After crazy driving all day, including a little side trip down to Hartford to see my sister- and brother-in-law’s new house and deliver a big gold mirror and old picture, and pick up an electric mower for my dad, and getting lost in downtown Hartford (plenty of signs for 91 South, but none for North), I got up to the conference just before 8. Registration had closed so I went into the main ballroom (packed with people) to hear Paul Stamets lay it down with regard to mushrooms.

I first heard about Paul at my first permaculture class, where I learned that mycelium networks communicate ecological information across great distances, distribute nutrients among plants across species, even to the point of moving growth from a damaged side of a forest to the other side. So my expectations were high and Stamets gave an outrageous talk on the many amazing qualities of fungi.

Here’s a link to a partial version of Paul’s talk.
First, he told us about Amadou (coincidentally I’ve been listening to Amadou et Mariam), a mushroom with historical roots, as it was used to carry fire from one place to another. Paradoxically, when boiled in water, Amadou mycelium are highly flamable and were used in Europe to create firearms.

Then he described a symbiotic relationship with a fungus and grasses allowing them to grow in 160 degree water at Yellowstone. He showed old growth forest with baby hemlocks on the floor thriving, although there was insufficient light for photosynthesis; they were being “fed” by mycelium in guild with alder and birch trees. Recently an aquatic gilled mushroom has been discovered. We have identified only 10% of the estimated 150,000 species and a theme of the talk was “how little do we know.”

Mushrooms are similar to humans in that we both inhale O2 and exhale CO2. Fungi have generally anti-bacterial properties, and as they de-compose they specifically select bacteria essential to plant growth. Mycelium nets contain bladders that hold and transport water over great distances. The largest organism on earth, a honey mushroom covering over 2200 acres was shown from aerial photos.

Mycelium networks form a highly optimized, redundant network structure, and behave like neurons: as information or chemistry is passed along a network path it grows in capacity. The information appears to batch and pulse and this was shown in a microscopic movie of transmission along mycelium nets. Fungi have been shown to have survived, indeed been sole survivors of two previous extinction events.

Then, Stamets got into some very interesting practical applications. First off, mycelium remediation of hydrocarbon-poluted soil, which reduced hydrocarbon counts from 20,000 ppm (2%) to around 200 ppm over the course of 8 weeks. This experiment used oyster mushroom. He mentioned the fungal production of enzymes cellulase and lignase which are effective at breaking down wood and cellulose, then later showed a bottle of “myconol” lit and burning as a candle.

He pointed out that mushrooms are hyper-accumulators of heavy metals, so the oysters growing in the old hydrocarbon-polluted dirt are no good for eating, but you can create more mycelium by taking the base of the mushroom and rolling it in the ubiquitous material cardboard. In fact sheet mulching is so effective because it creates conditions very favorable to mycelium, which by the way are favored by earthworms. Stamets scoured the literature but found no science published on preferences of earthworms for mycellated vs. non-mycellated material, so he conducted his own experiments.

Then he showed a filtering system created from mycellated woodchips stuffed into burlap sacks and used to create a swale on contour. This was very effective in reducing e coli in runoff from farms into waterways.

Perhaps the most amazing story he told was when he was asked by a National Geographic photographer to gather a very rare garcon [sp?] mushroom which only appears in Douglas Fir snags in old growth. They were out on a boat in Desolation Inlet, BC looking along the shore for evidence of this rare fungus. After several hours the photographer asked about a Haida pictograph site and they went to visit and found garcon growing right there. The shape had a strange Venus of Willendorf resemblance. Later it was discovered that Haida artifacts in museums were carved not from wood but from garcon.

There was some more about the anti-tubercular qualities of this particular mushroom and the great medical benefits of using mushroom products that are not only anti-viral but anti-bacterial as well; most deaths from viral infections are caused by the follow-on bacterial infections. He also patented a process for eliminating carpenter ants and termites using mycelium.

