Homegrown Evolution

The Great Greywater Debate- PVC or Polyethylene?

2009-07-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

PVC v. Polyethylene

Homegrown Neighbor here. I've been wanting a greywater system for a long time. My old house does not exactly make access to the pipes easy, so I'm starting with just the washing machine. The neighbor, Mr. Homegrown, is anxious to try out a new design from Oasis.

So we have been trying to get all the pieces and get it done- and here is where we get stuck. The system can either use polyethylene tubing or pvc. PVC is ubiquitous, cheap and toxic. Just how toxic, I don't know exactly, but I've never chewed on any pieces just to be on the safe side. PVC is toxic to manufacture as well. This makes polyethylene the more ecological approach. But it is very hard to find in the size we need for the greywater system. And you have to buy a minimum amount- about 250 feet is the smallest we have found so far. For my yard, we probably only need about 40 feet. Plus, you have to mail order it. If we go the pvc route, it would cost far less and we could buy all the pieces at the local hardware store. We also want the system to be replicable so that we can share it with others and encourage them to use greywater. Searching for the parts for the polyethylene version is confusing - pvc is easy and accessible. This is the challenge. So what do people think- should we go with pvc or polyethylene?

Mr. Homegrown here. So I just found a local source for 1-inch polyethylene: Aqua-Flo. Cost is in the neighborhood of 33¢ a foot depending on how much you get. It comes in 20 foot and 100 foot lengths. So I think we're gonna go with polyethylene. Incidentally, when I called Aqua-Flo they asked if I was going to make hula hoops.

Behold the Glassy Winged Sharpshooter (Homalodisca coagulata)

2009-07-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

I finally spotted my first glassy winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca coagulata or GWS for short) sinking its vampire like feeding tube into one of my hops vines. The GWS transmits Pierce's disease, fatal to many grape varieties including my flame seedless, a gardening frustration I blogged about last week. For your enjoyment I captured a 1/2-inch GWS specimen and scanned it. Note that the GWS was harmed in the process, for which I'm unapologetic.

While there are many varieties of native sharpshooters in California, the GWS is an interloper from the Southeast US and is much more mobile. The native varieties tend to hang out in riparian areas while the GWS enjoys jumping around backyards, citrus groves and vineyards, spreading a host of nasty plant diseases including almond leaf scorch and Citrus Variegated Chlorosis. The GWS is also responsible for spreading oleander leaf scorch. Astonishingly, 20% of home gardens in California contain oleander and 2,000 miles of highways in the state are landscaped with it. The University of California estimates that oleander leaf scorch could cause over $52 million in damage.

Dig the GWS's built-in hypodermic syringe!

The discovery of a GWS in our yard has solved a mystery that has puzzled us for years. When sitting under the grape vine covering our arbor we've often felt little droplets of water, highly unusual in a place where it never rains past April. Turns out it was sharpshooter pee. Sharpshooters feed on the xylem, the water bearing veins of plants. As the xylem contains mostly water, the sharpshooter must process large quantities of material in order to survive. Excess water is puffed out their rear ends, a fascinating thing to see close up. The constant water puffing combined with their fast side to side movements make GWS seem more like machines than insects. Perhaps we could "monetize" this blog by teaming up with Hasbro and Michael Bay to create a line of glassy winged sharpshooter toys, video games and action movies.

Barring a GWS blockbuster we can instead offer our fellow plant and insect geeks an industrial film from the University of California that delves into the GWS in pornographic detail. Nice retro voiceover talent on that video UCTV (one of Mr. Homegrown's former employers, fyi)!

If you like that video, you'll also enjoy UCTV's 90 minute Home Vineyard lecture. I'll add one point to that talk: if you've got GWS, grow muscadine or native grape varieties. Don't bother with table or wine grapes until the bright folks at UC figure out how to breed Pierce disease resistant vines.

