August/September 2005

Cultivating Relational Intelligence
Nina Simons

Crimes Against Democracy: An Interview with Thom Hartmann
Jim Guiness

Rebirth in the Forest
Will Sears

Right Living, and Surviving, After The Age Of Oil
John Darling

Permaculture and Place
Steve Gabriel

Think of Local Food First
Wendy Siporen

Sustainable Living at Solviva
Anna Edey

Year-Round Gardening in Home and GreenHouse
Jeffrey M. Smith

The Greening of Cuba
Caroline Whyte

A Path of Peace, Kindness and Compassion
Jody Woodruff

From Hurt to Heart
Eryn Kalish

Epictetus' Handbook Revisited
Gay Hendricks & Phillip Johncock

The Sky of Now
Katie Davis

The Complete Book of Raw Food
Reviewed by Rachel Bendat

Whole Foods Companion
Reviewed by Rachel Bendat

Cosmic Calendar
Salina Rain

BACK TO TOP

Year-Round Gardening in Home & Greenhouse

By Anna Edey

Off the southern coast of Cape Cod, the island of Martha’s Vineyard, my home community lies in the Atlantic Ocean about seven miles off the coast of Massachusetts.

On the shortest day of the year the sun rises no higher than 25 degrees above the horizon, and there are only nine hours between sunrise and sunset. Furthermore, winter is also the cloudiest period. During the course of the year, the Vineyard receives 49 percent of possible sunshine (compared with over 90 percent for Arizona), but we sometimes have five to six weeks in a row between November and January with less than 20 percent of possible sunshine, maybe two half-days of sunshine per week. Winter temperatures can dip below zero degrees F with a far lower wind chill factor because of frequent high winds.

In spite of the conditions outside, inside the Solviva Winter Garden solar greenhouse is a thriving garden. Amazingly, even in the coldest conditions, this greenhouse stays warm enough to remain highly productive without any heating fuel, while other “normal” greenhouses require thousands of gallons of oil or gas, or many cords of firewood.

After the sun has gone down in the middle of winter, when it is dark and very cold outside, inside it is still toasty warm from the day’s sun. In the midst of a typical cold and dark winter, the temperature can be well below zero degrees F, and the howling wind creates a fierce wind chill factor. The landscape is deep in snow, but the Solviva greenhouse has never needed any supplementary heat since its completion in 1984. It has indeed stayed warm enough to continuously produce bumper crops with only stored solar heat and the little resident heaters, the chickens and angora rabbits.

And even after many years of living in my Solargreen home, I still find it hard to believe that this is possible, that the solar energy radiating in through the south glazing is enough to keep my home cozy even on cold winter days. My garden room has no walls or doors separating it from the living areas but is instead fully integrated with the whole house. Even in winter there is a fragrant warmth in my home as the sun pours in through climbing and cascading green leaves and red, orange and yellow flowers. Enchanting scents waft from jasmine and honeysuckle, sweet peas, pineapple sage and peppermint geranium, orange and lemon blossoms, and compost-rich living earth. Some of the branches and vines reach into the living room and kitchen, the weaving studio, and even upstairs.

I can pick one of the many juicy tomatoes hanging from numerous 30-foot vines suspended under the skylight that runs the full length of the lower 30 inches of the main roof. The tomatoes are even sweeter than the finest summer tomato, perhaps be-cause they develop more sugar as they ripen more slowly in winter. These same six tomato plants have been producing continuously for four years. Pollinating the mature tomato flowers with a watercolor brush taped to an extension stick is a simple enough task.

The salad garden pours forth a continuous cornucopia of succulent greens and herbs with some 10 different varieties of red and green lettuces, plus arugula, mustards, kale, lemony French sorrel, red-veined chard, radicchio, mizuna, tah tsai, watercress, parsley, dill, fennel, and crunchy radishes.

Here I bask in comfort, just a couple of feet away from the cold raging on the other side of the window panes—and the only furnace that is on is the big old nuclear power plant up there some 95 million miles away. What a blessing it is to be munching on greens that grew from tiny seeds right in my home, in a harmonious blend of water, soil, compost and sunlight, without any toxic substances whatsoever.

