Dining In

Taking the Drawdown list at face value, the 100 measures listed are potential candidates for reducing my family's carbon footprint (including biochar, #71, which occupies so much of my time). Many of the measures do not pertain to someone in my situation. I am owner of only 1 acre, mostly forested, on a hillside in a temperate climate zone. Yet, there are some I can pursue that, right or wrong, are ranked even higher than biochar.

The first is: "#3 - Reduced Food Waste." For our family, there is some room for improvement with this. I am trying to eat what I grow and what I preserve, but sometimes the bounty is too great. I need to give more food away, at least until the quality of my produce will allow me to specialize and sell at farmers' markets. Mushrooms may be the ticket. Oyster mushrooms seem most promising, since I might soon be able to clone great quantities. Foods we don't eat go to composting (#60), so we don't truly waste any of it.

Related to #3 is the next measure on Drawdown's list: "#4 - Plant-Rich Diet." This is a most welcome requirement. I recommend retirement as early as possible, since I have found it allows time for lots of cooking, but even if you can't afford to retire yet, I recommend making cooking a priority. I can hardly stand to eat out anymore; restaurant food is either so disgusting or too expensive, or both.

I say this because last year I discovered a handy feature in some of the cookbooks my wife has purchased over the years, but had never been put to use. The "Taste of Home" annual recipes
have a special index based on ingredients. It makes it easy to find a recipe that contains what you have on hand. No longer do I bother with questionable online recipes which offer such searches. I just grab one of the dozen "Taste of Home" books on our shelf and find a kitchen-tested recipe that gives me something to look forward to every day. Adding any missing ingredients to our shopping list allows us to buy them anytime we happen to be in a supermarket. As the pantry fills with staples, less and less shopping is needed to make whatever recipes are chosen. By selecting recipes containing produce that we grow, we are able to enjoy amazing food at affordable prices while also achieving measure #3.

Who knew that saving the planet could be so enjoyable?!!

The Mid-Atlantic's Coming Green Revolution

In establishing the Healthy Soils Program, Maryland has begun to officially view soil in terms of biological populations, organic content, structure and water-holding capacity, and carbon sequestration. Everybody wants healthy soil, but for the past 70 years, conventional agriculturalists have been satisfied merely with healthy crops. Food for those crops has been supplied by chemicals known to help them grow. The soil fell into neglect, and in the process, we lost a lot of carbon from the soil and released a lot of nitrous oxide through chemical production. The Healthy Soils Program, then, is a way to recover from this unforeseen consequence of the Green Revolution by reducing the severity of our recent interventions in soil fertility.

In promoting healthy soils, Dr. Sara Via brings out a few principles farmers and gardeners should follow. I have annotated them here with my comments for gardeners:

• Rotate crops - some crops, e.g. tomatoes, should be rotated over 3 or more years
• Limit soil disturbance - soil structure is preserved thereby; use a broadfork to input OM
• Limit chemical inputs - e.g. phosphorus, since an excess will subdue mycorrhizae
• Increase biological diversity - compost increases soil biodiversity; biochar multiplies that
• Keep the soil covered - keep your garden dressed (like the one in Eden)
• Maintain live roots - when the roots die, mycorrhizae die back, too (90% of plants use MR)

  

  Photo by Tamera Clark

These may turn out to be Maryland's fundamental principles for healthy soil agriculture, as they support the four objectives in the new legislation.

Another way to increase soil microbial and faunal biomass, porous soil structure, and carbon sequestration is to add biochar, which Dr. Via also acknowledges in her talks. Among organic growers, biochar is still somewhat arcane; less so with the permaculture crowd. It is going to take a while, however, before most Maryland farmers adopt it unless the Healthy Soils Program adds incentives to do so.

Neighboring West Virginia, on the other hand, has become a potential beehive of biochar activity, stemming from the Appalachian Biochar Innovation Conference held this month that brought together makers and users of many stripes, as well as government and academic leaders. One of the largest potential applications there is in mining remediation. Strip mines and missing mountaintops could be restored to vegetative growth (ironically) with real clean coal, i.e. biochar made from dried manure. Joseph Kapp, Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College's Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and organizer of the conference, is ready to form a working group for the state to move ahead with biochar in its many applications. It was electrifying to be in the room when the upwelling of consensus was voiced by attendees that this is now a big part of their vision in a state long sullied by dirty coal and other chemical industries.

Like Maryland with their Healthy Soil advocates, West Virginia is starting with a small group of perceptive and determined people. Between us and climate conscious states like New York, a New Green Revolution may soon grow in the Mid-Atlantic region; all the more so if the U.S. Biochar Initiative (USBI) symposium takes place in Pennsylvania next year as rumored.

