Rethinking Garbage

Do you know where your local garbage dump is located? Have you ever been there? Few people have, but it is both informative and insightful to visit yours and see what happens to all the stuff you put in the can that gets picked up on your curbside each week.

Most municipal solid waste facilities (let's just call 'em dumps, 'cause that's what they really are) operate (accept garbage) from 30 to 50 years. My local dump opened a new facility in 2005 designed to accept 100 tons of garbage a day for the next 20 years. This is in a county of less than 30,000 residents. That's approximately six and a half pounds of garbage per person per day. The current fill rate indicates we may even be exceeding that amount. Why do we produce so much garbage? I've discussed this topic in a previous post, but have gained some new insights since then.

Recently, I moved just outside the city limits and no longer have the privilege of paying to have my garbage picked up by the city. Which means I either have to take it to the dump myself or pay a private firm to do it for me. I found it an eye opening experience to witness the dump firsthand. Of course there is the smell. But the overwhelming sensation was more like watching a family member being mugged, violated or beaten. The savage destruction of nature that takes place in a 'waste management facility' is visceral, disgusting and shameful. And we all bear responsibility.

Thankfully, my community has a pretty good recycling program, taking everything from cardboard to paper to plastics and glass. And if you separate out the glass, they will take everything else in a single stream. So I have three containers in my kitchen; one for all recycling (I remove the glass before the run to the dump), one for kitchen scraps that goes into the compost (more on that below) and one for everything else. The interesting aspect of this system is I find that the smallest volume ends up being the 'everything else' container, which is mostly plastic film (Saran Wrap), Ziploc bags and chip bags. I would guess that three-quarters by volume of what I take to the dump goes into the recycle bin.

The compost bucket collects all kitchen scraps except meat or bones (I'm a vegetarian, so that is not an issue), soft paper products such as used Kleenex and paper towels, fruit and vegetable skins and rinds, seeds, peels, coffee grounds and anything else that was recently alive (thus avoiding the classification issue with plastics, which are mostly petroleum products which technically were alive millions of years ago). I am amazed at the volume and weight of product that used to go to the landfill that now provides free (and organic) fertilizer for my garden. Of course, sending any kind of yard waste to the dump makes no sense whatsoever, so please stop putting grass clippings in bags for the garbage man unless your community has a specific composting program.

This is not the utopia I imagined in another post, but I think it is a big step in the right direction.

The Perfect, Good Enough Property

As I noted in a post almost a year ago (The Challenge Begins) finding your perfect property for a homestead can be difficult. Since that post, my Mom and I have seriously considered (up to making offers on a few) four or five properties, some with a house, some without. All of them presented some compromise with which we thought we could live. For many different reasons, none of them resulted in a final deal with us owning a new homestead property. Until now.

This past weekend we found a property that meets all our needs and is in our price range. We have negotiated a price with the seller and are under contract. We could be moved in by the end of the year. Looking back we are grateful that all of those other deals failed to materialize. We could have made a homestead work in each case, but some would have been more difficult than others, some required building a house on an empty property and some meet less of our criteria than others, leaving us more dependent on municipal services than we would have liked.

Water is always at the top of our list when we look at a prospective homestead and this one has it in spades. Not only are there two seasonal streams running through this property, it has two independent wells. Even though it has been more than six weeks since the summer monsoons have ended, there was water trickling out of seams in the rock feeding one stream and a wet, marshy area at the end of the other. The house is situated on a rocky outcrop between the two and out of the flood plain.

The house is a long ranch built on an east/west axis so it has a large southern exposure. In addition, the ground slopes down into one of the streams to the south creating a large southern exposure hillside which is already terraced with several gardens. The property is heavily wooded, especially along both stream beds, however, there is plenty of open, sunlit expanses along this southerly exposed hillside. This should be a good location for an orchard and gardens for sun and heat loving plants (like tomatoes and peppers).

Built on a rocky outcrop between two deep ravines, we were initially concerned that the soil around the house would not be adequate for our purposes. Our fears were unfounded after we realized that the surrounding trees have been dropping compost for years and the previous owners have amended the soil in the terraced gardens as needed. In addition, the swampy area at the end of one stream has more than enough black, organic soil to meet our needs as long as we are willing to haul it up the hill.

One of the things we love most about the property is that while it is only about a mile from a developed section of town (Wal-Mart and local grocery store among other conveniences) it feels isolated and out in the country when you are sitting on the patio surrounded by the many trees. In fact, it is not possible to see any of the neighboring houses except when you are entering or leaving the property via the driveway. In short, we have found our little piece of paradise.