Off the charts

2009-07-09T16:37:00.001-07:00

Homegrown Neighbor here. My chicken, Chickenzilla, is at it again, producing several mammoth double-yolked eggs in the past few weeks. The brown egg on the right is more of a normal sized egg, weighing in at extra large on this antique egg scale. Chickenzilla's egg is way beyond the measure of this scale, weighing in I'd guess at somewhere around extra, extra, extra large. Pretty good for an industrial meat chicken that isn't supposed to be a good layer, much less survive past three months of age.

The antique egg scale, by the way, hails from Orange County, California. Orange County is now known more for Disneyland and exurban, sprawling tract home developments, but it was once a great agricultural county. This scale is a relic of its golden age of orange groves and ranches. I wonder if anyone in the OC has chickens anymore?

July Linkages

2009-07-07T11:22:00.001-07:00

Mrs. Homegrown seen creating a "hyperlink" in between gardening and food preservation duties.

Over at Small Measure, author Ashley English is hosting a contest and giving away a jar of "lip-smacking Peach & Lavender Butter" to promote her upcoming series of homesteading books. Look for a new contest each month. English's "Canning & Preserving", published by Lark Books, will be available April 2010. The third and fourth books in the series, "Home Dairy" and "Beekeeping", will be available in April 2011. Hopefully we'll be having English on our new Homegrown Evolution Podcast that will debut when we can get our computer, seen above, to record audio.

A few blog posts ago we answered a question about soil testing. Visiting journalist Michael Tortorello tipped us off to the University of Minnesota's Soil Testing Laboratory that will test out of state samples for their regular (low) fee. Their submission forms are located here. Also, readers of this blog will enjoy Tortorello's articles, especially "The Return of the Root Cellar".

Community building is something we consider essential for this, as of now, no-named movement. And yet, it seems we are better at meeting online than in person. Danah Boyd has an interesting article, "Why Youth Heart Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life." (26 page pdf) about why kids flock to social networking sites. Hint: they don't have anywhere else to meet.

Lastly, nothing says DIY like prison improvised escape tools.

On the Many Frustrations of Gardening: Pierce's Disease

2009-07-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Damn Pierce's Disease!

I really wish that glossy gardening magazines would, every once in a while, devote some space to capturing some of the soul-crushing disappointments of tending plants. Can we please have a cover of Sunset Magazine featuring an aphid and slug infested cabbage? Frustrations are compounded when a beloved perennial plant you've been growing for years comes down with a fatal disease. Such was the case when my flame seedless grapevine, which was planted to cover our backyard arbor, contracted Pierce's disease, caused by an incurable bacteria (Xylella fastidiosa) spread by an insect called the sharpshooter. Pierce's was discovered in 1892 in Anaheim and is basically the reason we no longer have many vineyards in Southern California. Once a vine gets Pierce's it will die within a few years. You have to admit failure and rip it out, which I plan to do soon.

"Wood on new canes matures irregularly, producing patches of green, surrounded by mature brown bark."

To confirm that my vine had Pierce's I called Jerry Turney, plant pathologist at the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner's Office. When I described the symptoms, Turney agreed that it sounded like Pierce's. The signs of Pierce's, as described in UC's pest management guide, are:

"(1) leaves become slightly yellow or red along margins in white and red varieties, respectively, and eventually leaf margins dry or die in concentric zones; (2) fruit clusters shrivel or raisin; (3) dried leaves fall leaving the petiole (leaf stem) attached to the cane; and (4) wood on new canes matures irregularly, producing patches of green, surrounded by mature brown bark."

"Fruit clusters shrivel or raisin."

Turney described the life cycle of the sparpshooter, one of the main carriers of Pierce's, who spread the diesase by feeding off the sap of infected plants. Sharpshooters live in riparian areas and when a stream goes dry they fly off in search of irrigated plants to feed on. Sharpshooters also like to spend the winter in citrus groves which, while not susceptible to Pierce's, provide habitat. Our hot dry summers, which dry out local streams and rivers, and abundant citrus trees, make inland Southern California an especially bad place to try to grow grapes. Why nurseries continue to sell vines suseptable to Pierce's here is a mystery to me.

