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Page added on August 4, 2014
Urgency and the long Game
While I was walking my dog this morning under the sparkly blue skies I’ve grown used to, I detected a slight shift in the angle of the light, reminding me that the earth rotates on its axis and it’s heading back around the sun. This summer has been a bounty of sub-tropical and Mediterranean weather, the best and sunniest summer in years, unleashing a frolic of outdoor life. It’s going to come to an end, but I don’t mind.
I’ve adored this summer, but I also know that April, May, and June were collectively the hottest three months on record. Climate change reports published over the last year from the IPCC, as well as others, have stressed the urgent need for action. The atmosphere, oceans, and climate are all changing faster than models predict. We are flirting with disaster.
When Bill McKibben came to Schumacher and Totnes three years ago, he was in the midst of playing a leading role in the KeystoneXL non-violent direct action at the White House, getting himself arrested along with hundreds of other citizens. He gave a talk in town to a large audience. He said the same thing, the climate is changing faster than the models predict. This is what motivated him to put his “body on the line”, as he put it, to keep the carbon locked up in the Tar Sands in the ground. He also praised the work of Transition, the positive social and economic changes that were occurring in many towns like ours where people were trying to build community, sustainability, and resilience. Then he said something that stuck, “it’s where we need to go, but we may not have time.”
If the earth’s physical and living systems are becoming dangerously unstable, so are the political, economic, and social systems of this planet consuming civilisation. In recent months, reported by Nafeez Ahmed and others, scientific bodies, transnational corporations, and government agencies, are taking seriously, and in the case of defence departments, preparing for, various scenarios of collapse, resources wars, climate refugees, domestic control.
Could we be at the head waters of some torrential bad shit coming down the mountain? Already, the world seems to be falling apart before our eyes. Gaza: it’s beyond urgent. Adding to the horror, Ahmed also reports that the current aggression may also be motivated by cold calculation to control natural gas reserves. Ukraine, Crimea and Russia: more resource grabbing? China, Wall Street, and others are buying up the arable land in Africa. Drones, terror, war, civil war, failing states. Refugees. Ad infinitum.
Meanwhile, the anglophone countries are the most vehement climate change deniers. The governments of these countries are increasingly beholden to big money and run by double-talking charlatans. They conspired to put everyone under surveillance with their watchful ‘Five Eyes’ programme. The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) they intend to impose would subordinate us all to the rule of corporations. The US is fracking from sea to shining sea, while Detroit’s water is held hostage and armed militias hunt down children on the border. The UK does whatever the US does. In Canada, they’re fixed on being the next Saudi Arabia no matter who lives downstream or who stands in their way. In Australia, they’re destroying the Great Barrier Reef so they can increase coal exports to China. WTF?
What can we do faced with the growing cacophony of urgent calls? Perhaps, you’re doing what I’m doing, working for bottom up, community-led, collective alternatives to this madness. Perhaps you’re in one of the growing number of places where this is happening, part of a far-flung and growing movement. Paul Hawken calls it the ‘blessed unrest’. The shift is beginning. Planting gardens, starting cooperatives and social enterprises, producing renewable energy, raising awareness about solutions – working at all levels within reach to co-create a new eco-social compact equipped for what’s ahead, or maybe even a chance to avoid the worst. One conversation, one community event, one social enterprise, one ‘aha!’ moment at a time. And hoping for the best. This is the long game.
We hear the urgent calls. Are we doing enough? If the shift is beginning, can we accelerate it, should we? If not, are we still on the right path? Should we be training for civil disobedience? Prepare for robust resilience or the ‘lifeboats’?
Naturally, I’m interested in how we can grow and strengthen this movement. How can we double the number of groups planting community gardens, starting coops, producing their own renewable energy, etc. In particular, I’m curious about how activists and community organisers can apply some of the lessons to be drawn from network and complexity theories, and how we can intentionally widen, diversify, and densify our networks. The more solid connections we make into new networks, the more new opportunities emerge for innovations to spread and resources to be distributed. Theoretically, the growth of this connectivity can reach a critical state, when suddenly a cascade of new connections spread exponentially, but like with earthquakes and similar phenomena, one can’t predict which connection will set it off, or whether it will happen at all. One can’t know which adjacent possibility, which new connection made, may be that one.
Totnes affords many opportunities to make new connections. Many people visit the town from all over the UK and the world to learn about Transition, what’s happening here and what’s happening elsewhere in the movement. These include on-the-ground Transitioners and the curious, as well as government and university groups. Schumacher College draws its own interesting visitors and collaborators, which brings us into contact with some amazing figures across a wide swath of this movement. There are language schools, which bring in students from Spain, France, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. Many of them find their way onto a Transition Walk, and some even participate in meetings, events, and projects.
