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12 Activities for the Temperate Homestead
12 AUTUMN ACTIVITIES FOR THE TEMPERATE HOMESTEAD
For those who have followed my articles over the years, you might be aware of two things: A recent relocation and the fact that, in fact, I do not yet have a homestead of my own. My wife Emma and I spent quite nearly over two years in search of a piece of land in Central America, and in the end, we watched a couple of deals fall apart and, similarly, our hopes for living tropically dissipate. We now find ourselves in North Carolina, near Asheville, which is an exciting center of sustainable, small-scale food production and localized lifestyle choices. Due to this climate change, we have been reacquainting ourselves with how life may work when we do—fingers crossed—finally procure a small plot upon which to grow.
By and large, we’ve taken the new design approaches in stride. We have appreciated the idea of growing berries, apples, and American pawpaws instead of bananas, pineapples, and papayas. We have daydreamed about a snugly cob cabin as opposed to a breezy thatched hut, a kitchen meant to warm the house rather than one that needs to be outside. We’ve become foragers, enjoying mushrooms and wild edibles, something we were never able to do in Central America (though, undoubtedly, it does exist). Mostly though, we have been learning to let go off the ever-productive temperatures of the wet-dry tropics for the four-season temperate climate.
Having learned and practiced permaculture in the tropics, this changing of seasons has been a drastic shift for us. It’s easy to find new productive perennial plants, interesting to work through different housing challenges, and even exciting to think of a time when things go dormant (There is no rest to be had in tropical gardens!), but that part of the year when things don’t grow provides an adaptive mindset.
Global Climate Change & Its Link to Soil Organisms
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE & ITS LINK TO SOIL ORGANISMS
When people think of the consequences of global warming, most jump to the melting ice caps and death of beloved polar bears. We know that as our Earth undergoes climate change, it’s adversely affecting the ecological balance in complex ways. For the first time, however, a study done at the University of California Berkley, has linked climate change to the downfall of microbial species that are considered essential to ecological systems. Previous studies have identified the use of chemicals as harmful for soil organisms, insects, and birds, but never has climate change been pinpointed as a threat to these species.
The study states that “models predict that up to 30% of parasitic worms are committed to extinction, driven by a combination of direct and indirect pressures.” With this, species that are adapting to the climate change will allow them to “invade and replace” native organisms resulting in unpredictable, but most likely negative consequences.
Dr. Colin Carlson is the lead author of the study and estimates that we will see a huge extinction rate within the soil organisms as time and climate change continues. He blames this effect on the loss of habitat and the implications of trying to coexist. The end result of this could be detrimental to the human species, requiring lively soil to live.
Carlson explains that the effect of climate change on soil organisms has gone unnoticed for so long because our research focuses on the impact of the change on animals like vertebrates. Most people see microbial organisms as pests, rather than a crucial part of the ecological system. Since the modernization of agriculture, we have seen soil as a medium for holding plants, as Jenny Hopkins, author of “Can American Soil Be Brought Back To Life”, likes to put it.
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The Need to Limit Energy Use
THE NEED TO LIMIT ENERGY USE
ENERGY: AN ADDICTION OR A NECESSITY?
Energy is arguably the most defining aspect of industrial civilization. For the first couple hundred thousand years of human existence, our ability to affect the world around us was limited by the amount of energy the human body can produce. It is estimated that, on average, a fit laborer can produce about 75 Watts of energy over an eight hour period. To those of us not familiar with energy terms, let it suffice to say that´s not very much energy, at least compared to modern day usage.
Though the elites of past civilizations were able to harness vast amounts of human energy (usually through slavery) in order to build astounding civilizations (think of the Roman aqueducts and the Egyptian pyramids), the majority of our ancestors lived lives that were constrained by the limits imposed by the places and conditions where they lived. They simply didn´t have enough human energy to drastically change the world.
Many scientists who study the history of evolution consider that it was only a matter of time before our species was to make the leap into the world-altering people that we´ve become. A self-conscious brain capable of understanding the world around us coupled with a rotatable thumb that allowed us to modify our surroundings was a combination that undoubtedly was to lead us into the modern civilization that defines us.
When our ancestors first discovered how to harness the power of the steam engine in the early 1800´s something changed in our world. For the first time ever, we were able to harness a power dozens of times greater than what we could produce from our own bodies or from the domestication of horses and other draft animals.