In the 1990s Pierce's disease wiped out 40% of the vines in Temecula's vineyards. Northern California's vineyards have experienced what Turney described as an "edge effect", with Pierce's claiming the vines on the outside of vineyards. The only way to prevent the spread of the sharpshooter is frequent application of pesticides (on both grapes and citrus), not practical for the home gardener and we're organic around the Homegrown compound anyways. In fact, one of the pesticides used to control shapshooters is Imidacloprid, implicated by many in the recent disappearance of honey bees.

Pierce disease resistant Vitus californica attacking our house.

The only hope for long term control, as Turney sees it, is by breeding hybrid grape varieties resistant to Pierce's. Turney strongly advised against trying to grow wine or table grapes in Southern California. After losing three table grape vines in ten years, I can attest to the wisdom of Turney's advice. To grow grapes in the warm southern parts of the U.S., you simply have to plant Pierce resistant varieites such as the native Vitus californica or muscadine grapes. The contrast between our flame seedless and our Vitus californica vine, in fact, is stunning. The flame is stunted and diseased, while our Vitus californica is so vigorous that I have to beat it back on a daily basis to prevent it from subsuming our house and the neighbor's.

And while we're working on resistant grapes we may need to start hybridizing citrus as well. While the strain of Pierce's that took down my grape vine is harmless to citrus, there is a variant of the bacteria that is currently ravaging the citrus of Brazil and Argentina which causes a disease called Citrus Variegated Chlorosis. It's also fatal and has the potential to spread to North America via the shipment of infected trees. With a global economy and porous borders it's bound to show up someday. Might as well get ready.

Gardening is a humbling lesson in evolutionary biology. It's all about survival of the fittest. Work with evolution by selecting for immunity to pests and disease and you'll harvest the rewards. Resistance is futile.

More info at piercesdisease.org.

If any of you readers know of a comprehensive list of resistant varieites for California please leave a link in the comments! So far I've been able to find lists for Florida and Texas.

Update 7/6/09: Reader Anduhrew sends an amazing link about a home remedy involving injecting antibiotics into an infected vine.

And here's another article on possible cures.

Taco Bell Goes Green

2009-07-03T17:08:00.000-07:00

A little holiday weekend silliness from the folks at the Onion for ya: Taco Bell's New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

2009-07-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus).

Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medicinal uses, almost too many to list. Most commonly used for respiratory problems, it also makes both green and yellow dyes and doubles as a fish poison! Tradition holds that it also wards off evil spirits,with some sources saying it's the herb Ulysses took with him to deal with the treacherous sorcerer Circe.

It's a useful, striking and beautiful plant. It's also classified as an invasive. The Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA), a consortium of ten federal government agencies and 260 mostly non-profit organizations, has Verbascum thapsus in its cross hairs. How the non-profit "cooperators", as the PCA terms the many native plant organizations in the PCA consortium, can get behind a program that suggests spraying glyphosate (e.g., Roundup®) and triclopyr (Garlon) in wilderness areas is a great mystery to me. The PCA is also pondering the release of non-native biological controls for mullein such as the mullein moth (Cucullia verbasci). So, it seems, some non-native species are o.k. while others are not? Shouldn't we be concerned about what else the mullein moth will munch on? Better, I think, to learn to get along. The non-natives are here and we ain't going to get rid of them. Let's find their uses rather than spray herbicides. We humans, after all, are notoriously invasive, a moral I'm reminded of as I read the narrative of Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca. If Monsanto marketed a Conquistador control I'm sure the Indians would have spayed an ocean of it, but they only would have created pesticide resistant super-Conquistadors.

While I'd hesitate to plant this stuff if I lived on the edge of a wilderness area, I see no problem growing it in the city. A mix of edibles, natives, ornamentals, medicinals and especially some useful "weeds" makes for a more robust garden. So in the interest of getting along:

Read more about the medicinal properties of Verbascum thapsus on Alternative Nature Online Herbal.
More on the magical properties of Verbascum thapsus at alchemy-works.com.

Chicken Coop Made From Ikea Parts

2009-06-28T08:31:00.001-07:00

Remix the following Ikea items--Mydal bunk bed, Trofast storage unit with shallow drawers, Vika Oleby legs and a Gorm bottle rack--and you get a stylish chicken coop mashup. Read more about Aaron Bell and wife Corinne's coop at Ikeahacker.

