The Importance of Trees

This is a gentle, touching and inspiring movie called "The Man Who Planted Trees", and I encourage you to fix a cup of herbal tea (or a glass of wine), and make the time to and sit back and enjoy watching it. The video is beautifully drawn in what appears to be hand drawn pastel charcoals; it is narrated by Christopher Plummer. Written by Jean Giono, this popular story of inspiration and hope was originally published in 1954 in Vogue as "The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness."

The Man Who Planted Trees tells the story of Elzeard Bouffier, a man who, after his son and wife die, spends his life reforesting miles of barren land in southern France. He patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, single-handedly transforming his arid surroundings into a thriving oasis. Undeterred by two World Wars, and without any thought of personal reward, the shepherd tirelessly sows his seeds and acorns with the greatest care. As if by magic, a landscape that seemed condemned grows green again. A film of great beauty and hope, this story is a remarkable parable for all ages and an inspiring testament to the power of one person.

There's an interesting story about the importance of trees in our world, "Why Trees Matter" published in the New York Times.

Excerpt:

 

"What we do know... suggests that what trees do is essential though often not obvious. Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. In a campaign called Forests Are Lovers of the Sea, fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to bring back fish and oyster stocks. And they have returned.

Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution. A 2008 study by researchers at Columbia University found that more trees in urban neighborhoods correlate with a lower incidence of asthma.

Trees also release vast clouds of beneficial chemicals. On a large scale, some of these aerosols appear to help regulate the climate; others are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. We need to learn much more about the role these chemicals play in nature. One of these substances, taxane, from the Pacific yew tree, has become a powerful treatment for breast and other cancers. Aspirin’s active ingredient comes from willows.

Trees are greatly underutilized as an eco-technology. “Working trees” could absorb some of the excess phosphorus and nitrogen that run off farm fields and help heal the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In Africa, millions of acres of parched land have been reclaimed through strategic tree growth.

Trees are also the planet’s heat shield. They keep the concrete and asphalt of cities and suburbs 10 or more degrees cooler and protect our skin from the sun’s harsh UV rays. The Texas Department of Forestry has estimated that the die-off of shade trees will cost Texans hundreds of millions of dollars more for air-conditioning. Trees, of course, sequester carbon, a greenhouse gas that makes the planet warmer. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science also found that water vapor from forests lowers ambient temperatures."

I'm planting trees this year, are you?

My Passive Solar Nautilus House

It has been a struggle for me to post the pictures of the floor plan and the model I'm constructing of my Nautilus House. Generally, anytime I (or anyone) mention something different than the accepted mainstream beliefs, we end up being ridiculed and thought totally weird. The concept for this house came to me from Spirit, in a meditation about 10 years ago.

The shape of this house is based ion a Fibonacci Spiral, or Phi:The Golden Number/Golden Mean/Golden Ratio.

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Putting that aside, there are still many, many questions still to answer in fine-tuning in the plans for this house. The changing pitch of the roof in each section will be a real challenge to build. The "public space" of kitchen, dining and living room are planned to be one large open space, with probably a kitchen counter/bar as a visual separation. Then there are the things not definable, like the energy contained within the Fibonacci spiral shape.

There are a number of things I see built into this house. First off, it is basically Passive Solar, with the long exterior window-wall of the living room facing south. I envision radiant hot water pipes in a well-insulated concrete slab floor, now that hot water heat with long flexible lengths of piping to prevent leaks at junctions is possible, and affordable.

Some sustainable considerations include: a greywater system, composting toilet, earth cooling tubes, rocket mass heater, solar chimney, solar heated water, possible passive solar greenhouse attached, sustainable forestry adjacent to the site, and a sheet-mulched, no-dig permaculture / edible food forest garden.

I envision this as a long term project that includes other eco-buildings, food forest gardens, aquaculture ponds, coppicing and possible timber production depending on the site, a classroom for courses and workshops, orchard, cider making facility, wild food, wildlife refuge and maybe even part a future small sustainable community.

This house is only 1 bedroom, with slightly under 900 square feet of living space, but could be built to include one more turn of the "nautilus shell" so there are 2 bedrooms. Alternatively, there could be a loft bedroom above the private spaces (laundry/pantry, bath, and bedroom) without increasing the footprint. I didn't even consider a 2 bedroom mock-up since there is so much interest today in smaller houses, rather than McMansions.

I looked into several different types of exterior construction... from straw-bale, earthbag, and cob to a cast-in-place sculptural form like Flying Concrete. In the end I decided the transition to a passive solar non-conventional shape would be more readily accepted by using conventional stick-building techniques. The large vaulted, open (public) space with exposed wood beams supporting a wood tongue and groove ceiling would be striking, with a strong feel of "mountain getaway cabin".

I am hoping to interest some university (or perhaps private) schools with sustainable and/or alternative energy departments into considering this house as a hands-on teaching project.

Cover Crop and Fixing Nitrogen

After reading some of the books and papers on Biodynamic Agriculture, this year I am planting a leguminous cover crop of Australian Winter Peas, Psium arvense, in the current vegetable garden areas.

