2010 Garden Reflections

I am just giddy as I start to think about what my 2011 garden will look like! On these cold, winter days I like to sit and fantasize about all those fresh veggies and herbs growing just outside my door. But, as not to repeat gardening sins of the past, I first need to reflect on lessons learned from the 2010 garden.

Since I was on a blogging break in 2010, I never did share my 2010 garden plan. I was attempting Square Foot Gardening, and I found Microsoft Excel very helpful to plan out how I would plant. I found this to be very useful to manage my time and also this made it very easy to adjust as reality interfered with my original vision. 

Here is a view of the whole garden.  There are 6 smaller beds (2'x5' and 2'x6').  Then there is a larger berry patch (4'x10') and an additional bed (4'x9').  Each cell in Excel represents 1 4"x4" square in the garden.

This is the blow-up of what I consider the main garden beds.  This was the original size of the garden.

Here is the berry patch and the potato trash can.  I had anticipating getting the berry patch all set in 2010, but as it turned out, I didn't get the plants in until the fall.

Finally, this is the large bed.  In 2011, I use this for squashes and melons.

 

So, what did I learn in 2010?  So much!

1. I need deer protection!  In the smaller garden area we didn't have a problem with deer - I think this might have been because the space was too small to jump into.  In our larger garden area this year, the deer just helped themselves on a daily basis.  They ate squash blossoms, whole tomato plants, lettuce, and parsley.  This year, I need to have a proactive solution for keeping the deer OUT!  Any suggestions?
2. Aggressive de-bugging works.  I made finding aphids into a game for my boys.  They would come out there with me early in the season to gently look under the leaves playing "who can find the most aphids".  Then I could just smush them before they could do much damage.  This allowed my broccoli to mature beautifully for the first time providing both a spring and fall harvest!
3. Garlic really needs to be planted in the fall to mature properly in my area.  So, this time, I have already planted tons of garlic.  I really hope it does well.
4. I need to fungicide the pear tree.  We have a mature pear tree in our back yard.  We have seen some years with nothing and some years with a wonderful harvest.  I have noticed for the past 2 years how the leaves all get black dots underneath them and fall off.  With no more source of fuel, the immature fruits fall off.  After talking to some local farmers, I learned that my problem is fungus.  Apparently it is nearly impossible to grow pears in this humid mid-atlantic climate without using some fungicide.So, now I have to research the most eco-friendly fungicide.
5. Prepare beds for the winter - it will make the spring much easier!  In 2010, it was a big pain to de-weed my beds in preparation for planting.  This year, I prepared (mostly) in the fall and covered the beds with a bunch of oak leaves.  I hope this will leave me in better shape come March.

OK, there are a lot more lessons learned, but this post is getting too long.  Dreaming of gardens past in present is definitely a finer thing in life. This post is a contribution to Finer Things Friday at Amy's The Finer Things in Life.

I would love to hear what you have learned in your 2010 gardening experience... 

Cre8-ing Electricity: Results from 1.5 years of Solar

So far, I've shared how we decided to invest in a Photovoltaic Solar System and how the installation went.  Many people ask me how the system is performing and how it affects us on a day-to-day basis.  Let me start with the easy stuff...

How Does Solar Affect Us on a Day-to-Day Basis?
Not at all.  In fact, we could just forget about this until our electric bill comes and it is lower than expected (if I didn't obsessively check the performance on a daily basis).  In our installation, the solar panels are only visible from the back yard, so we don't even look a them.  There is no change to the way the electric system works within our house.

How Did We Prepare (Reducing Electricity Usage)?
Before we went ahead and invested in this system, we took many steps to reduce the electric usage in our home.  Some of the biggest impact items were: using a programmable thermostat to lower the usage of AC/Heat Pump, add weather stripping, and lower the temperature on our hot water heater.  Some other items are:

• put vampire energy hogs (such s the cable box) on a timer, 
• not using dry cycle on dishwasher, 
• switch to CF/LED lighting
• and washing clothes in cool water.

How Much Do We Produce?
Yeah, this is where I get to show my graph.  I am a geek for Excel!  There is a lot of information in this graph.  The bars represent our total electric usage each month.  The "green" section of the bar shows the amount each month that our solar generates.  The "red" section of the bar shows the amount of electricity that we use from BGE.  The line on the graph shows the percentage of our total usage that comes from solar each month.

What Affects Production the Most?
The biggest barrier to production is 2 feet of snow covering the panels!  In fact, the only times we have had zero production is when the panels are covered with snow.  The other factors that affect this are the season (number of hours of daylight), how cloudy the sky is, and the temperature (solar panels are more efficient in cool weather rather than in very hot weather). 
 