Japanese Hackberry Tree Lifts Junkyard Car (and Motorcycle)

2009-06-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

Japanese hackberry (Celtis jessoensis) can live to the ripe old age of 1,000 years. Apparently, they can also lift junkyard cars.

Via Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing

Shelter

2009-06-25T17:58:00.001-07:00

We've been huge fans of author Lloyd Khan ever since reading his seminal book Shelter. For many years Khan has traveled the world chronicling indigenous and extreme DIY architecture. He has an eye for buildings that have a sense of place and a connection with nature. Reading and viewing the photos in his books you'll pick up both practical ideas and daydream of fantastical structures at once spiritual and playful.

Like the Whole Earth Catalog, Shelter's wide ranging and inclusive topics anticipated the non-hierarchical structure of the Internet. On one page you're looking at Turkish rock houses, and on another geodesic domes built out of scrap materials. The lessons I've learned from Khan's work are the importance of context (site, cultural, weather etc.) and the joy of putting hammer to nail to build something yourself even if you don't know what the hell you are doing. Sometimes the most ramshackled comedies of architectural errors evolve into home. But Kahn's encyclopedic work also celebrates craft, with many examples of builders who gathered their knowledge through many years of experience.

I go through Shelter all the time for inspiration and was thrilled to find out that Kahn has a blog (and made a nice mention of us). Some recent posts include a 12' diameter satellite dish made into a roof and the world's most efficient school bus.

Real Estate Bubble Bananas

2009-06-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

There's a house in our neighborhood that's been for sale for over a year. Two months ago the for sale signs disappeared, junk mail littered the front porch and the mow and blow guys stopped showing up, leaving the lawn to go wild. A busted sprinkler head creates a nightly fountain as the houses' infrastructure lapses into a timer operated zombification. We knew the nice young family that used to live here and I hope that they were able to sell somehow, but it doesn't look good.

I started picking up the junk mail to make the place looked lived in. I also remembered that the backyard had both figs and bananas, and ventured beyond the gate to see how the fruit was developing (fyi, picking up fallen fruit is important to keep down the rat population). The figs aren't quite ready but the bananas, the ones the squirrels didn't get, were the tastiest damn bananas I've ever eaten. It turns out that our national real estate bubble has a fruit filled silver lining. I imagine that all across America there are abandoned fruit trees yielding their bounty for a new generation of gleaners. Thank you Angelo Mozilo for creating a literal banana republic!

Bananas are not my favorite plant for Southern California as they take a lot of water and get somewhat rangy looking when the wind rips up their leaves. But they are one of the most greywater tolerant plants and a good choice for paring with the outflow of a shower or laundry machine.

Fruit score: 10 to the squirrels 2 to the people

I'm sorry to say that I don't know what variety this banana tree is, but June is a good month to plant bananas here in Southern California. Figuring out when to harvest bananas is tricky. Some yellow and mature on the plant (like my subprime banana) and others stay green and only mature after you pick them. Gardening expert Pat Welsh in her book Southern California Organic Gardening recommends picking one banana to see if it's ready. For the pick-while-green, varieties (the majority of bananas) Welsh says,

"Pick their fruit when they've lost their sharp edges and indented sides; wait until they lose their angularity. When the fruit is still green but has become rounded, filled out, and fat looking, it's ready to pick."

Cut off the whole stalk of bananas and let them turn yellow in a cool shady place.

The past few days the Financial Times has started showing up on the driveway of this house so perhaps our neighbors were able to sell the place and the banana republic days are over. Looks like we'll have to camp out with the in-laws in Phoenix for the subprime citrus harvest this winter . . .