Usually I have the fall/winter garden area fully planted in mid-October for next year's garlic and shallots, and then I mulch in late fall after they have sent out a few leaves. This year I plan a much smaller amount of garlic and shallots, so the remaining area will get the peas to fix nitrogen. (I have a fence line where I grew spring peas 2 years ago, and I noticed an increase in healthy production there last year, which I attribute to the nitrogen-fixing abilities of the earlier peas.)

I have also been researching temperate climate perennial shrubs and trees that fix nitrogen. Most of the trees that fix nitrogen are tropical, but there actually are a few temperate zone trees I've come across that fix nitrogen. Fortunately the shrub list is longer! It will be a lengthy process of time and money to get some of each planted over the next several years, but it's do-able.

After seeing the success with inter-planting vegetables in the flower beds this year, I'm definitely moving away from "rows" or "plots" of annual vegetables and into mixed bed areas that combine perennials like herbs, bulbs, flowers and fruit/nut trees/bushes with my annual vegetables.

I did notice that as productive as the veggies in the flower beds were, the Brix (nutrient density) in the tomatoes was below par. I don't think I have amended the flower beds since I first built them 4 years ago although the flowers have been lush, but clearly the soil is deficient in some minerals or at least mineral balance. Planting some nitrogen fixers (maybe peas next year?) in those beds will help the soil fertility in general, and I'll add some minerals before this winter sets in, and some organic fertilizer (5-4-3).

The bigger challenge is to move my mindset away from "only vegetables" in a specific area, and get my mindset onto areas that are mixed with a variety of perennial and annual plants that support each other in many ways. With some careful planning over the winter, I hope to get started next spring with mixing up my vegetable and flower garden areas. It will take several years to fruition I'm sure, although no garden area is ever static.

I just got the book Gaia's Garden yesterday via inter-library loan, and it will help point me in the right direction(s), esp. when mixed with my own research. The library book is the original edition but I do have the newer 2nd edition on my Wish List. From just the few pages I read last night, it is well worth the money!

Apple Guild Update 1

Photo taken 6/4/11

Photo taken 7/23/11

In June I posted about starting an apple guild here. Now that it's already August, there are already noticeable improvements to the area, but there are still years needed to grow to maturity and sustainability.

Some of my friends were kind enough to give me a few herb plants for the apple guild project while I was attending a garden swap in June: lemon mint, peppermint (I already had spearmint), bee balm, chives and garlic chives, marjoram, oregano and 2 annual basil plants (a spicy globe basil, and a purple basil). I bought thyme and dill starts for the guild, and also transplanted some anise hyssop, yarrow and lemon balm from another garden bed.

All the herbs will attract pollinators, and some are also nutrient accumulators (yarrow, chives, lemon balm).

6/4/11

So far I have dug up the weeds in a small area about 6' x 10' on 1 side of the apple tree (it's hard work even without record heat), and planted 2 teepees with haricot verts (French skinny green beans) to fix some nitrogen in there. Since the apple is still small, I put a couple of tomato plants and the basil at the edge of the current drip line where they will not rob nutrients from the apple roots. 

I wish I knew how large the apple will eventually grow, but I've lost contact with the man who gave it to me. I may have to enlarge the outer ring of bulb protectors (hopefully to be planted this fall) as the tree matures since they should be planted at the (currently unknown) mature drip line.

About 6 feet into the weeds to the right of the apple are 3 rhubarb plants, which will stay. Behind the bean teepees are 4 currant bushes (2 black and 2 red); they will also stay.  They look pretty pitiful (struggling) after 4 years here.

I started some annual nasturtiums to help attract pollinators (both dwarf bush type and vining) plus some flowering sweet peas to put in there somewhere, too. The sweet peas grew about 4" and then died; I think it was too warm, and too late in the season for them. The nasturtiums are struggling, but I think it's just the heat.

A long bed against the front of my house had some strawberries lost in the jungle and struggling for light. I dug them out, cut them back, and put them in a tray of potting soil mixed with sand to sprout. They will go around the apple tree as a shallow-rooted edible ground cover.

Photo July 23

Here are the strawberries (at least the few that survived) around the base of the tree, photo taken July 23. They have rooted nicely, and will spread. Herbs to the right and left of the tree trunk have grown considerably from the transplant stage and I have harvested some already. The purple (left) is an annual basil with a small spicy globe basil in front of it, the plant on the right is the perennial anise hyssop.

Growing More Lush, photo taken 8/17/11

There is much work to be done building this guild over the next couple of years, but I am quite pleased with the progress so far. Hopefully by this fall I will get a few comfrey plants transplanted around the guild. I have put lots of cut comfrey leaves on the ground as a mulch in there... they disappear into the clay quickly!

I was tardy in getting a second planting of green beans mixed in among the first round, but they still have time to fruit before frost. Even if they don't produce many beans, they will add some nitrogen to the soil.

This entire planting area was just lawn grass that I covered with weed cloth and mulch about 4 years ago. Each year I added more mulch and it has broken down, so that when I finally (and laboriously) removed the underlying weed cloth this year I had some 'almost soil' to leave on top.

