Open House Building Momentum

     In the last week, several leaders in sustainability have come together, promising to make Mother Nature Gardens’ Urban Sustainability Open House a very interesting event this Sunday.    Friday night, I will transport our new honeybees from long time bee-keeper Kelly Camden’s (see Birthing Spiral Medicinal Garden) home to ours.  We are preparing the sight for our new residents.  Casey Paul, bee-keeper and valley farmer, will join us Sunday to answer any bee-keeping questions, including our own.  Scott Pitman,  founder of the Permaculture Institute (http://www.permaculture.org/nm/index.php/site/index/), will bring his current permaculture class to our home for a field trip.  We look forward to Scott’s visit and his feedback on our work.  Also, Andre Rodriguez, leader of Obama’s Campaign for Change Atrisco office, will join us to register and educate voters, sign people up for absentee ballots, and educate people about volunteer opportunities.  Because the out come of the next presidental election will play such a large role in whether or not we can create sustainable communities, we eagerly welcome Andre’s involvement.  We also look forward to new friends and unexpected visitors.

Open House: Sunday September 21st, 2008, 12-4pm.  209 47th St NW; Albuquerque, NM 87105.  From Central Bridge, travel west past Sunset and Atrisco to the third stop light, 47th St.  Turn north and we are a block and a half north of central.  Look for the coyote fence and the grotto.

Urban Sustainability Open House -209 47th St NW. Abq 87105

 

Backyard April ‘07

Backyard Summer '08

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

     For seven years, my husband and I studied and practiced sustainable living methods, but always on someone else’s property.  We work and traveled through America, western Australia and western Africa, seeing how different people in different climates lived off the land. Our favorite pass time then was visualizing how we would do it on our own property one day.  I suppose that’s why when we finally got our own place in South Valley, Albuquerque, we exploded into a furry of project activity.  First motivated by a coming baby, and then despite it, we dumped all our experience and ideas into our 0.18th of an acre, striving to make our home ”sustainablish.”      

     We can’t live as islands.  We will always depend on our local and global community.  However, as oil scarcity promises to increase the price of everything, we must shift our focus to what we can produce at our feet.  For Mother Nature Gardens, sustainability begins when people connect to the cycle of giving and receiving with the land on which they live.  Typical households out-source everything  and then export large amounts of trash and waste water.  Instead of this single direction flow through our home, from somewhere else to somewhere else (see link: the Story of Stuff), we try to make things we bring into our home cycle through our home many times.  In this way, “waste” becomes, well, something else.

Hummingbird & Hyssop

     The cycle of give and take with our land demands we give first.  Building soil is priority in every home we work at in this relatively barren climate.  On our property, we have brought in numerous truck loads of mulch and compost, used from local, recycled materials from Soilutions compost site (see links).  These organic materials insulate the sun-baked ground, help collect and retain soil moisture, repress weed growth, and give the soil something to break down in order to make more soil.   Other methods of giving to our land, recycling what we can on sight, additionally act to lower the amount of exported waste .  For example, grey water from our kitchen sink waters the beds closest the house.  We bury bags of collected junk mail near plants.  The paper acts as a below ground sponge, collecting and holding water near the plant’s roots.    We give all food waste to our chickens who in turn make great fertilizer.  We have built up pathways around the garden beds with old clothing and collected cardboard and paper board.   Having given so much to our land, we can also expect to harvest a great deal. 

Eggplant

     Just what can we get from a small piece of land?  On our small city property, we have planted eleven different types of fruit-producing trees, shrubs, and vines, 6 perennial herbs, and 15 different vegetables have produced in our garden this season.  We have chickens for egg production and meat production and a beehive for honey production.  We also use what Brad Lancaster calls a “solar arc of trees” around the house to cool it in the summer and welcome the sun in the winter.  This lowers our dependency on out-sourced natural gas and electricity needed to keep the home comfortable.  A 2900 gallon cistern catches rainwater from the roof to lower dependance on a depleating water source.  With an average yearly rainfall of only 7 inches, we grow our vegetables entirely with rainwater. 

