Hydroponics
How to save the Earth
What's good for Mother Earth is good for you too
Three steps to get you on a self-empowered track towards saving the planet.
You are Nature.
This dewdrop world is but a dewdrop world and yet... ~ Issa
The Earth is currently beset with a cataclysm of environmental problems: global warming, deforestation, melting polar ice caps, collapsing fisheries, animal extinctions, water pollution...the list goes on. As much as 40% of the world's plant and animal species are endangered or are on their way to becoming endangered and yet we can trace all these problems back to the activities of only one species- Homo sapiens. You and me. With seven billion humans on the planet now and with 250 people being born every minute...we clearly need to re-orient our way of living on the planet. Before it's too late.
whoah...
Your eyes are probably glazing over now...reaching for the mouse to click away from yet another sermon from a self-righteous treehugger who wants to lay a guilt trip on you about the dire state of our environment. That's far from my intention; I'm hoping this information with provide the beginning of a more joyous and healthful path for you. The ironic thing about making lifestyle changes that will lead to a positive future for all life-forms on the Earth is that they are also changes that lead to an immediate, positive improvement in our physical health, sense of well-being and savings in the bank account too.
Step One: Have a love affair with Mother Nature
Fall in love with the Earth. You can't do anything effectively if your motivations are driven by guilt, depression, anger or anxiety. We protect what we love and in order to protect the Earth, you need to be in loving relationship with it. For many people, this is instinctive. Great naturalists like John Muir, Henry David Thoreau and Rachel Carson were drawn to wild nature and had the poetic skills to convey their love of the planet with the rest of us. Without John Muir we would not have Yosemite National Park; without Rachel Carson we would not have an Environmental Protection Agency; Thoreau influenced Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and just about every other social activist. Not all of us can be epic nature poets but all of us can become deeply moved by the power of nature by just spending a little time in the outdoors. Once we are inspired, we can carry that energy back into society and let it guide us.
Personally, the most profound experiences I've had in nature have been those spent alone hiking or backpacking in the wilderness. There is something deeply gratifying about challenging yourself in the wild and being surrounded by the beauty of the world, alone. Often, we spend too much of our lives serving our egos...out in nature, the ego is humbled and our sense of self expands to all of nature. When I look at myself in the mirror at home, I'm sometimes less than pleased with what I see and throw down a lot of unnecessary judgment. When I'm out in the woods, the reflection from my mirror becomes the mountains, the ancient forests, a soaring falcon, water flowing down a stream. On some level I feel like I've incorporated myself into the power of the mountains, the ancient forests, a soaring falcon and fast water flowing down a stream. It's an extremely empowering experience. Hiking with friends is a great experience too but I find myself socializing more and I lose the meditative aspect that hiking alone provides.
Even if you don't have the time, ability or confidence to do a solo jaunt into the wilderness, there is a great exercise that will plug you right into the rhythms of nature. It's called finding a "sit spot" and its part of a tradition that goes back to most every Native American culture. What you do is find a nearby wild or feral place, it can be a national park or a nearby woodlot or even a backyard. You'll be sitting there quietly in observation of nature. Make sure it's a place you can see yourself spending a lot of time with. The important thing is that it is nearby where you live so you'll go there often, you feel secure being there, you will not be interrupted by other folks and there will be opportunities to observe plants, birds, insects...no matter how epic or humble they might be. Spend an hour per week in this spot; spend an hour per day in this spot; however much time you can afford to spend there- go! Return to this place, over and over and make it sacred to you. Observe the change of the seasons and how that affects the activity of the wildlife. Observe the timing of the first spring blooms and the last fall leaves. Get to know the names of the plants and animals that live near your spot. Take notes, or not. Relax. Soon, I guarantee it, you'll find that your sitting spot is one of your dearest friends; you'll feel more relaxed, grounded and you'll be on your way to developing a deeper bond with the Earth and feeling better about life.
Step Two: Eat your yard
I was surprised to learn that next to transportation, industrial meat production is the greatest source of greenhouse gases. I was also surprised to learn that one third of Americans are obese. Americans get 7% of their calories from soft drinks- more than they get from eating vegetables. It seems to me our diets are killing our bodies and the planet simultaneously. And though I'm happy to see the trend in eating "organic" on the upswing; an improvement in the amount of herbicides and pesticides being pumped into the environment. It also concerns me when I think about all the fuel used to ship that "organic" plum all the way from Chile. Eat less meat, eat locally grown veggies and save your health and the planet in one fell swoop. It's that simple. Many food activists have been promoting the "100-mile diet"- getting all your food produced from sources within 100 miles of where you live. "Slow food" is the mantra of the day. I say, there is no food more local or "slower" than food grown in your backyard. A couple hundred dollar investment in seeds, tools, compost, a few good books and time spent being physically active out in the garden will save you thousands down the road in grocery and medical bills. Food doesn't get any tastier or more nutritious than when it's plucked ripe, right off the vine and into your mouth.