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Soil Erosion and Its Monetary Cost
SOIL EROSION AND ITS MONETARY COST
The modernized food industry has pushed farming practices to the back burner in the eyes of consumers. Still, the majority of our food comes from the land. That being said, the issue of soil erosion isn’t making front pages, but amongst those that lobby around organic farming and environmental health issues have identified the degradation as increasingly problematic. In order to help the problem, activists are looking for help from the government and policy regulators to aid in the protection of farmland. However, most feel that the topic is tired out amongst those that should care the most, and because of that the urgency to gain awareness is crucial.
Soil erosion is a naturally occurring process that can affect all types of landforms. In agriculture specifically, the topsoil is worn away by water, wind, or human practices like tilling. The process of soil erosion includes detachment, movement, and deposition. The topsoil, which is the most nutrient part of the soil, removes itself and eventually is carried off-site. The process reduces the productivity of the soil and can actually hurt surrounding ecosystems as well.
Dr. David Lobb of the University of Manitoba recently completed a study to show that $3.1 billion worth of crop capacity has been lost due to soil erosion. Lobb identified practices like tilling, mouldboard plowing, chisel plows, and hoe drills to be some of the leading factors in soil degradation, as well as easily preventable ones. Lobb focuses his research within the Canadian borders and has identified that the adoption of no-till farming has significantly reduced the soil erosion due to wind in Western Canada, but in Eastern Canada, the fight against till-farming continues. Ontario’s rates for no-till farming is declining due to how hard it is to keep up with farms that use some tillage.
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The Importance of Guilds and Nitrogen Fixers
THE IMPORTANCE OF GUILDS AND NITROGEN FIXERS
How is it that the natural world provides excessive abundance while not relying on any external sources of nutrients? Nature produces her own fertility needs, firstly through accumulating organic matter on the soil surface which protects the soil, adds to the layer of humus, and stimulates the biological activity of the soil. The natural world, however, also takes advantage of the abundance of nitrogen in the air to supply plants with one of the most important nutrients they need. Our air is made up of almost 70% nitrogen, and almost all plants need major amounts of nitrogen for healthy growth. Nature, then, was left with the question of how to take the nitrogen from the air and deposit it in the soil where plants could use it.
Nitrogen fixing plants have the ability to absorb the nitrogen in the air through their leaves and “fix” the nitrogen in the soil through nodules that grow on their roots. Leguminous plants such as beans and peas do this as well as many other different types of trees, bushes, and shrubs. If you have ever pulled up a bean plant by accident when weeding your garden, you may have noticed many small white nodules sticking to the roots of that plant. Those nodules are pure nitrogen and are contributing to the growth of the plant and to the overall soil health. When that bean plant dies, the nitrogen in the nodules stays in the soil. With nitrogen-fixing trees and bushes, pruning the branches causes the tree to “shed” some of its root systems. The nitrogen nodules “fixed” onto those roots are then released into the surrounding soil for other plants to take advantage of.
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Manure: An Overview of This Shi…ning Addition to the Garden
MANURE: AN OVERVIEW OF THIS SHI…NING ADDITION TO THE GARDEN
Organic gardens really benefit from manure, and that is no mystery. However, it’s important to be aware of what kind of manure is at your disposal because they are not all equally desirable. Some manures, dare we say, are choice garden additions, while others take a lot of coaxing, a slow and patient cook, from composting gurus. Chicken manure is vastly different from cow manure, which is largely different dog manure.
Understanding some of the subtleties of manure, even in the most basic of ways, can make a huge difference to how, when, and for what you are using a particular pile. For those of us who aren’t connoisseurs of manures, it’s important to get a grasp of which ones we’d most like to get our hands on (or in) and which ones aren’t necessarily best suited for growing our food but could be useful elsewhere. So, with no further puns, let us dive head first into the wonderful world of animal excrement.
MANURE IS MAGNIFICENT
Firstly, it seems useful to know why it is that manure is such a valuable commodity. In the garden, it does two things very well: amends the soil and fertilizes the plants. Dry, well-rotted manure is great for retaining water and very useful in sandy soils, whereas the same thing goes along way in lightening up dense clay soils. In either case, fast-draining or compacted soils, manure helps reduce runoff and nutrient leaching. As far as fertilizing, manure carries a good punch of nitrogen (The type of manure changes the levels) and other nutrients, both of which release it slowly (Again, the speed changes via type) to the plants. It’s also full of microbes, which up the amount of soil life, thus fertility, in the garden.