For me, though, the real kicker was the idea of “packaging” seeds and mycelium in innoculated cardboard. This has great guerilla gardening potential, can use the mail system, etc. He showed a baby “old growth” forest of hemlock, birch, cedar grown this way.
I don’t think anyone minded that Stamets went on for about a half hour longer than scheduled and he received an standing O for his great work. It was an amazing kick off to the conference.

The greenhouse still stands, although a little worse for wear as we had a few inches of heavy snow last week, which popped one of the PVC pipes out of the ridge pole. Nevertheless, it still stands, and I patched it up this morning with a little duct tape. Inside, I’ve got a cold frame set up, giving me theoretically 2-3 extra hardiness zones. On Sunday I planted early purple garlic, so I’m still gardening well into December. I ordered some hardy cold-season greens which I hope to start indoors middle of next month and get set out in the cold frame by March 1. That would essentially create an 11 month growing season for me, rather than the usual 7-8 months.

I wanted to summarize some of the accomplishments for the year as it’s getting to be that time.

• Got my Permaculture certificate
• Started teaching Permaculture
• Sheet mulched and swaled half my garden
• Started seriously composting kitchen scraps
• Set up seed starter area in the basement
• Taught an herb spiral workshop at SWAN
• Pulled out all the heinous yews around the house
• Put in a stone wall around part of the front of the house
• Planned the fence for next year
• Grew decent amounts of lettuce, tomatillos, brocolli and carrots and had tiny, first time successes with apples, strawberries and melons
• Attended the Northeast Permaculture Convergence in July
• Read a lot
• Put up a Moodle with Permaculture course materials
• Cleared out the herb bed to revitalize it next year
• Installed several trees, shrubs, bamboo and added lots of new perennials

So that, I would say, was a pretty good and productive gardening year! Next year: fences, greenhouse, rainwater system, pond or two and CHICKENS!

Another goal is to start up the business side of things, so look for a facelift here at Greenerminds in the next couple of months. And don’t forget about the NOFA-NY conference right here in Rochester, January 23-25.

[UPDATE 12/24]: The greenhouse didn’t last much beyond this date. We’ve had two feet plus of snow since then and the thing collapsed into a plastic, duct tape and PVC heap. So I think I’ve come to the end of the PVC pipe-dream and will be building with wood going forward. I’ll post my designs here once I have something that actually makes it through a season!

I attended a very inspiring planning session for a local urban sustainability center. Good mix of young, energetic architects and builders and old-guard veterans, run by Rochester Green Living. I found out (officially) that I’m now a board member of the Center for Sustainable Living, but I managed to keep my volunteer hand down for this one. There seemed to be plenty of enthusiasm and passion for this project without me “adding” my agenda. There were a few friends there, but it was great to meet a whole bunch of new folks including Peter, and John from Ant Hill.

Green building is not necessarily my passion, although I’m certainly interested in learning whatever I can. The meeting was inspirational in that a few people had generated some momentum and attracted energy. I started thinking about how to apply this more locally to my village. I mentioned what little I know about Transition Towns, and what I like about the idea so far is that there’s already a template or framework for proceeding that I could quickly jump on. What’s frustrating about these planning meetings is that it’s difficult to actually move them to implementation. Having a small core group (a “board”) with a brain trust or forum or Zone 2, seems like a workable model to me. Anyway I downloaded the Transition Primer and hope to have a go at it tonight and take with me to Hancock this weekend for Module 4.

We’ve had a couple really light frosts, but this morning we got the first real one. This was a good excuse for me to go out into the garden and see where the frost boundaries are. In general I only had one area away from the house on the southeast edge of the property that looked like it was much affected.

Later, I went for a walk on the Lehigh Valley trail between Clover St. and Quaker Meeting House Rd. I’ve been taking this walk all summer and it’s been very instructive. The trail cuts through a large marsh behind a beaver dam, and there are tons of interesting birds and plants. Today what I noticed more than anything was the leaves raining down off the softwoods- poplar, aspen, plane, sycamore and willow. Since these fall first, it would be interesting to see if there’s some reason for it, in terms of the layering of the detritus in the A0 soil horizon. I also noticed that the aspen leaves have the ability to twirl off a little bit away from the tree stem in no breeze. Again, I have no idea what this means.

I got to teach some parts of the Water chapter down in Hancock this past weekend, particularly around swales, dams and various drain and ditch types. Andrew did some of the other Water and AJ did Soils. We also interviewed Mark and Lisa of Mountain Dell and two teams started design of their property, which has amazing potential. We also watched the Sep Holzer video which was inspiring. Especially, to me, the polycultures he uses. Also learned from one of the “students” that wrens love cabbage worms.They teach me more than I teach them, that’s for sure.

In preparation for teaching I started using a troubleshooting guide in the Designers Manual used to determine mineral deficiencies in soil from plant problems. It’s becoming clear that I need to add lime and green sand to my site, which appears to leach pretty readily.

Several times at NEPC, reference was made to the book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. When I got back to town I went straight to the library to get it. Sadly, it was out, but another book, The Timeless Way of Building was in, and I’m glad for this happy little accident [sic].

The Timeless Way of Building (Volume 1 in the series) lays out, methodically, the difference between a built environment that is alive and one that is dead, what makes it possible to create the living one, that is a shared pattern language, how it is possible that normal people like you and I can build these living environments, what a pattern is, how to recognize one, and how to build a shared language of patterns and combine them in specific methods of design. A Pattern Language (Volume 2 in the series) is then, one attempt to build such a language that has general applicability.

Since Permaculture is all about design and a lot about pattern, I am glad to have stumbled onto these books. Which is not to say that they weren’t explicitly recommended in my PDC, or even by Mollison in the DM- they probably were. But they are both critically important books, IMHO, for Permies everywhere.

Here’s Alexander’s definition of a pattern:

Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution.
The Timeless Way of Building, p. 247

I believe this is what Dave Jacke was referring to when he said a pattern is a way in which conflicting forces get resolved. This is also another way of restating the Permaculture principle: “the problem is the solution.”

Further, Alexander shows how we can discover these patterns.

1. Pick a kind of a place- entrance, window, garden, tree grove, sidewalk, path, hedge, whatever
2. Look around for good and bad examples of this type of place
3. Try to isolate the property the good ones have in common. This will not be a simple property, like a color or size, but will be a relationship
4. Look at the bad examples and define what the problem is with them
5. Expand the problem with any additional information you may have about it, generalize it. What does the space need to accomplish or solve?
6. Identify specifically the ways that the good patterns resolve this problem
7. Give this pattern a specific name which will clearly identify it

This is a very specific and detailed form of “protracted and thoughtful observation,” and is quite similar to the ways both Mollison and Toby Hemenway suggest to identify guilds. Zone and Sector analysis is very good at quickly locating components in an overall site, in a general way. Alexander’s method seems to me much more definitive when you get down to the details of where to place the actual greenhouse, swales, paths, compost bin, chicken coop and so on in relation to each other and to existing components, within or across any zone/sector analysis segment.

Today was an awesome day! I was able to get hot water for my coffee this morning, then went for a little walk and found that despite it’s strip-mall and industrial park cosmetics

Chicopee has a heart of gold. I took my coffee down to the parking lot and started looking at the flora when I noticed an old road or path running behind some shrubs and decided to explore further. Some black caps, black-eyed susans, milkweeds, sumacs. Then I came around a corner and found myself in a state park. Walking further I found a swimming area which turns out to be the Chicopee reservoir. Thus, it’s a short five minute walk from that to this:

I was completely astounded by this, and spent some time there to start the day. I went back for my camera and tried to drive there, but couldn’t find a way! Walking was the most direct method. After a McSaussage I went on the the Convergence.

In the morning Ethan Roland ran a session on Scaling Up, that is how we can work on bigger projects or think about bigger projects. He put an interesting twist on “succession” asking, what do we need as designers to accelerate our inner, as well as the outer, succession. There was some discussion about building community and Ethan specifically demonstrated a design that was not accepted. He said he didn’t know why, but it seemed clearly that there was not buy-in or ownership from the community, some lack of trust by the community for the landowner based on history. This started to emerge as the main theme for me: it’s not the designs, it’s the social and hidden structures that will ultimately determine whether our designs get implemented.