People tend to think I must spend half my time just caring for this indoor home garden. The fact is that it takes less than an hour a week. Two or three times a year I spend a few hours pruning back and repotting some of the plants and enriching the soil with compost and rock powders.

You might wonder if insects fly and crawl all over the house. No, insects are smart, they much prefer the garden area. I doubt the living quarters of my home have many more insects than any other country house with wood beams and paneling.

Mildew isn’t a problem from the humidity from the indoor garden because the air circulation in the whole house is excellent due to the solar-heating system and the strategic placement of ducts and vents that move warm air down and around from the solar roof into storage in the insulated foundation. Also, when the woodstove is lighted, it acts as both an air circulator and dehumidifier. The extra humidity in the house in winter is actually a great benefit. In normal buildings the air is too dry during the heating season, which can lead to respiratory problems and illness, dry skin and cracked lips, static electricity, cracks in furniture and floors. People with asthma and allergies comment with relief that they can breathe more freely in my house.

Just before sunset I insert movable insulation panels that fit snugly into the window frames to keep the solar warmth in the house. These panels spend the day in a long built-in pocket below the greenhouse windows. It takes less than a minute to put them up, and the same to take them down in the morning. On the coldest, darkest days I leave most of them up in order to keep in the warmth.

Because of the brutal conditions outside I make a fire in the evening. The stove sits in an alcove of brick and concrete, which picks up so much heat that it is still warm the following morning. A 100-foot coil of copper pipe, connected to the water preheating tank, lies on top of the stove. This can heat the 80 gallons of water to 130 degrees F in just a few hours, which is then complemented by the standard water-heating tank as needed. Thus my space heating bill is zero, while the water-heating bill is reduced by some 80 percent.

The Indoor Garden

The Solviva model for a commercial or community solar greenhouse—which re-quires little or no fuel for heating or cooling, and which provides high yield, year-round production of high quality wholesome organic food—can increase local self-reliance while decreasing dependence on food grown far away using destructive processes. Here are some tips for indoor growing that I have learned over the past 20 years.

Keep the soil enriched with compost and a great diversity of living organisms. Keep the soil alive and thriving by adding plenty of good compost made with animal manure and plant wastes. I want to stress the importance of including animal manure, for I believe that compost that contains only plant wastes is anemic by comparison. (See sidebar page 16 for more on compost.)

Compost is a miraculous substance that constitutes the very foundation of life—one teaspoon of living compost contains some 5 million bacteria, 20 million fungi, 1 million protozoa, and 200,000 algae. The life and death processes of these miraculous life forms slowly dissolve the minerals in the soil so that they can be absorbed by the minute roots of the plants. Good compost is also essential in order to maintain an ecological balance that will prevent the harmful critters from dominating the ecosystem. Add about 4 gallons of living compost to each square yard of growing area three to four times a year, depending on the crop.

Whenever the surface of the soil begins to look closed or compacted or grows a film of moss or algae, lightly cultivate to a depth of no more than an inch (an ordinary table fork works well among the closely spaced salad plants). This does not damage the delicate plant roots, and it greatly improves the soil’s ability to breathe, to inhale oxygen and exhale CO2, which promotes the health of this miraculous ecosystem. Do this when the soil surface is fairly dry, because handling soil when it is wet is injurious and must be avoided at all cost. It causes soil particles to glue together, constricting the tiny passages that allow oxygen, nutrients and multitudes of microorganisms to flow through the soil.

Water the plants just right. Plants do best with thorough watering when they need it and no watering when they don’t need it. If you water when the soil is damp, it becomes waterlogged, preventing oxygen from penetrating freely through the pores of the soil. This endangers the earthworms and the whole soil ecosystem, including the roots of the plants, as well as those beneficial insects whose life cycles partially take place underground, such as the gall midge (Aphideletes aphidimyza). Any reduction in soil vitality results in reduction of plant vitality, and therefore makes them less productive and more vulnerable to insects. In the winter it is preferable to use sun-warmed water (everyone, even plants and insects, prefer a nice warm shower instead of ice-cold). Water can be delivered through an underground irrigation system or through aboveground hoses with soft spray heads that don’t harm the leaves or disturb the insect populations.