Many of us here are fortunate to be able to play the role of unofficial diplomat for Transition Town Totnes, and sometimes for the wider movement. We develop acquaintances and friendships with people just like us, working for the same things, but in their own ways, in the context of their own places and circumstances. We naturally share personal stories and give historical accounts of projects. Sometimes interesting opportunities for collaboration arise. And so do offers of help, resources, connections to new networks and new possibilities, and always ‘a place to stay if you’re in town’.
Sometimes long distance collaboration take shape. For example, there are links being developed between people and projects here and Arboretum Marbella, an innovative sustainability project in Spain. Satish Kumar, from Schumacher will co-teach a permaculture PDC there in October. An exchange programme with a local organic farm is also being discussed. Plans are being hatched for additional projects.
In the Devon area, some of us are beginning to think about working at greater scale, but closer to home. The first step is to become better connected. We’re looking to stage a one-day ‘community-led economics’ conference that brings together everyone in the Devon area who is doing this kind of work. We’re aiming to share stories, get to know each other’s challenges and successes, capabilities and resources. Hopefully, there will be many new connections and new possibilities for collaboration. Working together at county level appeals for many reasons, including having a more persuasive voice with local authorities. Proximity also makes it easier to focus on project replication. This seems vitally important.
Happily, the REconomy Project has the resources to support such events and are already planning two in October and February, in Fife and Penzance. And the Transition Network is co-organising regional ‘Roadshows’ in Cornwall, Bristol, Hertfordshire, and Fife. If the outcome of these events are stronger, denser regional networks, with lots of budding relationships, then that can only be a good thing.
When these new relationships get to the stage where ‘offers of help, resources, connections to new networks and new possibilities, and ‘a place to stay if you’re in town’ begin to flow, then it also becomes a practice pathway for social permaculture and solidarity. The practice of solidarity in this context holds exciting possibilities. The Ajudada conference in Portalegre, Portugal last year, and the on-going Village Building Convergences in Portland, Oregon, offer inspiring examples of visitors, neighbours and locals working together to manifest transformational projects. Imagine if this kind of ‘barn raising’ ethic became a prominent part of the culture of this movement, with ‘ajudadas’ happening like traveling festivals every season, pulling in friends and neighbours from ‘zone 0’ to ‘zone n‘ wherever they occur. Imagine if our response to the urgency of the world is to ignore the artificial boundaries of town and borough and expand the natural frontiers of our community.
24 Comments on "Urgency and the long Game"
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 9:44 am
The shift is beginning. Planting gardens…
Here’s mine:
http://s1383.photobucket.com/user/NWR2015/library/?sort=9&page=1
Not enough to feed three people year round, much less four laying chickens and three people. But it is a start. I am learning how to farm — making all the mistakes and learning from those. If/when a community effort to collectively grow food starts in my area, I’ll be able to contribute knowledge, skill, seed and well-honed digging method advice.
Davy on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:04 am
Nice job NR!!
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:06 am
NWR, Great pictures. How wide are your raised beds? The design appears to be quite efficient. How many different crops are you growing right now? With the composting and chicken coop you mentioned earlier in another comment, and a greenhouse, you have most of the basics covered. Have you considered rabbits; they provide meat, fur, and great organic fertilizer. I intend to raise a few Florida White rabbits in time. Worms are interesting, too.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:22 am
Davy and JuanP — Thanks! I took those pics this weekend and thought what the heck, might as well show them off. What you see there used to be a lawn surrounded by tall arborvitae on all three sides and four mature trees that had to be cut down.
Currently growing: Wheat, sweet corn, “indian” (higher protein Painted Mountain) corn, blackeye peas, alfalfa, carrots, potatoes, grapes, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini and crimson clover. This week will be planting kale, radishes, beets.
Planters are four feet wide. Two center rows are 12 feet long. End rows are 20 feet long — with some varying lengths.
Wooden box in corner of “ladder” pic is my compost bin — going to build another one just like it.
I have considered rabbits and planned on it. But my son and girlfriend abhor the idea of killing/eating rabbits — they are too furry and too cute, and I cringe at the thought of gutting/cleaning them. I’m going to get a rooster, build another “breeding/chick-raising” chicken coup, and just stick with chicken and eggs for high-protein source.
I can make big improvements that will increase production dramatically next growing season. 1) Plant wheat much more densely. 2) Grow a lot more potatoes. 3) Fertilize/compost and prepare soil better. 4) Get crops planted on time. 5) Time it right and get two crops per season per raised planter instead of just one.