The lesson learned is that although we got lucky not to have been stuck with one of those other properties, we should have been more patient, discounting each one because it required one or more compromise that we should not have been willing to make. We are very fortunate to have found a property that meets all our needs, but no matter what your needs or criteria are, the right property for you is out there if you are patient enough to wait for it to be revealed to you.

Why Food Security Matters to You

I believe there are two aspects to food security, both of which should concern all of us. The first and probably less familiar aspect is that of security from contamination. Contamination can take many forms, from E. coli and other biological agents to pesticides to heavy metals to animal hormones to discarded pharmaceuticals. The reason I add this as a factor of food security is because contaminated food is as good as no food at all. The second aspect is simple access to fresh, healthy food. Some inner cities of our large metropolises like Chicago and Detroit contain food deserts where no grocery stores exist for many miles. The only options people in these areas have for sustenance are fast food restaurants and convenience stores that sell highly processed and packaged food products.

For those of use fortunate enough to not live in a food desert we also need to be concerned about the availability of healthy, fresh food. A quick look at how our food is produced and distributed will outline some areas for concern. In the US the average super market travel distance for fresh fruit and vegetables is between 1500 to 2500 miles. Think about this for a moment. That lettuce you are eating in your salad tonight probably traveled farther to get to your refrigerator than you did on your last vacation. So what does this have to do with food security? Since our food network is stretched so long and is so reliant on cheap fuel, the interstate highway system and an enormous fleet of trucks, it is susceptible to many kinds of disruptions.

This is most apparent during natural disasters such as hurricanes. Under normal circumstances the stock in most grocery stores becomes depleted in three days. This means three days without any truck deliveries and your local store has no more food for you to purchase. Fortunately, natural disasters are not normal circumstances. We have all seen footage of empty store shelves hours before a large hurricane is scheduled to make landfall in an area. Luckily, most truck service is restored only hours after a hurricane has passed and the stores can be restocked. Sometimes, however, that is not the case.

As most of us can remember, after hurricane Katrina, the city of New Orleans descended into anarchy and chaos within a few days without drinkable water, electricity or food supplies from the outside world. Shocked that a city in the US could fail so quickly (and appalled at the apparent lack of federal response), I drove from Chicago down to Baton Rouge, the largest nearby city where a relief effort was being staged, to help. Inside the gymnasium and sports arena at LSU the Red Cross (with no help from FEMA or any other federal agency) was staffing a small city of cots, medical services and a cafeteria to house and feed five to six thousand refugees from the flooded city 50 miles to the south. The biggest impression I took away from my experience is how fragile is our modern lifestyle.

So what does this have to do with food security? Unfortunately, hurricanes are not the only threats to our thin and delicate web of food production and distribution. Drought, spikes in fuel prices, labor disputes and strikes, failing infrastructure, economic panic (e.g. fall of 2008), resource shortages, terrorism and severe weather events can all disrupt our steady supply of fresh, healthy food. But even if none of these calamities occur, we still have to contend with the other aspect of food security, contamination.

I've been considering all of these issues for several years and the simple conclusion I can't escape is the best way to improve one's food security is to grow more of it yourself. And growing your own food has the added benefit of reducing green house gases due to current energy intensive, factory farming practices and long travel distance by truck. And can you get more fresh than eating something five minutes after it is picked from the ground?

Every home owner has some kind of yard with some amount of ornamental vegetation, depending in which area of the country you live. Most of us own a swath of grass, the stereotypical American lawn, upon which we spend an inordinate amount of our summer months to maintain. Wouldn't it be a better use of our time and resources if we replaced some of that grass to grow something we can actually eat? Now that's food for thought.

Get Closer to Your Food

No, I'm not suggesting that you snuggle up with some broccoli, a chicken breast or bag of flour. But how far did all of those items travel to your dinner table? How many gallons of diesel fuel were burned so you could eat your last meal? How much have all of us contributed to global climate change simply due to the travel cost of the food we eat? For those of us in the continental US, have you ever eaten an apple grown in New Zealand? Grapes from Chile? Strawberries from Mexico? All of these foods incur high fossil fuel emissions in order that we can eat fruit in the winter.