Fish Don't Fart

2009-06-21T08:19:00.002-07:00

Portable Farms founder Colle Davis

Earlier this week we posted about home-scaled fish farming coming to a Home Depot near you. Yesterday we came across mention of another aquaponics supplier, Portable Farms (www.portablefarms.com) that produces larger greenhouse-based cultivation/aquaponics setups ranging in size from 6' x 8' to 90' x 120'. The greenhouse seems like a good idea since, even in our warm Southern California climate, common aquaponics fish such as tilapia need heated water. Portable Farms owner Colle Davis runs a two acre farm in Escondido California and has been working on his aquaponics system for over 37 years. The tag line "Fish Don't Fart" refers to the benefits of fish over methane generating cattle.

We skipped over aquaponics in our book since we considered it too expensive and complicated for most people. But perhaps we should give it closer consideration. Aquaponics is profiled in the pioneering urban homesteading book, The Integral Urban House: Self Reliant Living in the Cityand Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew's book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guidewhich comes out of their work at Austin's Rhizome Collective. What all of these efforts have in common is a permacultural design principle of turning a waste product into a resource and closing a loop. Fish make fertilizer and plants clean water, so why not combine the two?

I'd like to hear stories from ordinary folks who have tried aquaponics on a small scale. If that's you, leave a comment!

Chickens and Compost; A Match Made in Heaven

2009-06-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Before I got the chickens last year, I was already quite passionate about, or perhaps obsessed with, composting and fruit trees.

My composting area was way at the back of the yard ( I also keep three worm bins by the house for easy kitchen access). When we were deciding to put in the chicken coop we put it adjacent to the composting area. The composting area later became a part of the chicken run. There is a tangerine tree that is next to the compost that provides shade and protection to the hens. I never could have dreamed how well the chickens would fit in with composting and fruit trees!

They love eating fruit - pomegranates, figs, peaches, even oranges. The chickens make contributions to the compost with their poop, of course, but the real fun is when you turn it. Chickens are very curious- I'd say they are much more curious than my cats, who have disappointingly little interest in compost. I have to be careful where I plunge the pitchfork into the compost pile because the bird brained Peckerella (pictured) likes to be right in the middle of things. The chickens eat the bugs, grubs, worms and assorted creepy crawlies with glee. They scratch and peck and slurp up worms like noodles. It is a delight to behold. My father, who was very skeptical about the chickens at first, now loves to come over and watch them eat bugs from the compost. It is the best television show I know of, made right here in my own back yard. With the chickens, everything really comes together into a working system. They are also a lot of work and I worry that I'm overly emotionally attached to them. But over all, I am delighted with my backyard agroecosytem.

Vertical Micro-Farming

2009-06-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

I was at Cal Poly Pomona the other day and saw this interesting display. The school has several small farm plots that demonstrate innovative or new practices, from hydroponic lettuce to intensive mini-orchards and now this strange setup. They sell the produce at the adjacent farm store. From looking at it I can tell that this setup is meant to utilize vertical space and grow vegetables in a small footprint. Water drips down from the top, irrigating multiple plants on its way down. The plants are not only stacked vertically, but radiate around the central axis, maximizing horizontal space as well. In this photo they are growing hot chili peppers. I also saw basil and sweet peppers and there were others I can't recall right now. I'm inspired to try to build one at home, since I'm always running out of space for my plants.

Farm in a Box

2009-06-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

Farm in a Box 'Little Tokyo'

I never thought I'd see "permaculture" and "Home Depot" in the same sentence, but an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (For a Green Thumb, Just Add Water) connects the dots between the two with a new product line called Farm in a Box Aquaponics from Earth Solutions.

Farm in the Box is a combined fish tank/planter box. Waste from the fish circulates into the planter box via a pump to provide fertilizer for the plants as well as removing nitrogen and ammonia from the water. From the Earth Solutions website:

"By integrating fish with vegetables, naturally balanced aquatic ecosystems are established making it unnecessary to add fertilizer, chemicals or remove nitrogen rich water.

As in nature, plants, fish and oxygen loving bacteria create a symbiotic relationship; Fish waste is converted by bacteria to a plant loving nutrient which helps maintain safe levels of ammonia without discarding waste and water.