If you don't have space to garden, you can often find a plot in a community garden. If you can't find a plot in a community garden, you might find someone in your neighborhood who has a backyard sitting idle and covered in weeds and will be more than happy to have you tidy up their yard and share with them the bounty of your harvest. If you have more money than time, you might be able to hire some enterprising gardener to farm your yard for you. In most cities, a small flock of chickens (no roosters) can be legally kept and eggs harvested. In Seattle, you are even allowed to keep mini-goats for milk that can be made into yummy goat cheese. The backyard food revolution is upon us and it is finally hip to be a gardener again.As I type this, Michelle Obama is breaking ground on the White House lawn for a kitchen garden. I recently attended a lecture by Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse restaurant and a prime mover and shaker in the Slow Food movement. Alice mentioned a $65 dollar investment in seeds yields a $700 harvest of produce...that's money in the bank.
I'm not an expert gardener by any measure but here are a few tips that have helped me garden more successfully:
- Plan ahead. You have all winter to plot out your garden plot. Take that time to read books, get your soil tested, order seeds, start plants growing. If you live somewhere with a short growing season like I do, you want to maximize your harvest by being ready to rock 'n roll in your garden as soon as the frosts lift. Most garden plants need at least 6 hours of direct sun/day to grow. It's helpful to map put your garden based on how much light reaches your garden. Consider how fences, houses, trees, etc. might cast a shadow over your garden during the growing season.
- Get your soil tested. Plants are great accumulators of heavy metals like lead and toxins like arsenic. The last thing you want to do is eat a salad full of lead and PCB's. Unfortunately, many of us do not know the history of our land but we can send out a soil sample to a lab specialized in soil testing and find out the safety of our soil. If the results are negative, you can still garden in raised beds, containers or even in a soil-less hydroponic garden where you control all the nutrients and chemicals that go into your plants- the ultimate in organic gardening.
- Veggie gardening is all about the soul of your soil. It takes nature eons to build topsoil; a well-turned compost heap can turn out soil in a few weeks. Composting and soil building are integral aspects of gardening. Soil is a complex ecosystem of fungi, inorganic particles, tiny critters and it is definitely not just DIRT. Soil is a living organism and needs to be treated as such. It's important to know the composition of your soil texture- how much clay, silt and sand is in it. It's important to leave your soil alone too- do not trample it and try not to disturb it too much. Cover your garden beds with a nice layer of mulch in the winter, or better yet plant your garden in a cover crop of a nitrogen rich plants that can be turned over into the soil in the spring and used as a "green manure" to bring fertility to your garden.
- Grow diversity. A garden is an ecosystem and the most stable ecosystems are those with a high diversity of organisms. Especially during the planning stages of your first garden, you might not know what will really grow well in your plot. My advice is to experiment with a wide array of crops and talk to local gardeners to get their opinions of what works well. Fewer individuals of many types of plants also means your garden will less likely attract the attention of pests that can devastate a monoculture. Don't just plant only veggies that you want to eat but also consider growing for all the other organisms that make up life in the garden ecosystem, e.g. plant plants that will attract pollinators to your garden like borage (bees love it!).
- Buy a plastic owl with glass eyes! This my favorite, goofiest garden tip. Nature can be harsh. All your hard work in the garden go down in a moment of bad luck. It can be frustrating to watch your carefully tended raspberry crop get knoshed on in an afternoon by bird or some other varmint. I'm sure you've seen those plastic owl decoys sitting on top of buildings, their intended targets of intimidation- pigeons, milling about and even pooping on the plastic owl. Not scared at all. I've found for some reason the plastic owls with glass eyes look more realistic and are more effective than other types. It helps to move the owl around the garden- keep the varmints guessing.
