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Soil Garden Project – Call for Participation

Jul 262012
 

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SOIL GARDEN - CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

From August 17-22,  NANCE KLEHM, an ecological systems designer, will be in Warsaw to help conduct Pixxe’s SOIL GARDEN PROJECT! Right now we are looking for volunteers.

The Soil Garden Project will cultivate soil from waste. Using bicycles we will collect and compost organic waste such as food scraps, coffee grounds, cardboard, yard trimmings, and so on from residents, businesses, organizations, and public institutions in the Warsaw neighborhood of Ochota (Rakowiec/Szczęśliwice). We aim to process 8-10,000 liters of waste during the project and turn it into humus for the 2013 growing season. Ongoing, we hope to process up to 1,000 liters per week.

During the project three WORKSHOPS will be lead by Nance: a Soil/compost workshop, a Composting toilet workshop, and an Urban Forage event. An Urban Feast will close the project.

Currently we are LOOKING FOR PARTICIPANTS: Planners, Waste Donors, Waste Collectors, Waste Processors, Workshop Participants, and Filmmakers.

Please contact Pixxe at pixxe.org@gmail.com or call Jodie at 48 796 532 208.

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Elderflower wine, part 2

Jul 202012
 
Airlock on the elder

Winemaking is a long term project, so it will be quite some time before I know if it is any good or not. However, I recently entered stage 2 of the process — moving the wine out of buckets and into a demijohn. Here is how it went.

Experiment 1

(Soak flower without sugar, strain flowers, no added flavors). After soaking the flowers for four days, I added a camden tablet, then waited 24 hours, at which point I added the  yeast. The brix reading was 23. That is to say, 12 percent alcohol. I put it in the basement where the temperature was between 20 and 25C. I stirred it once in a while and checked the Brix reading once in a while. After about week the Brix was down to 8.5. I let it sit for three days without stirring. The Brix was down to 3.5. I then decanted it into a demijohn, topping it off with fresh water (boiled and cooled). Then on goes the airlock.

Experiment 2

(Soak flower with sugar, added flavors). On June 18, the fermentation began, however, I neglected to take a Brix reading, so I’m not sure what the starting alcohol level was, but by June 20 it was 20. By June 26, the Brix was down to 6.5 and I put it in a demijohn.

It was fun to test the Specific Gravity / Brix / Alcohol level and taste the stuff gradually becoming more alcoholic as the yeast worked its magic.

The bubbling slowed down and stopped around July 11 for Experiment 2 and about a week later for Experiment 1, so now I must simply sit and wait for the wine to clear. This could take months.

 

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Our Car Has Eight Wheels

Jul 162012
 
Bike cart with 120 l of dirt

Bike cart with 120 l of dirt

Got a bike cart. I’m happy. I have the urge to just drive around and pick up stuff. It was advertised as a “quality model” from Germany. Anything imported from Germany is supposed to be “quality”. But I think this one was probably imported TO Germany first. From China. But hey, it will do. So I can’t barrel over the curbs at 3 mph, but it can very slowly carry 120 liters (30 gal) of dirt without a problem. Maybe even 180 (50 gal) liters. I like how our bikes take up the space of a car. GO AWAY CARS!

Our Car Has Eight Wheels

Our Car Has Eight Wheels

 

Compost House

Jul 142012
 
Yard clippings, yarrow, clover

Yard clippings, yarrow, clover

This morning I woke up early to go and collect the grass clippings from the housing complex near my allotment garden, which was mowed in its entirety yesterday. I just dug in and started to load the clippings into my wheelbarrow. The pile was so hot it was smoking; it steamed up me glasses! Isn’t it beautiful how life has, in itself, a perfect design to take care of itself, to give itself usefully back to the great pool of matter?

This stuff had a lot of plantain, clover, and  yarrow, a great compost accelerator I read somewhere. It also had a lot of dried grass and old leaves. Perfect.

I built two piles, adding straw here and there. They look like little straw houses for little hobbits. Or maybe more like my friend Zeek Sheck‘s beepers….

Compost House

Compost House

Collecting Water from the Old Ones

Jul 132012
 
Collecting jurassic water

Collecting Water from the Old Ones

In Warsaw, there are public water wells called Woda oligoceńska. Oligocene water. The Oligocene Period, I’ve learned since, occurred about 30 million years ago. Basically these are very deep wells, running more than 200m (650 ft) deep. They are housed in cute little buildings, and because it took me two years to be able to say oligoceńska, I always called them Dom wody, Water House. (But when I said Water House, not one person had any idea what I was talking about.) One can take the water all year. In the winter, you go into the house. In the summer, you tap the faucets on the outside of the house, as seen above.

In my neighborhood there are three such wells, though sadly, one of them has been closed for several months. We do not buy water. We go to the well. It tastes delicious. Someone else told me that her grandmother warned, “You must boil the water from the well before you drink it.” This never occurred to me. Two years and I’m still living, so I guess it’s O.K….

Because there is no water at the Railroad Garden, and no structure to catch it from, I haul it from the well. It’s about 2 or 3 blocks.  I used to use my bike, on which I could carry eight 5-liter bottles: three on the front, three on the back, and two on each handlebar. Now, I have a wheelbarrow and can carry 60 l (15 gallons). My arms are bulging. Soon I should have a bike cart and I’ll be able to carry 90 l (24 gallons). One liter of water weighs one kilogram. Brilliant, that.

One time an old lady came in and asked me, “Is it yellow or white?” White meant the water was good. It was white.