First Things First

Last night, I was fortunate to hear Dr. Sara Via, a University of Maryland biologist, give her talk on "Ecology of the Soil" to my county's Master Gardeners. She recommended a 2016 paper from Nature entitled Climate-Smart Soils. One of the gems in this paper is the decision tree it offers for the coolest things to do with agricultural land, depending on its nature and condition. It says that marginal lands should be planted in perennials, and histosols (soils containing high organic matter, i.e. former bogs) should be restored to wetlands. Aside from those cases, the paper proffers a hierarchy of various measures that can be taken to improve soil health, such as cover cropping and no-till. The final measure in the hierarchy - adding soil amendments, such as biochar - is not based on the soil condition, but on the availability of the amendment - the more, the merrier (though 2" of compost per year may be a good upper bound).

This decision tree clarifies matters greatly for those who want to practice climate-smart horticulture at any level; from garden to farm-scale. Once I learned about biochar and began making it, my interest in gardening bloomed (along with many more flowers). Along the way, I have learned the importance of many of the other conditional steps in the decision tree that also help to sequester carbon and other greenhouse gases.

Early in my gardening avocation, I was taught that the first thing a landscaper needs to deal with is stormwater. That dictum makes good sense - all the more after getting trained as a Master Watershed Steward. The epiphany for me was that by learning and practicing key disciplines, e.g. stormwater management, composting, and biochar, I would be able to maximize my success in gardening. Similarly, if one wishes to maximize their contribution to improving the climate, there are key practices to follow, depending on the situation. The result, invariably, will be healthier soil - so the payoff and gauges of success are close at hand, though yield increases may not necessarily be as immediate as might be obtained by following ecologically harmful regimens. Dr. Via pointed out that monitoring your soil's health with a do-it-yourself tool called a soil health card is a good way to track progress.

When you take an approach, such as biochar, as the cornerstone of your efforts, it might lead you to wonder how it fits into the grander scheme of climate change mitigations. Project Drawdown's website makes schematics available to assist in that conception. The schematic in the area of Food solutions contains (among other land-use topics) high level categories that encapsulate the decision tree measures just discussed. The Conservation Agriculture / Regenerative Agriculture (CA - Reg Ag) category is particularly germane to croplands. With the guidance of the decision tree above, the soil health card, and the bigger picture of food solutions, my efforts at carbon sequestration through gardening should become even more efficacious.

When You've Got Your Herbs, You've Got Just About Everything

After a year, our reishi totem logs are bearing fruit. We cultivated reishi mushrooms (also known as the immortality mushroom or the panacea mushroom) strictly for medicinal purposes. With only six totems, we will probably need more to supply ourselves year-round with a daily dose of reishi tea, but if it wards off cancer, that would certainly be worth it. Reishi is so powerful because of the hundreds of different compounds it provides, specifically polysaccharides and triterpenoids, many of which are immunomodulators. These compounds mainly serve to stimulate macrophages, which activate production of natural killer cells, T-cells, and tumor-necrosis factors. Think of it as homeopathic chemotherapy. We normally carry cancer cells in our bodies, but that's no reason to let them have their way with us.

Though reishi mushrooms could be grown just as ornamental objects, what pleases the eye does little for the rest of the body. Likewise in the plant kingdom, not all ornamental or herbal garden plants are of known medicinal value, but many are. It's nice to feed bees and butterflies, but if I can derive some direct benefit from a plant, it would be wasteful to pass up those opportunities. Heretofore I have given no thought to many plants in my garden for their medicinal value and, consequently, have left them afield without accepting their gifts.

Forthwith, I pledge to preserve and administer herbs in my garden for their reputed medicinal purposes. In time, I hope to wean myself off prescription drugs or know of suitable substitutes if push comes to shove. Here's what I currently have to work with:

• Garlic            Antibacterial, clears lung congestion, lowers blood sugar and cholesterol, improves circulation, antihistamine.
• Parsley          Relieves gas pain
• Sage               Reduces fever, heals sores in mouth and throat, laryngitis treatment; slows Alzheimer's; long life
• Thyme           Prevents colds and cold symptoms (sore throat, congestion); Cures athletes foot, ringworm; Antiseptic
• Calendula      Relieves sore skin, heals skin and mucous membrane wounds
• Chickweed     Relieves skin irritation (use fresh)
• Red Clover    Alleviates skin irritations, coughs, sore throat
• Dandelion      Leaves help cleanse skin; root aids the liver & are also chemotherapy substitute
• Peppermint   For upset tummy 
• Rosemary      Improve varicose veins, strengthen heart, prevent arteriosclerosis; stimulates circulation; sooth pulled muscles; relieves arthritis; digestive
• Cayenne        Improves circulation in cold hands & feet; relieves arthritis; relieves sore throat
• Borage           Antidepressant

I was planning to replenish my stock of campho-phenique today, but instead I think I'll start by picking calendula flowers.

