Homestead Goals for 2015

I'm all for setting goals, and while I think it is a bit arbitrary to choose the new year as the time for setting new goals, I'm for anything that prompts that kind of behavior. So in preparation for the new year I thought I would sit down and write out some of the goals that I have for the homestead in the coming months.  So without further ado, here are my 2015 homestead goals.

#1- Produce More Food

    In the first year at the homestead we implemented an annual vegetable garden, and then roughly doubled it in size, added a rabbit operation, and planted 9 fruit trees. Those were the most noticeable food production steps. The annual gardens were rife with mistakes as I got to know the space and plain messed some things up. The fruit trees, with the exception of the citrus and a handful of mulberries are not yet productive, and the rabbits are just starting to breed now. As you can imagine there is A LOT of room for improvement. So this year I am aiming to do just that, produce more food.

Year One Notable Successes: Spring carrots, summer cowpeas, Taro, seminole pumpkin (36 from one plant)

Year One Notable Failures: Large fruited tomatoes, fall garden timing

Seminole Pumpkin main harvest. There is one butternut that sneaked in here and there were several other pumpkins that were harvested before this. The total from one plant was 36!

#2   Produce More Calories

     I really want to produce more calories per unit area. My main crops of interest for this purpose are sweet potatoes, true yams, chufa, and taro. Taro showed great promise in trial runs this warm season so I'm very interested in that prospect. Sweet potatoes were not given a fair shot and still did well. Chufa is the wild card this year that I'm hoping does well as it is one of the few plant sources of appreciable amounts of fat. I'm trying to find the right yams for the situation still, lots of options but I need to source some planting stock.

Sunchoke harvest 2014. Not bad for an afterthought planting. This was about half of the harvest from 2 plants. 

#3  Preserve More Food

     Even with the paltry yields of my year one garden it was feast or famine. When a particular crop came in it came on strong and then was gone. I gave away a lot of food which I love to be able to do, but I'm looking forward to preserving more to try and stabilize the percentage of food we eat that is grown here at the homestead. Candidate methods include: dehydrating (look for more on this soon), fermentation, quick pickling, canning, and freezing.

Homecured Olives from 2014. Raw olives provided to me courtesy of a very dear friend (and his family) of mine. Hands down the best olives I have ever tasted.

#4 Ferment More

     So this might be more like #3b but I included it as it's own space because I also want to throw brewing more into this category. I have been on a fermentation kick lately and I always wonder why I don't ferment more. Pickles, kimchi, beer, and bread; all of these are great foods both tasty and nutritious. What's more is that I love the process of fermentation, it appeals to the biochemist, tinkerer, and foodie in me.

#5  Upgrade Homestead Infrastructure

     I have a lean-to, new rabbit hutches, a new shed, fencing, and a chicken coop on the list of potential infrastructure projects to be completed. I hope to get some of these done in the coming year. This one is largely time and finance limited, but I don't want to add procrastination to the list of things slowing them down.

My parents' chicken coop under construction. I will post more on this design when it is finished. A chicken coop is on the to do list here at Three Oaks. 

#6  Plant More Fruit Trees

    Need to get those long term productivity systems up and running. Target plants include bananans, peaches, plums, more mulberry, more loquat, and citrus despite the current state of affairs where HLB is concerned.

Apple Blossoms from the author's tree. Mysteriously showed up in July, no fruit set of course. 

#7  Innovate

    I really want to take in as much information as I can and try to innovate at some point in the homesteading realm. I want to be one of the people producing new and novel ideas on food production, storage, or preparation. It takes a mastery of what is known to be one of the few trying things outside that realm. I want to push the boundaries of productivity and what can be accomplished on a suburban homestead.


#8  Blog Consistently and Network

    I want to continue to produce quality content that people like to read and find useful. I also want to hear from those people (you reading this now). Tell me what you find useful here, and tell me what you do that you don't see here. I want to hear from more people. The more readers who find themselves here means more unique backgrounds and experiences to illuminate ideas and possibilities that I never would have thought of in a million years. Please don't hesitate to comment or ask questions, in fact I would love it if you would.

