If it doesn’t pop up, you can follow the link here: Grow Biointensive: Session 1.

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Fava Beans

First up, we’ve got 48 square feet of fava beans growing, occupying two of our 6′ x 4′ raised beds. There are somewhere around 100-125 plants or so, and half of them (the bed in the background) were started via direct sowing of the beans 3 inches under, and the other half (the bed in the foreground) were started in seedling flats and transplanted three weeks later. So far the transplants seem to be doing a little bit better, and are about two feet tall. While most of them are growing pretty straight at the moment, eventually they get to about four to six feet, at which point we’ve found they need some support. This first patch happens to be growing where I set up a cold frame, so we’ll rely on those pvc pipes to help hold these plants up.

Why fava beans, you ask? First off, they are what the biointensive method calls “heavy givers,” meaning that they give to the soil instead of taking away. To do proper crop rotation, you need to have a three-part rotation between heavy givers, light feeders, and heavy feeders. Second off, they’re easy to grow in SF, do well in cold and foggy climates, and produce some actual beans you can eat! Third off, they provide ample green material that will later be used in our compost pile. It’s a pretty good win-win-win crop, and we got a whole lot of seeds for a relatively inexpensive amount.

Next up we’ve got parsnips!

Parsnips

We’ve never actually eaten parsnips before, but from everything we’ve read they’re just like carrots, only white. Moreover, they’re easier to grow than carrots! Here we’ve got about 4-5 square feet of them, and the leaves are quite strong and robust. They’re planted on four inch centers, and we probably have about 40 plants here, and another 15-20 in another patch that was stagger planted so they’d mature at different times.

Batting third…Swiss Chard!

Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard did quite well in our garden last winter with three plants, and looks pretty good this time around as well. We have about fifteen plants, all started in flats. After a somewhat dicey start with some slugs eating a lot of their leaves, they are now quite robust, producing a lot of deep green, healthy looking leaves. We just ate a spinach and chard quiche this week, and it was delicious!

A Wide Variety of Potatoes

Next up is our potato patch. Pictured here we have eighteen potato plants, and the blank spot to its right now has about 8 or 9 potato plants coming up that were stagger planted. You know how the eye of a potato sprouts after a while and starts looking gross? Well, that’s how you start new potato plants! Once they’ve sprouted for a couple weeks, you cut up the potatoes so that each piece has about two to three eyes on it, let it sit for a day so the cut can scab over, and you stick it in the ground 6 to 9 inches deep, eyes facing up. Wait two to three weeks, watering frequently, and plants come up!

The crazy thing about growing potatoes is that you have no idea whether they’re actually developing underneath the dirt. You simply have to trust the process. Once the plants die, wait a couple weeks, and then gently dig them up with a spading fork. Last year, it was an exhilarating experience to do that and find…potatoes!

This year we have a variety of potatoes growing, including Yukon Gold and red potatoes. The other thing to keep in mind with potatoes is that you can’t grow them in the same place within a three or four year period. Last year we grew them in the patch right behind (where you can barely see our cereal rye growing), and we put it down in our historical chart so we know where we planted before.

Lacinato Kale

Lacinato (or dinosaur) kale is our next featured crop.

We sort of overdid the number of seedlings we started in response to the 2011 Slug Attack, so we had too many kale plants for the space we had. So we made some modifications to our garden plan. Here’s one patch of seedlings in our side 1.5′ x 6′ beds, alternate spacing at about 10-12 inches. Last year we had a very productive kale crop through the summer, so we’re hoping for some good success this time around as well. We probably have around 25 plants or so. Our main consumption method for kale is in chip form: clean the leaves, spray olive oil, sprinkle some salt, and bake them for about 20 minutes at around 300 degrees. When they are nice and crispy, take them out, and enjoy! The kids love them too.

That’s it for now. I’ll let you  know how the rest of the season goes!