What Percent of Our Electric Usage Comes From Solar?
Here's another (far more simplistic) graph.  BGE is our electric company.  We have no gas in our area, so all of our heating and cooking needs are met by electric.  To date, about 46% of our electric usage comes form our solar system.  When we first looked into this, I was very set on having a system that provided 100% of our needs.  After evaluating the investment, it was just not feasible for us.  Also, there was not enough room on our roof to support this.  If you look at the first graph, you can see how this percentage varies over time.  In the spring and early summer, almost all of our energy can be supplied by solar.  In the winter, it is a very small percentage.  This is not just because we generate less electricity in the winter, but because we tend to use the heat in the winter a lot more than we use the AC in the summer.

What Kinds of Issues Have We Had?
I hate to say this, because I don't want to jinx it, but we have not had any issues so far.  I am hoping that keeps up because maintenance expenses would really delay our return on investment (ROI) timeline.

What is the Return on Investment (ROI)?
Based on the tax incentives we have seen so far and based on what we can expect to save in electiricity costs in the future, our system should pay itself off by 2015.  We should break even within 5.5 years.  After that point, all that annual savings  is just money in our pocket (or in 529 plans as the case may be).  I was willing to pursue this with a 10 year ROI, so I am very pleased that it looks like it will come in under 6 years.

How Has This Changed Our Electric Usage?
I was really hoping that once we had the system installed we would continue to cut our electric usage (motivated by the desire to see that meter run backwards).  Unfortunately, this has not been the case.  Our usage has  been creeping upwards.  With only 1.5 years of data to look at, it is hard to say if this is because of the extreme weather we have been having (extremely hot and extremely cold) or just because we have become lethargic about reducing our usage.  Time and data will tell!

Cre8-ing Electricity: Our Solar Installation

In August of 2009, after we had taken efforts to reduce our electricity consumption and done a lengthy analysis on the feasibility of acquiring a Photovoltaic Solar System, we had a 7.7 kW Solar Electric System installed on our roof by a local mid-Atlantic company called Standard Solar. 

We were giddy with excitement the day of the installation.  The truck pulled up, the workers unloaded all the materials and gear and they got right to work up on the roof.

Some of the Panels anxiously waiting on the deck to be installed

The Specs

Size: 7.7kW Solar Electric System
Panels: 44 Suntech 175 Watt solar modules.

Type of PV Cells: Crystalline
Monitoring: Sunny Webbox.

The Installation
Overall, the installation was completed in two days.  The process was very painless for us - not so much for the installers being up on the roof in 95 degree weather!!  But, I did my best to keep them hydrated.

The installation involved putting the mountings on the roof to securely hold the panels, installing the panels, installing the inverter, tying into our electrical system, and upgrading the meter to a digital meter which can run forwards and backwards.

Our New Meter

Wiring through Attic to Inverter

Laying the Groudwork to Secure the Panels

Installing the Last of the Panels

It was about 2 weeks between when our system installation was completed and when the electric company approved our Interconnection Application so that the system could be tied into the grid.  Rather than having a battery backup, our system is tied into the electric grid.  This means when we are producing less than we use, we pull electricity from the grid and our meter runs forward.  If we are producing more than we use, we push electricity back to the grid and our meter runs backwards.  Being tied into the grid means that when there is a power outage in our area, we still experience that power outage.  We are okay with that, because it doesn't happen too often for us.  Standard Solar has a great little video on how the Solar System works in this setup.

So far, after a year and a half, everything has been working just as expected.  We have not had any issues or problems so far.  In the next Solar Post, I'll tell you how we track the performance of the system and how it has been doing with all this extreme temperature in the Mid-Atlantic over the past two year.

How about you?  Do you have a solar system?  Are you considering alternative sources of energy?

ReCre8 Old T-Shirts

T-Shirts.

I have WAY too many T-Shirts. I rarely wear them, but I love the memories of special events and times in my life that the T-shirts represent. Being the beginning of the New Year, it is time to clean out some of these unused items from my closet. Rather than just trashing them, here are a bunch of projects to ReCre8 these t-shirts.

1. T-Shirts as Rags. (Instructions: Just cut them up - any shape or size)
   
2. T-Shirt Handkerchiefs/Wipes (Instructions)
   
3. T-Shirts as Reusable Napkins. (Instructions)
   
4. T-Shirt Pillowcase: (Instructions)
   
5. The T-Shirt Quilt. (Instructions)
6. T-Shit Laundry Bag/Tote Bag (Instructions)
7. T-Shirt Memory Scarf (Instructions)
   

I plan to try several of these. What about you? Do you have any ideas to add?