Step Three: Invest in the Future
With the current state of the economy, it seems spending and investing is at a standstill. However, if we don't invest in the economy, keep people employed and commerce moving then we are in dire circumstances. The changing nature of nature means that new opportunities are opening up in all fields relating to sustainability and alternative energy. Invest in these, with your money and your time. You might find yourself getting wealthy not only in the pocketbook but in the sense of knowing that your are improving conditions on the planet. Win-win situations are rare in life and investing in sustainable technologies seems like one of the best win-win games going. There are so many new earth-saving technologies popping up that it's hard to keep track of them. There are the old standbys like solar energy and wind power. I'm really fascinated by technologies that are focused on the biosequestration of carbon from the atmosphere, products that provide food or energy while simultaneously reducing the impact of global warming. Along these lines, I'm amazed by the potential of CO2 sucking algae farms for producing bio-fuels. I'm interested in biochar- the process of slow burning agricultural waste and returning atmospheric carbon back into the soil. There's incredible potential in novel food producing technologies like aquaponics and aeroponics, food growing systems that require 1-3% of the water demands of conventional farming.
Investing in the future means more than playing the stock market and getting in on the ground floor of "green" business strategies. It's also a framework for every choice we make in life and it goes deeper than replacing one brand of consumerism for one that's a slightly "greener" version. I like the Native American ethic of thinking ahead to the seventh generation, how our choices will not only affect us now or next week, but several generations of our grandchildren into the future. Planting the seeds of those types of far-reaching choices is truly the greatest step we can take to saving the planet and...ourselves.
***
Our greatest challenge, in the end, is to imitate a leaf.
~ Ernest Callenbach
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Advanced Techniques: Get connected to your bioregion
The best start to restoring our relationship with the Earth is to learn something about it. Let's begin with our own backyards- taking some lessons from the bioregion of the planet where we call home."Living in a world of cars and highways, changing our residences frequently within and across state lines, most North Americans tend to be unconscious of geographic roots. Nonetheless, all living beings, including humans have complex interconnections with the climate, altitude, soils, geology and landforms of the places where they live. Thinking bioregionallly makes us aware of these interconnections."
~ Ernest Callenbach
You may have to do some research, some google'ing to answer these 25 grueling eco-questions, you might not know the answers to any of them on the first pass...don't let that discourage you...just reading through these will put you on the path of developing a deeper connection with your place on the planet.
Where are you? 25 random questions about your place on the Earth
1) Can you name five native trees from your area?
2) Can you name five native birds from your area?
3) From where you are reading this, can you point to the North?
4) What is the elevation of the place where you live?
5) Were the stars out last night?
6) Can you name five edible native plants from your area?
7) Can you name one of the first spring-blooming wildflowers from your area?
8) How long is the growing season where you live?
9) What is the name of the highest mountain peak near where you live?
10) Where does your water come from?
11) Where does your electricity come from?
12) Do you know when the summer and winter solstice occurs?
13) When was the last time you took a walk by yourself out in a natural area near your home? What did you see?
14) Do you know what a watershed is? Do you know the name of the creek or river that defines your watershed?
15) What are the names of your next-door neighbors?
16) Where does your garbage go?
17) Where does your sewage go?
18) Have you ever found an amphibian in your backyard? What kind was it?
19) Do you know the month when you first start seeing lots of butterfly activity in your area?
20) Describe the type of soil around your house.
21) Have you ever planted a vegetable garden? What types of plants grew well for you?
22) Do you know the name of the indigenous people who historically lived in your area? How did they provide food for themselves?
23) Is there a natural area nearby that has special meaning for you? What about it appeals to you?
24) Has there ever been a song composed about the place where you live? Can you sing it?
25) Do you have the time to go outside now, take a deep breath of fresh air, touch the Earth and admire the beauty of the natural world around you?
***
"Bioregional awareness teaches us in specific ways. It is not enough to just 'love nature' or to want to 'be in harmony with Gaia.' Our relation to the natural world takes place in a place, and it must be grounded in information and experience."
~ Gary Snyder
All the photos in this knol were photographed out in the wilds of my home (or in the case of the garden photo, the Seattle Tilth community garden)- the temperate rainforests, salmon streams and snow peak mountains of the Cascadia bioregion that extends from Northern California to British Columbia.
Additional Resources
- soil testing: University of Massachusetts Extension Soil Testing
- seeds:SeedSavers Exchange
- nature awareness: Wilderness Awareness School
- Where are you? The bioregional quiz knol
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Hydroponics for Beginners
1 May 2009 at 5:35pm
Homemade hydroponics - How to make a deep water culture (DWC) system
21 Jul 2009 at 7:14pm
Urban Farming: Hydroponics in the City
21 Nov 2008 at 10:19pm
Our Hydroponic Greenhouse - hydroponics system
24 May 2008 at 8:08pm
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