Herbs - Medicine for the Rest of Us

When I took up growing mushrooms, the thing that most attracted me to them was their potential health benefits, i.e. their medicinal value. My preferred delivery path is eating or drinking, often in combination with other tasty ingredients, rather than pill form.

Now that our reishi mushrooms are growing on log totems, I'm looking forward to drinking plenty of reishi tea. While I'm at it, dropping a green tea bag into the pot will be an easy way double the immunity boosting power of the brew and help ensure against prostate cancer. Drinking several cups a day will be easy in this climate.

After realizing the magic in mushrooms to cure and prevent major ailments, I also realized that I've foregone potentially significant benefits from herbs as well, merely because our FDA and medical establishment steers us down the prescription drug path. It would be great if my wife and I could cut our pharmacy bill by growing medicinal herbs and cook at least part of our medicine into meals we eat.

Photo by Eugene Birchall

There is a new continuing education class being offered by the College of Southern Maryland this October on using medicinal herbs. I'm hoping to enroll. You pay $100+ for lab fees, but get to take home maybe ten herbal potions that they help you to concoct.

Nature Skills

I was pleased, yet dismayed, to come across someone's short-lived wildflower patch on the side of a less traveled road in my community. It inspired me to think that guerilla gardening like this could be done in many other places, with no permitting needed. I just wished that the native plants could have out-competed the countless weeds that had come to dominate. Perhaps, with the right soil preparation, the best plants for the location, and attention to plant spacing, it could have looked something like this without much follow-on maintenance. 

Photo by Richard Ashley

Even with the array of information easily available on numerous native plants to consider for various purposes, the art of garden design requires first-hand detailed knowledge of plant appearance and behavior. For example, I can see that a Great Blue Lobelia might be a lovely addition to a butterfly garden, but how well does it play with others in its root space? The answer is not easily found in documents, and is probably best discovered through consulting more experienced gardeners and naturalists.

Master Gardeners should be able to design gardens and use available online tools and references to make informed plant selections. Yet, it wasn't until I was trained as a Master Watershed Steward that I got exposed to enough of this material to feel confident in garden design. I have also come to realize that even both of these designations won't fit me to single-handedly design conservation landscapes or many other planting schemes. It's going to take collaboration.

Master Naturalists are skilled in wetland restoration, among other things, so they could be good resources for rain garden plant selection. There are many Master Gardeners who seem to have a good amount of native plant knowledge. +Kurt Reitz operates an outdoor native plant nursery at the Elms Environmental Education Center and would be one of the first people I'd ask, partly because he will give away plants for public gardens and restoration projects.

Let's face it. Most of us who take on these volunteer roles are amateurs. However, maybe one-third have had careers that make them extraordinarily valuable sources of information in their particular area of expertise. If you want to make your conservation landscaping or other restoration project have lasting value, asking enough of these kinds of folks until you find the expert on the matter in question could be critical to your project's longevity.

Losing Native Naivety

Our walk to the Elms Environmental Education Center's pond last week was preceded by a slide talk about the importance of using native plants in watershed protection projects. The point was made by +Kurt Reitz, our gracious host, that the reason we want native plants is for the insects.

Photo by Tim Hynes

It takes a while to pull that thread, but what it amounts to is that plants feed insects and insects feed animals and native plants are evolutionarily adapted to the food chain of their area.

I become a little indifferent to the native plant appeals when I recall that I have a food chain that currently doesn't rely on foraging and hunting. In the expectation that this could change rather quickly, I am endeavoring to establish a food forest around my home, but not strictly using natives. Planting natives is a very helpful environmental practice, but environmentmental restoration still takes a back-seat to survival. However, as our fossil-fueled supply chain falters, rejoining the local food chain may become essential to survival.

The more I garden, the more I take pleasure in growing ornamentals. Yet, future reliance on agroforestry for a multitude of resources that will no longer be derived from or made using fossil fuels deters me from planting lots of native ornamentals mainly for environmental preservation.

There are some edible natives, however, that deserve a place in my forest garden. These include: Paw-paw, persimmon, gooseberry, black raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, and elderberry. I already have everything but the first and last of these. They aren't all that I wish to grow in the way of edibles, so non-natives will be in the mix. Then there are the less edible plants that provide other key functions in support of cultivated trees, including the insectary role. The time it takes to harvest, preserve, and consume or distribute the perennial bounty will ultimately determine where my forest farming ends and ornamental gardening begins.

