Down On The Urban Farm

Hi all,

I stumbled across an interesting non-profit that is all about urban farming. They have a great spot on CNN

Then I did a little digging and found their website a comprehensive look at creating urban farms/faming in our sities. I really like their Include Food program that encourages people to plant food when landscaping. Might as well - I have always said that if you are going to plant something, given we have to manage it, it might as well be edible.

My message has been to get people to think about what it will take to begin growing food in all of our urban areas. Their non profit is a great start AND how can we go about integrating food into all of our lanscapes. At schools, chirches, city medians, patks - the space between you and the neighbor?

Food for thought!?

Greg

Colin the No Impact Man in his post opened the door to begin exploring just how to go about changing peoples minds about how to live a lighter footprint. He writes “without judgment” as the opening text to his post. THIS is a very important piece of the collective work that we need to do in order to create significant change in our world.

In my travels and teaching I have found that whenever we cast judgment and our opinions at people they stop listening. Having people listen in our line of work (making the planet a safer and healthier place for future generations) is probably the most important tool that we have in creating future change.

Daniel Quinn, the writer of the incredibly successful series of books that began with Ishmael, speaks about the best way to create change in the world. He infers that putting programs in place doesn't work because when you require people to do something it has them stop listening. He then goes on to propose that change happens when you change peoples minds. So what can we all do to change peoples minds?

As with Colin, I strive to live a life that encourages people to think about the choices that they make. I drive a Honda Insight Hybrid, live in a self proclaimed environmental showcase home called the Urban Farm in the heart of Phoenix, AZ, generate a lot of my own electricity, grow a lot of my own food with my edible landscape, use greywater to irrigate the landscape and show it all off as often as I can get away with. Yesterday the Urban Farm hosted a class on Composting, one on Keeping Chickens in urban areas, and did a tour. We exposed this space and our work to about 75 people. And boy were they excited.

People are eager for information on how to live a greener lifestyle. By feeding it to them in a non-judgmental way, we are opening the door for them to listen. Those people then go out and share it with others (like those ladies idling their cars) and change their minds. Not judging can be very hard, this I know, but it is a very good way to get our work done.

This is a cute little ditty on the way Wallpaper magazine is representing a mainstream edge of urban farming.

The Urban Farm is the home where I live, located in the middle of Phoenix, AZ. These days I call the Urban Farm an environmental showcase home, which sports a primarily edible landscape, 60 fruit trees, rainwater and greywater harvesting, two kinds of solar panels, one for creating my own electricity and one for heating the house, a patio that is primarily made from reclaimed materials, an outdoor kitchen and outdoor shower.

For several years I have been opening my home for tours and classes. The intent of these events is to share with visitors the different green lifestyle choices that they can make. Of late I have been getting requests to put my tour online and with technology where it is at the tools are here. Over the next few months I will build a comprehensive list of articles and pictures of the different projects that we have installed over the years. Check out the Urban Farm Tour section of my blog for the latest additions. I encourage you to ask questions and jump in and try these different technologies in your own yard.

Some Beginning Philosophy

I'll be the first to admit that the yard is somewhat different than you may have experienced before, having food to eat throughout the entire yard. We believe as a culture we are taught that it is our job to control mother nature, we on the other hand choose to leave her alone and let her produce that which she feels is appropriate. To that end here are several tenets that I believe.

1. If a plant is growing...let it grow. There are quite a few volunteer plants that have chosen to grow here. Among them are broccoli, lettuce, hollyhocks, palo verde, mesquite, pecan, tomatoes and cucumbers.

2. Build soil. People spend a lot of time, energy and money cleaning up the plant debris from their yard, then spend more time, energy and money to fertilize. Contained in those leaves are a plethora of nutrients that can easily be converted to nurture the soil.

Use a mulching mower to grind up the leaves. In other areas, use the leaves (especially in the summer) to create a nice thick layer of mulch to protect the soil from the summer heat.

Both of these practices build the nutrient value in the soil giving us great vegetables and fruits.

3. Use everything as many times as possible. We attempt to use each asset as many times as I can before it leaves the property. One example of this is the tap water that is used to cool the air from the evaporative cooler is collected and placed in a stock tank for use later in the year. There are fish in the pond, adding fish fertilizer to the water. Then the water is used to water the various plants growing in the area.

4. If it doesn’t produce food or flowers why plant it? You will notice that most all the plants that are growing here give something that is useful, either fruits, vegetables or flowers. This is a concept called edible landscaping. Wouldn’t it be great to convert whole parks to this idea.

These concepts come from an area of study called permaculture, the art and science of living with nature. For more in-depth explanation visit www.permaculture.net on the internet or acquire the book Permaculture by Bill Molison.

