I grew up on a small organic farm and some of my fondest memories took place in our grape vineyard.  We spent a lot of time weeding, tying the vines, lugging pruned vines to the wienie-roast pile (a very special annual event!) and of course...picking those luscious, organic clusters from the vines and popping fresh Concord and Fredonia grapes out of their skins onto our hungry tongues.  And of course, spitting the seeds in our continual seed spitting contests!  Siblings do things like that!

But, today I discovered I don't have to wait for a plot of land to revisit my childhood fantasy to have a grape arbor... I can grow grapes in containers!

Usually, grapes grown in containers are grown only for the beauty of their foliage and the enjoyment of watching them climb a trellis; they won't bear fruit. Although some varieties of grapes self-pollinate, blossoms need the help of wind or bees to produce fruit.

Still, a trellised grapevine can be a lovely focal point for your container garden. Whether planted or potted, growing a grapevine in full sun is probably the most important requirement for growing grapes. Gardening- Guides.com

Well...maybe there won't be any seed spitting contests...but the beauty of the grape leaves can  grace my veranda high in the sky!

Simply speaking, a green roof is a living roof. While green roof design has its roots in ancient civilizations (think hanging gardens of Babylon), as American cities have become more concerned about managing quantities of stormwater runoff, air quality, and building heat transfer, large modern green roofs have been appearing on commercial properties across the country. Now, FLOWER ot the PEOPLE, Inc. has green roof solutions specifically designed for Southern California private residences. Here the Beverly Hills green roof at Greystone Manor Estate is still growing strong more than two years after its installation. Succulent-covered roofs, like the one at Greystone and the green roofs pictured here, even provide a fire-retarding alternative to traditional shake or stone roofs.

A living roof provides superior energy efficiency for any building (saving on energy costs), extends the life of the roof membrane, is beautiful to look at, provides the local environment with beneficial air-cleaning, cooling and storm water reduction, and promotes greater biodiversity.

Green Roof Section View

1 roof flashing

2 EPDM waterproof membrane

3 root barrier

4 drainage mat

5 "L" sheet metal edge

6 1/2" pea gravel

7 nonwoven separation fabric

8 planting media

9 plants

10 gutter (optional)

It's delightful to discover a thriving treasure-- whether it is a garden or a business!  Flower to the People is such a treasure right in my own community!  Visit their website for a delightful array of garden designs that bring nature and sustainable gardening solutions to the urban landscape.  Their "Exterior Design Portfolio" in particular is expansive and a bloomin' delight!

Flower to the People is located in West Los Angeles, CA at:

11409 Charnock Rd., Los Angeles, CA 90066

FLOWER to the PEOPLE is a sustainable exterior design and outdoor lifestyle firm. Their residential and commercial clients rely on them to create unique environmentally-friendly exterior spaces that suit their contemporary lifestyles.

Composting can be simple, or high tech.  But compost is what nature does naturally under canopies of trees, under bushes, under groundcover...in the thin layer between air and soil. 

Doug Green highly recommends composting strategies that make great common sense...and he takes it a step further with "compost tea".

Compost is the heart and soul of the garden and the more research that’s done on soil structure and health, the more that compost and composting becomes important for both home and commercial gardening. If you do nothing else this summer, get the compost bin working. And if you have compost working and want to take it one step further for your lawn and garden health, learn to make compost tea. Making tea properly allows you to take the small amount of compost you make and multiply it like loaves and fishes so your entire property gets the benefit. (DougGreensGarden.com)

Compost Tea

By using compost tea to replace chemical-based fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, you can garden safer and be more protective of the environment. Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection gives an easy pictorial guide to making compost tea:

Supplies needed: 2 - 5 gallon buckets 1 gallon mature compost 1 aquarium pump 1 gang valve (to divide the air supply into several streams) 4 gallons of water 3 feet + of aquarium hose unsulfured molasses

And Wikipedia provides more options for selecting different kinds of compost tea and how Europe handles this earth friendly solution for ground nutrition.

Wikipedia:  There are several kinds of compost tea, depending on the method and ingredients with which the tea is made. In Europe compost teas are largely distinguished on the basis of whether or not they have manure content, the latter preferred for having more consistent disease suppressive capabilities.

Developing Your Gardening System

What does an experienced organic gardener read to learn the nuts and bolts...rather, the soil and plants... of starting their gardening avocation?

Lorra, an ardent fan of Doug Green's blog, left the following comment on a very thought provoking blog essay about how Doug takes "the high road" in providing information and a positive approach to gardening for his readers.

