I’m Using A Plant To Catch A Leak In The Ceiling. “No Such Thing As Waste In A Permaculture System,”

By copyrighting his property as an artwork, he has prevented oil companies from drilling on it.

Peter Von Tiesenhausen has developed artworks all over his property in northern Alberta.  There’s a boat woven from sticks that is gradually being reclaimed by the land; there is a fence that he adds to each year of his life, and there are many “watching” trees, with eyes scored into their bark.

Oil interests pester him continually about drilling on his land.  His repeated rebuffing of their advances lead them to move toward arbitration.  They made it very clear that he only owned the top 6 inches of soil, and they had rights to anything underneath.  He then, off the top of his head, threatened them that he would sue damages if they disturbed his 6 inches, for the entire property is an artwork.  Any disturbance would compromise the work, and he would sue.

Immediately after that meeting, he called a lawyer (who is also an art collector) and asked if his intuitive threat would actually hold legally.  The lawyer visited, saw the scope of the work on the property, and wrote a document protecting the artwork.

The oil companies have kept their distance ever since.

This is but one example of Peter’s ability to negotiate quickly on his feet, and to find solutions that defy expectations.

sustainability as a concept done on an individual basis shouldn’t be framed as planet saving because it’s. not. you can’t save the earth by planting your own tomatoes, because the destruction of the earth is due to corporations

what you CAN do is use individual sustainability to gain a level of independence from capitalism for yourself and for your community through things like sharing grown food

Giethoorn in Netherlands has no roads or any modern transportation at all, only canals. Well, and 176 bridges too. Tourists have to leave their cars outside of the village and travel here by foot or boat by. So you can probably imagine how peaceful it is here.

izabella’s greenhouse + her solar panels

plant friends

How I Got into Backyard Farming

Idea:

Backyard Farming sounds crazy, so let’s try it  

What is it?

There is a movement where regular people are turning their backyards into micro farms and doing things like:

Growing all the salad ingredients they need for a year (minus the Russian dressing)

Growing 100 pounds of potatoes on a tiny patio

Raising a couple of chickens for meat and/or eggs

Raising Talapia fish to eat

Raising rabbits or quail for meat

Converting lawns into mini farms producing staple crops like corn and wheat

Using things like fences, walls, posts and garages to trellis things like grapes, squash, beans, and melons

Growing 100 pounds of garlic and selling it for $10 a pound at farmers markets

Raising bees and selling honey for $7 a pound at farmers markets

Making your own Beer, Wine, Meade, Cider or Brandy

Why this could be Awesome:

The goal here is that you do these things on your property without anyone really noticing or caring.  The goal is not to start up some “you might be a redneck if” style crazy farm on the lawn and instantly tank the neighborhood housing prices in the process.  With this project the goal is to be clandestine, or at least unnoticeable.  Do it right and neighbors will compliment how well your property looks as you bring them goodies from the garden all year long.  Other reasons this scheme could be awesome:

Lower your grocery bills

Be totally organic and chemical free

Potentially earn income

Less lawn mowing / Less using anything that runs on gas

Could be Fun

My Situation:

I live in a typical Cape Cod house on a quiet street in a medium sized city in Ohio.  I have neighbors very close on both sides and in the back.  In total I have about 0.3 acres of “land” which consists of a small front yard and a descent sized backyard enclosed in a chain link fence.  I have a tiny 1-car garage, a small patio, and normal guy yard tools.

Research Phase:

I went to the library and to the internet and looked up the following topics:

Small space / patio / container gardening

Permaculture / food forests / Organic Gardening

Homesteading /  Survivalist / Prepper (I’m not a prepper)

Aquaponics

Take a look at some YouTube videos on people who have backyard food forests.  Also Jeff Lawton’s videos on this topic are amazing.  I also recommend the book Gaia’s Garden and the website Permies.com

Let’s Do This:

And so when Spring rolled around I began…  The plan was to start small and incorporate little things at a time into my landscape, wait until I was used to them and make sure no one freaked out, and then slowly expand. 

