Moving the Underwater Movable Greenhouse Above Ground

So I've planted a variety of things in the greenhouse, basically whatever I could find at the moment. There are some peppers, some broccoli, and something else which looks like cabbage that I found from the horticultural gardener on the ashram. We mulched a bit more to try to absorb some of the water and here are some photos of the improvements:

I'm sure the next time that we have a heavy rain, it will go back to its natural swampy microclimate but until then, we have a place to walk without scuba gear. Anyone with ideas for a solution? We'll be brainstorming here... The Yeltons arrive tomorrow, so there will be answers!

Underwater Movable Green House - Taking a Stab at Four Seasons Gardening

We've been trying to keep up with our Permaculture systems here at the Yoga Ranch (www.sivanandayogaranch.org) and something really struck me about this one thing we've been working on. See, last October, we were lucky enough to have Julia and Charles Yelton give a workshop on building movable greenhouses. The greenhouse was built on tracks and gives us an opportunity to extend our growing season quite a bit. Well, the time came to plant this year and we discovered that the area becomes a swamp in the spring (and well, most of the rest of the year too).

You can imagine some of the things that would run through my mind as I went down to plant there in the morning. I was pretty confused as to why this spot was picked to put the greenhouse and I was just feeling generally whiney. But then something great happened. I started to notice things about the soil in there (which was very weird) and things about where the weeds decided to grow and saw SO much insect/worm life in soil that looks relatively dead, truly like sand. I was pretty confused so I kept looking. There seemed to be a lot of pretty extreme microclimates in this one small greenhouse. The soil its self was divided. The top 4 inches or so were very dry, the next 4 inches were a weird blend of sand, clay and potting soil with vermiculite and below that was completely over saturated with water, probably the clay that was there for years before the greenhouse was built. Needless to say, the summer in the Catskill Mountains / Hudson River Valley region of New York State gets quite hot, especially in a greenhouse so it seems ridiculous to be planting in there in June anyway, but its really got me thinking about what kind of plant would really enjoy this situation. Its almost tropical because all of the moisture seems to condensate on the top of the greenhouse and come back down on the plants. Its extremely humid in there. I took some photos of some of the things going on in there including some of the weeds that ended up there (I'm not sure what they are exactly and if anyone wants to let me know what they might be, I'd really appreciate it!) just to show you what I'm working with. I'm going to plant a handful of different things and see what likes it and what doesn't and see if I can get away with some tropical annuals if I can. Thanks for reading! Come visit us in Woodbourne NY!  Email us: permaculture [at] sivananda [dot] org

Permaculture Certification with the Yeltons

Its been quite a while since I last blogged. Since June so much has happened. I took the Permaculture Certification course with Julia and Charles Yelton. (You can visit their website here: www.permaculturedesign.org. This course really helped. Reading the books and getting to know the materials is one thing, but getting the practical hands on experience and getting to ask specific questions really makes the difference. I've been a certified Permaculture designer now for just 6 months and developing a few designs.

Preparing for the 7-legged spiral Food Forest at Aberdeen Farm in Dutchess County, New York.

The beginnings of a food forest as it grows in the following season.

Since November, I've also been living at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram in Woodbourne, NY and working with them in their Permaculture systems. There are some really incredible projects underway including flow forms, a food forest, living structures, swales, a newly built movable greenhouse and we've got a lot of designs/projects underway for this season including terracing (perhaps with keylines), installing more ponds, living structures, outdoor earthen oven, Vermiculture, keyhole garden and an urban Permaculture demonstration site on the remains of a run down basketball court. (I'll be posting pictures as soon as I have the chance!)


I'm also very excited to announce that I will be teaching an Intro to Suburban Permaculture workshop on Sunday, April 20th at the New Light Sanctuary in Sayville, NY. It will be from 1 - 3 pm. And if anyone is curious about some of our projects, please get in touch and come visit at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram. We love to have volunteers come and learn a bit about Permaculture while getting real hands-on experience.

Thanks for reading!

Good friends & Marigolds

I had a great time hanging out with my friend Christina and planting a bit in her home garden. She got a few tomato plants and some marigolds. We planted the marigolds around the tomato plants to protect them from pests. In the photo here you can also see some alliums (which are really great for stopping pests as well as fungus),  fennel (i'm pretty sure) is allelopathic which means it generally doesn't like other plants and releases toxins that prevent them from doing well and in some cases causes them to bolt, and lavender (read some interesting lavender folklore here: History of Lavender.