Wilting should be avoided as much as possible, although it sometimes occurs on a sunny day even when there is enough moisture in the soil. The cure for this is another kind of watering which is an exception to the above rule (“never water when the soil does not need it”). This special watering consists of a very light quick sprinkling of the leaves which does not penetrate the soil. Cold water is actually best for this purpose. This is also good to do routinely on sunny mornings to freshen the whole environment with negative ions and to provide plenty of water droplets for the beneficial insects. It is important not to do this in the afternoon, because mildew might result if the leaves remain wet during the night.

Maintain good levels of humidity and air circulation. In a small home greenhouse spraying and misting lightly may be required in order to increase the humidity for the benefit of the whole ecosystem (including the people). In a larger green-house filled with an enormous area of leaf surfaces constantly exhaling moisture, it is important to keep humidity to a minimum in order to prevent fungus infestation and also in order not to inhibit the plants’ transpiration, or breathing, which could reduce their productivity.

One of the best ways to limit humidity is to do all watering before noon on a sunny day, so that the leaves can dry off before nightfall. Another way is to use an underground irrigation system, for this keeps the surface of the soil much drier. Open some vents whenever outside conditions allow in order to let excess moisture escape. Circulate the greenhouse air with small fans, strategically placed to prevent pockets of stagnant air.

Maintain high levels of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is an essential building block for plants, without which they cannot grow no matter how perfect the other conditions such as light, nutrients, moisture, or temperature. In a standard greenhouse the plants have depleted most of the available supply of CO2 building blocks by about 11 a.m., and when there is not enough CO2, plant growth stops. Transpiration may continue and thus the absorption of water and nutrients through the roots, but the result is plants puffed up with water and undigested nitrate. It is not good for people to consume food too high in nitrate, because this reduces the oxygen exchange capacity of our blood.

Conversely, if CO2 levels in the greenhouse are increased above the normal outdoor level of 350 ppm, to a level of some 1,400 ppm, thereby increasing the number and density of carbon building blocks in the air available for the leaves to absorb, the result is increased plant productivity, increased dry matter ratio and decreased nitrate levels in the crops. Increased CO2 compensates tremendously for the low light levels of northern mid-winters, as more and better growth can take place within each hour of daylight. This results in higher productivity and healthier plants better able to resist insects.
In the Solviva Winter Garden greenhouse the important task of increasing CO2 levels is performed primarily by the resident chickens and rabbits, by the litter in their dens, and also by the compost in the growing beds.

Maintain temperatures as close to ideal as possible. For optimum productivity the greenhouse temperatures should be kept above a minimum of about 40 degrees F (higher for plants like tomatoes) and below a maximum of about 90 degrees F by opening and closing vents as appropriate. In the beginning I thought that on a really cold, sunny day I would have to keep in every degree of sun heat in order to sufficiently warm up the water mass for the cold night. I soon realized that even if it was zero degrees F outside, on a sunny day the greenhouse temperature would climb to over 110 degrees F if the vents were left closed. This was obviously stressful for plants and insects—and for people. I found out that enough heat was absorbed in the water mass even if I cracked open the vents to keep the temperature below 90 degrees F.

As in so many aspects of the greenhouse management I find it easiest to understand what to do if I empathize with the animals, the plants and the insects: if it feels too hot for me, then it most likely is also too hot for them. The resident animals (in this case chickens and rabbits, but it could be any animals that appreciate living in a warm space, such as pigs, horses, cows, or goats) give off surprising amounts of warmth (approximately 8 BTUs per hour per pound of body weight), essential under the coldest conditions.

In summertime both the Solviva greenhouse and solargreen home stay comfortable even in the worst heat, without any fans. This is due to the roof ridge vent design that lets out hot air, as well as sufficient vents, windows and doors that create good cross-ventilation.

