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Annual Solar Energy Day
By GregPeterson on April 8, 2010 | No Comments

I am very excited about our ‘annual lets all learn about Solar PV’ day at the Urban Farm, Saturday April 10.

• Solar Energy Day
April 10, 2010
8:30am or 10:30am – Just show up
6750 N 13th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85014
Just south of Glendale Ave on 13th Place.
This is east of Central Ave.

These days I am getting so many questions about adding solar panels to our collective roof’s and quite honestly I am surprised at what I am hearing. It often comes down to what is the truth about adding panels, your rebates and tax credits.

American Solar has been in business since 2001 and installed my PV electric system at the Urban Farm four years ago. The process was very professional and they have always been there to answer my many questions.

So I have decided to bring their team into the Urban Farm to answer your questions and give you the opportunity to have them come to your home and give you a personalized site evaluation.

Please join me for these two educational and inspiring events at the Urban Farm.

Hope to see you here.

Greg Peterson

http://www.YourGuideToGreen.com

Solar Energy Day at the Urban Farm

Phoenix, Ariz. – March 12, 2010 – With the many questions these days about solar panels, where does someone go to understand what is real when it comes to installing solar on their home. Greg Peterson wondered that and decided to open his home, The Urban Farm, for two informational sessions on Saturday, April 10th at 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM.

“I have had so many questions from friends lately about solar and I wanted to give them the opportunity to learn more about the many benefits solar power has to offer,” said Peterson. “We have to make sure that we educate ourselves about solar incentives and systems before we dive in. American Solar installed my system four years ago and I have been very happy with it.”

“More and more people are choosing to utilize the sun to produce electricity because it saves them money on energy bills and acts as a hedge against increasing energy costs,” said Krystal Book, Marketing Director with American Solar Electric. “We are delighted to partner with The Urban Farm to educate Valley residents and look forward to working with other organizations in an effort to expand the utilization of our most abundant, clean, and reliable energy resource—the sun.”

Many homeowners in Arizona have seen the benefits of owning a solar electric system. Not only does a solar electric system pay for itself, it also protects against future utility rate increases for a portion of your utility bill. In addition, current utility and government incentives can save homeowners as much as 75% off the total system’s cost which has been a key with helping Valley homeowners go solar.

To learn how solar can save you money, e-mail your RSVP to events@americanpv.com or call
(480) 994-1440 to reserve your seat. The two informational sessions will be held at the Urban Farm at
6750 North 13th Place in Phoenix, AZ 85014 at 8:30 AM and 10:30 AM.

American Solar Electric, Inc. is an Arizona-based design-build firm specializing in photovoltaic (solar electric) power systems for residential and home builder applications. Headquartered in Scottsdale, the company is responsible for the installation of more than 10 megawatts of photovoltaic power in Arizona, statewide. American Solar Electric’s approach includes system design, permitting, procurement, installation, interconnection, and commissioning. Additional information on the company’s products and services is available online at http://www.americanpv.com.

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Eating Heartily from My Yard
By GregPeterson on March 17, 2010 | 3 Comments

Recently I decided to eat my entire breakfast from the yard. So I grabbed a colander and headed for the front yard for some chard, spinach, onion tops, regular & golden eight ball zucchini, and to the back yard for some eggs.

Then I went to work and chopped and sautéed the veggies in butter (not from my yard,) scrambled and cooked the eggs. Tossed the veggies on top and viola one healthy omelet FREE from the yard.

I want to thank my friend Kelli (http://www.africankelli.com/) who I had dinner with last evening for the inspiration on this one. She is doing great community work her in Phoenix building community gardens.

Technorati Tags: Chef Rachel, eat my yard, edible landscaping, Greg Peterson, healthy eating, Urban Farm
Fruit Tree Update
By GregPeterson on March 4, 2010 | 6 Comments

So at my last tour people were pretty flabbergasted by my significant cutting back of the new peach tree in my front yard. You can see the video of my planting and pruning of the tree from my Weekly Ennovation from a few weeks ago.

Once you watch the video check out the picture below. It is showing signs of growth. Woohoo.