Pass the Weeds, Please (Episode II)

A Foraging Recipe - Weed Pesto

Here is a great pesto I like to make with some of my weeds...

Ingredients

• ¼ cup Dandelion Greens
• ¼ cup Purslane
• ¼ cup Field Garlic (grass)
• 4 bulbs Field Garlic (bulb)
• ¼ cup Olive Oil
• ¼ cup Pine Nuts
• ¼ cup Basil leaves
• ¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese
  

Directions
Mince and lightly saute the garlic bulbs in some Olive Oil to take the edge off. In a food processor: chop up the nuts and garlic bulbs. Add all of the greens and continue to process until everything is finely chopped. Add in cheese and slowly add the olive oil slowly while processing until you reach the desired texture. Leave in the fridge for a few hours before eating. Serve as a dressing for penne pasta, use as a sandwich spread, or serve with crackers or toast.

So, what weeds do you like to eat?

Pass the Weeds, Please (Episode I)

I’ve been intrigued by foraging for food in my backyard my whole life. My neighbors and I searched for wild strawberries, ate “onion grass”, and came up with a recipe for “lemon grass” cheese sauce. At the time, it did not concern me whether or not these things were toxic. Lucky for me, they weren’t!

Now I am a suburbanite who does not want to use fertilizer or weed killer to have a lush, green bed of grass in my lawn. Instead, I like to arm my children with baskets to go collect dinner from the lawn. Backyard foraging has become a fun family activity. Here are some of the things we can find in our mid-atlantic yard:

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) – This is my absolute favorite weed. I like to just pluck off some of the succulent leave and eat them plain because they are tasty. They have a little bit of a lemony flavor to them. A sprig of purslane makes a great addition to a toss salad, an addition to a tomato sauce, or as a component of a pesto. What is unique about purslane is that the leaves are naturally high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which is rare for green vegetables. The stems are high in Vitamin C. I like to put purslane in a container garden – it doesn’t need too much tending. Most often purslane is considered a weed and people are trying to eradicate it, but if I see some growing in a friends yard, I just say “May I have your weeds?”

How to Identify Purslane

Nutrition Information for Raw Purslane


Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) – This is my second-favorite weed. Besides the fact that it is a beautiful flower and makes great bouquets, necklaces, rings, and hair accessories, it is extremely useful food and herbal remedy. Have you ever eaten that Whole Foods “Spring Greens” in a bag salad mix? You are probably eating Dandelion greens. The leaves are great in the spring for salads, pesto, or sandwich toppings. Dandelion greens are a great source of Vitamin A and C as well as fiber. The roots are great in the fall for a bitter tea or as a nutritional supplement. Dandelion roots harvested in the fall are high in inulin (soluble fiber). The flowers can be eaten raw, cooked, or dried and ground into flour.

How to Identify Dandelions

Nutrition Data for Dandelion: Greens

Wild Blackberries (Rubus allegheniensis) – We have these growing all along our fenceline as well as on our bike-riding route. What could be better than free blackberries? The brambles can be prickly, so take care when picking these. Make sure to wait until they are dark purple before picking – otherwise, they won’t taste very good. Use them just as you would blackberries: Freeze them, make a jam, add to a fruit smoothie, or best – just eat them as you pick!

How to identify Wild Blackberries

Some words of caution…

1. Don’t eat any foraged food that is from an area that may be exposed to insecticides, road salt (from snow), or any foreign chemical substances that you don’t know about.
2. Make sure to clean anything that you pluck from your yard thoroughly.
3. Make sure you can absolutely, positively identify something before you eat it. Many plants in your yard are poisonous.
4. Don’t encourage non-native invasive species to grow. Check with your state or local invasive species organization.

Resources
Properly identifying anything you forage is very important. Here are some great resources to help with that. I am a big fan of naturalist “Wildman” Steve Brill who has written a book on the subject and has a wealth of information on his website: http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/. He includes tons of information on identifying plants that are edible and is working on a book for foraging with kids.

An organization called Plants for a Future (http://www.pfaf.org/index.php) has a searchable database of edible plants with all kinds of information on uses of the plants and any hazards or warnings about their usage. It is an excellent free resource.

Frugal and Fun: Backyard Foraging is a Finer Thing. (See more Finer Things at Amy’s Finer Things Fridays).

This is a series and I plan to share more foraging tips, resources, and recipes to try.

Cre8 Your Own Energy: Documenting our Solar Project

Okay, so I am not building my own solar panels or anything, but the stars aligned for us this year and we are able to get solar panels on our home. I hope to document that process here a little bit.