         With Permaculture techniques, logic, and effort, we can make even a tiny parcel of land surprisingly productive.  As homeowners and as a community, we can lower our dependency on out-sourced products when our cities come alive with innovative gardens.  Please, come and visit our home, Sunday September 21st, 2008, 12-4pm, for ideas and inspiration of urban sustainability.  209 47th St NW; Albuquerque, NM 87105.  View and learn about:

• Strawbale shed
• Rainwater harvesting cistern
• Vegetable production on 100% rainwater
• Passive rainwater catchment
• Permaculture-designed garden beds
• House-cooling shade structures
• Cob grotto
• City chicken production
• Bee production
• Edible landscaping
• Permaculture vegetable production methods

 

Bee pollinating sunflower

Birthing Spiral Medicinal Garden

Birthing Spiral Medicinal Garden

     On Wellesley  and Silver in Nob Hill, the Birthing Center attracts the attension of the busy community buzzing around it.  The orginazation unites midwives and mothers and stands tall for women and infants birth rights and health in the face of the co-existing paternal birthing system.  In addition to a yoga room, library, and midwives’ offices, the building hosts a warm bedroom where laboring mothers can have a home birth experience in close proximity to area hospitals. 

     Birthings Center co-founder, Kelly Camden, wanted to create a garden that extended the same power of all the life that went on inside the building.  She worked with Mother Nature Gardens through the process of inspiration and installation. 

     We created a spiral pathway to a oval shaped sitting area within.  Because this was a garden to be used by midwives, laboring women, and mothers, we wanted the sitting area to draw visitors to the root chakra.  From the root chakra (represented by the sitting area), th Earthly qualities of vitality, vigor, and growth spirals clockwise from us.  The root chakra bestows breath and mind control, and knowledge of past present, and future, essential qualities in an empowering birth experience. 

     We filled the planting beds adjacent to the paths with herbs used in pregnancy and labor: yarrow, rasberry, vitex, to name a few.  This provides practical rewards as the herbs will actually get used for their unique medicinal qualities.  Furthermore, the gardens stand as an educational tool for women who want to learn to care for their bodies in close proximity to the healing Earth.

Strawbale Shed Construction

Plastered strawbale shed with porch

   Upon moving into our new home, our first project priority became clear: we needed a place to put all our tools.  Bard wanted a low-impact, high character structure so he chose to build a strawbale shed.  The high R-value of strawbales insulates indoor space, making it slow to heat up in the summer and slow to loose heat in the winter.  Strawbales are relativiely inexpensive construction matterial and have a low environmental impact.  Bard used recycled windows and doors for further savings.      

 

Strawbale foundation

     After initial planning, Bard began construction by laying the foundation.  To stay within city codes without needing to apply for a building permit, the inside floor space measured 10 feet by 20 feet.  The shed was properly aligned to maximize passive solar heating and cooling capabilities.  The structure faces south, with windows on the south and east side.  This way, the hot rays of summer do enter the building from the east or west (a shade structure shelters the eastern window from direct rays).  Southern windows welcome in winter sunlight when the sun stays low in the southern sky, but is sheltered from summer rays as the sun move more directly overhead at that time.  Bard dug an even 18 inch foundation, filled it with cement blocks.  To reduce the amount of cement needed (a high-embodied energy matterial), we fill space with beer bottles. 

Making the foundation level

  

Wood frame

          Next, with the help of his father and brother, Bard built the framework for the walls.  Strawbale walls can bare the weight of the roof or a builder can erect a wood frame that takes most of the weight.  He chose to build a post and beam structure due to the fact that he could not find proper bles for a load bearing structure.  Post and beam turned out to be a little more forgiving to the first time builder since the walls are not supporting the weight of the roof.

 Next, the exciting part came: a barn raising party!  Thanks to many friends drawn to learn about strawbale construction and to good food and drink, the majority of the shed went up in an afternoon.  The bales were tied tights and then pierced onto rebar embedded to the cement.  The bales were stappled together with 3-foot rebar staples.

Making a frame for the window

Proud builders

   The bales were covered with wire mesh and plastered inside and out by a professional plastering company.  Bard finished the roof by laying tin sheets.  He made a porch to the east of the shed that provides afternoon shade.  Bard and friend, Casey Paul layed a paver brick floor that helps regulate indoor temperatures by absorbing heat from the long southern angled rays of winter and staying shaded and cool in the summer.

  

   The finished product was so nice, we only dedicate half of it to tools and a work bench.  It also hosts over-night guests, Three String Bale practice sessions, and football gatherings.  The building adds a tremendous deal to our daily comfort and to the overall value of our home. Our next project involves building an attached greenhouse on the southwest side of the shed.  This way we can start vegetables, grow greens in the winter and also passively heat the shed. 

Art for Artichokes

Alexandra in her vegetable garden

Kokeshiflies

   With a spring itch to dig in the dirt, local artist, Alexandra Gjurasic, asked me to help her start a vegetable garden.  We did a consultation at their home to discuss ways to maximize growing and beauty potential of their small yard in the shadow of Los Volcanos.  Of the ideas explored, Alexandra started with a simple vegetable garden in an ignored corner of the yard.  Mother Nature Gardens gave structural help to complete the small project: creating an action plan, braking up dirt and creating a catch basin to bring stormwater from the roof to the vegetables, bringing in compost and mulch to build strong soil, and bringing drip irrigation to the area.   Alexandra and her husband, Steve, planted herbs, and annual and perenial vegetables, added a lattice, and generally tinkered like gardeners like to do.  The area, once only hot, desolate gravel, now breathes live into the livingroom window and calls the couple’s toddler to come and explore the excitement of the natural world. 

   I gladely accepted one of Alexandra’s watercolor pieces in return for my work.  I chose a piece from her series of “Kokeshiflies”.  Throughout this series, Alexandra creates flutters of butterflies with the bodies of Japanese dolls and wings like stain glass windows.  They seem to burst forth, surrounding and mesmorizing the viewer like bright ideas that flash and then disappear.  On the 2-D canvas, however, the Kokeshiflies remain suspended in the moment before they flutter past the viewer into the wind that carries them away.  In my livingroom, the remind me of the rush of possibilities each new moment brings.  You can view other works by Alexandra Gjurasic and learn where she is currently displaying her work at gjurasicpark.blogspot.com.

Double Helix Herb Garden

Kitchen herb garden before

Kitchen herb garden after

  On our property, the original kitchen garden had hard lines in  a narrow space.  In order to maximize edge effect and create visual interest, I mimiced the natural pattern of a double helix, two intertwining lines of brick below the surface and rock above.  The twisting lines create three framed plantings areas as well as room behind them to grow herbs close to the kitchen.  I removed the linear brick walk way and replaced it with crusher-fine, which allowed me to eliminate straight lines even in a space that seemed to demand it.

Cool Corner of Aspen

Aspen corner before

    Northeast Heights home owners look out their living room to the corner of their yard planted in aspen.  Aspen naturally live in high, cool mountain meadows and thus where struggling in the hot-scaped desert yard.  I pulled back gravel and landscape fabric allowing the earth and aspen roots to breath.  I replaced the rock with cool, water absorbent organic mulch.  I planted spring and summer columbines and seeded with shade-loving, low-water grasses to simulate a mountain meadow feel.  Instead of a barrier type boarder, I left an opening into the area, using the natural pattern of ocean waves to create a sacred and welcoming space.  Finally, I moved a bench, abandoned against an exposed east facing wall, into the space inviting the homeowners to spend time with their beautiful aspens.  Small changes for grand effects.