I'll Take Biochar Dressing on the Side

In addition to top-dressing, side-dressing with biochar looks like a labor-saving method of application. Not only is it easier, but the resulting black mulch will enhance the appearance of gardens like mine. I've been using free shredded wood mulch on the paths between my garden beds. With cardboard underneath, a thick mulch layer helps keep weeds to a minimum and feeds the underlying soil as it breaks down. The same can be said of biochar, but there are several additional advantages. (1) Biochar will last much longer than decayed wood chips. (2) Walking paths suffer from compaction, making them less hospitable to roots. Walking on the biochar grinds it down. Biochar particles contain pore space that will compensate for compaction, aerating the soil as they are leached in over time. Paths that are less compacted (containing more air) are more inviting to roots and mycelia. If the roots don't reach that far, mycorrhizae can perform their horizontal drilling trick, expanding the resources available to the plants. (3) Charred wood spread all over is more reminiscent of a forest fire, which is a kick-starter for new growth. (4) More carbon sequestration. (5) It looks more attractive and doesn't fade out the way wood chips do. (6) It's a provocative way to make neighboring gardeners interested in biochar.

The beginning of my biochar mulched paths project. 

This method will have me applying biochar to paths at a greater rate than most of my garden beds, but they will eventually catch up, due to repeated dosing with biochar-infused compost. Biochar application rates over 150 t/ha have been shown to be excessive. For 10 cm of soil, that comes out to almost 50% biochar, which I take to be the target for my gardens. Most gardeners and farmers won't shoot that high, because diminishing returns come into play around 10 t/ha, but I should be able to make this much biochar, and diminishing returns or not, I hope to see some marginal improvement for 10 successive years all the way up to 50% concentration by using biochar on both my beds and paths. Once applications are maxed out, the infiltration of biochar on the paths will continue to promise some improvement for years afterward.

Making Biochar, Rain or Shine

My small scale biochar production cycle is weather-driven. When rain is infrequent, I make char while the sun shines and pour out the new biochar into a framed area dubbed my "biochar patch." Quite a bit can accumulate before rain comes to rinse the biochar and fill up its macropores, making it ready for the next step. I like to allow no more than a day to pass after a good rain before I crush the moistened biochar with a tamper and screen it through a salvaged patio tabletop into a bin. Dry biochar makes too much hazardous dust when crushing and sifting, so rain is welcome, though a couple of dry days are then needed for my feedstock to dry again. This gives me time to split more wood in preparation for the next round. 

My biochar patch with screening tools

Screened biochar

The admittedly tedious process of sifting biochar by hand has the advantage that any remaining torrefied pieces can be culled and sent back for more charring. Torrefied wood, i.e. pieces not charred completely through, inhibits plant growth, and does not belong in the final product. A less laborious (but more polluting) method of granulation is pouring damp biochar into a chipper/shredder. Occassionaly, I do this and then purge the machine by shredding leaves or sticks to prevent the residual biochar from corroding the metal and to avoid having a black dust cloud emerge when the machine is started up the next time. I've seen others use gas powered portable blower vacs to grind up biochar. (My electric blower may do the trick with dry biochar - something to try out.) The output from my shredder is a gelatinous concentration of biochar particles that needs to be mixed well with the soil or compost so that it becomes aerobic once again.

My biochar patch serves as a unique area of water retention for the garden that I am working to turn into something of a tropical paradise. Aside from getting free water to rinse and moisten the biochar, staying in rhythm with nature this way includes the benefit of a nitrogen charge whenever a new storm comes through. During lightning storms, some of the diatomic nitrogen (N2) that predominates in the atmosphere is ionized. These nitrogen-rich ions become entrained by raindrops that deposit it on the soil where it is mineralized into a form that plants can use and biochar can store as a slow-release fertilizer. If enough rain falls on biochar, I suppose it accumulates a sufficient charge of nitrogen to make it garden-ready.

Particles needn't be so fine as from a shredder when biochar is added to the soil. It helps earthworms to ingest them, but the larger (< 2 cm) particles that drop through the expanded metal screen used in a manual approach will break down from freeze-thaw cycles over time and the larger size doesn't reduce biochar's effectiveness in the meanwhile. Some situations are well suited to top-dressing with raw biochar in bulk form. Weathering eventually breaks up these unground particles, so they leach into the soil beneath. In the interim, they acquire nitrogen from above and pioneering microbes from below that make this labor-saving method of biochar application most economical. In my next post, I want to talk about one more reason top-dressing could be preferable to burying biochar.

Making Ponds out of Parking Lots

In the Chesapeake Bay watershed, climate change will make cleanup efforts more challenging because, aside from the storm surges and shoreline damage from the rising sea level, runoff will increase with the greater amount of precipitation predicted in the cooler half of the year. Rain barrels can help only so much, due to their limited volume, but a pond could capture much more water, depending on how it is fed and drained.

Most garden ponds aren't designed with stormwater management in mind, but by allowing water to be partially drained in dry spells and filled up by storms, the pond would function much as a rain barrel does in supplying water to other parts of the landscape and saving on the water bill.

