Celebrating the Work of Better Farm's first Artist-in-Residence, Colleen Blackard

Intern Files: Week Five

By Joe Pintaudi

Students going into a job search who look specifically for work geared toward sustainable problems will discover that these positions are nearly impossible to find.

There are many companies and organizations that have begun to understand that securing a future in their markets may include ensuring the preservation of a future world for generations to come.  Although these companies are leading the way, they seem to be few and far between on a global scale. There don't seem to be any jobs looking for a sustainability expert.

This may turn out to be the case for a long time; but that doesn't mean the jobs aren't out there. It's up to the soon-to-be graduates to be creative and find ways to incorporate sustainable thinking into industries that otherwise wouldn't think of creating a position or department for this area of study.

There are many opportunities out in the world that GIOS students are more than qualified to fill.  They may not be completely related to every piece of information that we've learned, but we will all bring a necessary knowledge to any table we are invited to. Finding jobs that relate to sustainability is going to be a challenge. Graduates must be creative in their job searches in order to best use the education they have been given in order to create the most change.

In other news… Things here at Better Farm have been going smoothly. Again, the last few days have been pretty wet. The plants continue to come up well, and I hope to get some weeding done in the next few days. The week started somewhat hot and muggy, but the sky changes so fast here and before I knew it rain clouds had moved in again. As I write this it feels pretty cold outside and the yard is still pretty soaked.

Monday afternoon was great. After a long day of general yard maintenance (mostly weed-eating around the house and barn), the house decided to go for a swim to cool off. So we headed to Millsite Lake, which is two miles down the road. The water is clean and clear and was the perfect temperature.  The cliff there is about 25 to 30 feet and provides not only a beautiful view overlooking the lake, but a nice place to jump into the cool water.

Today we got two more chickens.  I believe they are 2 or 3 months old. We introduced them to Henrietta (our first chicken), and so far they seem to be getting along fine—but I think they are going to need a bigger coop.

Originally published at Joe's Blog.

DIY Soap

Whether you're tired of spending top-dollar on expensive, organic soaps—or just don't know what to do with all those bar nubs lying around the tubs and showers of your home, soap-making is a pretty easy and extremely rewarding project.

There are a few different ways to go about the soap-making process. For Better Farm's first foray into this experiment, we went with the "melt and pour" method. This involves buying a huge block of glycerin soap from a local craft shop, melting it down, and pouring it into molds with the essential oils, herbs, and yummy additives of your choosing. Our intern Ali Carter headed straight to Better Farm's herb and flower gardens for inspiration; clipping sage, rose petals, and dill. She also cut up some lemon peel and found ginger, sesame seeds, oatmeal, coconut, cinnamon, and nutmeg in the kitchen. Add in some local honey and essential oils, and we had enough ingredients to make three different kinds of soap.

Ali went ahead and cut the mammoth block of glycerin into smaller, more manageable pieces, and threw them into her spliced together double-boiler setup.

Once the glycerin was melted down, she poured it into molds (ice cube trays!) and added some choice ingredients. She also put some rope into the mold so her soaps would have handles. The molds were put into the fridge until the glycerin hardened up. Ali then broke the soaps free from their molds, and voila! An afternoon of soap-making yielded dozens of little bars with which the masses can keep clean.

Intern Files: End of week four comes with rain

By Joe Pintaudi

This is the end of Week Four.  It’s a little sad that I will be leaving this place to go back to a sea of pavement which emits heat long into the night; preventing any relief from the day's heat. I am looking forward to taking what I have learned here and applying it at home. As of two weeks ago, there is a large empty backyard waiting to be planted.

The wet weather has been great for the plants, and everything is looking good—although I am worried about some of the smaller tomato plants that were flooded after the downpour on Thursday afternoon.  All the rain did fill the barrel that I use to water the garden. I do not think there will be a need to use it for a few days.

Also, we started spreading manure in the garden.  There isn’t much that needs to be said about the fun of that, but it’s good for the soil and in turn its good for the plants.

Originally posted at Joe's Blog.

Stop Weeding!

We wrote last August about a little-known but much-celebrated book written more than a half-century ago by one amazing woman called Ruth Stout. How To Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back: A new method of mulch gardening detailed a method of tending crops that involved little-to-no weeding and zero pesticides. She says:

My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.

Stout encourages gardeners to start with eight inches of mulch to ensure no weeds break through. We didn't have that luxury, though we've been compiling compost and stockpiling cardboard and newspaper for the last year. So, we worked with what he had. Here's our own, custom version of Ruth Stout's valuable mulch-gardening technique.

First of all, because we didn't have enough compost and mulch materials to cover the huge swatch of land we intended to plant (what started as 20 x 24 turned into 100 x 80, then down to about 60 x 80 for this season's crops), we succumbed to the plowing and tilling Stout so objects to. We like to think she'd forgive us this transgression, seeing as the ground was literally as hard as a rock.