Northeast Heights Front Yard

Terraced beds

Terraced beds in graveled yards

Northeast Heights front before

     At the base of the Sandias, high-embodied energy gravel blankets the Northeast Heights neighborhoods.  Sloping west, gravel yards collect the desert sun’s most intense heat, store it in its mass, and release the heat at night when the desert typically cools.  Wanting their front yard to offer viewers solace to the harsh desert environment rather than intensifying it, Northeast Heights homeowners requested I go to work.  Without the budget to remove all the yard rock, I created terraced, organically mulched beds in the gravel field.  I used moss rocks to hold a notch in the sloped yard then leveled out a planting bed that will capture water run-off from the sidewalk and yard above.  I used the the natural pattern of contours (although exaggerated for artistic sake) in my design. 

     At the end of a “T” stop, this yard often gets viewed.  A little creativity captures the eye in a neighborhood where yards mostly seem to look the same.  Many landscapers fail to realize that every piece of land has unique potential and thus every landscape deserves a unique design.

Nob Hill Meditation Garden

   For years, Nob Hill homeowner avoided looking at her yard as she used it to hang laundry or passed through it to her car.  Piles of bare dirt, random collections of rocks, and abandoned landscape projects of previous owners did not provide pleasing eye candy.  She hired Mother Nature Gardens.  Keeping the budget small, I agreed to put in a hard-scape for her (earthworks, pathways, and mulch).   I moved dirt piles, creating depressed while raising the pathways of my figure 8 design at the same time.  I used rocks found on sight for a low embodied energy landscape and to keep the  design affordable.  The looping pathway reflects the symbol of continuous and balanced movement of thought and energy.  The garden draws visitors meditatively through and around the space. 

      I also installed an irrigation system with timer and lines to proposed planting areas.  This open canvas fit the budget and gives the owner the chance to add plants bit by bit as energy and time allow.  We sat down together to learn exactly how to tap into the irrigation system to bring water to each plant.  The homeowner no longer feels overwhelmed about gardening with the problem solving and hard labor out of the way.  She can plant beautiful gardens and enjoy her little piece of land.

Sacred Gardens

 

Galbraith's sacred garden installed with Soilutions

  A sacred garden first must strive for sustainability, producing life from within.  By raising pathways, we create depressed planting beds that catch and absorb rainwater where it is most needed, by the plants.  I use other methods of sustainability such as passive and active rainwater harvesting systems, low-water plants, drip irrigation systems, and thick organic mulch. 

           Pathways mimic patterns found in nature: waves, spirals, mushrooms, tree branches and roots, etc.  Such natural shapes create great visual interest, making the garden into an art form.  We subconciously relate to patterns in nature being products of nature ourselves.  The mental effect of looking and tinkering in a garden shaped in a life-creating pattern calms the mind in the same way the weekend in the mountains does, by making us feel connected to the Earth.  Natural patterns also increase edge effect, the law that life thrives where two ecosystems meet.  In our garden, the edge is where the path meets the growing beds. 

Front yard before

Front yard triple spiral

Galbraith’s sacred garden installed with Soilutions

           Paths of sacred gardens should promote walking meditations by looping and meandering.  Flowing paths as well as hidden sitting areas just beyond the bend in the path pull a resident into the garden.  This is when real magic happens, when a home owner begins to interact with the garden. 

          Many people seeking my services request a no-maintenance landscape.  Wild areas left to achieve its own balance (there are few left in the States) and parking lots are two examples of no-maintenance gardens.  Our city gardens, however, demand a little tending.  Yet with appropriately placed plants (in naturally wet areas, clumped plantings), a drip irrigation system, and a thick layer of organic mulch to suppress weed growth, maintenance is minimal but still required.  I invite my landscaping customers to attend my Abundant Gardening, Abundant Life class in order to learn how to make the “task” of gardening into a meditative experience.  Part of my product is the skill to connect with nature through our gardens.