Unfortunately the area under the cloth is still hard packed clay, but if I allow the deep rooted dandelions to grow in there next year (and maybe plant daikon?) which bring up deep minerals from the subsoil... and add mulch, eventually it will attract worms that churn and break up some of the clay. I'll also add some greensand this fall as it helps break up the clay plus it will add micronutrients to help remineralization.

I have a huge pile of aged willow chips (almost inaccessible) down in the gulch near the spring house, left from last year's tree work... and if I can ever get some help, I'll mulch the guild area heavily this fall. The other woodchip pile the tree guys left near the street is more easily accessible, but it contains a lot of black walnut which would kill most things in the guild.

This is one of my more interesting projects in this garden, and one that will take the longest time. Others have been straw bale gardening, and this year's random vegetable planting.

My First Nut "Crop"!

Four summers ago I planted a variety of fruiting bushes... and one nut bush, which was ordered as an Allegheny Chinquapin. It was a foot-long bare-root stick when it arrived, and this year it seems to be producing about a dozen nuts... which greatly pleases me, but they are NOT chinquapins!

In working towards sustainability, I wanted some small nut bushes to provide a source of minerals (including calcium), protein, carbohydrates, vitamins B1, B2, B3, amino acids, and some excellent unmodified fuel (fats). Almonds perhaps might have been my first choice, but they will not grow here.

Most people think of chinquapins either as the towering oak Quercus muhlenbergii whose leaves resemble those of the chinquapin, or the small Georgiana chinquapin (Castanea alnifolia), which is more of a creeping 4-foot tall shrub that grows in zones 8 to 10, but we seldom think of a medium-size nut bush like my "woulda-been" Allegheny chinquapin (Castanea pumila), which is basically a shrub or dwarf tree growing 12 to 15 feet tall in zones 3 to 9, and is a diminutive cousin of the American chestnut (Castanea dentata).

About MY nut bush

After carefully examining the shape of the nuts at this stage, my bush is a definitely a filbert. Of course, I have no idea which filbert it might be, since it's merely what Forest Farm sent me as the chinquapin I ordered 4 years ago. The shipping list and the invoice both indicate a chinquapin... but clearly it is not, although the leaves are somewhat similar.

I'm not totally disappointed as I also like filberts. However, it's the not knowing what I really have, how tall it will get, yada, yada...

Hard to see the nuts, but they ARE there

My next big project will be to build a Nut Guild around this bush and hope I can guess close to the mature size. Meanwhile I need to research what needs to be planted in a nut guild. I may even try to plant some of the mature nuts (assuming they mature!) this year to see if I can grow another nut tree.

New project: an apple guild!

I have a new project, a really BIG project: building an apple guild!

3 years ago someone gave me an apple seedling (unknown variety) from his grandfather's old tree. It is now about 5 feet tall. I've been reading up on "guilds" since watching the A Farm for the Future videos and reading about the forest farming concepts.

To me, a guild is like companion planting that has advanced to college level. Generally, guilds are perennial with a fruit or nut tree at the center, and collectively everything around it provides for the needs of all the things planted in the group, in as many ways as possible so it becomes self-sustaining. Each "guild" needs 5 things: Nitrogen, Nutrients, Mulch, Pollination, and Protectors from competition and pests. 

There are other guilds possible, too. I found Bee Guilds (perennial), and annual Bean Guilds, Strawberry Guilds and Tomato Guilds on the internet. The annual guilds are basically heavy companion planting rather than concentrating on a self-sustaining circle of plants and trees.

So for my apple guild, I'll need a thick ring of "protectors"  just barely outside the eventual drip line to keep grass from encroaching and also deter pests; those will probably be daffodil bulbs in the beginning since mine need dividing. I don't have enough for the entire perimeter and will hopefully buy more bulbs in the fall.


Inside the 'protector ring' will be another ring spotted with a few comfrey plants and maybe a couple of artichokes just inside the daffs; they will mine nutrients with their deep roots, plus provide nutrient-laden mulch by cutting the comfrey back several times over the summer and letting the leaves litter the ground. Planted among (as well as just inside) the comfrey will be some bird and insect-attractors like dill, fennel and bee balm (monarda).... and some nutrient accumulators like yarrow, borage, chives and lemon balm. Also interspersed will be some annual vegetable plants like beans, peas and squash.

Next in and closer to the tree will be some ground covers like strawberries and red clover (a nitrogen fixer), and maybe some plants that can take a bit of foot traffic, like thyme. Right close to the trunk will be more "protector" bulbs to deter pests that might gnaw the trunk, or climb for fruit. (The shallow roots of ground covers and bulbs will not interfere with the root system of the apple tree.)

Apple tree I have to build a guild around. As you can see, lots of hard work to do!

I will have a post with photos of how it's changing in a few days. It will be a 'work in progress' for several years to get it all established, and as I add more fruit and nut trees to the yard, I plan to make them all into guilds as well.

Two good books on the subject:
Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture