Urban Gardening!!!

After many delays I have finally gotten on track with efforts in urban food production. Most "modern" cities aren't well known for being centers of food production. However, highly self-sufficient cities existed in numerous pre-industrial societies. The Ancient Mayans were well known for having garden cities where corn and beans were grown on temples and roof tops. The cities of pre-industrial China and Japan had a curious system where all "waste" in the form of effluence was collected and sold a valuable fertilizer to farmers within 20 miles of the city. Thus, cities with millions of people were literally eating their own recycled waste and eating well at that!

In this sense, modern cities such as NYC have been extremely wasteful. Hundreds of thousands of tons of organic biomass are thrown away each and every year to be buried in landfills. New York can just as easily recycle such valuable resources and convert them into food for it's citizen's to enjoy. To that end, my efforts have been two-pronged. On the one hand, most of my organic garbage in the forms of food waste/kitchen scraps and paper-based materials are being composted by an in-door Worm Condo. The condo produces valuable compost which are then fed to indoor(and hopefully outdoor) food bearing plants. Starting the planting process, I created a simple guild/poly-culture consisting of Oregano, Mint, and Arugula. 3 plants which supplies a food seasoning, a tea blend , and salad greens respectively. The 3 seedlings were transplanted firmly into a container which is roughly a foot in diameter and height. I filled the container with common potting soil and a small pinch of the freshly generated worm-compost.

And speaking of worms...these little critters have been getting quite comfortable in their new homes. They have been eating generous portions of kitchen scraps and paper wastes and producing large amounts of fine dark compost. It appears that some of them have decide to settle down and make babies. Worms are hermaphrodytes with very curious mating habits. 2 worms would begin the ritual by coiling with each other into a complex knot. Then more worms would join in until there is an enormous coil of a dozen or more worms. This worm orgy would writhe together for hours on end before splitting up. After the act, most of the worms would become pregnant with eggs since they have both fertilized and received fertilization from other worms.

The Worm Colonization

This weekend, I finally picked up the "worm condo" offered by the NYC Compost project. Basically, as part of the City's green effort, the municipal council made the decision to subsidize the distribution of home composting devices. After attending a 2 hour instructional session, a worm composting bin and a worm "founder" population can be had for $10 instead of the usual $50 price. The "condo" itself is a rather simple design. It's a large, rectangular bin made out of clear plastic, with a flat top lid and 4 aluminum-mesh, lateral, ventilation ports. An 8-inch deep layer of shredded newspapers are set down onto the bottom of the bin, this becomes the bed of the worm condo.

Under the light of 2 CF bulbs, I move the worms out of their tiny cardboard container along with a handful of their home soil. The little red worms were deposited onto the middle of the shredded newspaper bed. The worms began wriggling frantically under the light. They were palpably burrowing away from the light. They were heading in all directions into the shredded paper, creating a circular colonization wavefront of sorts. I can't help but associate this act of disembarking to a scene from some science fiction novel. A group of brave colonists, heading out of their generational spaceship onto an wholly alien planet, underneath the light of two suns.

My little colonists are of the red worm breed. The original stock of these creatures once inhabited the forest floors of central Europe. Their natural environment being a semi-damp carpet of dead leaves and twigs with scattered deposits of edible berries, nuts, and fungus. The ancestors of these worms developed the ability to metabolize both human-edible foods as well as cellulose. Due to the harsh demands of their Eurasian homeland, these hardy worms developed high disease resistance and quick breeding cycles.

In any case, after 3 hours, all of the worms have burrowed into the paper layer. The lights are then turned off, and the worm condo is deemed operational. The worm condo can compost a variety of wastes. Most biodegradable paper and cardboard scraps can be fed to the worms. Almost all food scraps can be deposited there as well. This particular condo has a capacity for processing 3 lbs of food wastes and another 5 lbs paper waste per week. Effectively, that is over 50% of my total weekly garbage output.



For all of you in NYC wanting to compost your own garbage, check out the NYC Compost Project

The first frost

The first hard frost of the year had hit PA this weekend. The complex ecosystem of the garden was shocked into disarray, as I anticipated. Over the course of Saturday night, countless ice crystals pierced the unprotected cellular walls of non-cold adapted plants. After the frost, those crystals thawed out and the life fluids of the plant cells literally drained out of their bodies. The beans, tomatoes and eggplants collapsed into messy heaps by Sunday. My father collected the still developing eggplants, last of the beans and a basket full of green tomatoes. The remains of the plants were fed to the compost heap.

At it's closing 24 lbs of tomatoes, 3 lbs of white eggplants, and 13 lbs of beans were harvested. The garden life cycle as completed itself.

Cold fish!!!

This is turning into a very strange year. The above normal temperatures have extended the fishing season by a month or more. 56 pan-fish were captured over the last 3 weeks, yielding 38 lbs of cleaned meat and another 15 lbs of offal for the compost piles.

Garden Update

The days have gotten much colder now.
Enclosed within the hemp mesh, my lovely little garden still produces!!!! The eggplants have finally grown up. The tomatoes and bean plants continue to bear fruit. 7 lbs of beans and 1 pound of tomatoes were harvested within the last 2 weeks.