeting the One who has no name first hand. (No wonder my hair is all gray and wispy and my eyes all starry.) It sends my heart pounding thinking about it. It was a solid dreadlock of tangled plants all living together symbiotically. It is said that it is common to have over 300 different plants in one area, each having worked out when to bloom and seed and which niche and strata to catch sun and nutrients. The grasses were of incredible diversity of shape, texture and color. Not to mention the flowers! Their seed heads….! What is it with our culture and uniformity? Diversion to diversity!? Where’s the colloquial quaintness!?! OK Bill, just breathe…..

diversity comes naturally to our environment.

When did we start worshipping Scotts turf builder and Miracle Grow over God and her miracle of growth? How can we have the presumption to create something more beautiful than the Great Spirit? If life is sacred shouldn’t we honor as much of it as we possibly can? On the other hand, my sensible partner, Monica, reminded me that it’s nice to have a little soft grass to sit on and run around in. I’ll give her that. I do enjoy sitting in a park under a shade tree most any time of the year. How many people with half acre lawns do you ever see sitting out on them playing croquet with the kids? The only time I ever see them is when they are on their riding lawn mowers guzzling gas and spewing out burnt oil from their 2 cycle motors. Why do we have to expend so much energy trying to control nature? The Creator does so much better on its own and it is SO MUCH LESS WORK!

So back to grass- mostly I don’t love it so I leaf it. It is so simple. A piece of cardboard and some leaves may be the paradigm shift you’ve been looking for in your life. There is a grassroots movement of people reclaiming their yards by taming the grass lawn with sheets of cardboard and some leaves. Granted It looks a little shabby and brown next to the Jonzes emulation of green lawn they saw on the bag of turf builder, but such is the nature of transition. After a winter of trampling upon these fluffy bran flakes (I encourage the neighborhood kids to have as many leaf fights as they want, a fine dark soil will begin to appear. It is with this medium I wish to share this next entry.

My goal is to see how quickly I can convert a pile of leaves into food production.

I wanted to expand my garden into the grassy lot in which it was located so I had 2 loads of leaves delivered by the city last Fall. This is a free service and you can call Henry Glace from the city @ 771-7221 and he will put you on the leaf list. The city is delighted to save a trip with their trucks all the way out to Azalea park with the stuff. We also benefit as a community because we save our municipality the gas and labor involved in managing these leaves throughout the year as well. If you were to buy the equivalent in bagged mulched it would be in the 1000’s of dollars. A good friend of mine, ,Andrew Goodheart, loves to tell of his neighbors who had bagged their yard waste on the side of the road to be put in the county landfill. The only redeeming part of this story was that they did recycle their bags that once contained mulch from Oregon. If you have any questions of the five fold absurdity of that please go to the comment form on this blog and I would be happy to wax poetically on this. I knew that it will take a year or two for the leaves to break down, but it meant that I didn’t have to have hand to hand combat with the turf. In the meantime, I thought, maybe I could expedite the process with a few innovations of decompositional encouragement. What I know is that leaves are extremely high in carbon and that will eventually give me much valued moisture and nutrient holding capacity in my garden soil, but to get there I needed a bunch of nitrogen. Nitrogen is hard to come by in the city. It is expensive in the form of organic bagged fertilizers or in the form of hauling manures from the outskirts of town in your truck. Neither of which I was excited about to the scale of what it would take to break down 2 truck loads of city leaves which, by the way, spread about a foot deep over and area of 30″x30″. I also want to mention that the leaves delivered by the cities trucks have been chopped up and compressed which makes them unlikely to blow into neighbor’s yard. The more the leaves are chopped the more accessible the nutrients are available to worms and microorganisms which then makes them more accessible to macro organisms like you and me. Another gardener friend of mine, Yankee Frank, has a leaf chopper which is essentially a weedeater on a garbage can. The leaves pass through and get shredded. Yankee Frank has some of the nicest soil I have ever seen and grows sweet potatoes the size of your head! Here’s an idea. What if every neighborhood chipped in to rent a good heavy duty leaf shredder instead of everyone getting their own Black and Decker piece of junk from Walmart/China. We could have our own neighborhood leaf harvesting festivals. A chance for neighbors to get together, help one another out and make their neighborhoods more beautiful. What a great community and soil builder.

The first thing I did with my leaves after spreading them out was to spread pelletized lime down. Leaves, especially oak, is very acidic to start with but will actually become a good source of calcium. Lime is considered the poor man’s fertilizer because it is so cheap and because it frees up the acids in the soil so the soil can hold onto the nutrients that plants need to thrive. You can put all the organic fertilizers on acidic soil and they will just wash away until you achieve the proper PH. You can have your PH tested by the NC extension office for FREE. They will give you a small box with instructions. I also put on all the nitrogen fertilizer I thought I could afford. The cheapest sources are bloodmeals, soybean meal, alfalfa meals… you just have to shop around. A good local source of organic bloodmeals and advice is Asheville Agricultural Systems located just south of the French Broad Food Coop on Banks street. The manager, Mike, has been very informative and has supported my community projects as well. On top of the lime and nitrogen I spread a heavy seeding of winter rye. I put down an annual rye versus a perennial rye so I could could turn it into the soil without any coming back. I did this for a green manure crop that would start breaking down the leaves and adding nutrients. I was then blessed with some good rain and a very warm January. My rye immediately germinated and turned the leaves a lush green! You could hardly see the leaves. Even the indignant Jonzes who had put up a for sale sign were impressed and took the sign back down. After our cold freezes in February the rye turned a reddish color but has since come back in delightful lush green. Call it “leaf camouflage”. Spring is here and my next course of action is to plant some veggies.

I have been gathering precious vegetable waste from various sources about town and have a nice pile of fairly well cooked compost in my bins. I don’t have enough to mix with all the leaves to any effect so I am going to open up some 3′ holes in my leaf pile and mix my compost in with the soil beneath creating, in effect, well mulched garden pots. Garden Islands from which I will plant some space loving plants like melons and skwocsh. Their roots will be nourished from the concentrated amendments, and the vines will run across the expanse of leaves and rye grass. At some point I will turn in the rye as the vines grow. I have planted potatoes as well. They seem to do well planted on top of the soil with mulch but I am skeptical about them producing much from the nutrients available just in the leaves and the soil underneath the cardboard. Perhaps if I amend the soil enough and use the leaves as just a medium to hold those nutrients there will be some productivity. (Note: since this plot will soon be turned into a house I am just leaving the potatoes as they are with no amendments. I am also rolling up the top layer of rye grass and leaves like turf and taking it over to Monica’s house to mulch her beds. I am amazed at the worm activity in the leaves. There are 1000’s of them!) As of the first week in May the potato leaves are quite green but a little leggy. I want to run some trials with variables like potatoes sandwiched in the middle of the leaves, planted on top of the ground, with amendments such as kelp, and maybe with just folliar sprays. Ultimately, with all this activity and input of materials my future garden will be that much closer to full row productivity. I’ll keep you posted.