My Parents' Chicken Coop Part I

 The wife and I went to visit my parents for Christmas this year. They just purchased a new property in Alabama this past October. It is 5.8 acres of gorgeous land with tons of potential. One of the projects they are working on right now is getting a chicken system in place. My dad has designed and built the frame of this chicken coop and I was lucky enough to be able to help him get a little bit done on this project while I was there. 

    I'm just going to post a few of the pictures to show the design now and once it is finished and put into service I will update with a part II showing the completion and hopefully will have some input from my dad as far as what he likes and what he would do differently if he did it again.

The Parents' new homestead. 

Chicken coop frame with laying boxes attached.

Dad cutting the roof tin.

Coop with trusses and purlins added. 

My parents' chicken coop as I left it. Dad will finish it up and send me some finished photos. 

A Man and His Rabbits

     My lovely wife took some video footage the other day as I was taking care of the rabbits and used a neat little app to stitch it all together in this neat little video. While this video doesn't do much in the way of providing information but it gives a good little look at the temporary setup I have the rabbits in right now. I hope you enjoy. I'm hoping to have my very talented wife do more in the way of providing interesting multimedia for this site in the future.

Spend $3 and save 100 gallons of water. Seriously.

    Here on the homestead we are in full on harvest mode for lettuce, arugula, radishes, and now pak choi as well. A funny thing about home grown produce is that it is dirty. As in it came from the soil mere moments ago, and it still has dirt on it. Most of the produce you get at the store has either been rinsed or thoroughly washed. It's up to you to wash your homegrown produce.
     For leafy greens the best way that I have found to wash them is to harvest in a large batch and fill the sink up with water then put in your harvest and gently agitate a few times. The dirt settles to the bottom and you pick out the greens and drain them in a colander. So the past few weeks I have been shuttling back and forth from the kitchen sink to the front yard garden with a big bowl, scooping all that water from the sink and taking it out to water the plants. Then yesterday it hit me.

A DISHPAN!
     Yes the humble dishpan was the solution to shuttling back and forth hauling bowls of water. It also turns out it is a great all around solution for saving water.

A dishpan is the perfect vessel for washing fresh veggies and collecting the water for reuse! Image of United Solutions dishpan from Amazon.com

     I had previously purchased several of these for some experiments growing aquatic vegetables so I knew I could get them for cheap at Dollar General or Big Lots. I buy the 18 qt. version made by United Solutions. Locally our Big Lots has the white version for 2.50 and Dollar General has the black version for 3 dollars. I prefer the black for use in the kitchen so I stopped by DG yesterday to pick one up since I knew I was going to be harvesting a lot this weekend.

Dishpan on the first run washing lettuce harvest

    It just so happens this dishpan fits like a glove into our very standard double bowl sink so I suspect it will work well in most sinks. I was able to wash all my lettuce using the soak and agitate method, then I used the water to wash some bok choi and radishes before taking all that water out watering the kale. You can save water according to how much you need to wash vegetables. The brilliance of this is that one can reasonably expect that people who more frequently wash vegetables are also growing them and thus more frequently can use the water for irrigation.

     Think about it, how often have you rinsed a tomato or a cucumber and let those couple seconds of water just flow down the drain? So what I did after my harvest washing marathon was just to leave the dishpan in the sink. Any time we just need a quick rinse for some veggies the pan is there to collect the excess. If we have to wash some mundane foodstuff off of our hands (got some honey on my hands from a vinaigrette for example) those couple seconds of water go into the dishpan. Anytime we need to use soap or are washing off meat or dairy, we do that in the other sink bowl. You will be amazed at how much water you can collect by not letting the water just drain away. 

      So there you have it, for $3 and a small behavior change you can easily save on the order of 100 gallons of water a year. Total disclosure, the 100 gallons is just a reasonable estimation that I came to after using this and thinking about the behavior change. I'll try and update this with hard numbers after some time in use. Obviously the more you have to wash veggies the more you will save. There is no need to break out the garden hose to water your plans when you would let so much water run down the sink too. 