From there, we raked the soil into rows and planted our beds. Around each plant we sprinkled some topsoil, compost, and hay. Then we let the rains come and watched our plants flourish.

A week of rain and hot weather sent our seedlings soaring. But these conditions also brought the beginning of weeds. We knew it was time to spring into action with the mulch gardening methods we were so committed to employing. So yesterday we headed outside with months and months' worth of cardboard, newspaper, junk mail, paper bags, and yummy, rotting compost. Combining Stout's methods with the new-age favorite layering style of "lasagna gardening" gave us our approach for this season.

First, we covered the ground around each plant (already enriched with topsoil from our worm compost and fresh compost from our kitchen) with paper.

Next, we took our compost and laid it around the plants' stems.

Over the compost goes more dirt and mulch-y materials (like hay), as well as additional soil. We got a nice rain last night and this morning to tamp everything down and start the decomposition process. The mad science experiment has begun—stay tuned for updates as we sit back, forget about weeding, and enjoy the start of summer.

Intern Files: Week four

By Joe Pintaudi

Ali and I planted the rest of the tomatoes today. In a previous post I discussed the tire beds, where I had planted peppers and tomatoes together. Well, the tomatoes in the tires were not doing too well, so they were moved and planted in the garden with six or seven other plants. A couple have since started blooming, and we have some bell peppers starting to come in. Many of the beans I planted a week ago have begun to sprout; and with all the rain we had this week they should continue to do well. Today everyone helped weed and cover the planted rows. We used old newspaper and cardboard to cover the soil around the plants in hopes that we will have fewer weeds to pull. I have been told the paper will eventually break down and the help repair the soil.

We got some manure today from a dairy farm.  The manure was dropped off by Rick Lopez, a local guy who also gave us some composting tips and advice for keeping the deer and rabbits out of the garden.

On to the question of the Week… Imagine that you are speaking to someone who has very little knowledge about sustainability. How would you explain what you do in your internship and why the company or organization’s work is important?

My explanation would be that Better Farm is trying to build something sustainable out of a place that may not have been before.  We are trying to use materials for the garden that cause the little to  no damage to the natural system here.  The internship has already allowed me to see firsthand how the things that people put into the earth can affect everything in a positive and a negative way.  The compost we use helps the soil become more fertile but if we are not careful the crops we grow can possibly strip the soil of nutrients. The work we do here is important because it is about creating a state of balance so that the farm (which may be seen as our world) can continue to be productive well into the future. This balanced state not only applies to the garden and the environment out our windows, but also to what happens in the social environment inside the house as well.

Post originally published at Joe's Blog.

Intern Files: End of week three

By Joe Pintaudi

Time moves fast up here.

The last few days have been spent weeding the raised beds and transplatting more flowers from the greenhouse. Another intern arrived on Wednesday, giving us another set of hands to get things done. The crops we recently transplanted into the garden look good. All that rain has done them well.

Also, it's warmed up in the last few days. The air seems to be getting thicker.  Still, at least it’s not 112 out.

Originally posted at Joe's Blog.

Intern Files: Week three challenges

By

Joe Pintaudi

The end of last week and beginning of this week have been busy.

We've been transplanting more from the greenhouse stock. I direct-planted a variety of beans yesterday; and today I finished up some spinach and okra just in time to get inside, away from the rain.

I welcome the rain, and attempted to work in it as long as I could. The small drizzle was no problem; but eventually the sky opened up and rain fell with greater force. The rain still falls as I sit in my window seat a day later writing this post, droplets managing to shift every few moments to follow the winds.

The sky is gray, but it is nice to have rain come right when you need it.

This brings us to the challenges of the farm. When I think about it, there seem to be many different challenges here. Some are day-to-day, and some are larger in scale and in time. There is an overall challenge to this entire operation because we are building and improving an existing structure and landscape with the idea to create a place focused on self-sustained living while having the least negative environmental impact.

After discussing this topic with

Better Farm staff members

, the basic long-term problem is funding for the business of sustainable living on a piece of property that dates back to the late 19

th

century. While the house and land are paid off in full, there are many improvements that must eventually be made.  One example is the fuel for the house.

Prior to the “green” era of this communal farm, renovations were made without a thought to sustainability. Convenient options—not green ones—were put in place. The

furnace

is fueled by oil, and the

kitchens

are dependent on propane.  While replacing these options are not financially an option now, they are on the list to be made sustainable when the time or the money comes.

In the meantime, there have been small but significant changes made to the house. The water heater is now

insulated

, as is the entire eastern wall of the home and attic. This, along with

smart energy-consumption techniques

has

greatly reduced the energy demand of this 5,000-square-foot house

.

Another example of this is where the farm gets its electricity.  Once money is available, they will consider options that will bring the farm further away from the grid by installing

wind

or

solar

power.

Better Farm seeks to be an independent entity that can survive without becoming a nonprofit organization. The goal is to succeed without financial assistance such as grants and become a completely self-sustained and self-sufficient place. This is possible, and the potential for this goal to be reached is realistic, but due mainly to limited funding options it will have to be done over the course of years rather than months.