Aqupaonics is an efficient, intensive gardening method with average of 3-6 fold greater yield per square foot. And even though water is everywhere in an aquaponic system, there is as much as 90% less water used than in-ground methods. Other advantages to aquaponics, is that it is fun, easy, most can be done anywhere, by anyone who shares a passion for locally grown food and herbs, without the challenges of in ground farming. Experiment with growing aquaponically raised fish and vegetables in your house on the patio in a greenhouse or community garden, and enjoy!"

Having never tried aquaculture I can't say if Farm in a Box is a good idea or not, but it sure is interesting to see an advanced permacultural concept ending up in the isles of a big box store. If Home Depot wants to distribute a product like this or Nike wants to use fixed gear bike "culture" to sell shoes, I'm all for it. Let's get the ideas out there. It's up to us to take the next step and actually eat the fish.

The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors

2009-06-16T16:51:00.000-07:00

We've reviewed Tamara Dean's new book The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motorsin this month's issue of Yes Magazine. As we say in the review, don't expect to be able to run your plasma screen with a bicycle (a lot of our favorite appliances take a hell of a lot more energy than pedal power can provide), but you will be able to grind grain, press apples, operate a sewing machine, and shell nuts. Dean's book tells you how to harness human power in clear step-by-step instructions.

Read our complete review here.

Read excerpts from the book on Dean's website.

Goat Tower of Power

2009-06-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for blogging about the goat tower, originated by the Fairview Wine and Cheese estate of South Africa back in 1981. Fairview puts the goat tower on their wine labels (how could you not?).

There are, apparently, several imitators worldwide with their own goat towers. Now, who will build the first L.A. version? Can we adapt Frank Gehry's Disney Hall? How about city hall?

Entropic

2009-06-11T08:44:00.000-07:00

Our friend Elon Schoenholz, the new editor of Cool Tools (the online offspring of the Whole Earth Catalog), has a lovely "irregular series" of compost breakdown photos on his blog. We're looking forward to witnessing the ongoing transformation of Elon's compost pile.

Elon also has a Etsy site where you can see his witty ficus tree photos.

Let's Democratize Permaculture

2009-06-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

When I heard that Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) has the number one country album, I fell into a dark spiral of despair. Isn't this a clear sign of the end of the American empire? But wait, won't permaculture save us from this petrochemical fueled Miley Cyrus soundtracked nightmare?

Don't hold your breath. It might be awhile before everyone's front yard is full of perennial vegetables and Merle Haggard is back on FM radio. Over at Club Orlov some controversy over permaculture has broken out in the comments. One poster, Morgan Emrich says,

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, for at least hinting that there might be a problem with the permaculture Movement in the US. The ratio of permaculture teachers/instructors, (and courses, certification programs, feel-good junkets to third world countries) to actual apple trees being planted seems woefully skewed in the wrong direction.

It's starting to feel like Amway. Everybody's selling Basic H but is anybody actually using the stuff to wash their clothes?"

I understand the frustration. I've seen, first hand, backstabbing, cliquishness and proprietary craziness in what should be a movement about joining together to make the world a better place. I've also witnessed the same skewed proportion of apple trees to thoughts about apple trees. At the same time, not a day goes by when I don't think about, learn from or apply some of the principles of permaculture as described by Mollison and Holmgren. In fact my biggest failures have come from not following permaculture's language of common sense.

Maybe it's time to put down the pen and graph paper and pick up a shovel. It's definitely the point at which we need to democratize permaculture and bring it to the mainstream. Fifteen hundred dollar permaculuture certificate courses are out of the budget and time constraints of backyard gardeners and rooftop apartment growers. Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture is a step in the right direction. We need more voices like Hemenway, who can explain the design principles of permaculture to the masses.

And let's take these principles and apply them not just to gardening, but to the ways we arrange our schools, offices, homes and public spaces. Maybe we'll get in the groove once we get past the term "permaculuture" and when its principles get reincorporated into the fabric of our lives.

Time to bust out the shovels and banjos.

The Homegrown Mailbox: How and Where Do I Get My Soil Tested?

