Transition is in the air. Looking to the gorgeous metaphor offered by Shreve Stockton at Honey Rock Dawn. “In every curve there’s a moment that feels out of control. A common reflex stemming from fear, from the feeling of loosing control, is to squeeze the brakes in the center of the curve. Yet if fear is allowed in, trouble often follows. The key to riding curves is in the acceleration, not the breaking. We are meant to join forces with the momentum. A slight, steady increase in speed helps maintain the desired course. Curves ask us to lean into the abyss, to understand that letting go a little is what carries us through. Mastery comes from trusting enough to look beyond where you can see.”

In the spirit of gliding through the curves gracefully, I am focusing on all the love and gardens growing around me. But first, check out this stunning mushroom knife the amazing Lauren Lyle gifted to me for graduation. No more stealing kitchen knives and hoping I don’t slip on the hiking trails.

Speaking of Lauren, I never posted about what I did with the hunks of pork I obtained from TLC Ranch. Some have yet to be cooked but the lovely loin was transformed into a tasty roasted loin accompanied by polenta made flocculant with lots of stirring and butter. At this point, I think Lauren could feed me dog poo and I’d be convinced it was the best dog poo I’ve ever eaten in my life, master chef that she is.

Also been spending lots of time with Stefani. She is such a whirl of hummingbird energy. Its only been by luck that I’ve ever spent time with her. She hosted a coop tour this weekend with apparently ~400 attendees arriving in a steady stream, by bike no less.

You have to go to her blog Sicilian Sisters Grow Some Food for the full story. I’m going to be an “apprentice” in Stefani’s massive backyard production farm this Spring/Summer.

I will also be giving a friendly hand to others who are eager to feed their family fresh beautiful home grown food. In fact, Saturday was spent digging some root bound agapanthas and a tree stump out of the way of a large garden bed.

Oh and let me not forget. A big thanks to Brad Burger, the manger of the Grand Lake Farmer’s Market. Brad allowed me and another volunteer organizer (thanks Diana) for Retire Ronald to talk to market goers and invite them to sign a petition asking McDonalds to stop targeting children with their marketing. The signed petitions are going to the Micky D’s shareholder meeting May 20th to demonstrate the level of community support nationally asking to retire the clown. If you haven’t signed click here to do it now. Ran into Bryant Terry and his lovely fiance, Jidan, there. Cool people. Great weekend. Excellent community.

The weeks are moving fast now. Quick recap:

With the heavy spring rains this year, the peas finally grew! This amounted to about 1lb yield. This was my third year trying. The key- lots of water.

The kits are growing rapidly…

As are the kids around me (Happy Birthday Violet!).

The honeybees are swarming again,

and again.

I gave a talk at TechLiminal recently. The topic was Urban Farming 101. I think I overtalked…in fact, I know I did. Turns out there is quite a bit of ground to cover (haha) when it comes to growing and raising your own food. Luckily with this blog, I can keep on talking.

I created this blog to share both the experience of urban farming as it unfolds and the how-to’s. With that, lets talk about light and shade. First, let me introduce my friend the protractor (apparently this image is printable and usable):

I attended a home growing class a few years ago where the instructor distributed nifty “maps” of the sun’s path throughout the year in the Bay Area (click here to download a pdf of the map on google docs) and taught us to use this map of the sun and a protractor to determine how many hours of sun a given spot in your yard will receive throughout the year. This will help you decide what may grow well in certain locations of your yard.

Do this by taking your map and protractor to the desired location and while holding the protactor flat with the arch outward and straight side facing you, point the ninety degree mark on the protractor exactly due south. Now look at your “horizon” which will be where the open sky meets an obstacle in your yard. You are going to use the protractor to plot degrees on the vertical (y) and horizontal (x) axis. For each visible obstacle starting on your left, note the degrees from ninety it first starts. That will be the degrees on the x axis. For the first time it appears in your horizon, consider the angle of it is located from the flat surface of the protractor. You can likely estimate this if you know basic angles. This will be your y axis. Now plot the point on the appropriate location on your chart. As you move from left to right, plot only the transitions in height in your horizon. Once you are done with the full 180 view from where you are squatting (don’t worry about the north side. The sun travels from east, south, west), connect the dots and shade beneath the resulting line. The unshaded portion of your plotted horizon will indicate the hours of light in the day for a given month of the year.

If you have a deciduous tree which is bare part of the year, when you shade make only sparse lines through that area on the map to indicate partial shading. There were some brainiacs at the talk that could recalibrate the Bay Area map to accommodate any longitude and latitude, unfortunately unless they comment to explain how, I am at a loss. The same people explained how they could plot the points by using a photo of the yard…but sitting at your computer to garden sort of defeats the point, smarty pants.