I hate to see all the extra free water from above wasted, so I am considering converting part of our overly large, increasingly obsolete driveway to a segmented pond that would provide a cool and sedate point of entry to our home.  It could be fed by rain barrel overflow, a shed roof, and the adjacent sidewalk. Since it is the high point on our property, it could also be used to water other garden areas. A nitrogen-fixing bacteria filter would be a good place to incorporate biochar, as would containerized submerged planting media. It could be integrated with an aquaponics system in the future.

Photo by Bernie Pallek

Geoengineering Your Garden

Photo by YoungToymaker

When life gives you liminality, make lemons or some other subtropical (or even tropical) fruit. For us here in hardiness zone 7, climate change will probably have us in zone 8 in a decade. My palm trees and peaches will feel right at home. To grow citrus or bananas, however, a little geoengineering will be needed by way of tweaking areas of our property where the microclimate can be pushed a bit further in the warm and humid direction. In Paradise Lot, +Eric Toensmeier and +Jonathan Bates offer many suggestions on expanding your hardiness zone.

Raingardens, ponds, and swales all contribute to higher ground-level humidity. Our future hops vines, growing at a angle to a height of 35 feet should also create a quasi-greenhouse beneath, especially with the compost pit dug into the ground near their base. We also want to leverage warm, sunny spots created by South-facing walls as good areas to tropicalize.

And for that, we have a secret ingredient. Biochar, with its low reflectivity, is a great infrared energy absorber, warming the soil. It also holds about 3x its weight in water. The elevated temperature and moisture create a high humidity zone in the immediate airspace above high biochar concentrations.

My tomatoes and peppers grow prolifically, in part, due to top-dressing with biochar. Where I have cut holes in the black plastic, I mulched with biochar to prevent weeds, capture moisture, discourage pests, and further decrease albedo. I add extra organic fertilizer when it's time to feed the plants, in order to adjust for the nutrient sink created by the biochar. Next season, the biochar will be already charged and populated with soil microbes so that it can be dug in and do long-lasting service in the ground. I prefer this technique over composting of biochar, as it saves time and effort (though compost plus biochar is a superior soil amendment).

Maximizing the biochar concentration in garden beds (up to 50% of soil volume) will produce similar results. The terra preta effect will move your garden to more equatorial climes. We have a lime tree that's been container-grown for 12 years, but one day it might find its place in the sun where the snow never sticks.

Your Own Little Rainforests

Lawns do a fair job of capturing runoff, but just putting an average-sized house on a lot can double the amount of runoff from that property. Much of that increase is channeled to gutters and then downspouts, at which point an owner can take a number of further measures to reduce problems downstream. Outlets from downspouts, be they splash blocks or French drains will often evince erosion where the water is let loose to run freely on the soil. This is the place to intervene with a rain barrel and/or a swale. These may still lead to erosion wherever the water discharges, so a garden can be added to infiltrate the excess.

By concentrating the captured runoff, areas of Maryland properties typically receiving 44 inches of rainfall per year can easily get double that amount, making them like miniature rainforests.  Forest gardens are very good absorbers of groundwater, as are rain gardens.

Photo by Dion Gillard

One of my rain barrels discharges through a 25 foot garden hose into a French drain which discharges to a rock filled swale that empties into a rain garden 80 feet from the house. That easily meets the minimum distance requirement of 15 feet from the foundation and is also at a low point on the corner of my property. The rain garden contains a good deal of biochar and compost and I am planning to fill the cracks between the swale rocks with biochar once I obtain plants that grow well in rock gardens. I also have rain barrels for the other three downspouts on my home, two of which are for keeping mushroom logs watered and one for watering the five terraced garden beds in the backyard.

For water coming off an impervious surface such as a patio onto a lawn, a swale or series of them can be added that run on contour. These are interspersed with raised bed gardens that use the water captured by the swales. Yards with slopes up to 33% can use this device, so where such slopes themselves are the source of runoff, these would also be very helpful. The key to making all these alterations efficacious is gardening. To some that may create the impression of unending toil, but it needn't since the gardens will be watered by the rain flowing to them and can be kept moist and fed with the help of biochar.

Permasoil

Weeds like cypress spurge can establish themselves where nutrients are scarce, but most horticultural plants require more care and feeding in order to grow to their full potential. Nitrogen is the macronutrient in highest demand by vegetables, requiring most gardeners to supplement their soils with fertilizer at certain times in a plant's lifecycle. Farmers typically use aged manure as a nitrogen source, which may put their customers at slight risk of pathogens in their produce. Synthetic fertilizers are used by most non-organic farmers and gardeners, leaving a large carbon footprint and upsetting soil microbial communities. Compost adds some nutrients, but the nitrogen is typically consumed within six weeks.

Healthy soil has the ability to cycle nitrogen to plants from the activity of microbes with no outside supplementation. Healthy soil requires the presence of live plant roots throughout the year, e.g. cover crops, with no more than three weeks dead space. If one added compost at a high rate every year, the soil could become nutrient sufficient after many decades. In the meantime, a grower needs to fertilize in addition to using compost.