Create optimum light conditions. Salad greens, tomatoes and other food plants are normally grown in the summer and in full sun. Since the winter sun comes in much weaker at a lower angle and for fewer hours per day, with more cloudy days, it is easy to understand that in winter the plants need to receive the very best light conditions possible. The combined layers of glazing, whether plastic or glass, should have a light transmittance of 90 percent or more.

In addition, many plants, especially food plants, dislike seeing light from only one direction. The result of unidirectional light is leaning, leggy, weak plants, less productive and more vulnerable to insects. It is important that the plants receive light not only from the south and above, but also from the north. You might think that this means that all-around glazing is the best, as in standard greenhouse designs, but this results in unacceptably high heat loss. Solviva greenhouse design provides good light conditions in spite of the whole north wall being insulated and opaque. This is accomplished by tilting the north wall at an angle to best reflect the sunlight on to the plants (60 degrees at this latitude) and by covering the interior surface of the north, west and east walls with white UV resistant plastic. You might think that silver foil or mylar would be more effective. I tried it on one section of the north wall and found that just a small percentage of the surface was brilliantly light, but a far greater percentage was dark gray. This resulted in leaning and elongated plant stems.

With this design I never need to use artificial light (nor extra warmth), not even for raising seedlings in the darkest, cloudiest, shortest days of December. In summer the seedlings are happiest raised in the well-ventilated Solviva cold frames that have one layer of woven plastic glazing which lets through about 80 percent of the light. This protects the seedlings not only from the harsh UV light but also from drenching downpours and whipping winds.

Grow a multitude of small nectar-producing flowers. Many of the adult beneficial insects live primarily on nectar and do not eat the pest insects. Instead they control the pests by laying their eggs within the eggs, larvae, pupae or adults of the pest insects. There must therefore be multitudes of nectar-producing flowers in the greenhouse, small enough for these minute beneficial insects to draw nourishment from, such as dill, fennel, parsley, cilantro, marjoram, thyme, alyssum, and different varieties of sage. These flowers are also edible, delicious and attractive in salads, and therefore a valuable crop.

Grow nasturtiums and other favored host plants for the vegetarian insects. This enormously productive plant, with its beautiful, delicious and nutritious blossoms, needs a section of its own because it performs such an important role in the whole ecosystem. It thrives in the less well lighted areas of the greenhouse where few other food plants could be productive. Of all 150 plus different varieties of plants that I have grown in the greenhouse so far, nasturtiums are the most attractive to the greenhouse pests I have encountered in the Solviva greenhouse: aphids, whiteflies, thrips, spider mites and leaf miners. (I have never understood why some people recommend planting nasturtiums as a repellant, because in my experience I have always found it to be a powerful attractant.) And wherever the harmful insects congregate, the beneficials will be sure to follow. Thus nasturtiums provide the primary habitat for most of the insects, leaving the production crops relatively free of insects.

Introduce and encourage a great diversity of beneficial insects. Some of them arrive on their own from outside, such as the syrphid fly, chalcid wasp, tachinid fly and braconid wasp. Some I bring in from outside, such as Aphideletes aphidimyza. From my favorite producer of beneficial insects, Rincon-Vitova in Oak View, California, I order Encarsia formosa to control whiteflies, predatory mites for spider mites, cryptolaemus for mealybugs, and ladybugs and lacewings for aphids and other vegetarian insects. I recommend frequent inspection of the insect population, with an 8- to 10-power magnifying lens. At first sighting of groupings of harmful insects, order the correct beneficial insects, unless you already have them aboard. Avoid crisis management!

Leave some insect-infested plants standing. This is the concept most difficult for others to understand. When people see an insect-infested plant, they want to pull it out and discard it. But when I point out the eggs, pupae and larvae of the beneficial insects and parasitized harmful insects, they begin to realize that if you pull plants as soon as they become pest-infested, you would prevent the reproductive cycles of the beneficial insects.

