questions to ask and measurements to take

Questions to ask yourself before designing your garden.

What would you like to achieve on your property in terms of the landscaping of your home and its ability to feed you? This is the time to dream big and long term.

What is your timeline- can you make changes quickly or do you plan to make changes over several years?

How much money do you plan to dedicate to initial changes?

How much money can you dedicate on a monthly or annual basis?

How much sun do you get on your property? It helps to think in terms of number of hours of directly sunlight between March and November and think in terms of the different areas of your property.

Are you willing to remove trees to increase the amount of sunlight?

What is your source of water if irrigation becomes necessary? Can you harvest rain from your roof?

What is currently growing in your yard?

How important are the aesthetics of your yard to you? To your neighbors?

Are there neighborhood covenants, rules or regulations that are suppose to keep you from growing food or raising certain types of animals?

Will children be using the yard? If so what age and how many?

Will pets be using the yard? If so how many and what kind?

Do you use your yard for entertaining purposes?

Are there special activities like bonfires or hog racing for which you will need to set aside room?

Would you like to include fruit trees, bushes and edible perennials (plants that come back every year) in your landscape? If so how much room can you devote to these plants? (Remember trees are big and produce lots of shade. Shrubs can get big too.)

Do you plan to grow annual vegetables (plants you start from seed or transplant every year like corn and tomatoes) and if so how much room can you devote to these vegetables. By the way you’ll want at least 6, and better yet 8, hours of direct sunlight for this area.

How much time can you commit to your garden each week?

How much food, on a percentage basis based on your weekly menu, would you like to harvest from your yard?

Do you have physical limitations that would make typical gardening difficult for you?

How much help (significant others, reluctant in-laws, children, household pets pressed into the service of chasing away squirrels) do you have at your disposal?

How much experience do you with growing plants and gardening?

Do you have room to over-winter potted plants in your home?

Do you have sunny windowsill useful for starting seeds or growing sprouts?

What kinds of animals would you be interested in raising: chickens, turkeys, rabbits, goats, cows, pigs, sheep, llamas, bees, fish, or others?

What equipment do you own or could borrow? Think hand tools like shovels and rakes but also mowers and tillers.

Do you have natural sources of mulch available including baled straw, fallen leaves or grass clippings? How about cardboard (any appliance stores near by?)

Do you have room for outdoor containers on patios, decks or porches for growing food?

Do you anticipate a problem with animals such as rabbits or gophers visiting your garden and helping themselves to your produce?

Do you anticipate encountering soil contamination due to exterior lead paint or other chemicals previously used on your property?

Measurements you’ll need

The easiest way to get the measurements you’ll need to draw up a master plan for your yard will be to dig up a site survey of your property. You might have a copy tucked away in the material associated with the purchase of your home. If you rent your landlord, pleased that you’re improving the property, might offer you a copy of such a survey.

If you don’t have a survey handy don’t worry. You can take the measurements yourself. It’s best to invest in some graph paper. You can by a pad or print some out. Here’s a source:

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/

Using the graph paper to record your measurements and a tape measure or other measuring device, record the measurements of the perimeter of your house and any other structure on your property. Try to also measure the boundaries of your property. Often you can find pins or stakes or other marks that indicate property corners. If you can’t than your best guess will have to do. Try to measure the distance of your home and other structures from the edges of at least two property boundaries. This will help to more accurately place these structures.

Don’t expect to get this drawn up accurately on your first try. Typically you’re going to use several sheets of paper to record the measurements outside and then come inside to piece them all together for a base plan. By the way you can use the grids to represent a certain distance, say 5 feet. This will vary between properties because different scales will be necessary depending on the size of your property. Count the number of individual squares on the length and width of your paper and divide that number into the length and width of your property.

Or you can just try and get close in proportion to everything you want to show on your property. This should include all structures but also trees, shrubs, driveways, patios, decks, wells, existing gardens, walls, and anything else you see in your yard. When trying to measure and place these items accurately it helps to triangulate or take measurements to a certain object from several locations.