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The Perks of Raising Chickens
THE PERKS OF RAISING CHICKENS
For many people who have grown interested in gaining a certain sense of autonomy through taking responsibility for growing a part of their own food, a simple backyard garden or even a container garden on your window will is considered a good place to start. Making the leap from growing tomatoes and peppers to raising a small flock of chickens, however, is a step that not everyone is ready to take.
For some reason, raising chickens (or other small farm animals) is considered to be something that farmers do, even though almost all of our grandparents kept a small flock wandering around the house, no matter where they lived. Whether you live on a 100-acre farm on in a crowded suburban neighborhood, raising chickens brings a number of important benefits.
Chickens should belong on every farm, every backyard, and every urban rooftop. Instead of caging chickens in pestilent CAFO housing where they´re pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics if every family would keep just a couple chickens, they would receive more than enough eggs and meat every year.
Chickens are a descendant of a jungle fowl that humans domesticated thousands of years ago. They are omnivores and traditionally survived by scratching the soil in search of insects, seeds, and other small animals. They also feed on the leaves and roots of certain plants. Chickens, when given the right conditions, can feed themselves on the land where they live.
While commercial chicken feed is made from grain that farmers dedicate millions of acres to growing, if every suburban family simply fenced in their backyards, they could raise a large flock of chicken without any sort of outside inputs. The current “organic” movement specializes in free-range chickens meaning chickens that instead of being caged are allowed to freely roam to gather a lot of their own nutrients.
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A Primer on Creating Soil
A PRIMER ON CREATING SOIL
Good agriculture depends on good soil. The problem over the past 10,000 years of our human attempt to live off the land (and especially during the last sixty years or so), is that crops take nutrients from the soil, and without proper husbandry, soil fertility will deplete. The “pseudo-solution” offered by the Green Revolution has been to import petroleum-based fertilizers to make up for our lack of stewardship of the soil´s fertility, though the negative effects and rampant unsustainability of that approach are well known.
Every agrarian culture around the world has developed their own systems for trying to maintain the balance between our human need for food and the soil´s need to be replenished. From “night soil” being applied to rice fields in China, to leaving large patches of land fallow to naturally recuperate, to actively incorporating animal manures, agrarian people have known that their livelihoods depend on the continued fertility of the land.
What follows are a few simple suggestions on how all of us can participate in the ongoing work of creating the fertile soil upon which all of our lives depend.
THE COMPOST PILE
The compost pile is a necessary part of every homestead and every garden. It is by far the easiest way to recycle kitchen scraps, grass clippings, leaf litter, and even your dog´s poop into rich, fertile soil that will add fertility and fecundity to every garden bed. Making compost is simply the process of providing the necessary conditions so that the millions of microscopic organisms can feast on your leftovers. Like lasagna gardening, it is basically the process of stacking up in layers a variety of different organic materials to allow them to decompose.
While there is no “recipe” for making compost, here are some general guidelines:
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How Do You Use Urine?
HOW DO YOU USE URINE?
Composting toilets are a great thing. They take what has become a problem in modern systems—human excrement—and make it into something useful: rich compost. Despite simple and effective ways of making composting toilets, humanure does still bring about some controversy with those who are worried about pathogens. Confident composters won’t hesitate to put a well-rotted humanure compost in vegetable gardens, whereas less trusting composters opt for applying it to fruit trees. The important thing about either type of composter, however, is that we start making the most of cycling the waste rather than contaminating our water sources.
With all of that said, urine is a completely different excretion, one that really doesn’t need to set off the same alarm bells. Most basic composting toilets are anti-urine, concerned about the high moisture levels, though some argue this needn’t be the case, that the moisture is actually good for the thunderbox. Nevertheless, the idea remains that urine is something else we should be thinking about. Unlike solid waste, urine applied to gardens doesn’t come with the risk of pathogens; rather, it is just, some would say, pure gold. In fact, it can be used in many different ways for boosting production.
MAKE WEE FOR THE GARDEN?
Urine is very high in nitrogen, so much so that it should be diluted a minimum ratio of 1:10 with water before being used on plants. The wee of one person is said to be rich enough to fertilize a tenth of an acre of vegetable garden for the year. Once diluted the micturition mixture, or tinkle tincture if you like, should be applied within twenty-four hours of the urine being expelled. Older urine can become a bacterial issue, and a smelly one at that.