I love this “hobby” — it feels really good to be raising my own food and I hope more people get in on it too.
ghung on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:40 am
Nice job, NR. I dug about 70 pounds of potatoes this weekend from a similar 4 X 16 bed filled with sand and sawdust (‘Mittleider method’). Very easy digging. Will backplant beets this week. Our vertical indeterminate tomatoes continue to produce some of the best maters I’ve ever grown, other stuff doing nicely. Growing your own is a very rewarding and enabling enterprise, eh?
Plantagenet on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:47 am
Nice Garden, NWR. And is that your McMansion of a house in the background? Looks like you’re living in a house with about 6000 sq ft and 8 bedrooms? Good plan— you can store potatoes in one bedroom and corn cobs in another and so on. I like it. Congrats!
ghung on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:47 am
BTW: I cleaned the spring box last week and found 3 lovely crayfish (yabbies to our down-under friends), 1 male and 2 females (I think). They are now happily residing in a fish tank, eating well. Hopefully they will be the first breeding stock for my aquaponics trial; mountain crayfish.
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 10:58 am
NR, your plan sounds great. I agree that your second year you will probably at least double your production. I have found four feet wide is the best width for my raised beds, too, and you can make them as long as space allows. Try planting things closer on one third of the space used for each crop, and see what happens. If the soil is good things can be planted much closer than the conventional way. When I improve my soil I focus on the top six inches, except for potatoes and carrots that get a foot of the best soil I can afford.
Adding compost, peat moss or coconut coir, and Vermiculite help when improving the soil in raised bed gardens. Try it on your smaller raised bed as a comparative experiment, one third peat or coir, one third vermiculite, and one third of a mix of different composts.
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:09 am
Ghung, I came back to thank you for your suggesting the Mittleider Method, I was not aware of it, and I will build a four by four using it this year to try it. And then I read your Aquaponics comment. I have been reading on this subject for many years and visited a number of research and commercial Aquaponics facilities. I intend to have Tilapia on tanks and herbs on the greenhouse in an Aquaponic setup in my future micro farm. I find the combination of Hydroponics and Aquaculture in such a symbiotic closed circle incredibly efficient and fascinating to mess around with.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:09 am
ghung — I was hoping you would check out my garden, especially since you posted some pics of your setup a while back and I really admired those. I’m guessing that I’m going to end up with a couple hundred pounds of potatoes when I finally get to harvest them — that’s an estimate. I have another planter with potatoes not shown in the photos I posted. And hey, good luck with those crayfish — if I had a regular source of water (besides my potable water tank), I’d be thinking about growing some of them too.
Plant — thanks for your comments. That “McMansion” is actually 1400 square feet ranch style — 3 bedroom, 2 bath, the usual. On one side of the house I am getting ready to build my version of a root cellar, which since it isn’t cold enough in my area to be a real root cellar, will be designed only for keeping potatoes, beets, radishes and carrots fresh through the winter as those only need a 50 degree or so temperature range to stay fresh for a long time — which is about what our average temperature is in my area through the long fall, winter and early spring months.
Arthur on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:14 am
Very inspiring NWR! It shows one can do something to prepare for the comkng contraction. These raised beds are on my todo list for next near as well.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:24 am
JuanP — Your suggestions of composting and fertilization and plant spacing are exactly what I need to consider. One thing I discovered this first year is that soil preparation makes a huge difference in how well the plants do. Since I was in a big hurry to get the planters dug up and get stuff planted before it was too late, I didn’t get the soil mixed uniformly and I didn’t mix any vermiculite into it. The soil is Wilammete fine sandy silt — which packs hard as a rock when it dries out, and it doesn’t hold water all that well either. Mixing vermiculite is one thing I can do to improve that soil quality. Another thing I can (and plan on) do is plant winter rye this September in most of the planters, let it grow until around March next year, then plow it under to add a lot of organic material to the soil. Also, the crimson clover that I am growing is for the specific purpose of harvesting and plowing into the soil for nutrition. Better soil mix and better seed spacing will (should) result in an even better crop next year. But this year, I’m not complaining — tomatoes are huge and tasty, corn is growing very well, and the potatoes look like they’re kicking butt too. Wheat is good but not great — getting it planted in time should help next year. Fun stuff!
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:28 am
Arthur — I can’t wait to see what you put together. Living in Holland, I imagine one or two of your planters will contain a specific crop that I would really like to grow but caution (and fear of legal consequences) prevents me. But they have yet another initiative coming up for a vote this next time around here in Oregon, and maybe it will pass this time like it did in Washington state. I am envious of one of my Washington friends who has a backyard full of that nice crop — beautiful, tasty, so very useful — and makes great mulch too. Wish me luck on that regard. And one more thing — you should start doing your digging exercises now — you’ll need to be in prime digging shape!!