Step 1 - Reduce Energy Usage
Of course the process started over a year ago for us. It started with an awareness of how much energy we were using and wasting. We only have electric available in our neighborhood - and boy, were we using more than our share! In the winter, our bills $400-$500+. So, being the geeky engineer-types that we are in my household, we immediately started tracking our usage and started an aggressive campaign to reduce our electric usage. We turned down our heat, turned up our AC, got rid of our "vampires", switched to CFLs, turned the lights off, among many other little energy saving changes. The results were dramatic! I would say we save about $1700/yr over if we had not changed our behavior. This graph is what we've been using to track our usage over time.



Step 2 - Cost/Benefit Analysis
So once we reduced our usage, we looked at the costs and benefits of installing the solar panels on our home. The up-front costs are very high, approximately $60K for the size system we are getting. Luckily, this year there are many state and federal grants and rebates that end up cutting the cost in half to about $30K. We are using a local company called Standard Solar that will take care of all the paperwork and permits for us. Now, we will expect $1200 cost savings every year on our energy bill. In addition, the energy company will pay us a credit for producing clean energy (like a carbon offset price). This system should (theoretically) also increase the value of our home by about $30K. The financial Return on Investment for us (minus the increase in home value) is about 11 years assuming energy costs stay the same. Now, if energy costs rise, our ROI will come much sooner.

That is just the financial benefit. There are also benefits that are not financial. One is knowing that we are not burning through as much natural resources to create our energy. Another is emergency preparedness. If our electric service became rationed or more unreliable, we have a good solid backup. Also, it is a great learning experience for us and the kids. So, overall, it was a go for me and my husband.

Step 3 - Evaluation, Planning, Permits, and Design
Now, this was the easy part for us because the Solar Company does all this work for us. Our solar rep came out and took a bunch of measurements and pictures of the house. They tested the sun exposure and determined that we would have 89% efficiency with the panels. The panels will be mounted on the east-facing back of our roof, so you won't even see them from the street. An engineer at the company then made up a bunch of technical design drawings for us to review and approve.


Now that the design is complete and the permits are pulled and the paperwork is filed, we are ready for our installation. That is yet to happen. I'll let you know how it goes...

Re-Cre8 Your Garbage: Composting

We've had a composting bin for years, but we didn't know what we were doing with it. We had it next to the shed in the shade and we only put yard clippings in it. It wasn't doing much.

So, as our small little container gardening was going so well for us last summer, we thought we were ready for the next step of composting. We moved our bin to the sunlight. We started collecting kitchen scraps, old cardboard boxes, along with the yard waste to balance out the bin. DH religiously waters and turns the compost. At first, it was a pile of garbage (surprisingly, not too smelly). Eventually it became a beautiful pile of rich topsoil that we can use for this year's planting. Yeah.

And, we've got worms. Ours came of their own accord to feast on the glorious coffee grinds, banana peels, and junk mail. Oh, glorious day!



Composting gets two thumbs up from me. Here's my top ten list for why composting is great.

10. Lots of free pet worms!

9. A chore little kids love - adding their banana peels to the composter.

8. Makes it fun to clean out the refrigerator. The moldier the better for the compost.

7. Switch to fewer garbage pickups and save money.

6. Organic fertilizer for your landscaping.

5. Less waste has to go to waste processing facilities which saves energy.

4. Use fewer plastic trash bags.

3. Great free topsoil for the garden.

2. How often can you get excited about dirt?

1. No stinky food trash smelling up the garage.

Interested in composting? Here are some good resources:
Nature.org
HowToCompost.org
Easy Composting from Montgomery County Recycles

Garden Planning 2009

The blogosphere has spoken and I have listened. Now is the time to begin planning my 2009 vegetable garden. Thankfully, there are SO many great resources on the Internet for those of us who have a track record of killing plants rather than growing them. Here are two:

• Amy at "The Finer Things In Life" has a comprehensive post on advice for vegetable gardening.
  


• I also like the "10 Steps to a Successful Vegetable Garden" at About.com.

One thing I haven't been able to find is some advice about managing pests (from deers and groundhogs to unwelcome bugs) in an eco-friendly way. Anyone have good resources to offer?

Last year I had a container garden which I could conveniently keep on my back deck and the deer couldn't get to (although, a groundhog frequented my garden for a parsley meal). This year, I'm planning to expand to a full-out backyard vegetable garden. Unfortunately, none of my herbs survived the winter other than my bay laurel, so I have to start from scratch. Here's what I would like to plant (it is yet to be seen what I actually do).