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Furthermore, the modern scientific, rational approach to the world has had the unfortunate consequence of making every aspect of the environment something that can be taken advantage of to advance human needs:

Like any other aspect of human culture or knowledge, science is socially constructed and value-laden, and it is through these social processes, and the values of domination, mechanism, production and progress that the culture of science has made such a dramatic impact on the biosphere and on the ecology of both human and non-human life. In particular modern science expresses the powerful rationalist urge to remake irrational and ‘brute’ nature into mechanical forms which more perfectly serve rational human purposes. Thus the strangeness, chaos, diversity and wildness of nature are eschewed by the agricultural scientist in favor of the sanitized, chemically treated, mono crop field where only the crop planted by the farmer can grow, and where even earthworms can be disposed of, poisoned by modern pesticides, as their natural function of regenerating the soil is regarded as expendable, and replaceable by fossil fuel fertilizers. (Northcott, 62-3, boldface added)

I found that last sentence particularly challenging, especially in light of our current pursuit of sustainable farming in the backyard. We’ve even avoided the use of things like rototillers, which are actually too harsh on the dirt and end up destroying organisms like earthworms which are beneficial for the soil. Our seeds that we use are all non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) and naturally developed. Weed and pest control is all manual. This makes for hard work, but in another sense, it puts us closer in touch with the land. When we started, we had no idea what seedlings looked like, but now we can actually identify a handful of plant species, and thus know what’s a weed and what’s not. It’s also given us a new respect for ecosystems–there are good bugs and bad bugs, a need for flowers, you need to do crop rotation to let the land heal, and other balancing measures.

The modern, industrial approach to farming, however, imports mass amounts of fertilizer (which has to be stripped away from another part of the world) to produce mass amounts of food in a manner that, comparatively speaking, is inefficient. Top soil is being depleted at record levels, and repeated planting of the same crop (like corn) ravages the land. This is not sustainable in the long-term. Eventually, the top soil will disappear and we’ll have no where else to pull fertilizer from. This approach, however, emerged from a mindset that sees the land as expendable as long as the ends (more food in the short-term) justify the means (land depletion in the long-term). Could this be the result of the market economy and modern science? Quite possibly. What do you think?

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Green Onions!

A tip we got from our friends the Satakes: Instead of repeatedly going to the grocery store to pick up a bunch of green onions, and wondering how in the world you’re going to use all eleven bunches when you only needed one, you can plant some in your garden straight from the market! We got ours from a farmer’s market, organic ones, took them home, and stuck them in dirt. Those roots will take and each bunch will become a fully thriving green onion plant.

Every so often when we need some green onions, we’ll cut off exactly what we need, and use it. Or, when they are growing too rapidly, we cut off a bunch, cut them, and freeze them. The cool part is these will keep regrowing a new stalk when you cut one off, and thus you end up with a continual supply of green onions. These here have been in our garden for seven months, and they’re still going strong. We expect to have to replace them eventually, maybe at the year mark, but it’s a great, sustainable way to have fresh veggies with minimal work. Pretty nifty. Think Strega Nona, but vegetable style.

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One of the ways God has been challenging me the last few years is to really examine the true cost of food. It’s far more complicated than it seems. In the West, convenience is key. That’s why establishments like 7-Eleven and McDonalds thrive. You just pick up what you need, buy it, and go on your way. It’s cheap, so you feel like you’re being frugal and not wasteful. But are you? There is a certain “behind the scenes” toll that this sort of lifestyle imparts on places and people that are unseen to the majority of the first world.

As part of our journey into biointensive gardening in our backyard, we’ve been reading a lot of literature on the subject of food sourcing and sustainable living. One such book is One Circle: How to Grow a Complete Diet in Less Than 1000 Square Feet, by David Duhon. The premise of the book is that using biointensive techniques along with careful planning and selection of crops, you should be able to grow a complete vegetarian diet for an average adult in less than 700 square feet. That’s pretty bold. Right now, we’re working with about 300 square feet in our garden, which should theoretically, then, yield enough vegetables for half an adult, if we do it well. We’re just now stepping into a good rhythm with planning and planting, so we’ll see how that goes. But back to Duhon’s book–I think he says something really challenging in his introduction about knowing where our food comes from:

Whether we live in the cities, suburbs, or rural areas of an industrialized country, or whether we work in mines or on plantations, or live in urban slums or in a famine relief campe in a country whose food self-reliance has been mostly destroyed by the process of “development,” we have nearly all become disconnected from our resource base. The circle that connects us to our crops and the soil has been broken. The circle that connects us to each other has also been broken. (Duhon, vi)

Kale, Brussel Sprout, and Nappa Cabbage Seedlings for Transplanting

I think part of living responsibly this day in age involves fighting back against compartmentalization that turns a blind eye to questions like Duhon raises. To be fair, it may be impossible in this globalized age to trace to source of everything we eat, consume, or use. However, especially for those of us with one of the most precious resouces–access to information–we ought to pursue as much as we can understanding where our stuff comes from and how we can contribute to a sustainable world. I think a good first step for us has been seeking to understand where our food comes from and trying to grow some of it on our own. Let me tell you, farming is a lot of work! There’s so much planning to be done, learning the seasons, what grows best when, starting seedlings, transplanting, tilling the soil, and fending off slugs. It’s been tremendously educational in a very hands-on way.