Miniature Peach Tree

During the tour this past Saturday I promised people that I would prove to them that this technique works…well here is the proof. Here is a picture of a peach tree that I planted last year using this same technique.

Second Year Peach Tree

And another…

Second Year Peach Tree Two

And yet another…

Second Year Peach Tree Three

These three pictures were taken on the same day and you can see that they are in different stages of budding out. The ones that bud out later will produce peaches a little later in the season.

The next picture is an exciting on as it is an apricot that I just planted out. Notice that it is budding out in multiple places rather than just one. This will make the bushing process a lot easier.

First year Apricot

The other thing that will help with the bushing process will be that I will do summer pruning of the trees – this will help to keep the growth like a bush rather than like a tree. I will cut them off at 6 feet and not let them get any taller.

More on that later.

Greg from the Urban Farm March 3, 2009
Urban Farm Tour
By GregPeterson on February 24, 2010 | No Comments

Title: Urban Farm Tour
Location: 6750 N 13th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85014
Start Time: 11:00 am
Date: 2010
End Time: 12:30 pm
Urban Farm Tour
By GregPeterson on February 24, 2010 | No Comments

Title: Urban Farm Tour
Location: 6750 N 13th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85014
Description: Come and visit the Urban Farm on an owner led tour of his 1/3 of acre homesite in North Central Phoenix that includes over 80 fruit trees, a primarily edible landscape, rain and greywater, solar panels and more.
Start Time: 09:00
Date: 2010-02-27
End Time: 10:30
Gardening Classes
By GregPeterson on February 13, 2010 | No Comments

The Phoenix Permaculture Guild offers a plethora of classes on gardening, composting, keeping chickens, preserving food and much more. Check out their website for more information http://www.PhoenixPermaculture.org
Another Pass at Urban Orcharding
By GregPeterson on February 3, 2010 | No Comments

Hey all,

For those of you that know me or have read my blog you know how much I love fruit trees. So much so that I have over 80 fruit trees planted at the Urban Farm and another 60 or so planted in my neighborhood. A big part of how we manage these trees is that we keep them small with a process called Urban Orcharding. We keep them small by pruning them from a very early age and then keep up with the pruning every year.

My goal at the Urban Farm is to get to a place where I am able to harvest fruit all year around. Well I am getting there and it looks like this:

• November through April – Oranges and tangerines – these store really well on the tree.
• April – Loquats – A really nice tropical fruit resembling an apricot.
• May through July – Peaches, apricots, plums and grapes – these don’t store well on the tree well therefor I have planted different varieties that ripen at different times. This is called successive ripening.
• June through August – Apples – These store well on the trees as well.
• August and September – Asian pears and pomegranates.

Check out this video on urban orcharding. Also here is a really great article on creating your own urban orchard.

Greg

Technorati Tags: fruit, fruit trees, Urban Farm, Urban orcharding
I have to keep remembering…
By GregPeterson on January 31, 2010 | 3 Comments

I am sitting here in the living room at The Urban Farm. It is Sunday night January 31st. The news just reported that a group of singers will be rerecording the song We Are The World. In 1985 the song moved me. Today I purchased it on iTunes and reremembered why I do what I do – the song moves me as much today as it did then.

Every day I have to keep reminding myself why I do what I do. It is more a feeling than something specific – the song reminds me…

We Are The World

There comes a time
When we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can’t go on
Pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God’s great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart
So they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

When you’re down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There’s no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

THAT is why I do what I do. Because I can. It is MY duty to leave the planet a better place…Every Day. FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Because I can. I can make a difference and I do every day with every choice I make. Choices made from love. If not me then who will do it. If not you then who. This is your call to stand up and change the world. Even if it is only in your little corner – just do it!!!

In the chorus there is a line

There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives

That couldn’t be more true or poignant today what it comes to our living on our Mother earth.

Why do you do what you do? That is what I want to know. Please post a comment here, ask your friends, pass this post along to everyone that you know. It’s time we step up to the plate and make a difference.

How do you make a difference? Tell me.