Again don’t try to get all this right on your first try. Get as many measurements as possible and then go inside and combine your efforts. It’s likely you’ll have to go back and remeasure a few elements but the more accurate your base plan, the less frustration you’re likely to encounter as you move forward with your plan. You don’t want to plan for and purchase 15 blueberry bushes only to come home and find that you only have room for 8 or that the play lawn you promised your children for purposes of Frisbee and football really has only enough room for a game of tag.

This base plan and the questions you’ve answered below will serve as a reference for the design process as we plan your garden. Keep them handy as we move along.

garden planning and design

The Garden Planning and Design class I’m teaching with Sharon Astyk starts this weekend and runs throughout the month of February. You can read more information about this and other classes we’re offering in 2009 by clicking here.

If anyone wants to participate in this particular class, we have a couple of spots remaining. Email Sharon at jewishfarmer@gmail.com if you are interested. Unfortunately, all the scholarship spots are presently filled. And obviously, there will be plenty to follow along with here on my blog, and at Sharon’s website www.sharonastyk.com - note, not all posts will be crossposted, so if you are interested, you’ll want to track both sites.

Also, if you are registered for this course and HAVE NOT received information about registering for the discussion group, please email Sharon ASAP, so we can get you set up. We have one registrant whose email address has been bouncing and we are anxious to get in touch.

Ready, Set, Go!

Garden Design Syllabus:

(pdf version available by clicking here)

Tuesday, February 3: Sun, Soil, Water; Taking Measurements; Mistakes We’ve Made; The Project of Design

Thursday, February 5: Meet Your Graph Paper ;-); Small Space and Urban challenges, Container Gardening; Gardening on the Cheap; Design Project 1 – A courtyard Garden

Tuesday, February 10: The idea of Permaculture, Calorie Crops, Trees, Bushes and other Perennial Provider; Seed Selection and Starting, Taking Inventory Making Gardening Accessible

Thursday, February 12: Transforming a City or Suburban Lot, Dealing with Zoning, Small Livestock and Polyculture; Design Project 2 – A Suburban Yard

Tuesday, February 17: Making Money From Your Garden or Small Farm; The Transition to Farmer; Mushrooms, Medicinals and other Possibilities; Pests and Diseases

Thursday, February 19: Community and Garden; Children’s Gardens; Succession and Long Term Planning; Season Extension; Garden Design Project 3: An Urban Farm – in Many Yards

Tuesday, February 24: Maximizing the Harvest, Marketing Your Products, Larger Livestock; Cycles & Long Term Fertility; The Realities of Feeding Your Family and Community

Thursday February 26: Visions for the Future, Becoming a Victory Farmer; After the Design Phase; Garden Design Project 4: A Larger Farm – In Smaller Pieces

letter to local government

Earlier today I sent this letter to the new Sustainability Manager of my county. It's a recently created position. I'll post any response I get.

A friend asked me to explain the reasoning behind the letter. The broad answer is I'm shifting tactics. In the past I've spent time making fun of the sheer ignorance and willful disillusionment of the general public regarding the problems we face. I've also been know to decry the lack of real leadership on real issues at all levels of government. And I've burned more than a few hours angrily describing the efforts of major social institutions (mainstream media being a favorite target of mine)to infantilize the US population. All of this is great fun of course and therapeutic at some level. It's also unlikely to bring about any change.

My new tactic is to find people in the position to bring about positive change, or more accurately, to identify opportunities for positive change and find the people mostly likely to get that change going and help those people, push & prod those people, lean on them or give them a shove. I've found plenty of work to do both locally and beyond. But I think I can also help others to make the leap.

God knows there's plenty to do. Others are starting to recognize that she's right.

Ok now for my letter.