Steve Gabriel made a similar point in the next session- that most designs don’t get built. This was a very instructive presentation on his experience with FLPI, their relationship with an existing Not-for-Profit, the dream vs. reality (”where the rubber hits the road,” Bill would say), and some successes. I was starting to conclude that small was good, that the way to go big is still to expand small successes, join and network the nodes of permanence as if they are components in a design, a bigger design.

After lunch we had the first two events of the Permie Olympics, which involved eyeballing elevations for a swale, then speed digging. There were I think five teams and the result was two nice swales built in a couple of hours for fun and for free.

After lunch, Phil and Sharon gave a talk on their experiences trying to get diverse, multi-cultural (”people of flavor”), urban permaculture going in NYC. I want to talk more to him about the specifics of his experiences, what worked and what didn’t. They seem now to have got a core site at a community garden in Harlem, and have had a very successful PDC where 23 of 24 finished the course. He also talked about financial issues of pricing and chasing down payment and scholarships, which I want to hear more about.

Dave Jacke then led a roundtable on issues related to certification and organization within the movement as a whole, and I found myself contributing some models that might be helpful, and questions about standards being set purposely at a very low level to generate quick growth. As Mollison says, we can’t possibly do worse than the way things are being done now. I’m wondering whether the certification wasn’t Mollison’s way of not dealing with centralized authority and structure. I’ll probably get struck by lightning for saying that. I was glad to add to the discussion, and the point was made several times during the day that the ideas generated by newbies were often very interesting and productive. We’ll see.

I got to talk to Tom and Martin a bit afterwards which was cool, the discussion leading to Bateson and patterns among other things. Some books I need to get:

• Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
• A Long Deep Furrow- Three Centuries of Farming in New England
• Luscious Landscapes
• Human Ecology, or books on this topic

After that my brain was pretty much moosh. Looking back through my notes there’s a ton of material that will be fodder for future posts. For now, my stomach needs food.

This afternoon I helped these young people:

build this herb spiral:

in less than an hour.

They totally made my day and made me feel like I’d done something worthwhile and fun for the day. I was able to forget about the idiocy of work for a bit. I was able to explain about the different micro-climates we were making, from dry at the top to moist at the bottom, hot and light on the southwest and top sides and darker and cooler on the north and east edges, how the bricks and soil form a more stable structure- they totally got it and hopefully now they can do their own spirals and teach others.

Here are some more details on swales. As I was working on them, I was struck by the sophistication of even the simplest of permaculture techniques.

Here’s a better diagram of how they work and how mine are constructed:

I had previously marked the paths out using a very simple contour-locating device I built ($5) from 2 x 2, a hinge, a cross piece of scrap wood, some fishing line and a weight. This forms a big “A” shape. Calibrate it by setting it up on a level surface and marking where the fishing wire and weight hangs crossing the cross piece. To use it, pick a starting point and then swing it around til the other leg hits the grass and the weight lines up, showing the legs to be level. Mark the new point with a stone and move on to the next point.
To actually dig the swales, first, I rented a rototiller ($39 for a half day) and loosened up the soil on the swale paths. Then I simply went along and dug with a shovel, flippiing the sod over onto the downslope side. After digging, I went along each swale and forked down and loosened a bit, just to put some depth for water to soak in.

Next I filled the swales with whatever drainage and organic matter I had handy. In this case, I had a bunch of gravel scraped onto my lawn from the next door neighbors winter plowing, so I put that in the base. Then I put in dead leaves which I had in profusion as I don’t rake them in the fall. Finally I put some ground bark mulch. This all went inside the swale.

I then scattered clover seed on both the ridge and the upslope side of the swale. The upslope side, being level, makes a nice path. Since the main path on the site runs downslope, across the swales, the swale paths are secondary cross paths. From these I run some keyhole garden paths upslope into the main garden beds defined by the swales and main path.

Finally, both the ridge and upslope side get a layer of straw mulch to keep them moist and deter weed and grass growth, while allowing the clover to sprout.