The missing piece from this discussion is biochar. Biochar raises the cation exchange capacity (CEC) of soil better and more permanently than compost, meaning more nutrients will be available to plants for a longer period. If small portions of biochar are added annually to a plot of land, poor soil health can improve to a self-sustaining level in only a decade or two because it harbors a plethora of soil biota. Once soil reaches that state, it becomes a treasured renewable resource rather than a recurring receptacle. Biochar that is pre-charged with nutrients and inoculated with microbes can bring soil to a regenerative state most quickly.

Photo by Willi Heidelbach (CC BY 2.0)

You can be a successful grower by relying on synthetic fertilizers, or you can be even more successful by following organic practices, including natural fertilizers and compost, but unless you grow on prime farmland already, you can only be fully successful in your lifetime if you use biochar. Until your soil gets to that point, keep the fertilizer handy (but please hot compost the manure).

Biochar to Improve Soil Drainage and Save the Bay

In Maryland, the Environmental Site Design (ESD) standard for water runoff is that it should mimic woods in good condition. This is difficult when impervious surfaces are being added, since the water collected and treated in stormwater management devices must then exceed what would be impeded and filtered if woodlands completely covered the unbuilt portions of the site, i.e. the additional effectiveness required increases with the amount of impervious surface introduced. The Design Manual qualifies the standard to require that it be achieved to the Maximum Extent Practicable (MEP). This is not as big of an escape clause as it may appear, since the manual also includes a checklist that helps determine whether the design process demonstrates a sincere MEP effort.

The idea of using wooded areas as the standard for all sites is very suitable for Maryland, as a glance at Google Earth will show how very wooded our state is. Yet, rumor has it that the next update to the manual will not be so stringent. As it is, the absolute minimum standard already obviates the wooded area criteria, if it turns out to be impractical on any given site. That minimum standard in the eastern part of Maryland is to design stormwater devices to hold an amount based on 1" of rainfall, ensuring that a specified portion of that water volume drains into the ground to recharge the aquifer. I hope they hold to the more rigorous ESD standard because the Chesapeake Bay will flourish if we can insulate it from the effects of our exploits on the land.

Photo by Birgit Speulman (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Deep biochar-soil mixtures in planting beds would be an effective way to improve drainage, thus helping to meet the recharge volume requirement. Wet ponds are preferred to dry ponds, but you get less aquifer recharging since the water drains slowly in a wet pond. What you could do is use biochar to improve drainage of combination pond forebays, possibly allowing smaller overall pond size.

Here in Southern Maryland, we have a lot of Beltsville soils which are typified by a fragipan layer that is practically impenetrable. It may even reform after being broken up. Here again, biochar could help if it could be injected in fragipan layer breaches, preventing it from reforming. For the gardener, this might involve digging with a post hole digger and dropping biochar into smaller holes that have been chiseled through the fragipan. This would improve drainage considerably and, if the biochar was inoculated first and enough added, eventually eliminate the fragipan through microbial action.

The Grass is Always Greener when You Can Sell It

3-inch deep hardwood mulch extends 3-feet
beyond the dripline of our cherry tree

When my Watershed Stewards Academy instructor blithely offered that we should stop cutting our lawn grass for the sake of better nutrient and water retention I wasn't sure if she meant stop entirely or just let it grow longer than normal. I suspect the latter, which would also support the outside-the-box idea proposed by Gene Logsdon to grow fodder crops in lieu of turf. In my case, there is only a small area remaining on my property that would lend itself to grass. I went the conservation landscaping route a year ago and my mowing duties have been minimal since.

I've been thinking of planting grass on the strip remaining in front of my Kentucky fence. I've also been trying to come up with a good guerilla gardening idea for the right-of-way that fronts the forested lot under the power lines running on the far side of my street. Aside from the black raspberry plant I stuck there last week, this just might be the best way to go.

Growing long grass will push the limit on the HOA's rules, but if I'm going to use that grass for fodder, so would keeping a barnyard animal. Until I get to that level, I'm sure there will be someone in my circles who would appreciate the extra feed. It would also serve well as a compost activator.

Mitigating Sprawl

Photo by Matt McGuire (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The information session on the rewrite of Calvert County's Comprehensive Plan offered many insights on the process, current viewpoints, and the situations we face. Attendees were given an opportunity to submit views on paper regarding the top challenges, changes witnessed, and delights of living in Calvert County. Mine were soil tilth, invasive species, and nature, respectively. The presentation that covered some of the trends since the last major plan rewrite in 2004 brought a related problem to light - land use.