In the early 1970s when Life presented me, a farmer’s daughter, with the opportunity to have a large garden I was delighted. With my Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening by Rodale Press, and Ruth Stout’s The No Work Garden Book away I went. My husband had grown up in one of the largest greenhouse gardening areas in the USA Midwest. There was no end to our disagreements on how to do it. Or rather, how I should do it. I scrounge leaves from the whole neighborhood (already bagged). Use them for mulch at home and in the park garden I am building – even tho, by some standards, “they look dirty”. Put no chemicals on Mother Earth, have bird houses, talk to Earl the Squirrel, and even allow the local opossum and/or raccoon to reside under the deck – as long as it doesn’t trod on my lemon lily.  (Douggreensgarden.com)

It's possible to learn bits and pieces about biodynamic gardening, organic farming and permaculture from blogs, but there is nothing like a comprehensive encyclopedic approach if you want to implement a whole SYSTEM such as gardening or landscaping as an avocation / or vocation.

What is your favorite sourcebook or system for putting all the participants in your little bit of Eden together?

Your comments are very welcome and they will help develop this resource center into a positive source  of information about landscaping solutions that are practical, environmentally nurturing and FUN!

The Land Institute's strategy includes collaboration with public institutions in order to direct more research in the direction of Natural Systems Agriculture.  

The team at the Land Institute feels comfortable having demonstrated the scientific feasibility of their proposal for a Natural Systems Agriculture. Because this work deals with basic biological questions and principles, the implications are applicable worldwide. If Natural Systems Agriculture were fully adopted, we could one day see the end of agricultural scientists from industrialized societies delivering agronomic methods and technologies from their fossil fuel-intensive infrastructures into developing countries and thereby saddling them with brittle economies.

Perennial Grain...a hybrid of intermediate wheatgrass and triticale could produce a more sustainable food crop that lives for years and builds deep root systems to tap deeper water sources. 

According to Scientific American's article about the Land Institute in 2007, Americans assume food production is easy and highly efficient already.  However, reality is that agriculture requires vast areas of land, regular high quantities of waer, energy and chemicals to meet the demands for our escalating human and animal populatons.

The UN sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment suggested that agriculture may be the "largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function of any single human activity."  OUCH!

"Today, most of humanity's food comes directly or indirectly (as animals feed) from cereal grains, legumes and oilseed crops.  These staples are appealing to producers and consumers because they are easy to transport and store, relatively imperishable, and fairly high in protein and calories.  As a result, such crops occupy about 80% of global agricultural land.  BUT, they are all annual plants, meaning that they must be grown anew from seeds every eyar, typically using resource-intensive cultivation methods. More troubling, the environmental degradation caused by agriculture will likely worsen as the hungry human population grows to eight billion or 10 billion in the coming decades."

Plant Breeders, Agronomists and Ecologists Strive for Solutions

Grain-cropping systems that functin much like natural ecosystems that have been displaced by agriculture is the holy grain for agriculture researchers.

Significant advances in plant breeding science are bringing this goal within sight at last!

Kansas plant geneticist Wes Jackson looked at the ecosystems that preceded agriculture to look for a solution. Mixtures of perennial plants once dominated nearly all the planet's landscapes and they still do in uncultivated areas today. 

More than 85% of North America's native plant species are PERENNIALS.

Because annuals have relatively shallow roots -- most less than 0.3 meters -- farming areas have problems with erosion, foil fertility depletion and water contamination...and lack of nature's natural farmers, wildlife.

Today the traits of perennials are becoming better appreciated for their root depths of more than two meters, plant communities that regulate ecosystem functions such as water management and carbon and nitrogen cycling.  They are also highly productive yet resilient in the face of environmental stresses.

Timothy grass, a perennial hay crop, is roughly 54 times more effective in maintaining topsoil than annual crops.  Scientists also find a fivefold reduction in water loss and a 35-fold reduction in nitrate loss from soil planted with alfalfa and mixed perennial grasses compared with soil under corn and soybeans.

Carbon sequestration by perennials is also boosted.  Carbon is the main ingredient of soil organic matter and can contain 50% more than annually cropped fields.   And perennial fields do not need to be worked every year, so less farm machinery cycles and less fertilizers and pestcides also reduce fossil fuel use.

Wildlife also benefits -- bird populations can be seven times more dense in perennial crop fields than annual crop fields. 

And perennials are far more capable of sustainable cultivation on marginal lands, which already have poor soil quality or would be quickly depleted by a few years of intensive annual cropping.

Perennial plant breeding research are focusing on wheat, sorghum, sunflower, intermediate wheatgrass and other species as perennial grain crops.

At The Land Institute, breeders are working both on domesticating perennial wheatgrass and on crossing assorted perennial wheatgrass species with annual wheats.  Although perennial crops such as alfalfa and sugarcane already exist around the world, none has seed yields comparable to those of annual grain crops...and  here is where creative plant breeding  works with  the growing environment, selective  breeding stock, and  judicious use of fertilizers to increase the yield of these perennial grains.

Deep roots mean resilience, and that trait might be more important than many short term plant attributes currently valued by agriculture.