A common message to reduce this burden on our global climate is "eat local, eat seasonal". This is a great idea for several reasons. Not only does it reduce fossil fuel emissions but you get fresher and most of the time better tasting produce with higher vitamin content and nutritional value. But can you get more local than your backyard? Is it really possible to reduce your fossil fuel emission burden for the food you eat to nearly zero? Let's see what that might look like.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that our food is produced via biological systems. Plants do not grow in isolation. They are dependent upon a host of beneficial organisms and nutrients from nitrogen in the air to the bacteria that converts it into ammonia (nitrogen fixation) in symbiosis with some plant roots (primarily legumes), to the nitrifying soil bacteria which convert the ammonia into nitrates and nitrites which are absorbed by plants as natural fertilizer. The cycle continues as plants die and decay with the help of more kinds of bacteria and fungi which create more ammonia, nitrates and nitrites to start the cycle again. In addition, animals that eat and digest the plants (again with the help of beneficial bacteria in their digestive tract) produce more ammonia in their droppings (manure) which in turn adds to this never ending cycle.

The reason for the detailed lesson in the nitrogen cycle is to reinforce the notion that whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we and the food we eat are part of this cycle. In order for us to produce food in the most efficient manner (e.g. with the least amount of resources) we have to be both cognizant of this fact and take advantage of it to the fullest extent possible.

So what might this look like in a home garden? First, it means committing to a fully organic gardening philosophy. This is important for two reasons. First, because our goal is to reduce our reliance upon and consumption of fossil fuels. This is not possible if we buy and consume man-made fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides, most of which are either direct petroleum products or require large amounts of energy (derived from some fossil fuel) for production and transportation. Secondly, if our goal is to produce healthy food, why would we contaminate it with chemicals which in the very least have unknown health effects and in the worst case are known carcinogens or toxins (for a scare, read the label of any pesticide in your garage or garden shed).

Keeping in mind all the parts of the nitrogen cycle and our commitment to fully organic practices, a small kitchen garden should have the following components:

• Compost pile - made up of all vegetative matter collected on your property. Be wary of taking in compost or vegetative matter from other sources due to the possible contamination of persistent herbicides. Keep a small bucket under your sink and throw in all fruit and vegetable scrapes (no meat products) and add to the compost when full.
• Cover crops - nitrogen fixing plants such as clovers or hairy vetch to suppress weeds, improve soil quality and used as in-place compost when it is tilled under before planting edible crops.
• Rich soil - created by use of compost, cover crops and ample use of mulch to both hold in moisture and deter weed growth.
• Chickens - OK, this is probably optional, but consider this. Four laying hens will produce about a dozen eggs a week. In addition, let them into your garden before planting and after harvesting to eat bugs, till the soil and add fresh manure. Taking care of four hens is no more work than a dog, and few of us hesitate bringing one of them into our lives.
• Crop rotation - use a three session rotation, planting your veggies in a different bed to reduce disease and recurring pests. When selecting a crop to plant make sure it is from a different plant family than the previous crop in the same bed (e.g. broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts are all in the family Brassica and should not be rotated in the same bed as common pests and disease afflict them all).
• Beneficial predators - encouraging or adding beneficial insects, spiders and other pest predators (e.g. birds and bats) is a low cost and low maintenance way to suppress pest species
• Pollinators - encouraging pollinators (insects, birds and bats) by planting inviting flowering plants (which don't have to be edible and add color and beauty to the garden), creating nesting sites and planting shrubs and other perennials for shelter as well as another source of food.
• Food storage - when a harvest is ready, you will probably have more to pick than you and your family can eat before the produce goes bad. Learn how to preserve fruits and veggies via canning, drying, or low energy cold storage such as a root cellar.
• Mindfulness - walk your garden daily and simply observe. Is the soil too wet or dry in some areas? How do the leaves of the different plants look as they grow? Do you notice indications of any pests or disease? Are certain plants thriving or suffering? Research problems before they become to difficult to remedy.

Don't fall into the trap that unless you grow a big garden, you won't be doing enough to make any difference. Even if you live in an apartment or condo you can grow in a window box, on a patio or even a rooftop. Start small, a few tomato plants or a few red peppers. Follow all the techniques and increase your plot over several seasons. Let your garden grow with your experience and you will see it as a source of joy and relaxation, not one of toil and labor. Anything that you grow on your own, no matter how small, will bring you closer to your food. And that is good for all of us.

The Challenge Begins

Since I started this blog last April, I have been living in the Chicago area describing some of the challenges our society is facing and offering some solutions. But until this point, I have not been able to put into practice very many of my own suggestions. I now have the opportunity to move to a rural environment where I will begin the long journey to self-sufficiency and living a completely sustainable life. I have selected a fertile and watered mountain valley in southern New Mexico as the location of my new homestead. As any journey is easier and more fun with a companion than alone, my mother and I have decided to go into this adventure together. Being a partner in crime who shares my philosophy of life and concerns about the "modern" world, I look forward to sharing this exciting journey with her.