2009-06-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

When you write a book you get questions. In our case, due to the sinking economy in California, they are delivered by Kevin Costner on horseback rather than by email or regular federal postal trucks. No problem, we like questions. A caveat here: like Nancy Klehm, the Green Roof Growers and Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, we prefer the term "practitioner" to describe what we do as opposed to "expert". We favor experience over speculatifyin' and make no claims to accuracy. But, we're happy to take the letters from Kevin, the horse poop for compost and try our best. Here's one question we get a lot:

Q: Y'all know where I can get my soil tested? I've started HUGE garden in my side yard and it just occurred to me that it is where people used to park their cars. I'm concerned about Oil or other pollutants from the cars that might still be in the soil. Any experience with this? Can I test without it costing an arm and leg?

J.R., Los Angeles

A: [Note update at bottom of this post!] There's basically two groups of things to test for: contaminants and soil nutrient levels. There are cheap home test kits, but sending samples to a lab is much more accurate. To find a lab in the US, the best place to start is with your local Cooperative Extension Service. Find yours via this link. Some offer free or low cost soil testing.

Here in Los Angeles the Extension Service does not offer testing, but they were nice enough to provide a list of local labs. The lab I talked to, Wallace Laboratories, offered tests at $75 a sample--see their price list for specifics. Before you send a sample talk to the lab to find out what they test for and how much they charge for phone consultation in interpreting the results. If you're worried about contaminants make sure to describe your situation.

Sampling is a DIY project. You put the soil in a bag and send it off to the lab (they'll tell you how to dig for the sample and how much to send). You'll probably need to do several samples since different parts of the yard might have different problems.

In the end I cheaped out and went with Peaceful Valley's soil testing service for $29.99. No contaminant testing, but the results did tell me that I'm very low in nitrogen, with a soil ph that's slightly alkaline. They charge for phone consultation, but I was able to interpret the results myself with their slightly overpriced booklet that you can order along with the test.

Another approach, especially if you live in an old house like ours, is to assume that your soil is contaminated, skip the test, and grow things in raised beds, containers or stick to ornamentals. You could also try bioremediation: each season plant a cover crop, let it grow, and then pull it up and dispose of it. Test the soil until it comes out clean. This works well, but it can take many years to get all the contaminants out.

For those of you in Los Angeles, our local Extension Service agent Yvonne Savio kindly sent me the following list of labs with comments.

Biological Urban Gardening Service
PO Box 76
Citrus Heights, CA 95611
(916) 726-5377
URL: www.organiclandscape.com
Email: bugs@organiclandscape.com
Organic recommendations, very user-friendly
Owner Steve Zien and I co-author "Organic Matters" organic gardening column in Sacramento Bee for 20 years.

Wallace Laboratories
365 Coral Circle
El Segundo, CA 90245
(310) 615-0116
www.bettersoils.com
Test results very scientific
No recommendations

Soil and Plant Laboratory, Inc.
1594 N. Main Street
Orange, CA
(714) 282-8777

FGL Environmental
853 Corporation Street
Santa Paula, CA
(805) 525-3824

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
44811 N. Date Avenue
Lancaster, CA 93534-3136
(661) 945-2604

Here's a dirt cheap (pun intended) test for soil ph that you can do yourself.

UPDATE: 7/7/09: Visiting journalist Michael Tortorello tipped us off to the University of Minnesota's soil testing lab will test out of state samples for their regular (low) fee. It's much cheaper than the services listed above. Their submission forms are located here.

Make Mag

2009-06-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog will really enjoy the current issue of Make Magazine.

"Volume 18: ReMake America! These challenging times have presented us with a rare chance to try out new ways of doing things. The opportunities for makers are terrific — we can start at home to remake manufacturing, education, food production, transportation, and recreation. In MAKE Volume 18 you'll learn how to make an automatic garden, heat your water with the sun, monitor and share your home energy usage, and more."

Here's just a few of the many exciting projects:

Chicago comrade Nancy Klehm tells you how to compost human waste.
Homegrown Evolution has an article on how to install a drip irrigation system in your vegetable garden.
Eric Muhs tells you how to collect rainwater to use for flushing your toilet (very clever!).
Celine Rich-Darley tells you how to vermicompost in your apartment.
Michael Perdriel explains how to make an off-grid laundry machine.
Limor Fried and Phillip Torrone hook up a electricity monitor to a computer to twitter their energy usage.