Things I have Accomplished:

I’m on year three now and I think things are going relatively well.  Here’s a summary of things I have been able to do.   Note: Each topic below will have its own full post soon.

Toxin Free:  Gave up insecticide, commercial fertilizer and other toxins totally.

Compost: Created a composting system that produces about 1 pickup truck load of compost per year.

Waste Reduction: Generate zero yard waste.  Generate 1-2 bags of garbage per week, which is a reduction from 5 bags.  This reduction is due to composting, canning, burning paper with wood fires and using ashes in garden, reduction of processed foods purchased, etc.

Rainwater harvesting:  Made and Installed 2 Rain Barrels (55 gallons each), with a system to auto water the front yard with the flip of a switch using garden hose and gravity

Lawn Reduction:  More than half of my front yard is garden (but doesn’t look out of the ordinary at all).  Converted 1/3rd of my backyard to garden

Hugelkultur:  Installed about 56 feet of Hugelkultur mounds

Heavy Mulching: Threw down 2 dump truck loads of mulch, 3 pickup load of hay (about 40 bales) and 1 pickup load manure. 

Sheet Mulching: Experimented with Sheet mulching using cardboard and other materials to convert lawn to garden without digging.

Less Weeds: Cut weeding time down by using mulching techniques as well as chop & drop methods.  (you still get weeds, but less, and easier to pull)

No Dig / No till: Gave up Tilling totally.  There are many good reasons to do this. 

Less Mowing:  Mow only about 4-6 times a year (due to letting certain “weeds” grow into the lawn such as clover which doesn’t grow very tall).  Also, I mow the front lawn every other time with a gas free reel push mower, which saves gas and is very quiet (and a good workout).

Less Watering:  Cut watering in half (because of the rain barrels, a well-placed swale to slow down run-off and Hugelkultur mounds which soak up water like crazy)

Perennial Food:  Planted long-term plants such as 2 apple trees, 1 cherry tree, 2 blueberry bushes, 2 raspberry and 2 blackberry bushes, 10 square feet of strawberries, 2 grapevines, 8 asparagus plants.

Quasi Perennial Food:  Tomato patch comes back 80% every year from self seeding.  Also get a lot of self seeded greens and squash, by not picking everything.

Seed Starting:  Beginning to perfect a seed starting regimen that is actually starting to pay off.  Seed starting takes practice!

Big Crops:  Set to plant about 50 garlic plants this year.  Set to plant about 30 potato plants this year (these two plants both can be mixed into the front yard landscape).  Planted about 60 mustard green plants (also a beautiful plant)

Medicine:  Growing comfrey to be used for medicinal purposes as well as green manure / mulch.

Cool mini-Projects:  Things I have made from my backyard include Grape Juice, Vinegar, Tomato juice, Dijon Mustard, Tomato sauce, Roasted Dandelion Root coffee, Echinacea tincture, garlic braids, burn medicine, flower arrangements, and lots of delicious meals.

Things I want to Try:

There are so many things in backyard farming/ urban permaculture I still want to try. Here is my to-do list:

Plant way more fruit trees.  The ultimate goal of the permaculture “food forest” is basically to have tons of food growing everywhere on your property that requires little to no maintenance.  The hardest part should be picking all of the bounty.  Of course a key to this end state is to have lots of mature fruit trees that produce large quantities of high calorie foods year after year.  And even in cold Ohio, we can grow so many different kinds of fruit like cherry, apple, peach, plum, apricot and lots of berry and nut trees

Plant a successful cash crop.  I want to sell something at the farmers market!  I think garlic will be my first attempt because it is 100% maintenance free and 99% guaranteed to come up beautiful.  It also sells for a lot of money.  So far I have been eating mine, but each year I plant more and more.  One other nice thing is that you can space them really close together and plant them almost anywhere on the property, including right out in the front yard.  I tried to sell my mustard greens but nobody wanted them :(

Get bees.  Although probably not for everyone, I want bees.  There is some cost and some work involved, but you get honey, wax and increased pollination, and that is more than enough for me to want to try it.