• Vegetables
  
  • Peppers (Cayenne, Bell, Paprika)
  • Asparagus
  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Tomatoes
  • Garlic
  • Onion
  • Broccoli
  • Pumpkin
  • Squash


• Herbs
  
  • Parsley
  • Cilantro
  • Basil
  • Bay Laurel
  • Thyme
  • Rosemary
  • Sage
  • Oregano
  
  
• Sunflowers (because they are just so awesome)...
  

ReCre8 Printer Paper Box Lids: Cupcake Carrier

So, I was looking at how to transport the 60 cupcakes to pre-school for my twin boys birthday. Clearly something more experienced mothers have already thought through. My husband announced the conundrum at his office and all the moms in the room immediately directed him to use lids from the office printer paper. After we were done, they could just be recycled. It worked like a charm. Now, I have to admit, I did not make these cupcakes and frosting from scratch. It was box mix and Betty Crocker this year. I find that I'm having plastic guilt, but I did find a way to re-use the frosting containers (more on that later).

Cre8 an Eco-Friendly Pre-School Birthday Party

I've been struggling this year with putting together a birthday party for my three boys that is simple, fun, and a minimal impact on the environment. This year, no cheap plastic goody bags from Oriental Traders and the like. But, I have been struggling with what to do as an alternative.

In the end, I think I'll only partially meet my goal, but I'll document the party on the blog and let you know how it goes.

In the mean time, I found a great resource over at Kiwi which provided some good ideas - some of which I think I'll use.

Does anyone else struggle with this? Any ideas to share?

Cre8 Little Environmentalists

with Family Nature Traditions and Nature Routines

As Richard Louv asks in his fabulous book “Last Child in the Woods”, how can we expect our children to be stewards of the environment when they have never experienced nature? In a manufactured world suburban world, where television, video games, Chuck E Cheese’s, and Jump Zones are pulling your children inside to play and veg, how do you push them back outside to experience the glory of the natural world?

When I look back at my own childhood, it is those simple experiences with nature shared with my friends and family that have had the biggest impact on my desire to preserve and care for the world. So, to instill a passion for protecting the earth in my own children, I turn to family traditions and outings – building positive experiences and memories of the natural world with my boys.

Camping Adventures
Our family tradition that we’ve done for 6 years now is to go camping in the mountains every Memorial Day Weekend. Sometimes we have a ton of friends go with us, sometimes it is just the family, but we go every year. – And yes, you can camp with little babies – even twin babies!
If you are camping a National or State Park, make sure to take advantage of all those great learning opportunities: guided nature walks, presentations by naturalists, hands-on activities at a nature center.

Nature Walks and Picnics
I love exploring nature with my children. They notice so many little things that I don’t see myself. When we go out for a hike, we always bring our picnic lunch. It’s a great opportunity to teach my boys about not leaving anything behind and making as little impact as possible. We pack up the lunch in reusable bags, use our Klean Kanteens for drinks, bring along our cloth napkins (made from old cloths), and include a bag to carry home the compostable material. We talk with the kids about each of these choices we make so they understand the impact of these choices versus the alternative on the environment. And if they see trash on the trail along the way and want to bring it home with us, I try to be supportive rather than grossed out.

I think it is important to celebrate all the nature we see in the local ecosystem along the way. It’s almost like a scavenger hunt. We try to find interesting plants, bugs, birds, and reptiles. We search for animal poop and try to discover what kind of animal made it (see a great resource “Who Pooped in the Park” series to find a local National Park version ) . Most of all, my boys like to look for bones. A little disturbing? Maybe. But, I think it makes them feel like little paleontologists.

Family Rock Climbing
I love Rock Climbing as a family. It is such a great way to experience nature together. It always involves a hike to our climbing location and a day outside with the rocks, the trees, and the dirt. We always go home tired, dirty, and happy. You can’t get that experience by going to the gym.

Gardening and Composting
One of our family routines that we started in 2008 was gardening and composting. These are two things even toddlers can help out with. They see the waste (like their banana peel) turn into fertilizer for their garden which helps the herbs and vegetables grow which ends up in their spaghetti and pizza sauce. The kids love to care for and harvest the herbs, vegetables, and flowers. They beam with pride when they can present their Nana with a sunflower that they grew themselves from seed.

And so much more….
There are so many other ways we can build positive nature experiences with our families. Pick-Your-Own berries, a trip to the pumpkin patch, a visit to the nature center, the botanical gardens, even the beach can build a greater appreciation for the natural world in our children and ourselves. This is the foundation upon which caring for the earth is built.

How do you build your own positive experiences in the natural world?

This is my submission for the February APLS Carnival on “Nature and the Environment”. The carnival will be posted February 20th at The Green Phone Booth.