Greg from my couch, January 31st, 2010. Looking to make THE biggest difference of my life in the next 11 months.

Remember you can and do make a difference every day.
The 3 R’s Mother Nature Style
By GregPeterson on January 21, 2010 | No Comments

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This week, Mother Nature takes us back to school to learn the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Listen in as She relates the merits of each one and why they are not so mysteriously in that order.

Get your weekday dose of your “Mother” on Facebook and Twitter – the first 100 Facebook fans will be entered to win a free t-shirt with a personal message from Mother Nature!

Think GREEN this Valentine’s Day! Grab your ECO-valentine a special earth-friendly gift with love from Mother Nature!

Hurry to www.itsyourmothercalling.com for Valentine’s Day delivery!
To Greywater or Not
By GregPeterson on January 20, 2010 | 11 Comments

I believe that living a green lifestyle is about making many small steps over time in the direction of green. Whether it is reducing what you use, before reusing what you have, then making recycling last or adding greywater to your landscape each part is a learning process. This weeks article is a just one simple look at the notion of using greywater in your landscape.

Every day we are letting a valuable resource flow right down our drains. Greywater is defined as any water that runs down the drain of your sinks, showers and washer, but does not include ‘blackwater’ from your toilet or kitchen sink. Greywater is a beneficial resource that we can use to irrigate our landscapes and cut down on the amount of water we use on a day-to-day basis saving a valuable resource and money on our water bill.

The trick is to figure out how to get the water from our drains to our landscape. One way to redirect your greywater is to replumb your sinks so that they run outside, a harrowing job for even the most skilled homeowner. But there are other alternatives: Hang a hose over a tree limb to create your own simple outdoor shower; keep a 5 gallon bucket in the bathroom and catch the water as your shower warms up; and always consider adding greywater to your remodeling projects.

At the Urban Farm we have integrated the notion of greywater in the remodeling of our outdoor patio, by designing the outdoor vegetable rinse sink and shower to drain into the landscape. Think about ways of using this greywater asset to replace your landscape irrigation water. Normally landscape irrigation water is used directly from the city water supply and is only used once, while your greywater is being used twice.

Here is a simple system that I installed in one of the bathrooms of my home.

My bathroom sink. The water heater is all the way on the other side of the house so I have to put a gallon or two down the drain every time I want to take a hot shower.

So I decided to add a Jandy valve under the sink. The pipe running to the left on this picture goes out to the landscape. The pipe running to the right and then pointing back goes to the sewer. This way if we need to put something that we don’t want out in the landscape down the drain we direct the water to the sewer. Otherwise the water gets directed through the wall and into the landscape.

This is where the pipe from under my sink exits outside. The white thing on the top of the pipe is a back flow preventer.

The water then travels about 20 feet. Remember there needs to be a slope in the pipe so the water flows down. Then we used an infiltrator that was buried near my apple, apricot, mesquite and cherry trees. The picture below shows the infiltrator that we used. There is no bottom in it so the water lands in the dirt and percolates into the ground. This greywater system is oversized for the amount of water that goes into it. I did this on purpose as I eventually plan to add the shower to the greywater system.

When it was all said and done this is what it looked like. The shadow you see at the bottom of the picture is the shade of the apple tree.

Greywater notes:

• There are special soaps you need to use when utilizing greywater. Click here for the full article on biocompatible soaps

• Greywater use is legal in the State of Arizona. Simply follow the thirteen best practices outlined by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in its document, Using Greywater at Home. Check with your state or municipality for the legalities of greywater in your area.

• When it comes to designing and installing your greywater system, the premier book on the subject is Create an Oasis with Greywater by Art Ludwig. This book outlines the many systems that you can build and includes great graphics, charts, and pictures to assist any do-it-yourselfer. Just remember that greywater is always best put directly into the ground where your landscape plants can us it rather than to store greywater in a container, as it can have a tendency to smell rather quickly.

Greywater is simple to utilize once you understand the concepts.

Technorati Tags: Art Ludwig, Creating an Oasis with Greywater, green living, Greg Peterson, greywater, Urban Farm