     Whatever your angle, frugal, cheapskate, or environmentalist this is a super easy system to implement to maximize the usefulness you get from your water. 

The Homestead Pt. 1- The Backyard

     My wife and I lovingly refer to our quarter acre homestead as "Three Oaks" due to the presence of 3 massive oak trees on the property. The oak trees are fantastic and they actually play a very big role in the productivity of the homestead. I want to stop right here and address the fact that I refer to our house and associated property as a homestead. To some this may seem silly since we live in a very average suburban neighborhood. The crucial point to understand though is that the term homestead is used to convey the intended use, not to describe a place. A tenth acre lot can be more of a homestead than a large farm if the small lot is used for production of abundant food in addition to housing while the farm just produces corn for processing. For that very reason I refer to our place as a homestead, you may add the qualifier of suburban if you wish but I don't find it really necessary either.

     I started a rough drawing of the homestead and I wanted to post what I have so that readers can get an idea of the scale, constraints and limitations. That being said, these drawings are not to scale but they convey the idea pretty well. I've included some bed dimensions for reference. 

Drawing of the backyard portion of the homestead

    The above is the representation of the backyard area of our homestead. Starting on the far east fence line (far left in the picture) you can see the rabbit hutch sits right next to a 3x8 in ground garden bed. Across from the rabbit hutch abutting the deck is the birthing hutch for the does to go and birth in peace.

     The deck itself is actually screened in and has a large ovalish cutout hugelkultur bed (~8 feet across long and 6 ft. short). This area produced beautiful effortless taro and has some malanga and peppers still going strong. 

     The meat of the backyard is the intensive vegetable garden. There are 4 full 4x8 beds, a 4x6 bed, a 4x4 bed and much border bed space along the fence line, porch, and patio. All beds are in ground beds. It really is a great amount of space. My first warm season the garden was only 3  4x8 raised beds and the porch border garden and we got fantastic productivity. I can't wait to use the off-season space after the "garden remodel." There is an outdoor paver patio area that currently houses a portion of my rain barrel setup. 

    The majority of the west/northwest side of the yard is dogland, set aside for the dogs to run, play, and do their business as they need. I shutter to think how much intensive vegetable production we could do if the dogs didn't require half of the yard. But we love our puppies and they need green space too. The big swooping line that cordons off dogland is a chicken wire fence that I put in place with bamboo stakes. A more permanent, useful, and appealing barrier is in the works and will appear later as a project. 

     The Southwest corner of the yard is where the composting operation happens. This is a crucial part of the productivity of the homestead. The three compost bays are about 3x3 each and with the separating walls I can pile about 3ft high as well. The bays are constructed with found materials and bamboo and work very well but I think after next season I many need to rework them a little. 

     Below is the same map with an overlay of the projects that I would like to implement sometime in the not too distant future.

Projects that I would like to implement in the homestead backyard.

      The lean-to for the rabbit hutches takes priority as it would be a more permanent and comfortable dwelling for the rabbits. I also think the focus on the protein production pays dividends because as of now the rabbits are our only protein producing system. The trellis on the east fence line would be second just because it is a cheap and simple project and chayote squash has already shown a liking to that area. The south fence will get planted with mixed perennials in the spring to see what thrives there. The chicken coop is a larger project since it also requires the fencing of the side yard so this project will likely be pushed back, though I hope not. The overhead trellis rooted on the people side of the yard and overhanging dogland is a far off dream, and the first project that will be scrapped, but I included it because I think it is a potentially great idea.

      That wraps up the introduction to the backyard portion of the homestead. The front yard is a much more perennial/food forest type pursuit and I look forward to sharing that with you as well. If you have any questions about the homestead or our production systems, feel free to ask in the comments section. Likewise, if you have any suggestions on how to improve the system or better use space I would love to hear that as well.