Another step we’ve taken is to shop more often at local farmers’ markets, like the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market at the United Nations Plaza in the SF Civic Center. Everything there comes from farms within 200 miles of San Francisco, and the farmers themselves bring the produce. They even accept food stamps. It’s a pretty cool place–open every Wednesday and Sunday. I’m usually there every Wednesday at lunch, if you ever want to meet up.

Finally, a good way to learn about food sourcing is to watch a documentary or two. Some that have impacted us recently are Food Inc. and King Corn. Give them a look–both available on streaming Netflix for those of you that subscribe. Or, there’s always the library.

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…the land promise in the NT is expanded, in a manner typical of the shape of NT fulfillment, to include the whole world. Furthermore, I want to suggest that this restoration of “the world” is not to be spiritualized, nor can it be reduced to human beings only. It includes a material element. God is at work bringing blessing not only to his people but to the physical cosmos itself.

…

If creation has suffered the consequences of human sin, it will also enjoy the fruits of human deliverance. When believers are glorified, creation’s “bondage to decay” will be ended, and it will participate in the “freedom that belongs to the glory” for which Christians are destined. Nature, Paul affirms, has a future within the plan of God. It is destined not simply for destruction but for transformation.

Douglas Moo, “New Testament Eschatology and the Environment,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, vol. 3 (2006): 458, 462.

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One of the key lessons that we’ve picked up is the necessity of unstructured time with the family. That means a time when we’re not “doing” something–no washing dishes, no vacuuming, no piling on the bus to get groceries, no cooking or planning. Just time together doing whatever. With the kids, this most often means “Obstacle Course!”, which is code for “Pull down all the couch cushions, built forts, use the couches as trampolines, and play, play, play!” These times usually go anywhere from half an hour to an hour an a half. And they’re incredibly therapeutic. Sometimes I’m so tire from the day that I’m literally one of the obstacles just lying on the floor, but it’s refreshing nonetheless to have small children crawling on top of me. I’d highly recommend it.

The benefit of this is huge. The kids get some good attention and free play to get their energy out before bed, and the parents get some space to breathe a little. No one feels rushed around, at least until clean up time. The family gets to simply be together, without any undue expectations on what the time is “supposed” to look like. We love it, and we try to shoot for it as often as possible.

How about you? Do you have unstructured time built in to your life? What’s it like?

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The Seedling Defense Grid 1.0

One day, I went down to check on the seedlings and was accosted by a horrible scene – lettuce sprout bodies everywhere. I hadn’t protected them from the birds. Out of about fifty sprouts, less than ten remained. It was a sad moment in Kuo seedling history. Lesson learned — build a cage to fight the birds! So off I went, sawing wood, pounding nails in to hold the chicken wire, and building both a platform and a bird defense grid. (Note the creative re-use of baby gates for the top cover.) Never again would the birds ruthlessly peck out our helpless seedlings.

Seedling Tragedy Two happened over the course of the last three days. You see, we had a set of flourishing kale seedlings that had already graduated from the three inch flat to the six inch flat and were just a week or two away from being transplanted into the main bed with their four other brethren. Not only that, but we had about forty turnip seedlings, five brussel sprout seedlings, and 8 nappa cabbage seedlings. Here was one of the kale seedlings happily in his flat inside the seedling defense grid:

Lacinato Kale Seedling, aged 3 weeks

The slugs got to ‘em. They broke through the Sluggo barrier. They slimed their way up the elevated platform. And over the course of two evenings, they chomped their way through eleven kale seedlings, all the turnips, all the brussel sprouts, and all the napa cabbage. And smooshed some of the chamomile to boot. It was a sad, sad morning. I’ll spare you the gruesome images of the seedling remains. Seedlings, I hardly knew ya.

We’re now deploying even more defense mechanisms. Stage one was the crushed eggshell barrier. Stage two will be some combination of beer, coffee grounds, and other home remedies (all organic, of course). Stage three will probably be some copper rings and/or sandpaper. But you know, in a way, I suppose I had to have the seedling tragedies actually happen in order to get moving on it. Sometimes, I guess you have to learn stuff the hard way.