With the holidays passed and the new year, it is time for farm planning. January may be the only month where the garden and animals are slow and quiet. It is this one calm month that I have to sharpen my tools, separate and select seeds, prep fruit trees and clean beds emptied of their early winter crops. Now is the time to plan which crops will be my main crops for spring and summer, as well as what livestock I plan on keeping. This year livestock may be pretty exciting…time will tell.

I learned a few lessons this year with livestock- namely to acquire my turkey before it is too old so that it can “bond” with me. This makes it much easier to approach to feed and also to pick up. The last turkey I had was to fearful and aggressive because it was not a chick. I also learned that if I want roast goose for Christmas, I need to raise my own. Inspired by the goose preparations I assisted with before Christmas, I decided I wanted to cook a goose. I had seen young geese at Berkeley Bowl. However, it turned out they are $72 for one frozen bird. No thanks. With my level of commitment and degree of knowledge at this point, I can raise several geese for the price of $72.

To help me with some of my tasks I will be attending upcoming classes and meetings. Namely, Berkeley Horticulture offers free classes on pruning rose bushes and fruit trees each Saturday of January. Also, I am going to attempt to graft other fruits onto my trees again this year. Last year, I tried a Pippin Apple to my Fuji but they did not take (thanks for the scions Abby!). This year, I am going to the 2010 Golden Gate Chapter Scion Exchange to see what delicious fruits I might find.

I also have to freeze the shallows I removed from my hive in November in preparation for February. Freezng them should remove any Wax Moth larvae and other critters that have settled in the empty frames. I pray to be on top of my beekeeping this year and have removed any queen cells and expanded the hive before another devastating spring swarm.

Well I guess January is not so quiet after all.

At first glance a seemingly unremarkable tomato, indeed.

A closer look reveals this is in fact a symbol of simple beauty, perfect in its imperfection. It is triumph over chaos, loss, and hunger. This fragrant fruit is a gift of nourishment and second chances.

With fall coming the opportunity to focus on growing my food presents itself again. The summer harvest was affected by my lack of time, my loss of encouragement with just too much going on, and a rat infestation eradicating my new crops. Many days I wanted to be outside cleaning and prepping I was indoors, coping and writing. However, the lack of fresh easily accessible produce has become apparent to both me and my husband. We have felt it in the need for increased shopping and as a result, in our pocketbooks. However, fall in the Bay Area is kind to us and offers us the rare second chance. With that, I have begun preparations for the fall. Crops for the fall are listed below.

In theme with urban farming and second chances, I am also making plans to shift my lifestyle from income based to to time based, a concept I encountered in a class I took years ago and in the book Your Money or Your Life. It is a grand experiment where growing my own food factors in greatly. In the process of poking around for ideas I found a couple of inspiring resources, an intriguing book “Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Place”, by John R. Stilgoe, where the first thing the author prompts us to do is “go outside now.” I also found a series of blog posts called Broke Guy Day Care (I love the Stuffed Animal Birthday Party). Though for parenting, the imagination of the writer inspires creativity and frugality.

Crops to begin for Sepember:

Directly sown:

Roots veggies: beets, carrots, parsnips…etc

Cool weather legumes: peas, pole beans, favas

Spinach

Garlic

To start in flats:

Leafy greens: lettuce, radicchio, chard, mustard

Cruciferous plants: broccolis, kales, cauliflower, collards

Onions

Leeks

Celery

This summer has seen a major break through in public recognition of urban farming. Fellow Oakland urban farmer, Novella Carpenter, has spread the word across the nation with her book Farm City. It appears the hubbub does not end there. Others in the beautiful Oakland are making a splash with urban homesteading as the below included Jane Tunk’s article describes. Ms. Tunk has included some excellent resources:

Bay Area Homesteading 101

I recently spoke with a San Francisco resident that wants a veggie garden. Their plot is against the front of their house. They tested their soil for lead, found medium levels and removed nearly twelve inches of soil and retested. They found in the lower layer even higher levels of lead. They wanted to know what their options are for planting (if impatient, scroll to bottom for suggestions).

I did some looking around and found one approach is to use a phosphate spread in the affected soil. The suggestion comes from Microbiologist, Dr. Sam Fogel of Bioremediation Consulting Inc. He was initially quoted in a Boston Globe article on the subject where were he explained that Phosphorus binds with Lead and reduces Lead mobility and its biological availability. I went in search of academic findings to support this idea and did not find an overwhelming amount of research. However, there were a couple interesting articles. One is in Soil Science, “Lead Phosphorus Interactions in Equilibrated Soil Suspensions” by M. T. Aide and D. Huff. However, I found it hard to compare their experimental study with the true conditions of soil in a yard but they did report that “Phosphorus amendments limited the appearance of the exchangeable Lead.”