A Year In The Dirt Is Worth Two In The Books(Or Blogs)

    There is no replacement for what you learn by actually starting a garden, even if most of what you learn is how not to do things in the future. I often talk to people about growing food and they will get excited and do reading about what they can grow and different gardening techniques. People will discuss the merits and downfalls of methods and look up new and exciting methods of growing and will plan out their whole system, and not plant anything! This happens with some surprising amount of regularity. The reasoning usually goes, "I spent a lot of time planning everything but I just didn't get time to build my beds/ build my hydroponic system/ double dig my beds/ go buy self watering planters/etc."

Sunchoke flower with a guest

     My take on this is as follows: a year in the dirt is worth two in the books.That is to say that all the time you actually spend growing your own food pays double the learning points that reading or researching would do. Now to clear one thing up first, I am in no way against planning or for rushing in. In fact, I am one of the biggest proponents of planning and doing things the slow way, but growing is one of those things that you learn best by doing. So where growing is concerned I say plan the best you can, but actually make sure to do it! I promise you will learn more applicable and practical information from a year spent with a poorly planned and poorly implemented garden than you will from the best of books on gardening.
     Now I need to explain a huge key to this whole thing, and that is observation. Thoughtful observation is at the heart of good permaculture design and it can save you loads of trouble in the long run. So before you start do observe your planned growing area. Note the time and type of sun exposure, the wind patterns, rain and water movement, and any other factors (animals, falling tree debris, etc.) that may affect the area. Part of the reason the garden teaches you so much is because it forces you to observe. You spend time in the garden looking at the plants, the soil, the bugs and animals that appear. Your interaction with the plants has a synergistic effect on your learning. Not only do you learn about the plant or type of plant in specific but you learn more about your growing area because of your increased observation.

Beautiful okra flower that turned into tasty okra pods

    My whole point is that you must get out and start planting in order to learn how to grow things. It is a self-amplifying feedback loop in that the more you grow the more you learn, and the more you learn the more you are able to grow and the cycle continues. So I encourage everyone to try and grow some of your own food. Even if it is just a few small pots of herbs or a single pepper plant, I guarantee you will learn something that will help you grow more food. For those of you who like flowers and ornamentals, learning to grow food translates well to growing just about anything.

Live Every Moment

     This workweek has been moving in slow motion for me. I know why. It's because I am looking forward to the upcoming holiday. I love Christmas time and I love having the time off from work, so naturally I am greatly looking forward to next week's holiday festivities. I'm sure I'm not alone in my feelings of drudgery this week, and likely not alone in the reasoning.

I'm sure looking forward to the holidays

      This exact drudgery has made me think more about living in the moment. I have been trying to use my increased awareness of holiday anticipation to constantly remind myself to come back to now and live in the moment. I have been trying to stay more focused on the time I am in right now, and what I am doing, and try to enjoy this moment. I do believe that every minute we have on earth is precious and to waste time looking forward to time that we aren't guaranteed is foolish. 

     My quick example of this is taking my dogs for a walk this evening. My dogs are not great leash walkers so we typically stick to running and playing in the backyard, but tonight I wanted to take them for a walk, to enjoy this evening and this time a little. They started out very bullish as typical but we eventually settled into a tense truce of wills. The walk was wholly unremarkable in every way except for the fact that I was acutely aware of the present and I enjoyed the time. It was a good exercise.

     We are all want to run ahead and try and see what is to come, I think it is human nature. Just remember to call yourself back at times because as much as it is human nature to look ahead it is a natural fact that all we are guaranteed is right now. 

      I hope you have a great remainder of the week and a great holiday season.

Chicken and Root Veg Soup

     Following up on my recommendation to shop at the farmer's market I thought it would be nice to share a little recipe that I made using some of those ingredients. This recipe is a bit on the unusual side but was very tasty.
     I had roasted some beets and turnips on Saturday for our dinner that night but I also did a batch to keep as leftovers, so for my recipe I used the leftovers, but you could certainly roast the veggies while the chicken is cooking. The beets give the soup a very dark red color which is interesting and visually striking.