Through the Phoenix Permaculture Guild we offer a fruit tree education program that runs each fall in Arizona. As part of the program you can purchase fruit trees. Click here for more information on purchasing fruit trees in Arizona. If you are interested in starting this kind of program in your part of the country email Greg for more information.

One of my biggest passions in life has become the process of converting my yard to an edible landscape and teaching others to do the same. Part of the process involves a concept called food foresting which essentially replicates the process of a natural forest in your yard. The basis for the forest is the planting and growing of trees. In a food forest the goal is to strategically build as many food-producing trees into your space then build your annual crops around them. The basis for all of the trees that I plan is that they produce something edible.

This is my front driveway with a fig and peach to the left of the drive, a grapevine fence in the back and my hybrid Honda Insight in the drive.

Many of you know that I have had farmer blood in my veins for as long as my 46 years of memory can remember. I always assumed that I would find a small farm out there somewhere, in Cottonwood, Verde Valley, Waddell or maybe even in Deloris, Colorado. That was until a few years ago when two unlikely incidences collided. The first was a conversation I had with a long time friend about the status of his property. You see he has almost two acres in central Phoenix that is flood irrigated and he was doing a great job of growing a nice crop of Bermuda grass. I proposed to him that we work together and plant an orchard, trees which I would provide and care for and he would water and reap the benefit of yearly fruit. So we were off and I now had a problem...where do I come up with 50 to 100 fruit trees at a reasonable price?

The second was a realization that I had in one of my classes at ASU and that was that I am more interested in teaching about gardening and green living than actually growing and selling the food. The epiphany was that the space where I lived was already accomplishing much of what I wanted to do and in that moment the Urban Farm was born. In the space that is the Urban Farm I have the luxury of harvesting a fresh apricot in May while at the same time change your perspective about where your food comes from. I have mixed my vision of sustainable cities and learning which has lead me down a path of being a planter as well as an educator.

I have played with planting fruit trees here in the Valley for almost 35 years so when I purchased the Urban Farm it was a natural to practice with the planting trees. Now 17 years later I have 60 fruit trees and 10 grape vines representing 27 fruit varieties and a diversity that produces some kind of fruit almost 10 months per year. When it was time to start purchasing fruit trees I hit all the places from the local nurseries to the huge chains and back again and I found that for the most part they did not really know what they were talking about. I even purchased an almond tree that will never produce a nut here in the valley from a local nursery that should have known better than to sell that particular variety here.

In my search for a supplier of fruit trees I attempted to work with some of the local nurseries, but the best that they could do was way more expensive that I wanted to afford with most nurseries selling a potted fruit tree for $40 to $70 each (ours are $30). So I started a national search and ordered trees from a couple of nurseries around the southwest and landed upon a grower named Dave Wilson Nurseries for the deciduous trees and Sunset Nursery for the Citrus. Both turned out to be very nice and were willing to work with me to import excellent quality fruit trees at a reasonable price and spent a considerable amount of time with me teaching me the ins and outs of fruit tree culture and urban orcharding….and with a minimum order of 100 trees they would be more than happy to sell to me.

I remember a moment that in my head I could see multiple orchards spread throughout central Phoenix where I was using other peoples land and growing fresh fruit for the local markets. So, I in 1991 took on a goal of planting 500 of my own fruit trees within five years. This seemed like a big project but given my past history I knew I could do it. Little did I know that others would also be interested in planting their own trees. The first year I stepped out and ordered 125 trees - hoping to plant 100 for myself and have a few left over for others. I ended up planting 40 in the ground for myself and sold the rest of them to friends, neighbors and other fruit enthusiasts. In this time my dream of planting 500 of my own trees was transforming to empowering others to plant trees for themselves.

The second year of the fruit tree project I placed a carbon copy of the first years tree amount, not really knowing what I was going to do with 125 trees. So I started taking preorders for the trees and gave the first version of my fruit tree class. Before I knew it my community had scarfed up 115 trees. In doing the math I realized that I was exactly half way to my goal of 500 trees. It had just shifted from me doing all the planting to me empowering my community to do the planting. In the third year in a leap of faith and a little nudging from friends I ordered 270 trees. Which to this day is our standard order every year from Dave Wilson Nursery, plus with the added Citrus trees our normal tree distribution is 500 trees per year. To date we have encouraged local residents to plant around 2000 fruit trees, far exceeding my original goal.

Beginning January 1 of 2007 the tree process that was run by The Urban Farm was turned over to our new non-profit organization. The Phoenix Permaculture Guild, where all proceeds will benefit the work of the non-profit offers many educational opportunities to learn about green living and gardening in the desert.