January 20, 2009

Mr. Kevin Grant

Cabarrus County General Services

Sustainability Manager

242 General Services Drive
P.O. Box 707
Concord, NC 28026-0707

Dear Mr. Grant,

I'm pleased to know that my local government has solidified its commitment to the future of this county and its citizens by hiring you as the first Sustainability Manger of Cabarrus County. Congratulations. Over the past few months I've deliberated on a few ideas I think will strengthen any attempt to establish this county as a leader in the effort to become a more sustainable place to live. It is becoming obvious to many more people that we must consider not only the future of our children and grandchildren who will inherit the decisions we make regarding our care and stewardship of this county but also the health of the local ecological systems on which we all depend for clean water, air and all other aspects of life. I want to share these ideas with you in high hopes they might prove useful to your efforts.

A short side note before I begin. Plenty of people fail to associate the current economic crisis garnering attention across the nation with the crises of energy and environmental issues facing this country. These three are actually more closely linked than might appear at first glance. Our diminished supply of natural resources, most notably our dwindling domestic supply of petroleum, has forced us to switch from a nation that grows stuff, builds things and actually produces objects of real value to a nation with an economic system based on financial speculation using credit to prop up the notion that we’re real not citizens but simply consumers. Hence we’ve been told until mostly recently that oure most important role in society is to shop. Petroleum production peaked in the US 1970 at just less than 10 million barrels a day. Today we stand at less than half that rate of extraction and no amount of offshore drilling or oil shale production will change that. Oil, the lifeblood of our economy, has dropped in price over the past few months largely because of the deleveraging of hedge funds and other financial institutions to cover the recent losses in the stock market. Demand destruction has played its part but the drop in oil use in the US and abroad doesn't begin to match the dramatic drop in the price per barrel of oil. This drop in price is not indicative of the long term price trend based on resource availability.

Global oil production has been leveling off for the past several years for mostly geologic reasons and likely peaked worldwide in production in mid 2008. However the recent drop in the price has caused many oil and natural gas companies to suspend new projects necessary to offset the coming global oil production decline. As an example I offer Mexico's largest oil field Cantarell, the third largest oil field in the world, which saw an annual output decline of about 30% in 2008. Mexico, currently the third largest supplier of crude oil to the United States is declining in production at such an alarming rate that our southern neighbor is scheduled to become a net oil importer within 5 years. A coming resurgence in the price of oil is likely to overwhelm our car dependant county in a way that will dwarf the effects of the high gasoline prices of the summer of 2008.

Similarly, other resource depletion issues, perhaps most notably water availability, are likely to shape the future of this county in ways that seem unimaginable to many of the citizens living here today. The attached report shows the enormous amount of money the natural forest systems of our county previously provided for free, especially in terms of storm water absorption. It would be in our best interests to recognize that what many people think of as purely environmental issues or energy issues are also issues of great financial interest to the citizens of Cabarrus County. As we enter into a period of suspended or even negative economic growth, it is imperative that we recognize the importance of preserving the natural systems that preserve us. We can’t afford, either ecologically or economically, not to.

Ok I'll jump down off my soapbox now and suggest three projects ready for implementation by you the new Sustainability Manager of Cabarrus County.

1. Create a Sustainability Task Force. Call it whatever you'd like, but put together a group of private citizens and formally commission them to envision a more sustainable Cabarrus County both out of imperative and to increase the local quality of life. There are several reasons for creating such a group by selecting citizen volunteers.

The first is that of economic benefit. There are many Cabarrus County citizens willing to volunteer their time, knowledge, experience and effort to create a more sustainable place to live for their families and the families of their children. It makes more sense to utilize the citizens themselves rather than to use their tax dollars to pay other people to do this work.

The second reason is because no major change in the operating procedures of county government or suggested change in the way average citizens live their lives will be accepted without significant public buy-in. If the basis for change comes from a group of average citizens, the general public will be more likely to receive the changes with favorable opinion. If you receive a call from an angry business leader who doesn't understand why a change in policy has been made you'll be able to direct him to a member of the task force who is herself a businesswoman and can help explain the reasoning behind the decision.