While this recipe might seem like a lot of work, it really isn't, and the result is definitely worth it. It is three parts that are all done simultaneously using the down time in each segment to work on the other. Total I think I hade about 30 minutes of hands on time. Total cook time is about 1 hr 20 mins.
Ingredients:

1 chicken (size to suit)
1 lb. large carrots
1/2 bundle of celery
6 medium beets
4-6 small/medium turnips
1 onion
several cloves of garlic
2 bay leaves
pepper
about 2 cups red wine
1 tbsp. flour
olive oil for pan
salt
Water or Chicken Broth*

* I used water to cook my chicken and then added some homemade bullion that I made by reducing homemade chicken stock. I just freeze the reduction in icecube trays and then use them when needed. I added some to the chicken water after the chicken was done. If you don't use bullion then I would recommend at least 1/2 of the liquid you cook the chicken in should be chicken stock.

Method:
Before you do anything start your roasted root veg, 35-40 minutes at 425 should do the trick. I like to toss all the chunks in olive oil and season with salt, pepper, garlic, and oregano. You can do this step a day in advance if you would like, and I actually recommend it.

1. Fill a good size stock pot about halfway full of water or chicken stock and put on high heat. Add a dash of salt to the water and then place your chicken in the water (be sure to remove the giblets).  Add water to the top of the chicken and then add 1 cup of red wine, a bay leaf, and 2-3 cloves of smashed garlic. Cover and adjust to simmer for 1 hr.

Chicken in the pot. Simmer for 1 hr. This is the same way you typically start chicken and dumplings, just minus the wine. 

2. While the chicken is simmering dice 1-2 carrots, 1 stalk of celery, and 1 onion.
3. Add olive oil to a hot frying pan and sweat the carrots, onion, and celery for several minutes until the onions start to caramelize.
4. Deglaze with the remaining 1 cup of read wine and reduce by about 1/2. Set this mixture aside.

Set these cooked veggies aside, We will be back for them when we make the rue.

5. Add the giblets to a small amount of water(2-3cups) and season with a pinch of  salt and pepper. Simmer until the chicken is done.

6. Remove the cooked chicken and set aside to cool.Once cool, pull all the meat off the bones and set the meat aside

7. Grab that cooked vegetable mixture and heat it back up in the frying pan. Add the liquid from the giblets(should be reduced to about 1 cup by now) and bring to a boil.
8. Slowly add flour to the mixture stirring the whole time. Just like making a gravy but we are going to keep cooking beyond that to make an intermediate between a rue and a gravy. Once the mixture has thickened to about pudding consistency cut the heat.
9. Add the rue to the stockpot using a little of the broth to get all the good bits off of the pan.

The remaining celery and carrots should be good size chunks for heartiness and Texture

10. Add the remainder of the roughly chopped carrots and celery, the roasted root veg, and the chicken meat. Taste now and add salt/pepper to suit your taste(remember the stock was seasoned and so were the root veg so you really shouldn't need more now).
11. Stir everything together and let it barely simmer for about 10 minutes while everything comes together.

Serve and enjoy.

The Splendor of Saturday

    Saturdays are fantastic. For me they are my prime "get things done" day. Each Saturday that I am able I go to the farmer's market to get fresh veg for the week and for special projects. I also try and get my eggs there. This is prime time right now for all kinds of good winter veg here in north central Florida.

Just look at that haul! Broccoli, onions, napa cabbage, arugula, mizuna, turnips, pak choi, and for the rabbits a big bag of radish tops. Total cost: $14.50

    Hopefully that above picture is all the encouragement you need to go shop at your farmer's market. The wife and I are consistently able to get all the veggies we need for the week for under 20 dollars. Let's not forget we are talking fresh, pesticide free, organic (or beyond organic) food. It's a great environment too with all sorts of people all converging for the purpose of perusing and choosing the best and freshest produce. The benefits of shopping at a farmers market are plentiful, you support local farmers, they see more of the money spent on their products, the food has lower transportation and energy inputs, the food is fresher than you can generally find elsewhere, and the prices are generally the best around. 