Meat?  I’m not allowed to have chickens or any animal like that in my city.  Rabbits could work since they are silent and you could raise them somewhere covert and no one would know you had them.  But I don’t think I could kill and clean rabbits I raised.  I looked into pheasant and quail but same thing there.

Eggs? I’m not yet to the point where I’m going to defy my local laws and get a couple of chickens for egg productions, but If you are, there is a whole community on the net of covert chicken raisers.  The more hip urban cities such as St. Louis have legalized it, so do some research and go for it.  Don’t get any roosters unless you want to anger everyone within a 5 mile radius.

More Mulch!  Once you get into this hobby you quickly find that your soil sucks.  If you have a typical American house your soil is terrible because for the last 50 years your property has consisted of 90% grass which some guy mowed short twice a week and probably dumped mass quantities of weed and feed and other chemicals onto it.  All of the clippings were bagged and sent to the landfill and heavy rains continuously washed away any soil that happened to build up.  The fix is to throw down tons and tons of organic material like leaves, cut up weeds, hay, mulch, coffee grounds, manure, compost, etc.  But if you are a regular person with an office job you probably don’t have access to as much of this organic mulch as you need.  I’m always on the lookout on Craigslist for free manure and mulch, but it can be hard to come by.  You can grow your own, but this takes time.

Flowers  I got so caught up with food that I realized I didn’t plant many beautiful flowers that can serve multiple purposes.  I want them for cut flower arrangements as well as for medicinal purposes and sheer beauty.  Next year there will be flowers!

Edible Seeds:  I also want to get some edible seeds such as sunflower and pumpkin, yum!  Per square foot, sunflowers are one of the most productive foods you can grow, calorie wise.

knight

What is Lunarpunk?

So far, I feel like solarpunk has been the thing that’s well defined in terms of what it means to people. It is not just an aesthetic, it is a vision for the future, and an activist methodology. Learning how to grow your own food in your backyard in a bucket in 2018 is just as solarpunk as delicate and elaborate solar jewelry that also functions as your phone.

This is the same with lunarpunk. There are things you can do now in your life that are anti-capitalist and punk and easily accessible, and there are beautiful aesthetics that capture the feeling we want our future society to have.

I believe that lunarpunk is the other side of the coin of a solarpunk society, and that a fully solarpunk society without its lunar counterpart wouldn’t be complete. That in every person there are two parts and those parts correspond with the day and the night.

Daytime is a time meant for experiencing this world. Science is a daytime thing, and so is getting your errands done and making phone calls. The sun illuminates our world in such brightness that it can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

On the flipside, nighttime is for spirituality, and transcending this world. It is for experiencing art and stories and music and integrating them into our selves. Its for getting high. Its for watching the moon and the stars and contemplating your place in the universe, and it is for dreams.

Human beings need both sides of this coin. They need both science and spirituality in their lives. I think that right now (at least in the US) people focus too much on the daytime sides of themselves, and neglect their more personal and spiritual needs.

Now, solunarpunk definitely resembles this philosophy that I have. On solarpunk blogs you get lots of articles about the newest scientific breakthrough, and gardening tips. However it also delves into lunarpunk territory a bit, with the emphasis on beauty and happiness and art being Incorporated into almost every design that I see for the future. I think that this is great, and we can not completely separate the sides of the world. There has to be bleedthrough or else it just ends up with two different cultures. I think that the solarpunk community on tumblr is very well balanced.

However, lunarpunk is a little bit less understood, because in western society, individual spirituality isn’t a bit priority. This means that there are way less lunarpunk blogs than solarpunk blogs. Those that I have seen have been mostly posting about aesthetic, and stories about the distant future. Again, this is great! I love seeing all of that stuff! But I want to post more about the things we can today to become lunarpunk, the way that there are gardening tips on solarpunk blogs.

Well, this was a good talk. Now I have something to look back on if I get confused about what I’m supposed to be doing. Hopefully someone got something out of this.