Which leads to the third reason for a private citizens’ Sustainability Task Force, political cover. No doubt any sensible outcome from this task force will contain controversial suggestions. The status quo will not cut it moving forward. Politicians and even county employees will not want to take the brunt of the backlash related to particularly controversial suggestions. But if they are able to point to the task force and explain that these changes are part of an overall plan envisioned by citizens themselves, the politicians in particular may be more willing to support the overall plan politically and give it the necessary support such a plan will need to move forward and prove its worth. It’s important to note that because such a task force isn’t directly beholden to the citizens of Cabarrus County for votes or reliant on their tax dollars for a paycheck the Sustainability Task Force will be free to make decisions and suggestions based purely on prudence, common sense and necessity.

The fourth reason for using such a private task force is probably the most germane. I believe average citizens are capable of great accomplishments if given the space and the knowledge necessary to face the challenges of our county and our country at this point in history. Any plan for change should take advantage of the wealth of knowledge, experience, and willingness we have here locally! The key to success is to include a diverse group of citizens. I recommend a group of between 15 and 25 individuals. Represented among them at a minimum of diversity must be Black, White and Hispanic men and women ranging widely in age. I highly suggest at least one college student and one high school student. One middle school representative would be excellent. Young people are less encumbered with the so called realities of life. The decisions made by this task force will also disproportionately affect young people more so than those who are older. Having said that, the wisdom and understanding of our older citizens should definitely be included. I know of several older citizens very interested in these issues. You should include business people, public employees and average workers in the private sector as well as those working in the not-for-profit sector. A wide spectrum of household incomes should be represented as well. If you hope to make substantial change this group will only be effective in doing so if it represents more than a small minority of the citizens whose future such decisions will affect.

I recommend the Transition Handbook as a guide to making changes with sustainability in mind. It could help to give structure to the process of envisioning change and organizing those visions into a successful plan of action for the community. Let me know if you'd like to borrow a copy.

2. Create a Complete Streets program. When my wife and I first moved home to Concord, NC we noticed cars parked on both ends of Union Street every morning and every evening. These cars were parked at places where there was seemingly no reason for large numbers of cars to be park- no shops or stores, only houses. The reason for these impromptu parking lots soon became clear. These people were driving into Concord from surrounding neighborhoods with poor facilities for walking or riding bikes, to take advantage of the beautiful and relatively safe pedestrian environment that exists on the 2.5 miles stretch of Union Street through downtown Concord. Why not take advantage of this and other such locations throughout the county by increasing the level of safety and comfort by removing cars completely from these streets on certain days?

Such a program could be modeled after the Cyclovias of Central and South America or the similar “Summer Streets” program which debuted in New York City in 2008. I'm talking here about the idea of people taking ownership over their streets. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of the Cyclovia I have provided references at the end of this letter. In short the idea is to temporarily close certain streets or portions of certain streets to automotive traffic on scheduled days. The country of Columbia, a pioneer of the Cyclovia movement, now regularly closes over 70 miles of its streets to cars in the capital city of Bogotá on a regular basis. The result is hundreds of thousands of citizens walking, running and biking with friends and family. All sorts of classes and presentations are given all along the car-less roadways. It's a low cost form of recreation and entertainment for many families and a way to get great exercise and socialize with others in the community. It would also cost relatively little to support in the way of government funds. The infrastructure to support this sort of activity, namely paved roadways, is already in place. To be sure it would require organization- the closing of streets and the support staff needed to help with promotion and respond to injuries and other safety issues. But the net result would surely be a positive one both in terms of health and human wellness benefits but also in economic terms. Surely the existing businesses and temporary vendors along these car-free routes would benefit from concentrated, slow-moving traffic that doesn't need to search for a parking spot. How much of the necessary coordination could be done with volunteers and might the nearby businesses be willing to sponsor such an event?

This would provide not only wonderful recreational opportunities on a periodic basis but would also help encourage public support for more complete roadways designed to foster automotive traffic and cyclists and pedestrians. As someone who has cycled throughout the county and has commuted to work on a bicycle in this area I can tell you first hand that most of Cabarrus County’s roadways are not friendly to any form of transportation other than automobiles. If more people could experience safe streets it would foster the desire for more such opportunities to walk or ride a bike on a daily basis. Cyclovias are an opportunity to start that dialog and a way to give Cabarrus County residents an opportunity to enjoy more time outside.

