Kermit had it right when he sang that song. Besides the huge learning curve, the logistics of green, renewable energy are not always what you think they are going to be.
When I decided to farm my land last year, I knew up front I would do so organically; without synthetic, soil damaging fertilizers or toxic, long lasting, synthetic poisons to control pests or disease. But I also wanted the farm to be green in as many other ways as possible. That meant no city water, with all of its chemicals and such, as well as no conventional electrical service at the gardens. I started out, quite naively, with a 12volt lawn mower battery and an agricultural sprayer. Well, we’ve come a long, long way from that set up – but we’re still struggling to have consistent irrigation results.
With the fine expertise and countless hours of labor volunteered, not to mention parts and equipment donated, of a few of our CSA members, we now have a functioning solar panel and wind turbine set up charging our batteries that provide power to a pump. However, while irrigation out of a pond using a marine pump works well in a perfect world, Eden’s Garden, in spite of the name, is far from perfection.
We have fish and algae that clog up hoses and block water flow on the screened cage. We have a very big deficit of rainfall which means the pond is almost 6’ below where it was when we started – exceeding the “lift” maximum for our pumps so we had little pressure shooting down our rows. We’ve set up 2 pumps now, in tandem, and have the opposite problem as it seems we get too much of a good thing and it shuts the pumps off with the back pressure.
Needless to say, all of this has taken a toll on the gardens. We can’t control the searing temps, which kept many plants from doing their thing, but the lack of water has taken the lives of some of the tomato plants and while the squash are seeing a resurgence of new growth, it was not until after much stress and damage and kept the size of some of the fruit smaller than usual. Now the squash bugs are coming....
It is hard to say whether or not a constant flow of irrigation would have resolved some of the problems we had this summer, because the heat kicked in so very early, well before we normally see upper 90’s and 100’s, and many of the plants weren’t mature enough yet to take it. But we are working to resolve the situation so we can stay green, in more ways than one and keep the gardens irrigated at least.
We are looking at well pumps and more permanent trenched in pipelines at lower levels more even with the pond’s shoreline as well as new rain dance techniques. Actually, I had thought about a prayer meeting out here as it seemed the rain just skirts around us and never leaves but a few drops. Are we sending out the wrong energy? Is there a lesson here? Not sure, but we do know one thing – we need more moisture!
It looks like we’ll get some rain this week, although I’ve thought that before, several times, and we’ve received nothing but clouds and cool breezes. While appreciated, they don’t generate power unless that breeze is pretty brisk – and the clouds block the sun from powering the batteries so we can only water a short time.
Fredricksburg’s Renewable Energy Round up in September seems the place to find some answers and I plan to attend with our engineer and friend of the farm, Herb Perkins. I've heard how wonderful this event is and I am finally so vested in renewable energy that it seems I'd be crazy NOT to attend it.
In order for a small farm to survive in a less than desirable situation, such as power outages or water contamination events, we need to have a more reliable system in place. And that is what we’re working on. Eden’s is doing it to be environmentally responsible, but it is also not a bad idea to be sustainable in the event you have no other choices. Small farms can become the sole sources of food in events of emergencies or wide-spread contamination in conventional big agribiz food supplies. Remember the tomatoes, spinach and peanut scare? Those were not organic farms....So I feel like we must encourage start ups, growth and protection of small urban farms like Eden's Garden. It may come down to survival.
Thanks for bearing with us during this first year. Many of our charter members are still with us have watched us struggle and grow – cheering us on and encouraging us in difficult times. Community – Supported – Agriculture.
Eat Your Food - Naturally!
www.edensorganiccsa.com
now taking applications for 09-10 annual CSA commitments