We have yet to even purchase a property, although there is one in particular that we have our eye on. So I have decided to dedicate this blog post towards the decision process we went through in finding an appropriate property for us, what we considered necessary and what are bonus criteria.

Water
Reliable access to clean water is the most important criteria for land selection. In order to lessen the impact if a source of water runs dry, a prospective property should have at least two independent water supplies (as independent as possible, since most water sources are tied to rainfall). And in the terms of both sustainability and self-reliance, do not count any municipal water supply (i.e. piped in water). If it exists, this may be a nice backup while it operates, but should be used sparingly. If it is the only water supply on the land, keep looking. This is important not only because you don't want to rely upon failing infrastructure that is out of your control, but because you also have no control over the energy intensive and possibly environmentally damaging practices in use to pump and deliver that water to your prospective property.

Most sites have one water source that you can count on: rain. Either the current weather patterns of the area provide enough rain for seasonal crops or you can build rain collection devices to store rainwater through the dry periods of the year. If your prospective property lies in an area which receives less than 16" of rain a year, you will need both a shallow water table (less than 100 ft. for a low energy use well) and at least a seasonal source of surface water (spring, stream or river). In addition, you will have to research local water rights laws and determine what water rights are associated with the property deed. The last thing you want is to purchase a property on a river or stream and find out you can't draw even a drop of water from it.

Unfortunately, the world we live in is changing due to the increasing levels of CO2 released into the atmosphere primarily from the burning of fossil fuels. As such any consideration of precipitation as a source of water (or precipitation fed sources such as streams and rivers) would be remiss without at least considering the projections for changing precipitation patterns in the area of your property. The EPA has a good description of regional projections for both temperature and precipitation by the end of the century.

Sunlight
It may seem obvious that plants need sunshine to grow. However, some sites can have less than obvious disadvantages regarding how the sun illuminates the landscape. Look for major obstructions like large trees, existing buildings (especially on adjacent property), hills or mountains or other aspects of topology. Also remember, the sun moves not only on the daily cycle from east to west but also on the yearly cycle of the seasons. For North America the angle of the sun varies from a low of 18 degrees from the horizon at noon at the winter solstice in the north (Grand Forks, ND) to a high of 84 degrees at the summer solstice in the south (Miami, FL). Your property location will greatly affect the seasonal amount of sunlight available to you.

A useful website to help you visualize the movement of the sun for your prospective property is Sun Earth Tools. It will superimpose over a Google maps satellite image of the property the daily path of the sun at any date and indicate the furthest extent at the two solstices. Also keep in mind this evaluation does not reflect the local weather which is obviously correlated to the amount of sunshine available at different times of the year (it is colder in Grand Forks, ND than Miami, FL most times of the year due to the amount of sunlight both areas receive).

Geography
It is also important to notice and take into account the regional and local geography and how it affects weather patterns, rainfall and local heating and cooling cycles. For example, in the northern hemisphere a south facing slope, even in a shallow valley, will have more direct sunlight than the north facing slope opposite and will therefore warm up earlier in the morning, suffer less frost damage in the winter and support more sun loving plants.

Also notice how the local geography affects wind direction which in turn can imply heating and cooling characteristics of surrounding buildings, trees and topography such as a stony hillside. Low lying areas, even of only a few feet, can become cold air traps in winter and are likely places for frost to develop first. Walk the property with a notebook and camera and notice and document all of these details.

Soil
The non-organic components of soil are sand, silt and clay. The definitions of each is based on the particle size not their composition, that of silt being somewhere between sand (the coarsest or largest particles) and clay (the smallest and finest). The current (in situ) relative proportions of these components will determine how much or little work will be required to successfully grow crops on your prospective land. In addition to the amount of organic matter present, the most important aspect of soil composition is the relative quantities of these components. Too much clay and you will have poor soil drainage leading to root rot and other problems. Too much sand and the soil will not hold enough water to prevent the roots from drying out between waterings.

A simple way to determine soil composition is to dig a spadeful of soil from a representative spot (on the surface, don't dig deeper than a foot) and half fill a mason jar with the soil. Fill the rest of the way with water and seal tightly. Shake the jar until the soil is completely dispersed in the water. Set the jar on a level surface for a day or two to allow the soil to settle back to the bottom. The sand will settle out first, then the silt and finally the clay particles (the finest ones). Use a ruler to measure the clear bands of each layer to determine the relative quantities. Easy to manage soil should consist of approximately 20% sand, 20% clay and 60% silt, although up to equal quantities of each is manageable. More sand or clay than silt is an indication that this soil will need much remediation to be useful and you should probably consider other properties.