You'll have to buy a copy or subscribe online to see all this wonderfullness, but the magazine is well worth a subscription. Thanks to editor Mark Frauenfelder for including us and for sending a stack of back issues. I can't say enough good things about Make's high tech/low tech synthesis, DIY attitude and humor.

Least Favorite Plant: Yellow Oleander (Thevetia peruviana)

2009-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thumbing through a book of toxic and hallucinogenic plants, I finally manged to i.d. the neighbor's shrub that looms over the staircase to our front door. The popular name given for this plant in the book was "suicide tree", so named for its use in Sri Lanka, though I've found other plants with this same moniker. The scientific name is Thevetia peruviana, and it's also known as "lucky nut" (can we change that to unlucky nut please), Be Still Tree (presumably because you'll be still if you eat any of it), and yellow oleander (it's a relative of Southern California's favorite freeway landscaping flower). I was able to dig up a research study on what the authors described as an "epidemic" of yellow oleander poisoning in Sri Lanka,

"Accidental poisonings occur throughout the tropics, particularly in children. Adults have died after consuming oleander leaves in herbal teas. However, deliberate ingestion of yellow oleander seeds has recently become a popular method of self harm in northern Sri Lanka. There are thousands of cases each year, with a case fatality rate of at least 10%. Around 40% require specialised management and are transferred from secondary hospitals across the north to the Institute of Cardiology in Colombo"

Native to central and south America Thevetia peruviana made its way to Sri Lanka only recently, with the suicides starting up within the last 25 years, according to an article in Bio-Medicine. Apparently news accounts of suicides have fueled its use. The Bio-Medicine article describes a typical incident, "I remember one girl said her mother wanted her to get up and do the shopping. She said no, her mother scolded her and she took a yellow oleander seed."

A semi-popular landscaping plant, it grows without any water or care here in Los Angeles, though a hard frost would kill it. The elderly neighbor who used to live next door told me that she brought it with her from Mexico. I've seen it growing in vacant lots and by the freeway, so it seems to be able to spread on its own. So why put it on the least favorite plant list? It's neither beautiful nor useful (unless you want to kill someone or hate shopping) nor does it seem to provide habitat or forage for beneficial wildlife. Why plant something that can accidentally poison a toddler?

Thank You Chicago!

2009-06-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Some unfinished Chicago business:

Thanks again to Nancy Klehm for hosting me. If you aren't familiar with Klehm's work you can read her articles at Arthur Magazine (note especially her take on the swine flu), view some video of a foraging walk she conducted, or take one of her classes.

Also, thanks to Chicago Reader reporter Martha Bayne for writing a nice article about me. Bayne's also the force behind Soup and Bread, a pot luck which takes place during the winter at a tavern. Folks bring soup and everybody chips in a donation that benefits a Chicago food bank. It's a Depression 2.0 idea that needs to be cloned in other cities.

And, of course, thanks to the Green Roof Growers, who prove that you can grow food without a yard.

Altadena Heritage of Abundance

2009-05-29T17:05:00.000-07:00

Our backyard last week (some ugly stuff framed out of the picture!)

We'll be doing a talk tomorrow morning as part of a sustainability series in Altadena, CA. We're going to talk about self irrigating planters, chickens, bees and vegetable gardening. Here's the 411:

Saturday, May 30 from 9 to 11 a.m at the Altadena Community Center First in a series of events, workshops, and home tours on sustainable living. Reserve your place at this free series kickoff event for members ($5 non-members). More info here.

To RSVP, please leave your name, email or phone contact, number of reservations, and event name at Altadenaheritage@earthlink.net.

Lights Made from Soda Bottles

2009-05-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Via Make Blog, a clever homebrew solar light made from soda bottles.

I'm a bit skeptical about how you could make these watertight, but for an outbuilding or patio roof they might make for a nice low cost alternative to solar tubes or skylights.