Furthermore, as insect-infested plants become weaker, they become even more attractive to the harmful insects than to the healthy plants, thereby tending to leave the healthy plants unharmed. I often leave insect-infested plants in place until the plant is pretty much dead, at which point the insects will have dispersed. Sometimes I will remove an infested plant and carefully remove most of the beneficial insects in their various stages of development and return them to the greenhouse.

Do some trapping and handpicking. Slugs and caterpillars can be a real nuisance and are really the only creatures I spend any time controlling. Handpicking combined with beer baiting is a winning combination. Some eyebrows rise when I go into the liquor store and ask for a case of the cheapest beer, but that’s nothing compared to the grimace that follows when I say it’s for slug control. I serve the beer in little plastic cups, spaced every 3 to 4 feet, pressed down so the top is level with the soil. You don’t see many slugs during the day, but after dark has settled they come slithering out from dark nooks and crannies. They are most attracted to the beer, and many end up drowning in it (probably a pretty good way to die), but many slither back out of the cups. You can patrol with a flashlight and a can of water with a little alcohol in it, picking slugs who are feasting on the beer or the valuable crops of gourmet greens. At times I have collected 150 or more in 30 minutes, and I repeat this trapping and picking for four or five days, after which their numbers and damage will be greatly reduced. This cycle needs to be done about two to three times a year.

Pill bugs, or sow bugs, are mostly scavengers of decaying plant matter. In my experience they do not initiate any damage the way the slugs do. However, pill bugs do not hesitate to consider as fair game any plant nicked even slightly by a slug or a caterpillar, or errant scissors during harvesting, and they can therefore be quite destructive. I was happy to find that they also love beer. The beer cups need to be emptied within two days, in order to avoid the nasty job of dealing with rotten beer, slugs and pill bugs. Beer-pickled slugs can be served to the chickens or added to the compost.

Ant colonies must be eliminated because ants love to milk the honeydew from aphids and go to great lengths to increase “their” herds of aphids and protect them against predators and parasites. This has been a problem only a few times, and placing a couple of “ant cups” in their pathways took care of the problem quickly. Although this ant control contained some toxic materials, it was contained in a small local area. I therefore do not feel that it interfered with the harmonious management of the whole greenhouse ecosystem. I have since learned that there are various nontoxic ant controls available.

Various kinds of moths lay eggs that hatch into voracious vegetarian caterpillars, especially in summer. I have sprayed Bacillus thuringiensis (BT), a microscopic organism found in soils throughout the world. It is said to affect only the leaf-eating caterpillars, but I cannot help wondering if it also affects the larvae of the braconid wasp that eats the harmful caterpillars. Recently a new way to deal with moths has been developed. A sticky trap is baited with the particular pheromone that attracts the particular pest moth. I do not have much experience with this method, but it sounds promising.

Monitor in order to know what is going on. You need to be aware of what is going on in the greenhouse ecosystem, and the best way to do that is to scan the plants while watering or harvesting. I carry my trusty 10-power magnifying lens and check here and there the approximate ratio of “good guys” to “bad guys.” I have learned through experience to introduce the appropriate beneficial control insects before the harmful ones proliferate too much. Again, avoid crisis management.

Trust that harmony will prevail. You need to trust that harmony will prevail. This means not spraying with anything that might in the slightest way harm the beneficial insects, not even insecticidal soap. If it is meant to kill or harm the pests, it most certainly harms the beneficials also, either directly or as they interact with the poisoned pests.

I have at times been tempted to use “something” against aphids when they begin to get obnoxious, usually in late spring. But upon closely examining the situation, I have seen that there was hardly a colony of aphids that was not also being occupied by one or several varieties of aphid-controlling insects. Any spraying, even the sometimes recom-mended hard spraying with cold water, would be detrimental to the healthy development of the beneficial insects, and even to the plants.

The bottom line is this: if I help my insect friends and trust them to do their job rather than harm them by interfering with harsh and toxic methods, they will maintain balance in the ecosystem. It is very simple and eco-nomical, and it works very well most of the time. Occasionally there will be a minor loss of crops, but to my mind, if you spray with toxic chemicals, your crops will be a total loss.