In addition to these components also look for number and size of stones in the soil (many stones makes it harder to till and weed), how compacted the soil is (did you have to jump on the spade to get a shovelful?) and how many worms or worm holes you noticed in that one spadeful. An absence of worms is always a warning sign and can indicate any number of problems that might be difficult to remediate.

Accessibility
How easy was it to drive to your prospective property? Is it remote? Close to the nearest town? Did you have to cross any dry stream beds (which may flood some times of the year), steep hillsides (may ice up during the winter) or other terrain features which may make access difficult during the various seasons? It may be worth while to visit at night to notice how easy it is to find the driveway or negotiate the nearby roads. How easy will it be for someone else to find the property? You most likely will take a delivery of a package or possibly large shipment at some point. Will this be an issue or inconvenience? This is particularly important if you plan on any large construction projects like building a new home, barn or other structures on the property.

Vision
Can you see yourself living there? This sometimes can get lost in the shuffle with viewing multiple properties and checking off the list everything mentioned above. But don't forget why you are buying this property. Notice the neighborhood and surrounding properties. Are they well kept or run down? Are there others in the area homesteading or growing kitchen gardens? Is there a local community of like-minded individuals or will you be forging a new path in this area?

Try visiting just before sunset, setting up a lawn chair and simply sitting to watch the sun set. Notice the noises, traffic, people or whatever else goes on around the property. Is this a view you can live with? What don't you like about it? How does that balance out with all the positive qualities of the property?

Good Enough
Finally, no property is going to meet all of your needs. The real challenge is to decide what is truly important to you and make sure you are selecting the property that is good enough to meet those needs without waiting for that perfect property that may never materialize.

Wasting the Abundance

How much food have you thrown away today? Didn't quite finish that second or third bowl of cereal and dumped it down the garbage disposal? Tossed the last two bites of that sandwich? Scraped the remains of dinner into the kitchen garbage? Did you go shopping today and clean out your refrigerator by throwing away all that food from last week that had gone bad? How about those leftovers from the restaurant three nights ago that you never ate? We all do it. I did all these things in the last week. We usually don't even think about it.

So let's stop for a second and do a little bit of that thinking. My cereal was mostly corn, wheat and sugar. All are grown, harvested and processed many miles from the store in which I purchased the cereal. Taking into account the production of the packaging of all the ingredients before they arrive at the cereal plant and all the packaging to get the cereal to my kitchen, not to mention the production of the cereal itself and we can quickly see that there are many very complicated processes involved. Each of them consumes energy which usually comes from some fossil fuel like diesel for the trucks and coal to generate the electricity.

When I pour that last bowl, eat only half of it and dump the rest, I'm also wasting some of that energy that went into getting that cereal into my bowl. It doesn't seem like much when considering a bowl of cereal. However, recent studies have indicated that in industrialized nations like the US 30 - 50% of all food produced is thrown away before it can be eaten. This means that up to 50% of the carbon emissions related to food production and transportation are causing global climate change for no benefit. I don't know how you feel, but that sounds really stupid to me.

The irony, or perhaps the underlying cause, of all this waste is that we do it because our food supply is so abundant. We grow and produce so much food in the US that we can throw away half of it and still suffer an epidemic of obesity caused mainly by eating too much (or at least too much of the wrong kinds of food). The true tragedy is not the cost of the waste or even the distasteful moral issue of so much waste in the face of so many struggling with food security or even starvation in other parts of the world. No, the tragedy is that while we are wasting this colossal abundance we are lulled into believing it will continue forever.

The belief in never ending abundance causes us as a society to be wasteful of all the limited resources that are consumed daily to produce this amazing bounty which we discard without a second thought. Our modern farming practices are heavily reliant on the consumption of water for irrigation, diesel for production and transportation, petroleum for pesticides, other fossil fuels like natural gas to produce fertilizer and the land on which to grow it all. Supply of all of these resources are beginning to be challenged and will be more so in the near future as world-wide demand for food continues to increase partly due to population increase and partly to the rest of the world wanting to eat what we do.

Before a crisis looms caused by a shortage of any of these resources upon which our farming practices rely, we need to supplement our food supply with crops grown in ways that are not reliant on these limited resources. Many organic farming practices can produce the same yield per acre with no chemical fertilizers or pesticides and a fraction of the petroleum. The problem is that all of these practices are only successful on a small scale so that more people have to practice them to support the same sized population.

We won't get there overnight, but we can each make a small contribution by being more mindful of how much food we buy, eat and throw out. We can also support local farmers who practice organic techniques which have a lower impact on the environment, our bodies and our limited resources. If we don't we may be staring into the first of many crises regarding our food production sooner than we want to admit.