The line up...for now at least.

Click the image to enlarge.

This is the tentative placement for the plants. As stated all of the seeds are in the pots and I'm awaiting germination, but this could change the more I read up. As of now though, this is where these guys are going. Notice how I have each row labeled either Hohokam or Urban. The top half of each vegetable row will be receiving the identified Urban farming method and the bottom half will get the Hohokam methods. I thought about separating them further, but with the respective vegetables right next to one another, they will receive the same amount of sunlight exposure, so I thought it best to have the vegetables in side by side rows so that the sunlight control is kept as constant as possible. Water might get a little tricky, but can be better managed with how the individual vegetable rows are separated.

Not quite in the ground...

It was a lot of cottage cheese and yogurt.

Alrighty, well I am about 2 weeks behind the planting schedule but so is about everything else in my life at the moment, so I think we're doing okay for consistency. Over the past week, I have collected all of the pots that I could from home and the neglected ones on my bottom shelf back in my classroom. When I realized I was going to be woefully short of my projected 64 plants, I found one of my "reduce, reuse, recycle" items. I have been amassing yogurt, cottage cheese and humus containers for almost two years now, thinking "you don't know when you are going to need a good container!" Evidence in photography.

Prematurely devouring the last of the yogurt in the fridge to acquire the last needed container, I got to my goal of 64. 64 was chosen because it was the number that came out to allow enough spacing between plants along the rows while still allowing for enough test subjects to produce reliable results ( I have at least 12 plants of each type planted in the pots). I placed them where I envisioned them going when formally planted. Once the spacing was done, I placed a bit of the compost in the bottom of each planter from my compost bins. I realized maybe the Hohokam didn't have compost, so I went inside to scope it out. What I found was...nothing. I found a bunch on modern services with the word "Hohokam" in it, but nothing to do with any composting methods. The urban farming sites were all gung-ho about it, and I already knew that, hence the compost bins, but as I was standing in front of these bins with bugs flying about, I thought that it is likely that the tribe had recycled older plant material and pieces of the squash, beans, corn, tobacco and cotton plants that they did not use. Even though my compost is made of a lot more than that (even with my roommates used coffee grounds) it has turned into some nutrient rich compost. I decided to apply the compost to all pots because the idea of composting didn't start with urban farming; it has been around as long as farming itself, and I want these plants to live and produce much longer than what the semester calls for.

Some conventional and non conventional planters

Compost in, soil in, some water in... and now some seeds in. As I referred to in the upper paragraph, the Hohokam focused on squash, cotton, corn, tobacco and beans (Sharp, 2012). In the April Edition of Phoenix Home and Garden, they suggested that for this planting time in the low desert you plant beans, cantaloupe, corn, cucumbers, green onions, okra, peanuts, pumpkin and summer squash (Cromell 2012.) As I noticed beans, squash and corn overlapping, I decided to go with those as my two overlaps of urban and Hohokam vegetables of choice. I would have loved to gotten the other plants mentioned in the magazine, but figured I would focus on consistency for research sake. Though I did buy some pumpkin seeds for fun, but don't know where yet to plant them.

Cromell, Cathy. April Checklist: For the Low Desert (2012) Phoenix Home and Garden. Scottsdale, AZ.

Sharp, Jay W. The Hohokam: Farmers of the Desert (2012) DesertUSA.com. San Deigo, CA. http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind8.html

My Hypothesis...

When I was turning up the soil the other day with the mighty pick-ax, I found a couple pieces of glass, discarded trip irrigation tubes, some screws and nails along with some pieces of asphalt shingling. I thought to myself "I bet the Hohokam didn't accidentally dig up pieces of asphalt shingling." I also then thought to myself "I bet the Hohokam didn't have full time jobs and were full time students while they were farming too." Well, I shouldn't say that they didn't have anything else to do besides farm, I am sure the tribes people carried multiple roles, such as farmers, teachers, defenders, parents and all the vital roles that can be found in any society over time. But I can't help but think that they were able to a lot more time and focus to cultivating the land, whereas most people now roll up to the grocery store, plunk down some cash for groceries for the week (be it themselves and/or their families), and stick it in the fridge when they get home....I bet the Hohokam didn't have a fridge when they got home.