Another Article from the Journal of Environmental Quality, is “Chemical Immobilization of Lead, Zinc, and Cadmium in Smelter-Contaminated Soils Using Biosolids and Rock Phosphate” (catching title) by N. T. Basta, R. Gradwohl, K. L. Snethen, and J. L. Schroder, reported:

“Rock phosphate was the only treatment that reduced human gastrointestinal available Lead in both gastric and intestinal solutions, 23 and 92%, respectively. Alkaline organic treatments (lime stabilized biosolid, n-viro soil) decreases Cadmium transmission through the food chain pathway, whereas rock phosphate decreases risk from exposure to Lead via the soil ingestion pathway.”

I then contacted Dr. Fogel to follow up on what his own understanding of Phosphorus binding with Lead and the suggested quantity to use per square foot. Dr. Fogel informed me that he did not yet know the exact quantity to use per square foot and that I would have to determine the appropriate amount to use through experimentation (in partnership with my state agricultural school no less). After providing a very simple but decent test methodology he suggested using the highest level phosphorus spread (called Triple Superphosphate) and using a quantity according to agricultural recommendations. He used this method himself and found Lead levels 100 times less in his own garden plot.

I did find a critique of Triple Superphosphate in that phosphate binds to other minerals besides Lead, rendering them unavailable to plants. These other minerals included zinc, iron and manganese, which are needed for plant health. However, this is not an issue in this case as the garden will not be planted directly in the affected soil. If using regular rock phosphate (rather than triple super), you would use a greater quantity.

Quickly, to understand the difference
To make 0-20-0, rock phosphate is treated with sulfuric acid to make calcium phosphate (0-20-0) and calcium sulphate (gypsum).

To make 0-46-0, rock phosphate is treated with phosphoric acid. With this, much higher phosphate content, much higher N-P-K fertilizer formulas can be made. Less needs to be used.

For applying rock phosphate (0-20-0):
Pacific Calcium Inc., which carries organic soil amendments, suggests 500 to 2000 pounds of Montana Natural Rock Phosphate per acre or 10-25 pounds per 1000 square feet, or .01 lb-.025 lb per square foot.

Triple Superphosphate (0-45-0) one manufacturer, Simplot, suggests an application of 4 pounds per 1000 square feet, or .004 lb per square foot.

Returning the point of this blog, which what could help make the lead contaminated plot usable, here is what I suggested.

• - Mix a phosphate spread into a 6 to 8 inch layer of the exposed dirt (I’d use the triple super).
• - Replace the 12 inches of excavated soil with fresh clean soil.
• - Build 3 foot raised beds for planting (which should be filled with an appropriate organic soil)
• - Place either landscape fabric, or cardboard, and thickly mulch the exposed dirt path between the raised beds.
• - If this does not abate their concerns enough, they can also plant fruiting crops such as tomatoes, squash, peas, and corn because (they take up relatively little Lead) and avoid planting root vegetables, potatoes, and leafy vegetables, which take up more. I personally do not feel this last measure is necessary.

There remain some issues with this approach. One is that to determine the decreased level of Lead present, you’d have to continue to test. Another is that if the source of Lead is coming from old layers of paint or old pipes from the abutting house, Lead will continue to seep into the soil. Since little is yet known about the exact quantity and frequency of phosphate treatment required to keep Lead levels under control for planting, it is hard to guarantee effectiveness over extended years. However, I would imagine that for quite some time to come the raised beds would be safe to use (annual testing would help determine this).

Wow! Fellow Oakland urban farmer Novella Carpenter, a UCB School of Journalism graduate, has written a delightfully funny and educational book, Farm City. It is precious if you keep livestock or an edible landscape in a urban area (or even if you don’t). It is nice to know there are others that can relate to the odd glee of chasing a farm animal down a busy urban street or stealth slaughtering so as not to freak the neighbors out (too much more). She has also included helpful information. Some I used today as I harvested ducks for an upcoming cooking lesson with a super cool chef I met. Novella has the timing of harvesting chickens, turkeys, and ducks on the mark. It did indeed take one hour per duck.

About the ducks: I noticed something interesting. Two were from an urban farm where the animals competed for food with loads of other ducks and chickens. They ran around and swam in a pond. These animals appear lean with scrappy legs and yellow skin. “My” duck (a duck on loan that has waddled onto my plate, as ducks do. Sorry Lori and Conan.) in comparison is plump with bulging meaty legs, even though it is a laying breed, and its skin is white. I have no idea why this is the case. I do know that I have fed a higher protein mix to my birds the last two weeks to bulk them up for harvesting. I also know they have not had as big an area to run around in. It will be interesting to compare flavor differences.