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Traces of Pesticides Discovered in 75 Per Cent of the World’s Honey
TRACES OF PESTICIDES DISCOVERED IN 75 PER CENT OF THE WORLD’S HONEY
Residue from potentially harmful pesticides has been discovered in 75 per cent of honey sampled from around the world, according to a study conducted by Swiss scientists that was published in the journal Science in October 2017.
The researchers sampled 198 different honeys sourced from every continent, excluding Antarctica, testing for the presence of five unique neonicotinoid pesticides that are frequently applied to crops. These insecticides are so efficient that by 2008, they accounted for one quarter of the global insecticide market – and that rate continues to increase.
According to the study, these neonicotinoids are absorbed by plants and transported to all organs – including flowers, resulting in contaminated pollen. Increasing evidence suggests that large-scale use may lead to significant environmental impacts, leading scientists to start investigating the chemical’s impact on landscapes around the world.
“Despite increasing research efforts to understand the patterns of neonicotinoid uses and their effects on living organisms, we lack a global view of the worldwide distribution of neonicotinoid contamination in the environment to evaluate the risk,” the study states.
To help determine the potential risk of current contamination levels, citizen scientists from around the world sent individual samples of locally produced honey to the researchers’ laboratory in Switzerland. According to the study, the residue level of pesticides found in honey provides a measure of possible contamination in the surrounding landscape.
“Many of our samples were from very remote regions,” said Professor Edward Mitchell with the University of Neuchatel in Switzerland, who co-authored the study. “We also aimed to (include) isolated oceanic islands, and places in central parts of continents far away from industrial areas.”
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Outstanding Onions
OUTSTANDING ONIONS
Onions (Allium cepa L.), being the most extensively cultivated species of the Allium genus, are a root crop that nearly everyone has heard about, seen, or eaten. However, don’t let their perceived commonness lull you into thinking they’re uninteresting. Onions are quite a fascinating garden vegetable that has some remarkable characteristics.
ONIONS OF OLDEN TIMES
It’s thought that for well over 7,000 years the onion has been consumed or used medicinally by humans. While the first onions used were from wild sources, the cultivation of onions is thought to have started around 5,000 years ago. There’s debate on where the onion originated, some believing it first came from central Asia, while others believe it was from Iran and West Pakistan. Although the origin of the onion is debatable, the onion is known to have been used by many ancient cultures such as the Sumerians, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. These cultures believed the onion had magical qualities that could be used in the afterlife, as well as healing properties to be used to treat ailments such as digestive issues, sleeplessness, poor vision, general aches and pains, and to enhance and fortify their overall health.
As the middle ages rolled around, Europeans, both rich and poor, were consuming large amounts of these vegetables. They too used them for medicinal reasons, such as to soothe and cure headaches and snakebites. Onions were even thought to have been used as gifts and payments in some areas. As the Europeans ventured to the Americas in the 17th century, they brought with them the onion. However, they found the Native Americans were already making use of the wild onions that grew there.
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The New Surburbanism
THE NEW SUBURBANISM
Many people in industrial societies live in the suburbs which are really neither city nor country living. Many people have openly criticized the suburban way of life as the apex of consumer lifestyle highly dependent on fossil fuel input. Suburban life is a sort of pseudo-rural life where affluent middle and upper-class people purchase land “in the country” in order to enjoy the tranquility of being close to nature and having less population density surrounding them.
However, this proximity to nature is superficial and superfluous since the majority of suburban people have little direct contact with the land on which they live. They are, in essence, people who make their living in the city and who have an urban mentality but who have the affluence that permits them to commute from a very human-controlled rural area to the urban areas that sustain them monetarily.
Besides the enormous amount of fossil fuels used simply in commuting back and forth, another hallmark of wastefulness that characterizes suburban neighborhoods is the lawn. Those vast expanses of pesticide-filled green monocultures that surround every house actually began in Victorian England. Lawns were a way for the rich to show the rest of their neighbors that they had enough land that they could afford to leave large parts of their holdings follow and not grow anything productive.
What began as an arrogant display of wealth has grown into an essential part of almost every suburban home. When considered from a distance, lawns are the quintessential display of the insanity of our current civilization. The typical suburban family in any industrialized nation probably has between 1-2 acres of land that they dedicate several hours to each week mowing, fertilizing and spreading chemicals in order to maintain the “weeds” at bay.
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Questioning the Growth Economy
QUESTIONING THE GROWTH ECONOMY
If you have ever driven through rural Kentucky or Ohio or Pennsylvania, chances are you have run across a horse drawn carriage with a group of people who appear to have emerged from the 1700´s. Many Amish and Mennonite communities still ardently and stubbornly maintain a pre-technological and pre-industrial lifestyle despite being surrounded by consumer capitalist civilization.