According to the statistics presented, the amount of both farmland and forest lost in our county over a ten year period is approximately 5%. As of 2007, about 60% of the county was forest or farmland. A 5% loss would have brought that figure down to about 55% as of 2014. The National Forest Service projections for forest land in Maryland under various scenarios are for additional losses ranging from 20 to 30% by 2060. If farmland losses remain in step with forest losses, we are then looking at a combined loss rate in Calvert County that continues at more than 5% per decade and at least 23 square miles (15,000 more acres) sacrificed to the god of growth.

In a talk given to the county's Master Gardeners last year, the crisis of ongoing suburban sprawl was also highlighted, with the point made that this results in a loss of connectivity in our ecosystems, reducing biodiversity. The reason Master Gardeners need to understand this is because increasing biodiverse gardens are one small way to mitigate the effects of sprawl on wildlife corridors. By ubiquitously gardening in islands within the developed landscape, the hope is that many of the threatened wee beasties will be able to find sufficient food and shelter.

I wrote down my three responses to the planning questionnaire (soil tilth, invasive species, and nature) before seeing the statistics on land use. In retrospect, it is easy to see a relationship of these three key indicators to the issue of real estate development. The soil that we grow on must be improved, especially if there is going to be less area under cultivation. Invasive species must be curbed in an effort to mitigate the loss of biodiversity caused, in part, by sprawl. Nature, in general, must be given more consideration and care as we continue to spread out across the land. These are action areas that I would like to see promoted in the next Comprehensive Plan update.

Eco-solution for E. Coli

When I became aware, a couple of years ago, that roof runoff may contain some heavy metals that could potentially find their way into your food garden, I took a bucket of biochar and dumped it into the bottom of my rain barrel. Problem solved. What I didn't realize is that I was solving another (bigger) problem of roof runoff - e. coli bacteria.

To be honest, my quick fix may not have solved the problems; (a) because I didn't really have a problem - my rain barrel feeds my ornamental rain garden, and (b) the biochar filter inside a rain barrel should probably be a little more meticulously constructed and maintained.

Now that I am about to set up a rain barrel that will be used to spray my mushroom logs and save money on my water bill, I definitely need to think about the contaminants in the water. The draft Certified Naturally Grown standards for mushroom growers does not address roof runoff specifically, but does cover surface water. Could a biochar filter be used to meet the CNG standard? Let's explore.

The water standards for mushrooms are the same as for irrigation water. A study done at Rutgers University found that the major concern for roof runoff is e. coli contamination, rather than heavy metals (though lead and zinc warrant measurement). This bacterial contamination could stem from dead animals and feces, particularly in gutters (but also in rain barrels and on the roof, itself). Occasionally, the study found e. coli in excess of the limit coming from a roof in their study.

It turns out that biochar captures and sequesters e. coli bacteria, as +Kathleen Draper points out, referring to research done at McGill University showing that biochar filters out e. coli. The excellent thesis by Shoieb Akaram Arief Ismail shows how large pore biochar with particle sizes up to 2 cm (such as the wood based product that I make with my pyramid kiln) is a significantly better e. coli filter (a couple orders of magnitude) than sandy soil alone.

Granted, the filtering action in this study took place over 24 hours, but some reduction of e. coli could be expected by less than a minute of residence time in a rain barrel partially filled with biochar. The practical limit is how badly the water flow would be reduced by the filter. This can be discovered empirically. The biochar should be rinsed thoroughly prior to adding to the rain barrel in order to prevent washout of fine particles which could clog the outlet. In addition, gutters should be cleaned regularly and the biochar filter changed annually when the rain barrel is scrubbed clean for the season.

The rain barrel volume you are sacrificing to the filter may require a larger barrel. I got a good deal on a 65 gallon barrel, which I think will do just fine. Even a 55 gallon barrel should be big enough. For my homeys, Baltimore is having a truckload sale of them and Calvert County has a half-price deal for residents that comes with a free workshop, both in April.

Oyster Gardening

I was sold on the garden plot that we began renting last year after spotting a bouquet of oyster mushrooms growing out of an old stump at ground level directly adjacent the gate. Since then, in addition to the tremendous amount of vegetables we've reaped from the garden, oyster mushrooms have been a frequent enhancement to our meals.

My garden there consists of several raised beds, separated with sunken paths that are filled with wood chips. These wood chips eventually break down and provide nutritious mulch for the following year's plantings. I was very happy to see one particularly deep path of wood chips thick with mycelium when I dug it up early this year. It's possible that the oyster mushroom mycelium had run over to the path, as it was only about 10 feet away from the stump. If oyster mushrooms come up in that vicinity later this year, that will be the most likely cause.