I have encountered the dreaded problem of rats in my garden. I first noticed when I watched a rat come out at dusk and eat my first harvest of Fuji Apples in October. I was not so pleased and decided to harvest ASAP to avoid more destruction. I brought the apples into my cool dry basement where I had kept potatoes and winter squash successfully the year before. Within a few days a rat (or rats) had located the honey sweet apples and irresponsibly taken bites out of each one. Through December ferociously hungry rats gnawed clear through an industrial garbage can several times to eat the high protein turkey food housed within. Incidentally, they also managed to eat off the bottom of a brand new light weight water resistant bike pannier that contained an unused gel shot (caffeinated no less). As a desperate measure to ensure these heavily caffeinated and hungry rats did make their way into the house, I poisoned them. This is not a preferred method for a number of reasons but the snap traps did not work and I have negative zero interested in catch and release- catch maybe but release, no way. I found said rats postmortem.

It turns out the word is out in the rodent world and I am dealing with a persistent problem. One very fat one in particular has become so bold it walks around at all times in the day foraging very near to me. I watched it yank the last of my strawberries right off the plant. I did not get to eat one berry off those plants yet thanks to that rat. I am also concerned that its all day double duty implies babies near by.

I have considered all manner of methods to expire this animal and its kin- knife throwing; poison; pellet guns…which I learned are quite powerful. I found a pellet gun with a shooting distance of up to 575 yards (five football fields) and a .177 caliber pointed steel hunting pellet. From my hillside yard, I can see what is the Grand Avenue valley, 575 yards means a neighbors car or window across the main avenue and several blocks away. Then I learned that 1) Pellet guns sound just like actual guns when discharged and 2) It is completely “unlawful for any person to at any time fire or discharge, or cause to be fired or discharged, any firearm or any projectile weapon as defined in this chapter within the limits of [Oakland] (Code § 9.36.080)”…oops.

The city of Oakland considers the following as projectile weapons “air gun, air pistol, air rifle, gas-operated gun, BB gun, pellet gun, flare gun, dart gun, bow, cross-bow, slingshot, wrist rocket, blow gun, paint gun, or other similar device or instrument.” I find the listing of slingshots deeply ironic in a city where illegal firearms are discharged frequently.

Apparently a person “shall be guilty of a separate offense for each and every firing of a projectile weapon or discharge of a firearm, and shall be punished accordingly.” If you saw the size of the super tiny pellets, it would seem ridiculous to be punished for each and every one of them but it’s the law. Punishment includes up to $1,000 fine, less than 12 months of jail time and your neighbors thinking you are the biggest jackass in the world.

I retired the idea of shooting the rat from my dining room window and next turned to the natural and perfectly legal method of a hunting animal. My first thought was a feral barn cat that needs no human contact but will deter rodents. This may be a good long term approach but to rid the garden of her infestation I will need an animal that can actually mow down the population. This brings me to “Princess”, my sister’s Rat Terrier.
Turns out her high strung mess of a terrier is actually a keen rodent killer, or so she claimed. I brought Princess over, I pointed her in the direction of the bold fat rat as it poked it s head out of its spot and when I released her, she ran out of the garden, up the driveway and to the car where she sat obstinately looking to and fro from the car door to me. I brought her in the house to calm her nerves and she sat backed against the front door for about an hour, shaking. So much for Princess the Fearless Rat Killer.

I looked into a catch and “release” and found one small enough for chipmunks but apparently even squirrels can fit in there. The thought of catching squirrels in plain sight of the rat made me think of what I know of the rat mammalian brain from my neuroscience courses. They are extremely smart, especially the wild ones. If they see the trap go off, they will not go near it.

I have decided to go with the Tomcat bait trap only big enough for rats and smaller rodents. I am sad to use the poison method but I cannot allow rats to live among my crops.

Time has been a scare commodity these days, as has been quiet and sanity. Today with hammers continuing to rock the house and saws squealing through metal, I decided to take a definite moment for myself. I floated through the farmers market on a flavorful cloud of the buche goat cheese from Pug’s Leap Farm and fresh berries. I splurged on some whiskey maple sage sausage and green garlic. Once home, I cooked a brunch for me and only me. My “housemates” have different dietary preferences than myself. I like to recognize what I am eating and find pleasure in the beauty and simplicity of my food. My housemates like food that is mushed and fried into a spicy rich saag. Granted one of my housemates is 90, which likey plays into the preference for mushy…but still. They also only eat meat when it is hidden in food and they claim not to know its there.

So I made a crispy breakfast pizza for myself. I loved the pizza before it went in the oven for its cool ingredients: Viking Purple Potatoes sliced and baked with olive oil, fresh herbs, and green garlic, more green garlic, rosemary, fresh mozzarella, the lovely Prather Ranch sausage and No Name’s egg on top (I stopped naming my birds for obvious reasons), some salt and pepper.

Absorbed in my world of simple beauty, flavors, and creativity, the sound of five men a few feet beneath me yelling to each other over their own noise faded. Now, fortified with my pot of tea, plate of pizza and the latest edition of Edible East Bay, I am ready to go locate a pellet gun to deal with the rat problem that has manifested this last year.