 I went to the Phoenix public library to check up on some Hohokam history.They had a special room called "The Arizona Room" which housed a treasure trove of original AZ artifacts. There were a few restrictions though. I was condensed to about 45 minutes worth of research (by my own schedule) and I was not allowed to take anything out nor write anything down (all AZ archives had to stay in that room and no pens were allowed...I didn't have a pencil). I pulled a few pieces off the shelves and kept getting more and more information about the canal system that was unearthed around Sky Harbor International Airport, which is all of a 8 minute drive from my house. What I wanted to find was specific plants and planting methods that the tribe used for the spring, which is when I intend to plant. I didn't find anything. I left the library a little dejected, thinking what the heck did they do, and when the heck am I going to be able to get back to the library to research this stuff with still not having found the time to plant.

 So for my hypothesis. Thinking about those asphalt pieces I am thinking that the urban planting methods will be better. I've come to this immediate expectation because this soil has been subject to well over a century of urban development, has had a variety of things done to it, and is going to be affected by the inability of a busy dude to tend to the plants every need at any given day...I've got four wedding weekends coming up out of town, which is when I get to actually play in the garden. I've got the plant species picked out (corn, summer squash, garden beans and Tepary Beans) which were mentioned on a variety of websites and the PHX garden magazine for both native and modern planting. I believe that trying to incorporate more native methods (if I ever find them) of how to plant won't do well in modern urban farming. The surrounding vegetation is different, the soil is different, the inputs will inevitable be different. And to remind the reader, the purpose isn't to recreate the environment of the Hohokam tribe at the time, it is just to see if there methods would work in an urban setting with an urban farmer with an urban lifestyle. With the very wide, wide, wide range of variables and ill-kept controls... I simply don't see how traditional ecological knowledge will prevail here in comparison to urban methods. I am not discounting that the crops won't grow at all, but I think that the land has been changed so much and my deficiencies as a farmer won't be able to support what successful TEK implementation demands.

Getting going and seeing the light.

I just submitted this project as a talk for the Ignite Phoenix event on May 4th. It is kind of like a more structured TED talk for the community. I gave one of these before for my sustainability education job, which you can see here. It was sweet, but man did it take a bunch of prep work.

I think that this project is very interesting, but if it is actually going to work, then I need to start documenting shorter and more frequent posts, and try to avoid these essay like bonanzas, seeing as I already have a few other essays that I need to address for other courses. So enough about blog posts strategy, lets move on with some dirt.

So, I've started to hunt down the literature that I am going to need for this. A lot of it is conveniently located at the Phoenix public library, so that is a win, but most of those titles I can't take out of the library, so my plan of referencing a lot of that work while in the yard isn't going to happen, unless I can get real friendly with the library...in a strictly academic sense of course. But I can't really move forward with this project until I get the sources to reference from. It is going to take some time to lock down these sources, and the planting season has arrived too. So I have some sources identified at the library and the impulse buy the other day of the latest Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine edition: The Garden Issue. I flipped though it and they have some solid tips about what/how to plant, and also some really fancy pictures of high end fancy gardens over in Scottsdale. Maybe one day I'll get to that point.

But one thing I want to look at is something I can't prevent, but also really like. I have a big tree in my yard, and I recently learned from my landlord that it is a Evergreen Elm. Now, the name is a bit misleading as this tree did just shed all of its leaves this past December/January. But here it is in March and all the leaves are back in full strength. It is a beautiful tree with willow-like weeping branches that are also high enough to walk under. It is thee trademark to my yard, and it happens to blanket my garden in spotted shade.

I am not sure yet if this is going to be a benefit or a liability with the plants as the garden rows are directly beneath the tree, but if I were to hypothesize: I would think that the plants would do better with the shade as the spring/summer heat increases, giving some opportunity for sunlight to hit (to allow photosynthesis to happen) while providing consistent breaks from the hot sun. It isn't really rocket science (plants needing light and all), but the right species for the light allocation that I have is a bit of science. Speaking of which, if you are on facebook and enjoy science, you should probably like this.

The last note I want to make is the neighbors choice of an awning. Being that I live right in the middle of an urban neighborhood, my west wall is my neighbors east wall, so we are very close. Besides all the random noises of animals I hear over there (man and geese..I think?), whatever they decide to put up on their property is something I have to live with, and so is the case with anyone who would want to start gardening in a dense neighborhood. Anyway, if you see in the picture,

it marks a very early onslaught of solid shade onto the garden in the afternoon. I am not for sure in this, but I have a suspicion that it is the reason why nothing grew on my two west rows the initial time I tried to plant. It is a control that will play a big part in how this all goes, but maybe my choice of plants for those rows before (green peppers, zucchini, tomato) just wasn't the right choice anyway.

Access Granted! Now what?