Additional programs include the Climate and Energy Project (CEP)   See www.climateandenergy.org . The Land Institute formed this new project on climate and energy in February 2007. Because of the close connections between climate change, energy from coal, and agricultural vulnerabilities -- research is growing to explore the issues and find solutions to the issues that connect energy and farming.

The Land Institute
2440 E. Water Well Road,
Salina, KS 67401
785-823-5376
www.landinstitute.org

Nancy Jackson, Project Director
Climate and Energy Project
P.O. Box 442217
Lawrence, KS 66044
Ph: 785-331-8743
jackson@climateandenergy.org
www.climateandenergy.org

Inspired by ecosystems as old as the earth itself, John Todd Ecological Design, Inc. rebuilds ecological balance for clients with The ECO Machine - a wastewater treatment system that naturally treats sewage and industrial waste to re-use quality. Ecological function is an important consideration as fresh water becomes one of the most important commodities in our urbanized world.

John Todd Ecological Design's ECO Machines bring advanced wastewater treatment technology, and unsurpassed aesthetic, economic, and environmental advantages to companies, communities, and resorts both at home and internationally.

Dr. Todd is a pioneer in the emerging field of ecological design and engineering and has won many prestigious awards and honorary degrees including awards for projects from the EPA and a number of innovation awards including the Theodore Roosevelt conservation Award from the White House, and an achievement award by the United Nations Environment Program.

How does an Eco Machine Wastewater Treatment System Work?

ECO Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, ECO Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse.

CONTACT:
John Todd Ecological Design, Inc.
P.O. Box 497
Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA
1.508.548.2545
www.toddecological.com

Farming passion fruit in a sustainable orchard uses beneficial insects (integrated pest management), and self-fertilization balanced with healthy soil strategies. Natural growth patterns are carefully monitored and managed for beautiful soil -- and beautiful production without chemicals.

Farmer/Geologist John Koman of White Dove Passion Fruit Farm talks about permaculture and how he works with nature. 5 mins.

"Everything connects with everything. The Indians were very wise and had lived without conflict with the land for 10,000 years. We can't manage it for a year!" notes Alrie Middlebrook, founder of Middlebrook Gardens.

Ecological Gardening Precepts

"Living lightly on the earth" is the heart of ecological gardening and landscaping. By working within the natural resources system, the balance of plants, soil, local weather, and wildlife is preserved in choices of plants and structure of the landscaping.

There are real benefits to ecological landscaping.

• ECOLOGICAL: lawn is a monoculture and is useless to nature. Nature wants diversity -- that's why weeds swoosh in! Nature wants a community of plants. Birds think of lawn like concrete -- there's no food there.
• AESTHETICS: Nature as we know it is beautiful. Nature unaltered by human beings is what we long for. Nature reduces stress and provides rejuvenation.
• ECONOMICS: Once you plant it, you have a two-year establishment period, then you shut your water off completely in most of California. If your landscape is not a natural habitat you continually slake its thirst!
• ETHICS: If we're going to take what Al Gore says seriously, we need to look at our behaviors and choices seriously. We need to change how we make our choices. Ethics is about making choices with enlightened self interest.

Read the complete feature story about Alrie Middlebrook's innovative approach to "ecological landscaping".

As we look at sustainable landscaping, one concept is to turn more of our for-looks-only landscaping into useful purposes. Edible plants are a no-brainer -- for the right locations, of course.

Restaurants and institutional food providers can often find nooks in which to convert landscaping into herb gardens, etc. to provide at least a little productivity in their locality. And today's solution makes landscaping both beautiful and productive -- violets!

Sweet violet flowers are as beautiful as they are edible.

Sweet violets, violas, and pansies are annual or perennial flowers that are mostly grown for their beauty. The flowers and leaves are edible and can be used in a variety of dishes — not just for a garnish or to top a salad. Sweet violets (Viola odorata) can be candied or used in violet tea, violet cake, and violet syrup. While commonly added to salads, you can also use violet flowers to make vinegars, butters, spreads, and jellies.

Learn more about Edible Landscaping at the National Gardening Association.

As my family and friends know, my heart does cartwheels in habitat rich with native wildlife. I don't know whether I enjoy the plants or the critters more -- they both fascinate me. And I'm not a top-of-the-mountains kind of gal -- I'm fascinated by urban nature -- from mosses to mature trees -- from squirrels to slugs. We have so much to learn from the nature at our fingertips.

One reason I find plants among my favorites is that they hold still :-) -- my eyesight has never been topnotch and I find examining a leaf or a bud or how roots grow is like slow cooking -- rich in detail with a tapestry of colors, shapes and systems. And that's not to put down a natural affinity with animals and insects -- they're just harder to observe.

In our times of shrinking habitat, you can wildscape your balcony, your yard, your campus with native habitat (plants, water, and places for wildlife productivity -- nesting and community time) to be a good host to your natural, native allies.

And it's so much fun!

Carolyn,

Editor of BackyardNature.com and CaliforniaGreenSolutions.com