3. Transition away from the landscape maintenance programs that include synthetic fertilizer and pesticides. Certainly this is a water quality issue as a large percentage (more than half) of the synthetic Nitrogen used to fertilize playing fields and the chemical pesticides used on municipal recreational landscapes, ends up in local creeks and streams. This is also a human health and wellness issue in that a disproportionate number of the people using these facilities are developing children and what parent wants their kids running, jumping and sliding in chemical agents known to be harmful to humans. But it's also an economic dead-end. The use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides locks the county into a never-ending cycle of nourishing the dead soil of these recreational areas and killing the weeds that take advantage of the weak plants and turf associated with a synthetic chemical-based landscape maintenance program. The cost of these fertilizers and pesticides continues to increase meaning an ever-increasing percentage of the budget needed to pay for such maintenance. The result by the way is a lackluster landscape that struggles to survive.

The alternative is to promote healthy, living soils at county facilities that not only look beautiful but out perform conventional synthetic-based maintenance programs. The healthy soils created by such a program will also be much more drought tolerant, a bonus in our area. Such a program would focus on returning carbon to the soil and reestablishing the naturally existing microorganisms that make healthy topsoil the most densely populated ecosystem on the planet. The most wonderful aspect of such a system is that over time, less and less of the organic inputs necessary to start the process will be needed. Each year the county would use less of such products and therefore spend less money each year on landscape maintenance. I suggest this change in county policy because it would reap rewards in terms of a better looking and better performing landscapes, it would provide safer and healthier surfaces for our children to play on and it would greatly reduce the amount of pollution cause by current landscape management practices all while saving the county an increasing amount of money in the coming years. That sort of synergy seems to make such a change unquestionable.

It is these synergies- these overlapping benefits that I think should drive the choices made as Cabarrus County tries to become a more sustainable place to live. It is the reason for these specific suggestions as examples of changes that could help not just in one or two aspects of life in our county but could help in many different ways.

I hope these three suggestions help in your efforts to make Cabarrus County a more sustainable place to live and a model, playing our part to help other areas of the country make similar changes. I speak for those of us who grew up in Cabarrus County when I say we would like to watch our children and our grandchildren share in the same sorts of wonderful experiences we enjoyed. That will only be possible if we being to take seriously the challenges we face and change the way we think about our relationship to each other and the natural environment that supports us all. Best wishes and good luck to you.

Sincerely,

Aaron Newton

Cabarrus County Resident

14 Oakland Ave SE

Concord NC 28025

CC:

John Day

Pam Dubois

Kylie Bilafer

Resources:

Peak Oil http://tinyurl.com/cdzkz

Resource Depletion http://tinyurl.com/8wth4u

Transition Handbook http://tinyurl.com/7j8dh8

Cyclovia http://tinyurl.com/55f87k

Summer Streets http://tinyurl.com/67nvk3

http://tinyurl.com/6y2d2e

brand new world

Hello and welcome to my update. I thought it long overdue that I should let my readers know what's going on. I haven't kept up with this blog as I would have liked over the past several months. I have good reasons for not doing so and I'd like to share them.


The first is the upcoming publication of the book I coauthored with Sharon Astyk, A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil which will be out in March of this year from New Society Publishers. We've created a website to coordinate the efforts of this book. You can visit and purchase a copy by clicking here. I'll be traveling a bit this spring and summer to support the book. If you'd like for me to come visit, send me an email and I'll see what I can do. I'm hoping to stay with farmers and foodies while visiting other parts of the country. Email me at aaron@henandharvest.com if you're interested.


I am going to be a Participating Farmers in this the inaugural growing season of the Cabarrus County Farm Incubator Program. The program is like others across the nation that help dedicated gardeners become market farmers. I'll be sharing more on this program and my experience of hatching my farm efforts during the coming year. The short of it is that I'll be growing lots of food this year and selling it and giving it away.