For many observers, these simple, hardworking farm communities are like a living antique; a surviving relic from bygone eras. Instead of seeing them as important sources of knowledge or bearers of much-needed skills that will be necessary for the construction of a more sustainable society, we see them as nothing more than as a unique field trip for elementary school kids or a place to buy strawberries come spring time.
For many people, though the Amish or Mennonite communities may be interesting, the idea of returning to a pre-industrial lifestyle is considered heresy. We may admire their sense of community and strong ties to land and place, but we can´t imagine living without our cars and smart phones.
The Hutterites are an ethnoreligious group that takes their anti-technology view to an extreme. There over 40,000 Hutterites living in colonies in Canada and the northern United States. Based on their somewhat radical religious theology, the Hutterites believe that all technological progress (from the 1800´s onwards) is a form of sin that goes against the Creator´s plan for the world. Subsequently, they sun any sort of technological advancement and live lives of simplicity.
Appropriate technology does not advocate for a return to pre-industrial lifestyles. While we do affirm that Mennonite and Amish colonies have much wisdom and knowledge and live a much more sustainable and healthy lifestyle than us modern folk, we also feel that technology can offer important instruments to help us in the task of constructing resilient and sustainable livelihoods.
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What Defines Appropriate Technology?
WHAT DEFINES APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY?
OUR CURRENT ADDICTION TO TECHNOLOGY
If there is one defining aspect of our modern civilization it´s that we are a technological species. Compared to other organisms with whom we share this planet, we Homo sapiens aren´t exactly well adapted to long term survival. We have no coat of fur to keep us warm, we don´t have sharp teeth or claws to hunt with, and we´re extremely vulnerable to the elements around us at all times.
In fact, we kind of resemble in some ways a mishap of evolution; an unfortunate paint spill that sticks out on an otherwise beautifully painted canvas. If it weren´t for our ability to shape and alter our surroundings through technology we would have most likely long ago passed into the annals of history along with the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon.
The lion has its deftness and sharp claws, the monarch butterfly has its mesmerizing and threatening wing patterns, and us humans have nothing but a decently sized brain and the gift of self-conscious which has allowed us to reshape our surroundings through the use of technology. That which is our defining characteristic, however, has also been one of the main causes of the crises we now face.
HOW TO DEFINE WHAT IS APPROPRIATE FOR A PLACE
There are no universally appropriate technologies because we live in a diverse world where different contexts affect the “appropriateness” of each place. Agrarian author Wes Jackson states that nature must be our measure of what is right and correct for each place. We would add that the realities of the community where we live should also be an important factor regarding how we are to live in our places.
The fourth permaculture principle is “apply self-regulation and accept feedback.” Several of our current technologies are simply too large and too powerful to allow us to receive feedback.
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The Cost of Food Insecurity
THE COST OF FOOD INSECURITY
In many developing countries, undernutrition is a recognized – and well documented – crisis. However, with increasing urbanization, another health concern is beginning to emerge as people choose to consume foods of convenience rather than exert the effort it takes to grow their own produce.
While nutritious foods are still readily available in rural areas, the industrial urban systems involved with food processing and supply means these healthy foods are being replaced by cheaper alternatives. High in carbohydrates and sugars, these are often very energy-dense but lack the nutritional value of traditional foods.
Studies have revealed that income is a major factor when it comes to nutrition. Since lower-calorie foods that contain higher amounts of nutrients (including fresh produce) is generally quite expensive, populations who earn less money turn to the less healthy options, which are usually more affordable. A good example of this is whole wheat bread, which costs anywhere from 10 to 60 percent more than nutritionally-lacking white bread.
“Access to good, healthy food is what the urban poor need for a more productive and longer life,” said Jonathon Crush with the African Food Security Urban Network (Afsun), noting that there is a need for government interventions to provide increased access to more nutritious foods.
However, with the option of purchasing low-cost produce, fewer people will recognize the benefits of growing their own food. And while they may be able to acquire fruits and vegetables for a smaller financial investment, the cost to their health remains a concern. When you’re not growing your food yourself, you’re blind to the methods of production.
“Low prices at the grocery store give us a false sense that our food comes cheap,” the paper continues. “The higher yields of industrial agriculture have come at great cost to the environment and the social fabric – costs that are not involved in the price of our food.”
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