Originally published at

Joe's Blog

.

Better Farm Presents: DIRT!

Better Farm last night screened

Dirt! The Movie

as the first in an upcoming series of movie nights. Hosted by

Jamie Lee Curtis

and featuring

soil experts the world over

,

Dirt!

tells the story of the human-dirt relationship. Through the film's explanations of how dirt sustains all living things (food, shelter, water containment and filtration, climate regulation, plant growth, etc.), we also come to understand the link between human and environmental degradation and mistreatment of dirt.

Mass starvation, drought, floods, global warming, wars, and disease are all byproducts of misused or underserved soil, the

movie

contends. And if practices such as

monoculture

planting and

rainforest razing

continue, dirt may just find another use for us humans.

One thing's for sure: The gang here is going to be out in our garden today planting a bunch of organic produce while worshiping that organic matter making all life possible. Long live dirt!

Special thanks to

Corinne Rochelle

for organizing this week's

Dirt!

screening.

Intern Files: This week so far

By Joe Pintaudi

It has been gray and cold, two things  I can appreciate since escaping the excessive heat at home. When the rain stops it is nice to be outside. Yesterday I transplanted some tomatoes and peppers into raised beds made from old tires I found out in the open-air shed. I was lucky enough to get them planted just before the rain started in the afternoon.

Monday also consisted of more transplanting from the greenhouse to the garden; and conducting a nutrient test on the soil where we will be planting the majority of our produce.

On Tuesday I walked a steep three miles into town to help a local woman clean out a house she had just bought. The sun was shining, but walking to left side of the road created a nice shade cover and the breeze kept the bugs mostly away.

Tonight is movie night.  We are having anyone who wants to come and watch a documentary called Dirt! The Movie.

Blog post originally published at Joe's Blog.

Upstairs Bedroom Ditches the Blues

Once upon a time, there was a young boy who got to design his very own bedroom.

Only problem was, that little boy moved out and left Better Farm his bright blue walls. It was time for a little updating; though the room itself is in very good structural shape. That is, except for the closet:

The first thing we did was put up a wall between the closet and the room next door. Then we reinsulated, and installed a shelf and clothes rack. Many thanks to Fred Ciliberti for getting that sorted!

Next up was the room color. We went with basic white to give the room a clean jump-start. Then we brought in Clayton "Ikea" Carlson, who had a killer furniture collection that is all clean lines and airy patterns. The result? Well, you might not recognize the space...

 

Amazing what a fresh coat of eco-friendly paint can do.

Front Entranceway: From clunky to clutter-free

It's a no-brainer that your entranceway should set the tone for the rest of your house. But by its very nature, the entrance to your home is often the receptacle for things like shoes, jackets, keys, junk mail, and anything else you—or your roommates—are too lazy to put away at any given moment.

Better Farm's front hall was mismatched. Without a cohesive color palette or storage setup, it was an easy target for forgotten items.

So, we made a few simple improvements that made a big difference:

• Giving the walls and ceiling a fresh coat of white, eco-friendly paint
• Removing gross, musty, old carpeting from the staircase
• Painting all the wood trim and stairs the same color
• Creating shelving for items such as shoes
• Initiating a landing pad for mail, e-mail list sign-ups, and guest book
• Hanging a mail and notes organizer from the wall (found at an antique shop, it's significantly more lovely than a boring old bulletin board. Old clothespins affix notes and letters to the wire)
• Hanging reusable shopping bags next to the front door so people on their way into town can avoid paper and plastic

Results after the jump!

Lofty Idealism

Wasted space is the cardinal sin of intentional living. In an old farmhouse with upwards of 12 people sleeping over at a time, and with any number of projects in the works on any given day, what might be a "junk drawer" in a New York City apartment becomes a "junk room" or "indefinitely unclaimed section of an entire house."

We've worked in the last year to remedy a lot of the clutter at Better Farm—first with trips to the transfer station, then with a dumpster rental, and finally with a reclamation of unused, wasted space. It's a renaissance of sorts; complete with the sweet addition of cozy sleeping lofts and nooks in places that would otherwise go totally unused and ignored. All it took was a little ingenuity, some high ceilings, and an innate desire to live in something resembling a big treehouse.

Better Farm's office and side entrance were natural choices to add sleeping accommodations, as each room boasts extremely high ceilings. Through some additional research, we discovered a crawl space next to the loft on the third floor that had, in the 1970s, been an actual bedroom (thank you Fred for putting so much work into that room so many years ago!). The entrance to said space was long-since covered up; so we decided to re-reveal the sleeping quarters by punching a hole in the upstairs hallway ceiling, and installing a ladder. Before and after photos following the jump!

Before & After:

The loft series

 

All carpentry work by Craig Rice

Side entranceway
(yellow paint selection courtesy of Mike Brown; paint job courtesy of Brian Hines)

 











The Office

Upstairs Crawlspace