Home Harvest

    My summer to fall garden transition here at the house was a little rough. It was my first time making that transition here at this property so I learned a few lessons, but as a result my own fall garden is a little behind. We are currently harvesting all the lettuce and arugula that we can eat, and the radishes are ready to start now too.

Our baby lettuce bed. About 4x4 with densely planted lettuce mix. We just cut handfuls at a time rotating where we cut from and by the time we are eating from the first cut area it has filled back in. 

Other Homestead Things

   In light of the garden being quite behind I have started to focus a little more energy on some infrastructure here at our little suburban homestead. I started working on a section of fence before Thanksgiving to fence in our side yard so we can open it up to the backyard. The original intent was for this to be an area for the chicken coop and run but I think that plan has changed. Yesterday I worked on finishing the fence and all that is left to do is put the final slats and hang the door. 

Fence that will enclose our side yard and serve as the new home for our rabbits.

   I am now hoping to move the rabbit operation into this area and use the other side of the yard for the chickens. Today I will be working on clearing out our domineering bamboo stand to try and bring it to a reasonable level. That project actually ties in with the future chicken plans so I'll post photos and a description of the concept when I'm done. 

    I hope you enjoy your Saturdays as much as I do. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and be blessed.

Why Organic Matter Matters

   
 I love soil. I didn't know I loved soil the way I do until I started studying soils academically. This probably goes back to my love of science in general. I find it fascinating the way natural systems work. They are so elegant and simple yet staggeringly complex as you begin to really examine them. This seemingly juxtaposed and even paradoxical dual nature just leaves me in awe. So considering that I do love soil and all the great science to be done when looking at soil I thought I would do a little primer on soil and why organic matter really matters. A lot.

     First, what is soil? Really before you go on reading my answer, tell yourself what your definition of soil is. Do you find that it is difficult to succinctly state? Heck, even my soils reference textbook lists two definitions. From "The Nature and Properties of Soils" 14th edition by Brady and Weil; 1- a dynamic natural body composed of mineral and organic solids, gases, liquids and living organisms which can serve as a medium for plant growth. 2- The collection of natural bodies occupying parts of the earth's surface that is capable of supporting plant growth and that has properties resulting from the integrated effects of climate and living organisms action upon parent material, as conditioned by topography, over periods of time.  I'm really going to focus on that first definition because it proves more useful for this post.

     So if we want to build soil we ask what is it made out of? Well our definition says mineral and organic solids, gases, liquids, and living organisms. So to build soil we need proportions of each of those. In general your mineral bulk is going to be what you inherit from your site. That is it will be the sand, silt, and clay particles that are weathering products of the parent material of your site. If you are in Georgia you'll have lots of aluminosilicate clays, in Florida you get a lot of quartz sand. So for the most part we aren't going to be making huge changes to the mineral bulk of our soil though we can certainly modify the mineral portion to suit our needs. If you have a soil particularly high in carbonates  you may need to adjust the pH and while this really isn't changing the mineral bulk that much we can consider it mineral portion modification, but I digress. So mineral you kinda get what you get, but that is OK because what we are really interested in in the organic portion.

      Organic matter! This is the portion of soil that has a disproportionately huge effect on soil properties. So our best route to building better soil is to focus on the area where we see the best returns and that is by incorporating organic matter. Organic matter increase water retention, buffers pH, increases cation exchange capacity (CEC, essentially the ability of the soil to hold nutrients), and modifies the soil structure and texture. Soil organic matter is made up of humus which is jumbled collection of varying size recalcitrant organic polymers with lots of different functional groups. These polymers can be huge, like millions of grams/mole. Since they abound with functional groups like hydroxyls (-OH), and carboxylic acids (-COOH) among others they can adopt charges by protonation/deprotonation and can serve as hydrogen bonding sites. Crucial because if you have charged portion of the molecule then another oppositely charged molecule which happens to be floating along can bind to that charged portion and stick around until, say , your carrots happen to need it and suck it up. Hydrogen bonding also aids in water retention as water is polar (has charged ends) and will bond with other oppositely charged portions of molecules. 