The fact that all of this works as an integrated whole where each part plays multiple roles was kind of impressive in a quiet sort of way. The clover helps seed the ridge, and will grow a good root system to keep it locked in place. It also adds nitrogen to the soil. The gravel and leaves were readily available and relatively easy to move. I would have had to scrape up the gravel anyway, so no big deal just putting it in the base of the swale. I mentioned that I use the upslope side for paths. I also noticed that laying the swales in broke up the garden space in a very interesting and useful way. The slope is now visible in the landscape, and it’s really obvious where the moisture is and isn’t in the ground, and where it flows. Little pockets and odd accute angles suggest places for anchor plants and shrubs. The garden starts to design itself.

I’m killing my lawn and turning it into a food garden.

Let the sheet mulching begin! I went for a walk around town the other day, poking around the old abandoned railway lines (often a good place to find old tree and shrub stock), and walked past a feed and grain store I hadn’t paid much attention to. I called them up and asked if they sold strawbales, and they did. I ordered 20 at $4.50 each.

Unfortunately they don’t deliver and I don’t have a pickup any more. So I decided to rent a U-Haul, and found that the repair shop around the corner from me rents them- I could walk there if necessary. So I lined up a truck for this weekend.

Meanwhile I went on craigslist and discovered all manner of cool free stuff including rotted horse manure and creek rocks (don’t tell these folks, but people pay good money for this stuff). Haven’t heard back from the rock people yet, but I have the manure and straw pickups scheduled for this Saturday. Naturally, the forecast is for rain.

So the way sheet mulching works is this:

1. first I put down a layer of manure, an inch or two thick, directly on the lawn.
2. If I need soil amendments, these go down now too, and I probably should lime and rock phosphate a bit, especially up the end with the spruce tree.
3. Next we need a weed barrier. My preferred material is corrugated cardboard from the gazillion shipping boxes left over from Christmas and various birthdays, coffee shipments, etc. Thick newspaper, cotton clothes or even carpet will work too. This is to prevent the lawn / weed from coming up through the manure fertilizer.
4. Next layer is a bit of topsoil, maybe an inch. This isn’t really needed, but I put it in anyway.
5. Then comes 6″ to 10″ of straw or other mulch. Last year I used double-ground bark mulch, but it was a bit too woody, so I changed to straw this year.

The great news about sheet mulch:

• no digging
• goes really fast
• you can plant into it right away by making little soil pockets into the mulch
• no digging

Once I get this going, I’ll include some pictures and maybe even a video on the process.

Stuart Staniford of the Oil Drum posted yet another rosy scenario about the future of food. What has struck me about this series is the fantastic gaps, assumptions and leaps of faith Staniford takes as givens and most of the commentators go along with. To give just a brief example, he says that there’s no problem with producing nitrogen in the future, despite the fact that natural gas is a critical component in the production of ammonia, which is the critical component of all nitrogen fertilizers. No problem, we’ll just substitute the boundless renewable energy he talked about in a previous post.

David Holmgren points out that if there’s boundless energy, then all of our work in Permaculture and sustainability is probably a waste of time. There’s still that pesky global warming issue, but we can ignore it for a while longer. Nevertheless, Staniford’s posts represent a possible scenario in the future, and we need to consider it, however unlikely it is to come to fruition. Holmgren considers this view as the “green tech” solution- one among a number of possible scenarios, each of which require differing strategies.

My point here is not to take Staniford’s arguments apart. At least not yet. What’s interesting to me today is that the process of uncovering the assumptions leads to more learning. To me this is like digging a trench (to use my friend Bill’s expression). Working at the trench level of detail, close to the ground, gives a strong and coherent foundation to one’s knowledge. So while I intuitively disagree with Staniford’s conclusions, he’s providing tremendous service by defining this swiss-cheese structure, whose negative space is a patch pattern of very fertile intellectual ground.

Permaculture points out that the interesting stuff, the productive areas are at the edges and transitions. This suggests that it is not the anti-assumption that is interesting but the points at which the assumption and anti-assumption approach eachother, where the anti-assumptions spread out to touch eachother, like pioneer patches in a successional field.