Excerpted with permission.

For information about Anna Edey and Solviva go to solviva@vineyard.net or contact Anna Edey at RFD 1 Box 582, Vinyard Haven, MA 02568, (508) 693-3341.

Good compost can be considered the start and the heart of gardening and high quality food production. It is miraculous that the waste material from animals and plants, properly combined and processed, is capable of producing such exquisite food for us. Good compost contains many earthworms, pill bugs, millipedes, centipedes, earwigs, mites and other visible life forms, as well as billions of microorganisms. The life and death processes of all these organisms slowly dissolve the minerals in the soil into accessible molecules of nutrients which, together with the molecules of nutrients in the composted plant and animal wastes, are absorbed by the plants’ tiny feeder roots.

Many people consider composting difficult, and it is true that many a compost pile ends up just yielding a slimy, smelly, fly-infested mess. Much has been written about composting, about proper proportions, layering, turning, inclusion of this or that special expensive compost starter organisms and other amendments. Many different kinds of composting containers are available through stores and catalogues, some at hundreds of dollars, many of which do not make an attractive addition to the garden, and some of which are not very practical.

My own composting techniques are much more casual and have always resulted in excellent compost, “the best” according to those who know compost.

My favorite bins are made from wooden pallets, which are usually available free for the taking. Choose those that have closely spaced boards to prevent the compost from spilling out through the sides. Four pallets make a bin 4 feet square, and only three more are needed for each additional adjacent bin. I tie them together, straight and secure, with the strings that I save from the bales of hay that nourish the sheep through the winter.

Into these bins I randomly empty baskets of weeds, spent salad plants and their grow-mix-filled root balls, as well as the manure-filled bedding from the sheep, rabbits and chickens. Proper proportioning seems to happen automatically because of the whole farm production system. No turning is needed because this compost becomes Earthworm Heaven, and the earthworms are the primary workers who perform the necessary blending and aerating. It is amazing how fast they, in collaboration with the other visible and microscopic creatures, break the waste products down to finished compost, even in the middle of winter. Even though the bins may be covered with snow or frozen on the surface, when you dig down just a few inches, it is steaming hot.

In the winter I recommend that all composting be done inside the greenhouse, in the animal areas or right in the plant room, because of the major contribution of heat and CO2 that is generated by the composting process.

For home-scale composting, I recommend a very simple, trouble-free, effective system. Get a regular trash barrel. Make a couple of small vent holes close to the top of the barrel, and tape window screening over the holes. Then put in about 12 inches of loose, airy leaf mold, wood shavings/chips and soil, followed by about two gallons of manure from cows, horses, pigs, chickens, goats, or rabbits (not cats or dogs). Cover this with an inch or two of soil. Then put in 1,000 or more earthworms. The manure provides the initial food for the earthworms. Then add your household food wastes, chop it in slightly, and sprinkle in a little soil or leafmold over each load. There is no need for turning or aerating, as this job will be done by the earthworms. Add a quart of water once in a while for the purpose of keeping the mix moist, as earthworms are happiest with about 70 percent moisture, but make sure not to add so much water that it puddles on the bottom. Secure the lid and tilt the barrel a bit so the compost can breathe all the way down to the bottom of the barrel. Each time you add food wastes, rotate the barrel a quarter turn so a new section of compost can breathe. In the summer, place the barrel in the shade; in the winter, place it in the sun.

In my experience, this method results in very rapid, trouble-free composting of all food wastes all year-round, without any odors or flies. If you notice that composting and volume reduction is not happening effectively in the beginning, be patient. It can take a few weeks for the ecosystem within the first barrel to establish itself for most effective composting. When the first barrel is almost full, top it off with some more manure and soil. Start a second barrel, using some of the compost from the first barrel as a starter mix. For an average household the first barrel will probably be all composted by the time the second barrel is full, and the resulting black gold will make your garden very happy. You will have plenty of earthworms for future barrels, as well as for presents for gardening and fishing friends.