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What’s sad is that these terms shouldn’t even be necessary. Why is it that we need to have labels to tell us that our vegetables don’t have chemicals on them? Why is it that we need to have labels to tell us that the coffee farmer got paid fairly for the months and months of work that went in to raising those coffee beans? Fifty or sixty years ago these organic wouldn’t have meant anything. Organic? Of course! What’s a pesticide? Fair trade might be a different story given humanity’s propensity to exploit one another, but even still, if we were farming the land and treating human beings as we ought, “organic” and “fair trade” wouldn’t be a part of our everyday parlance. What they do represent, I believe, is an impulse not only to do right, but to go back to the way God created them to be—farming naturally and treating people like people.

In our family’s journey to live sustainably and justly, we’ve slowly been making changes. Part of the reason that we started our garden in the backyard to explore what it would take to wean ourselves off of mass-produced vegetables. According to the biointensive farming method, with 100 square feet you can technically grow enough vegetables to feed one adult for one year. It takes years of learning and practice to get those kinds of yields out of the soil (I think the book said 7-10), but it can be done. We’re now in our second year, and we’ve been getting a lot more out of our soil—we grew enough spinach to have quite a few tasty spinach omelets, our kale crop is producing large, hearty leaves for some healthy baby porridge, our peas have given us a few servings of fresh picked peas (nothing at all like the frozen variety), and we’re hoping for dozens of leek plants and a good green bean crop later in the summer. It’s been neat learning and also humbling to see how much work actually goes into getting these crops. We’ve essentially lost touch with where food comes from. Although right now our yields are essentially like decorations—we still rely heavily on our local supermarkets for produce—we’re learning. And we’re also shifting some of our purchases toward organic and locally grown foods in deference to more sustainable and environmentally responsible methods of farming.

In a similar vein, all our coffee at home is now fair trade. There’s a great 2.5 pound bag you can get at Costco that’s certified fair trade, Kirkland brand, brewed by Starbucks. 13 bucks. For something that I brew at home a few times a week, we thought it was important that we did what we could to ensure that coffee farmers in Latin America, Africa, and Asia were getting a fair wage. In many non-fair trade situations, coffee farmers are essentially losing money in their enterprise, but are unable to get themselves out. In other words, they are indentured servants to their landlords. It shouldn’t be that way.

Yes, we shouldn’t need the terms “organic” or “fair trade.” But the reality of the world we live in is that chemically and genetically engineered, unnatural food exists and unfair business practices exist. And yes, practically speaking, there are situations where you can’t always do it. I won’t stop frequenting my local coffee shops simply because they don’t serve fair trade coffee, because I also want to support local businesses. And I’ll still buy some produce from the corner market or food that’s not organic from our neighborhood restaurants for the same reason. It’s complicated. And because of the already-not-yet nature of the kingdom, we’re in this awkward in between stage. But where we are able to make some of those decisions—like buying fair trade for our home-brewed coffee—we do. I think it’s absolutely critical to consider and think about these things, because it aligns with God’s mandate to take care of the earth and love our neighbor.

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I think the key is convergence and de-compartmentalization. One profound error in approaches to spirituality is a false dichotomy between the sacred and secular realms. This manifests itself both physically (church buildings/holy places versus every other building) and mentally (“quiet time” versus the rest of my day). Now don’t get me wrong–I believe there is tremendous value in spending dedicated time studying the Word, praying, gathering in faith communities and the like. However, we make a grave mistake when we restrict our spiritual life only to those realms. Instead, sustainable spirituality demands a holistic approach that understands every physical space and every pocket of time as potentially sacred. If time is our scarcest resource, then we need to figure out how to use our entire day in a way that fuels our life with God.

So how does that look on the ground? For me, one area that I’ve learned to really utilize is my commute. As an example, instead of using my bus ride home to mindlessly surf the net as I am apt to do, I decided to do some thinking and write the majority of this blog post. In the mornings I spend time reading the Scriptures and praying. The 20 to 30 minutes I have going to and from work can be maximized to help fuel my passion for God instead of filling my head with random baseball stats. When i used to commute by car, I would try to use that time to pray or be still. I didn’t always do that–sometimes i would just zone out and listen to KNBR (which could be restful in its own way)–but those times were valuable to me. Part of the pursuit of a vibrant spiritual life includes using every pocket of time as effectively as possible in obedience to Christ.

How about you? What rhythms work for you during those pockets of time?

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