     The ability of the functional groups on these molecule to protonate or deprotonate (gain or lose a hydrogen) helps them buffer the pH of the soil. pH= -log [H+]. That is the equation and simply put it means that pH changes depending on the amount of hydrogen in solution. So if we have a huge polymer chalked full of functional groups that can gain or lose a hydrogen we have a giant buffer ready to suck up any additional hydrogen or donate hydrogen as needed to maintain pH. The more organic matter we get into the soil the more the soil pH converges to the equilibrium pH of the organic matter. So if we get lots of organic matter into very alkaline soil the pH moves towards that of the organic matter bringing the pH down and in acid soil it works the same way to bring pH up. What pH problems ail you, organic matter can help fix. 

     Organic matter certainly helps where soil structure and texture are involved. In Florida we have very loose sandy soils. Drainage is great but water and nutrient retention can be tough. The huge organic polymers that make up humus are at the molecular level like little balls of yarn that are all jumbled up into knots. So if you mix in lots and lots of jumbled yarn knots then you get chunks of bigger balled up knots and when you mix that with the sand in the right proportion suddenly you have a soil that can hold together better than your sand due to all of these "knots" interacting with one another and tangling up sand and clay in them as well. Now our loose sandy soil has some structure and our plants can put down strong roots and be firmly, well, rooted for lack of a better term. 

     Organic matter helps in soils with very compact clay as well. Clay on the molecular level is like stacked sheets of paper so the molecules can stack very efficiently. Clay particles are small too so they also stack very efficiently (think of the difference between filling a vase with tennis balls (sand) vs filling the same vase with marbles (clay)). This efficient stacking leads to very hard packed soil. The interaction of the clay with itself on the molecular level is kinda cool too because just like two sheets of paper stacked together there is a huge proportion of surface area for interaction (now imagine touching the two tennis balls together and that small surface for interaction, ever tried to lift two stacked pieces of glass by lifting the top one straight up?). Keeping the knotted yarn ball analogy we had before, if we now mix in organic matter then those clay particles start to get dispersed into the knots, and with strands of yarn everywhere the sheets cant stack on top of one another so efficiently so the soil begins to loosen. See, isn't organic matter cool? It's almost like a cure-all. 

     A really interesting note is that living organisms are included in the components of soil. Microorganisms especially are so astoundingly important in soil formation, composition, and overall health that I will surely write several posts addressing the topic. For now though lets look at how organic matter affects soil organisms. It is as simple as this: organic matter is food for soil organisms. No food, no organism. Soil organisms use different organic molecules as energy, much in the same way that we use respiration to oxidize organic matter for energy, soil microorganisms oxidize organic matter for their energy needs. The diversity of organisms means that for just about every type of organic molecule that can end up in your soil there is an organism that can eat it. Most of the time this is happening very slowly or at a scale that you can't see. The most obvious exception to that is when composting. Your pile actually heats up and shrinks because enough microorganisms are metabolizing organic molecules that they can heat the bulk pile! Brilliant. Your pile shrinks of course because during aerobic decomposition organic molecules are oxidized to water and carbon dioxide, so a fair portion of the organic matter you put in your pile actually floats away in the form of carbon dioxide and water vapor. Trust me we will talk a lot more about composting and it's merits later. The key for now is organic matter feeds soil organisms. All types of soil organisms I must note since we didn't even mention fungi or macroorganisms like earth worms. 

      So all of this that I have written is to say that organic matter is extremely important in soil. Even though for most of us it will represent no more than 10% of our soil it will overwhelmingly control the soil properties. The properties endowed to soil by increased organic matter are all great so much of our focus in producing healthy soil should be geared towards increasing organic matter. I hope you learned something and have a new or renewed appreciation for organic matter in your soil. Now go compost something!

I Love Hippies. Those Damn Hippies!