I've created a business with both for-profit and not-for-profit components that will install and perhaps manage gardens for people who need help getting started with growing food. My partners and I will be installing raised beds and plant them. We'll also be building compost bins, rainwater collection systems and who know what else in an attempt to help other people grow food for themselves and for people who can't afford the ever-rising cost of eating in this country. The Greater Goods Garden Company will have a website up very soon where you'll be able to track our progress.


I am teaching two classes with Sharon this winter. I am very excited about this. In February we're going to teach "Garden Planning Design." Of course we'll cover what to grow, how to grow it and where but also how to make your garden less reliant on outside inputs. My training is as a landscape architect and I have experience in both the nursery industry and as a residential landscape designer. Sharon and I have both been growing food of all types for many years. We also have the advantage of being in different climates- Sharon in central New York and me here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Regardless of where you live I think this class can help you make the leap into home food production.

In March we're offering, "Adapting in Place" a class Sharon has taught before. It's about making do with what you have, where you are. For many of us dealing with peak oil, climate change and the financial meltdown will not mean moving to a new strawbale home powered by solar panels that juice our electric cars making possible our commute to our new green job. Many of us will need to triage our lifestyles and find a tolerable and enjoyable way to downsize and be happy with less. This class is here to help with that process.

All classes are taught online, and you don't have to be online at any particular time. While there are "class days" when we devote ourselves to the class, you are free to read material and ask questions/participate whenever it is convenient for you. All classes include one 15 minute scheduled personal phone call (assuming you want one - some people elect not to have one) to explore any questions you don't want to ask in the group, or just to get to know one another. Phone calls usually take place in the evenings (EST) on the class days, but things can be worked out for those who can't do those times or who are many time zones away.

Classes meet every Tuesday and Thursday of the month. Cost is $150 each for the February and March classes. We do reserve a few spots for low income folks, so email if you would like one. In the past a few kind souls have donated additional spots for those in need - if you'd like to offer a scholarship, email Sharon at the address below. Enrollment is limited to 40 people. You can send payment through paypal at sharondownonthefarm@yahoo.com or by check to Sharon Astyk PO Box 342 Delanson, NY 12053. For more information on enrollment email Sharon: jewishfarmer@gmail.com.

I have a few other side projects going on. The truth is I abused the garden here at my home while writing the book. Presently our back yard is ready to serve as the filming location for a scene in which the movie's villain arrives home at a classic southern trailer park complete with an assortment of junk littering the backyard- 42 gallon soon-to-be rain barrels amongst bamboo pickets not yet formed into a fence alongside drying gourds, pots of young plum tree seedlings and containers of waste vegetable oil all serving as a potential perch for one of the 11 bantam hens acting as excellent yard birds. My wife has suggested I spend some time out there cleaning up before beginning the negotiation process necessary to add rabbits and bees to our yard. I can take a hint.

I will return to writing for Groovy Green shortly. I am planning to post most of my agriculturally related material to Hen and Harvest where all the cool new gardeners and farmers are hanging out. I'm making friends like crazy with local food advocates and with those of you half way around the world working to make the most out of what's going on during our life times. It's a bit scary out there but the truth is this planet and our society have been getting increasingly screwed up over the past few decades and now's our chance- like it or not- for action. So let's get to work and enjoy our exciting times. Best wishes to all of you and good luck.


Oh and if you're wondering about the new header at the top of this blog it's a collage of images related to my oldest daughter Keaton and her first efforts at gardening. Last spring she picked a seed out of the compost pile and announced that she wanted to grow it. We prepared a 12"X12"X12" box with soil and worm casting into which she planted her seed. Later the 25 foot vine produced two pumpkins, both of which were larger and better looking than any I have ever grown. Tastier too. One was made into baby food to help feed her younger sister. The other was canned and will become pumpkin soup, pumpkins bread, pumpkin ravioli or if Keaton has her way lots of pumpkin pie.

Aaron