The passion for this process far outweighs the amount of money that we make on each tree. We charge $32 per tree (for most trees) and $8 per grape vine and are committed to keeping the price low so that they are affordable. With each tree you purchase you are benefiting from my years of experience and knowledge of growing trees here in the Valley. Each year we offer fruit tree selection classes to help you select the appropriate tree for your needs and your space. We also have a tree planting day sharing how to correctly position and plant your new trees in your garden space as well as a tree pruning class explaining how to care for your trees once they are in the ground.

Each year we also donate trees to local schools and charities. If you don’t have room for trees in your own yard perhaps the local school or church would be interested in a donated tree. We will give away up to 25 trees, but if you would like to you could sponsor a tree or trees to your local school or perhaps your church has a large irrigated field growing only grass and you would like to work in your church community and plant some fruit trees.

Tree orders need to be placed and paid for by November 11th of each year. The trees then arrive from California and Yuma at the beginning of January at which time we have a tree pick and planting day where you learn proper pruning and planting techniques. We offer discounts on orders of 15 trees or more to help you install your new orchard. For a small fee we have people available to come to your site to help you evaluate the most appropriate placement and tree varieties for your space. Additionally we have a crew that can plant and place your trees for you.

The Urban Farm Thermal Heater

Imagine for a moment that you jump into your car that has been sitting in the sun in the middle of August or January for that matter – it’s kinda hot to oh my gosh. You burn your hands on the steering wheel and your tush on the seat. What if we could capture this heat and do something with it? That’s the idea behind the Urban Farm Thermal Heater.

This is something that I have dreamed about for years, but given that I am not an engineer implementing this was not something that was happening. Then my friend Bill Cunningham from Southwest Solar told me he had developed a Box heater, a metal box 10 feet long, 4 feet wide and 8 inches tall with a glass plate covering the top. Plus the inside is painted black. The panel is mounted on the roof pointing south at about a 40 degree angle to most effectively catch the winter suns heat. For those of you in the southern hemisphere the panel would need to face north.

The downside to this wonderful heater is that it only heats when the sun is out. Living in Phoenix however provides lots of sunny days so that is not much of a problem. Some of the upside includes that we are directly taking the suns heat for use in the Urban Farm and except for the low voltage blower fan that uses a small amount of energy there is no other electricity needed to run it.

Our thermal system is designed to heat the two bedrooms and bathroom on the north side of the house. There is a doorway with a drape across it that separates this area from the rest of my home. Amazingly the drape creates enough of a barrier to keep the area 5 to 10 degrees cooler in the summer.

So here is how it works. Air is pulled into the thermal unit through an 8 inch diameter hole in the back of the unit.

The unit is divided in half horizontally with a sheet of black painted sheet of metal. The air that enters the unit is drawn across the front of the panel from the left to the right side then passes to the underside of the pane to continue the heating process.

Mounted in the heating unit is a thermostat that comes on when the unit reaches 100 degrees. That way the heater does not start blowing heated air till it is warm enough. There is also a thermostat in the hall that allows me to control the heat blown into the house.

The blower unit is mounted inside the attic and connected through the roof to the heater unit. On the outside of the house the ducting is made of a flexible 8 inch insulated tubing and is encased inside sheet metal piping. The flexible insulated tubing runs through the attic and is delivered via a vent into my bedroom.

When I need the heat my intent is to leave the thermostat so that it will run anytime there is enough heat in the unit to heat my space. The vent is aimed at the block wall of my room so that the wall is used as a heat sink, storing warmth for later release.

The unit has just been installed and I don’t have any data yet on the efficacy of the unit. I will continue to add data as it comes available.

I recently emailed Bill and asked him for some technical data on the unit and here is what he said.

Short Answer: The thermostat in the solar heater comes on when the temp reaches 110F and goes off when it gets down to 90. The energy for the small blower uses less than 200 Watts.

Long answer: The solar heater can harvest up to about 10,000 BTU's per hour, which is equivalent to 2,800Watts of heat into the house (more than 10 times the energy going into the blower). I think that the "real world" heat gain is at least 1500 Watts which is what a typical electric plug in portable heater consumes and delivers. Over a typical day the solar heater can probably deliver about 75,000 to 90,000 BTU's to the house (depends mostly upon outside air temperature).

The solar heater is a great way to leverage the fossil energy into 10 times more, but since you have 2,000 watts of pv solar electric energy on your roof, (Blog post coming soon on this) so you are not using coal derived electricity like most other folks. End of lesson on solar and fossil energy theory. Typical nerd engineer answer: you ask me what time it is and I tell you how to build a clock!