     This is really a little get to know me better post. As stated in the title, I love hippies. Like your traditional idea, tree hugger, peace and love, care for the earth kind of hippies. They are great people who are welcoming and accepting and usually some of the nicest people you will find. I love all of those things. I think everyone should be more accepting, even in disagreement, and everyone could stand to be nicer in general. I mean really, it is completely possible to fundamentally disagree with everything someone believes and still be civil and kind to them. Idealistic agreement and kindness are not mutually exclusive.
       That last part leads me to why I always say damn those hippies! While I agree with so many of the hippie ideals, I despise the common methods of hippy implementation. For example I think it is great to plant tons of fruit trees and edible landscaping, and implementing permaculture practices, but instead of looking for a public place to try and do this or try and find someone to donate land, I bought a house and do this at my house. If you want to improve the land and the ecosystem make an oasis of ecological diversity then BUY the land and do it. You don't have to seek permission or hope people don't mess with the system in a public place, etc.
        I am also a huge free market capitalist (please hold your cheers or jeers). This ideal bleeds over to my gardening where I am very Darwinian. If I plant two plants next to one another and one thrives and the other struggles I rip that straggler out. Even better, I hope the strong one suffocates the little one and gives a more abundant yield from that area. I feel like a lot of hippie type folk will design a system and then want it to work so badly that a clearly struggling system is willed into perpetual struggling existence. I am not so proud as to try and will a struggling system I design into perpetual under-performance. I rip that crappy design out and start over. I'm trying to design systems of abundance that operate on a low continual input basis. Sometimes that means destroying my pet project and starting over because dang it, it just didn't work. As much as I try and plan, sometimes the best observations and designs only come from observing a system that doesn't work.
      I guess my hope is to have compassion and empathy like the hippy, but look at the system like an engineer. Hippineer or enginippy, you get the idea.

What's In a Name?

    This is the first official post here at Homegrown Philosofood and as the starting point I thought it would be appropriate to lay out the initial goals of this blog and address the unorthodox name. Hopefully a quick read of the goals here will convince you to check back in for future posts and at the very least it should let you know what this place is all about.
     My major goal for this blog is that it will be a place to drop by with assurance that you will find something that is at once entertaining, informative, and challenging. By challenging I don't mean challenging to read(more on this in a minute), I mean challenging to think about. I would love nothing better than for you to be humming along 3 days after reading a post and still mulling over a concept or idea from one of these posts. If I can continually put out content that meets those three criteria I will be thrilled and I hope that any eventual readers would be pleased as well.
    Another goal that goes hand in hand with the first is that I want all of the posts to be approachable, digestible, and easy, or maybe even fun, to read. I really want to address a lot of gardening, cooking, and philosophy topics that may be quite complex or even "heavy" but I want them to be easy to read and enjoyable. In a nutshell: distillation of complex ideas and concepts into succinct yet entertaining posts.
      So right at this point you are likely wondering "what exactly will you be writing about?" To answer this I will address the name of the blog. Homegrown Philosofood. Homegrown= anything DIY. DIY projects, concepts, innovation, construction, growing, anything that you will do on your own and most likely at your own home. I will be writing about a lot of DIY projects that I do here at the house and I want to convey my passion for innovation and improvisation at the individual level. Philosofood=  a portmanteau of sorts combining philosophy and food. Philosophy is essentially an open door to anything and I will use it in that capacity when necessary but for the most part I will stick to the philosophy of DIY, innovation, motivation, growing and gardening, and food. That being said, do expect some interesting purely philosophical musings from time to time. I am extremely passionate about food on every level from growing it to preserving it to cooking and eating it. To me food represents one of the few universal necessities to which we can, and must, all relate. Food is vastly different to everyone and in every place yet it is a necessary shared experience. Food is visceral, it's importance and impact is readily felt and understood by anyone. I want to address my interests in food and hopefully provide some new food ideas to anyone who finds themselves here for a quick read.
     So with all of that in mind, expect to be entertained, to be informed, and to be challenged. I tend to think that you are either in a state of growth or a state of decay, there is no static state. Just look at nature for confirmation, even the most steadfast and unchanging things we see are either in an imperceptible state of growth or decay, and everything else we see is more apparently in one of these states. This blog is a place for me to hopefully continue my growth in many aspects. I hope you will check back in and grow with me.