 

What most people don't realize is that its not just the tomatoes that are edible, the marigolds are too. Here are a handful of recipes: Edible Flowers Recipes

Also, Christina is an amazing musician and recording engineer. You can check out what she does at christinapicciano.com. She's a great drummer, guitarist, songwriter and really fun to work with. I'm hoping to be playing more music with her in the near- future while I'm still living in her neck of the woods.

As a side note, if you can look past the pretty girl (Christina) in the photo, you'll find a giant swarm of mint in the left corner... that wild mint just grows and grows and will swallow everything around it. We've got the same 'problem' on the farm although its really not a huge problem, really. We usually dry as many of the leaves as we can and save them to use for tea or to put into iced tea but I have some thoughts about using them in a Permaculture design with a bunch of other things that you can't keep from taking over like strawberries for example. It would be like a celebrity plant death match. Or Manhattan.  I'll write more thoughts on that later though, gotta get to bed to make my flight tomorrow early. Thanks for reading and thanks Christina, for being awesome =)
-Jen

300 Year Old Food Forest

I saw this clip at a Permaculture workshop in Accord, NY through NOFA and I was ecstatic to rediscover it on youtube! 38 generations long this food forest has been functioning and provides the family with almost all of their food and medicine. Unbelievably beautiful-

Anyway I've been without internet for the last few days because of a broken pipe on the farm. I'm leaving tomorrow for San Francisco for a music project that you can read about on my other music blog here: Music - The other Jen Kutler so I won't be updating this too much although I might post a few things that I meant to post previously and never really got a chance to put up. *cough * cough* Xtina, send me those pictures *cough* ok. Thanks for reading!
-Jen

What the fox said all along...

Eyes wide open, Jo and I were shocked and heartbroken that the fox had claimed two more chickens. This time Madonna a New Hampshire Red and Salieri our braveheart viking of a rooster (also very handsome, I can't remember the breed and had ironically outlived our old Polish rooster Mozart but thats all a story for another day). We've had the fox claim chickens before, our beloved Cleopatra, a Spangled Hamburg and Nickel, a Columbian Wyandott who used to waddle over to us every morning so enthusiastically. I was trying really hard not to think about it. We've got something like 10 more chicks who are nearing adulthood and five guinea hen chicks that we're raising as well. But what can I say. I know they're chickens, but I miss them. And then driving down the 1/4 mile driveway on my way to work I saw a tiny kit, small enough to fit in my hand. And it was so beautiful, curious, bustling around under a shrub. I actually got out of my car even though I was a bit late and stood and watched it. I thought it would run away but it didn't. It hung out and even looked up at me a few times. And then the fox wasn't just a fox but a mama fox and a mama fox who was stealing our chickens became a mama fox who was feeding her kit(s). And they were all beautiful. Also not so related but on the way to work driving up Route 9G I saw a giant turtle (seriously something like 2 1/2 feet tall) trying to cross the street. I would have gotten out to help it but it looked like a snapper and I like my fingers. I'll have something more interesting next post, promise! Now back to assembling bee hives. We'll have 8 inhabited hives by the end of the day. Special thanks to Rich from Hummingbird Ranch, our honey and maple producing neighbor!
Thanks for reading.
-Jen

Running from the bees in my clothes

So I don't mean to deviate from the last entry on the apple tree Permaculture design that we're installing but this morning I woke up, went down to feed the goats and chickens like I usually do, a little stumbly and still wearing half my pajamas having just rolled out of bed, but I love to be outside first thing in the morning. Anyway, I get up the hill and the goats and chickens have already been fed, watered and their respective homes cleaned. I look over and Jo and Allan are in the Permaculture orchard where we have 6 (soon to be 8) bee hives. Being in a baggy t-shirt and yesterday's pants I wander over to see whats going on. It turns out they have two nukes (a bunch of new bees with a queen in a box) that they were hoping to use to fill the last two hives that we built. We open up the hives and find that there are already bees in there.... no one has a veil and I've got the baggiest t-shirt on with no bra or anything. But I didn't really care, I never wear a veil and I don't usually use the smoker and Jo and I went in bare handed just moving frames around and looking for brood to see if there might already be a queen in this new hive.

So we're poking around in here, seeing what we can see. And our bees are pretty docile, we're moving slowly so we don't totally startle them and things are fine. But then a bee flies into my shirt. And I gently guide it out... but then it seems like a few more are getting in and the first one hasn't quite managed to come out. So I'm starting to appreciate the weight of the situation hah and I start walking away from the hives. And then the bees start landing on my skin, my stomach and elsewhere and I tear my shirt off and go running down one of the seven legs of the spiral in the Permaculture garden. Great way to start your morning. Here is one more photo of one of the frames we looked through:

I can't imagine life any other way... running from the bees in your very clothes forever =) Good morning.