What happened in Cuba

Cuba had it's "peak oil" experience in the 1990's. The fall of the Soviet Union resulted in the sudden cutoff of all oil imports into Cuba. Almost overnight Cuba had to learn to cope with the shortage of energy and all the resulting shortages that caused. This video shows how Cubans did this and how they learned to take care of themselves. We have a lot to learn from Cuba.

Grow boxes on a boat

Grow boxes are ideally suited for liveaboards. We currently have four boxes on the quarterdeck of our boat. (My wife and I have lived on our 38 foot trawler, Desiderata, for more than two years. We are remodeling a 100-year-old house in Everett Washington and the work has taken a bit longer than we had expected. We expect to move in this summer.) We have lettuce and strawberries started. This week we will start harvesting the lettuce which was planted in March. This box has not been in a greenhouse. None-the-less, our harvest is very early for the Maritime Pacific Northwest.

Under Construction

At last the Parking Space Garden is under construction at Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Church in Shoreline, WA. I have been busy with travel and remodeling our house. But from now on, I should have a lot more time to put on this. Expect to see major progress this coming weekend.

Early Broccoli

I set some broccoli plants the same day in the Earth and in the Grow Box. The top picture is the Grow Box. The bottom is in the Earth. The plants are in the same area -- within 20 feet of each other. Notice the larger size and healthier appearance in the Grow Box. I attribute this primarily to the black plastic cover. It will be interesting to see how much earlier the Grow Box plants mature. I have 3 plants in a 14-gal Rubbermaid container.

Shoreline, Washington

Last Wednesday night I received permission from the Board of Trustees to construct a Parking Space Garden in the parking lot of the Shoreline Unitarian-Universalist Church in Shoreline, Washington -- immediately north of Seattle. This will be a demonstration garden intended to show what can be done in one parking space. The project will receive financial backing from The Great Turning group at SUUC and the vegetables produced will be sold on Sunday mornings to benefit the Great Turning group.

Whe garden will include a portable greenhouse and security fencing. Pictures will follow in about a month.

Long Cold Spring

We're having our usual long, cold spring in the Puget Sound area. This has discouraged my planting schedule. However, I have been busy making parts for more Grow Boxes (I have decided to use this name for the home-made vegetable growing containers). I am promoting the parking space garden concept in my church and I hope to use one of the church parking spaces as a demonstration project this summer.

The plan will be to carefully record all food production from the pilot plot to test the conjecture that one person could produce all the vegetables they eat in a year from one parking space garden.

I expect this concept will take several years to mature.

Trees in Earth Boxes

Last weekend Jennie and I attended an all-day workshop on 'edible landscaping' at Raintree Gardens in Morton, Washington. Our teacher, Bruce Weiskotten, gave me a new idea. Then I remembered that I had heard of something like this 25 years ago in Holland. Trees in containers. After the workshop I bought a columnar apple tree on ultra-dwarf rootstock to plant in an Earth Box. I'll attach pictures here when I have planted it. It should get about 8 ft tall and the idea is to prune all side branches to 2-3 inches to keep it growing straight and tall. I figure one tree per 18 gal. box. Bruce said that orchardists in California are planting columnar fruit trees in fields and I remember Bob Sestrap at Wax Orchards talking about how that was being done in Holland 25 years ago. Hmmm... I wonder if apples could be harvested commercially with a machine like a corn picker.