In any case, I aim to get oyster mushrooms from this garden path, even if I have to inoculate the wood chips myself. According to +Tradd Cotter, oyster mushrooms will grow on wood chips, though they are traditionally cultivated on logs. They are not rhizomorphic, so their rate of growth through the shady path won't be as fast as, say, garden giants. Myceliated logs buried in a bed of wood chips would be ideal. In his book, Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation, Cotter shows how to use cardboard spawn to inoculate logs. If my bunker spawn from oyster inoculated coffee grounds produces mushrooms, that could be another route to getting oysters into my paths.

Oysters are supposed to be the easiest mushrooms to grow. I have had minimal success, so far. However, since my shiitakes are all doing great, I think it's just a matter of time before I master cultivating this species.

Cornucopia

The idea of scarcity, when it comes to food, seems a long ways off these days. Even the unemployed and destitute have free kitchens and food banks to avoid starvation. I imagine that starvation these days is mostly on the level of particular nutrients. Food deserts exist where nutrient deficient food is the norm.

The immediately obvious way to ensure a more nutrient dense diet is to grow your own produce, and if food ever does become grossly scarce, that choice brings a little more security along with it. Since I really dig gardening, that's my chosen solution, but it's really not an option for those whose schedules are already crammed to bursting.

If you can't afford the time, transportation, trepidation, and toll of routinely dining out, cooking your own food is a good way to go. According to Michael Pollan, the most important thing we can do for our health is to cook our own meals. I've found that I can make just about any produce on hand taste good with the help of recipes available online, using tools such as the Perfect Produce app.

If you find grocery shopping difficult, and don't mind a little adventure in your diet, a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) arrangement may be for you. The type that will save you some time at the grocery store offers pre-packaged items from the local harvest and might include meal kits and processed items such as breads. Here, we have Taste of Southern Maryland offering in-season, locally grown, nutrient dense foods delivered by priority mail with weekly plans scaled to your needs. Like growing your own, this approach seems like a good way to make your meals more veggie-centric.

If the chore of cooking is too much to handle, Calvert County (and many others) host Meals on Wheels to eligible (invalid or shut-in) persons. If you don't qualify for that free service, you can drive a short distance and get the same menu by signing up for lunch at one of the local Senior Centers for $3 to $5, depending on your age.

Our next local food outing will be tonight's Calvert Eats Local meeting, which is a pot-luck this month. There is usually a presentation, with next month's to be given by your's truly on the topic of gourmet mushrooms.

Wholesome Eating

My enthusiasm for gardening built on my interest in biochar, but we have an even more compelling reason to seek abundant vegetables. When you garden, your sunk costs burden you to recover as much as you can by consuming the fruits (and vegetables) of your labors. Dietary guidelines point out that eating vegetables is key, especially for those plagued by diabetes. Since my wife has that condition and my father contracted it in his demise, gardening may be one of the best things we can do.

Last year's crop brought in enough food to overflow our shelves with canned pickle and tomato products. I expect that to happen again as our soil becomes healthier every year. Biochar is to thank for much of that improvement, but drip irrigation under black plastic sheet, decayed wood chip mulch (fostering more mycelium), cover crops, legume inoculants, double digging, pollinator host plants, forking vice plowing, compost, mycorrhizae additions, crop rotation, keeping soil covered, soil sampling and nutrient adjustment, and opening the canopy for more sunlight all have helped. This year, I am hoping to incorporate Garden Giant mushrooms in planting beds shaded by taller crops such as sorghum, tomatoes, eggplant, and lima beans. These mushrooms, in addition to being deliciously healthy to eat, are helpful to their garden companions' growth and yields. 

Another mushroom we are hoping to see more of this year is the oyster. We have been blessed with a patch of this found growing naturally near one of our gardens, and since, have tried to cultivate it on logs in brown, blue, and yellow variations. So far, we have had little luck. I grew some on coffee ground this year, but the yield was very low. With oyster mushrooms, we could receive many benefits to counter diabetes including decreased obesity and regulated blood sugar. 

We inoculated some logs with lion's mane mushroom spawn last year, and would love to see those come to fruition. Lion's mane could help regrow some of the deteriorated nerves in my wife's feet that cause her debilitating pain. If we ever see maitake mushrooms fruit from the buried logs we went to great lengths to cultivate last year, they may also help with blood glucose. 

Where we had the most immediate success so far, is shiitake logs. This year should be tremendous for shiitakes with ten times as many logs prepared. By fall, we should be harvesting armloads! Shiitake improves immunity, blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, the cardiovascular system, and the digestive system.  It has antiviral, antibacterial (e.g. strep, staph, candida), and anti-inflammatory qualities. Something new I am trying with shiitakes is to make an alcohol extract from them. This will make certain beneficial compounds available to take in easy spoonfuls, rather than rely on cooking the mushrooms daily.

Local folk who want to hear a bit more about the benefits and methods of cultivating mushrooms are welcome to attend the March meeting of Calvert Eats Local where I will be giving a presentation and sharing a delicious shiitake dish.