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:45 am
NR, I want the mix in my raised gardens soft enough that I can easily crumble it with my bare hands with no effort and I can pull weeds by just grabbing them with two fingers and they come out easy as if they had oil on them. Focus on the top six inches, the nutrients leach down.
Adding an organic material like peat moss or coconut coir with the Vermiculite works amazing. Coconut coir is more environmentally friendly, but I use both indistinctly. The Rye and clover witll help with organic materials and nutrients, but its orders of magnitude away from making a one time investment in peat or coir.
This is a one time investment, that Vermiculite and peat moss or coir would remain the long time base on which you would sprinkle compost and worm castings every few months.
Like I said try it on your smaller bed, or a four foot section of it, and plant things four times closer than you would mixing many different things together to have growth at all levels, from ground cover to herbs to rosemary bushes to tomatoes and grapes on trellises. It’s a fun project.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:57 am
JuanP — Great advice. Vermiculite is a definite for me — I will be adding many big bags of vermiculite to those planters next March along with probably peat moss or at least sufficient amount of other organic material. Soil preparation is everything, and it ain’t easy! Doing that, like you say, will enable me to plant seeds closer together and maximize production — also outlined and demonstrated in this book which is what I used to get me started:
amazon dot com/Mini-Farming-Self-Sufficiency-Brett-Markham/dp/1602399840
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:57 am
Ghung, I did some research on the Mittleider Gardening Method you suggested and found out it is based on most of the same principles of the Square Foot Gardening system I use, scientific soil mixing to achieve good water retention, texture, drainage, and nutrient balance, minimizing water and nutrients used, trellises, and closer plantings. I will buy a book and I will build a Mittleider bed this month to do a comparative analysis between these methods in the coming months. Thanks again.
Davy on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 11:58 am
You guys need some fruit trees.
http://www.davewilson.com/home-gardens/backyard-orchard-culture
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:01 pm
NWR, Mini farming is on my shopping list. Thans for the suggestion!
Northwest Resident on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:19 pm
Davy — You’re right! I added that link to my favorites and I’m going to seriously start planning on planting some fruit trees next spring — in my front yard, which is the only place I have any space left. The neighbors can kiss my butt if they don’t like it. I expect it won’t be long they’ll be coming knocking, asking if I have any food that I can give them. My answer, of course, will be “eat lead sucker”. (just kidding… maybe…)
ghung on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:23 pm
JuanP – I should note that I’m not strictly following Mittleider; not using the weekly mix of NPK and the micro-nutrients they sell. I initially used regular NPK, but also mixed in my own organic mix and compost, inoculating the sand/sawdust with living soil. Great results, and began seeing earth worms within a couple of weeks.
The advantages I took from the Mittleider stuff was the well defined bed sizes and the irrigation method, plus I plan to utilize the mini greenhouse (pvc hoops) option to extend our growing season. Really nothing unique about it.
The sand/sawdust was perhaps the best thing I took away from the concept; both cheap and available locally. I managed to fill four large beds 10″ deep with the mix for under $30 and still have a lot of sawdust left over. Try that with bagged soil mix from Lowes. As the mix breaks down, I’ll just add more + a generous shot of compost. Very easy to work; weeds pull right out, and I dug my potatoes by hand (no fork).
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:27 pm
Davy, Great link, I saved it. Very interesting ideas for an orchard. I don’t have fruit trees now, but I did as a child for ten years in my parents backyard. Tree crops, including coppicing, are an important part of the package in a self sufficient homestead.
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:37 pm
NWR, If you buy compressed peat or coir bags or brics, be careful because they expand significantly. One cubic foot of compressed peat per every two cubic feet of vermiculite is a good guess, but read the packaging because some coir bricks grow to several times their size. You want the expanded volume of your organic material to be the same as the vermiculite, ideally. A six inch bed with the equivalent of two inches of vermiculite, two inches of peat, and two inches of a mix of varied organic composts all well mixed in is the bed start, IMO. Then all you need is the compost from your bin/s to keep the nutrients level and you have a food garden for the rest of your life. It gets easier, though never easy.
JuanP on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:41 pm
Ghung, It was the soil mix aspect I found most interesting, the rest of the ideas I mostly already use. The mix I use is one third peat or coir, one third vermiculite, and the rest as many different organic composts as I can find.
Davy on Mon, 4th Aug 2014 12:55 pm
guys, great links and info. I have been coping and pasting this morning.