Alright! We have been officially given the thumbs up for this project. With some gracious poking and prodding for me to actually have a clear focus complements of my professor Denise Mitten, Ph.D, there is now solid direction to this project. In borrowing a couple of concepts from another course I am taking, Sustainability Theory and Practice in Education, the idea of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) came into light during one of the papers. TEK is the knowledge often used by indigenous peoples to pay attention to the land to best work with it. This could be understanding seasonal changes to water flows to best maximize crop yield or hunting game. I started thinking about how the Hohokam tribe used TEK to survive for a millennium in the valley of the sun, as place that I initially thought humans should not exist. Turns out they did fine for a thousand years before abruptly disappearing.

Seeing as I have already written the formal research proposal, I'll spare you and myself from another paraphrasing, so here is the link to it that can be found on my school site.

Now that I have the go ahead...what the heck do I do? Before I just started digging up dirt and bought the cheapest seeds at the local hardware store, but now there is a point to all this. This makes me wonder about how most lay persons start when they want to start a garden, which is one of the big reasons why I proposed this project. My being from the East Coast in a water rich environment, those underlying ideas of how to garden there are still the foundation of how I first think to garden here in the desert, a completely different and arid environment. I can't help but imagine that is how many of the gardens in the desert start, and either become very resource intensive processes or the garden keepers just give up because their prior garden knowledge isn't able to sustain a garden in the desert.

You know, sometimes I forget that I teach research methods to high schoolers, and that the very next step is one I assess regularly. I should probably follow that lead. Sounds like a up coming post to me.

Urban Desert Farming: A semester research project

What is prompting this new blog/old blog revival is the suggestions that I have received from fellow PhD cohort 7 members about my wanting to try urban desert farming. Some may say it is just gardening in a backyard in the desert, and to an extent they are right. But, as I have been talking to cohort members and reading more about our complete disassociation of what we consume and where it comes from, then looking at my $100 grocery bill, I thought to myself that I have never really eaten anything that I have grown. As in 100% of all the food that I have consumed in my life came from somewhere else.

For our research methods course, we are tasked to design some sort of research project to span the semester. AS I have no interest in being in front of a laptop longer than I have to be, I wanted to get sweaty, dirty and have a physical product to show for my work, and not just more of the same academic work. I usually work in my backyard when it is light out, so as I was staring at my failed attempt of a garden (pictured above) that served as a distraction to my work last semester, what if I do some research and application of how to sustainably urban farm in the desert, all in the comfort of my own home? Sweet, right? Here is a quick list of some of what I want to explore for this project:

1. Best vegetable species for desert climate
2. Water distribution techniques
3. Compost quality testing (Current compost situation pictured)
4. Compost distribution techniques
5. Rain water harvesting
6. Independent water allocation (not just me standing with a hose)
7. Sunlight exposure
8. Temperature reaction (it is going to start to get hot!)
9. Weed infiltration & species identification
10. Integrated pest management
11. Local compost co-ops/collectives
12. Local urban farming initiatives
13. Maximizing food yield
14. AZ Local Farmers Techniques
15. Healthy habits to maintaining all of this

So here is the start of this blog per suggestion of my classmates, documenting the struggles and successes of learning and applying urban farming techniques. Besides learning some research methods and how to farm, my main goal with this is to have fun, which I feel can be all to absent from the first year of doctoral work. I hope to also intersperse other posts not about the research project itself, but about the experience of learning, teaching and applying sustainability principles, which has yet to be boring.

Relaunch...

Good Afternoon,

This blog died two years ago. I quit my last job of teaching out of severe frustration, took solace out of living out of my car, was offered a job as a sustainability instructor back in Phoenix, someone told me what I was doing was dissertation worthy, applied to Prescott College's Sustainability Education program, got in, have been hacking away at that this year and a whole bunch else that I am not going to really go into, besides the following:

My job: www.crestsustainability.net

My new passion: www.abchphoto.com

But, the time has come to "reimagine" (one of my new favorite terms) this blog, as it will no longer be about the random musings about my life, but now the focused experience of a fellow learning and teaching this whole sustainability thing in what was called "The Most Unsustainable City" by author Andrew Ross in his book "Bird on Fire," Phoenix, Arizona.

Besides the absurdity of living in the desert at times as well as learning and teaching a subject still in its infancy, with little common denominators and self-appointed intellectual muses leading the charge in their own respective fields, this blog is aimed at capturing the work and effort of not only learning sustainability, applying sustainability and teaching sustainability, but really giving this all encompassing field of study some sort of relevance for all, and further relevance for myself in continuing with it. Let us hope it doesn't reach a re-demise as the prior self once did.

Note: I am writing this while laying on my patch of grass in my back yard in the desert, a completely non-native and resource intensive plant to keep alive in a climate that receives about 10 inches of rain a year.