Somehow these two hooligans graduated from high school. No one really saw it coming, but there it is. So although we still goof around on a farm all day, we no longer have to post about how much we learn from it. But this hooligan at least sort of missed writing jumbled thoughts about her scrambled days. So she decided to pick it up again.

What's new with Riverview? Literally everything. The ground erupted and has been throwing vegetables at us for weeks. We try as best we can to wash and sort them all but it's pretty hard to keep up with. Beets, carrots,  and radishes,the main root crops right now, are popping up from the dirt and begging to be picked. There's lettuce, arugula, mizuna, tat soi, and lots of greens resolutely flipping up more leaves no matter how many times we trim them off and bag them. And of course we've got peas climbing up their trellises and dumping crates and crates of peas at us. We've got zucchinis, the beginnings of cucumbers, and lots and lots and lots of herbs, especially cilantro. And we've got onions and garlic as well.

What do we do with this ridiculous amount of food? Well, on Thursdays we're in frenzy to get it all ready for our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members to come and pick it up. We have a hundred full shares which equals lots and lots of produce. And the rest we give to our half shares, our work shares, and our neighborhood markets to sell. And the rest is dumped on volunteers to take home and savor.

In a temporary bout of insanity, Oren promised Jaffna and I our very own market stand. It might not get the most customers, but it certainly gets the most enthusiastic. Every week our three favorite customers have extensive photoshoots with their newly purchased organic veggies. Plus, yesterday, we brought free samples of kale chips and rhubarb cake which we doled out to anyone walking by. One group of kids on scooters and bikes stopped by three times to take advantage of the cake. We also hand out free mint, oregano, and lovage to all our customers.

More news about the going-ons at this urban farm that somehow got stuck with these two hooligns to come!

Dent de Lion (tooth of the tiger)

There’s a lot of unappreciated weeds in the world. Dandelions are one of them. They’re pretty, smell nice, grow everywhere, and are edible! Edible is of course not synonymous with ‘delicious’ or ‘tasty’ or ‘I want this for dessert every day.’ But by applying some creativity, dandelions definitely can be seen more of a handy, hardy volunteer, and less of a nosy, annoying nuisance.

I ate a dandelion leaf today. It was a small, young leaf (supposed to be the least bitter) and was similar in consistency and texture to romaine lettuce. It definitely had a bitter aftertaste which I didn't find particularly pleasing. But supposedly a bitter taste can signify some healthy benefits of a food. It can also signify something being poisonous though, hence bitter things don’t taste good.

Anyways I won’t go into detail about how to combine dandelion flowers with fermented fluids to create an interesting twist to some adult beverages, but I think I have to mention the plethora of dandelion-themed edible delights, including dandelion-blossom bread, dandelion pancakes, cream of dandelion soup, etc etc.

The roots can be boiled and eaten, though I have not heard too many positive things about their taste. The blossoms, as I mentioned can be used in cooking and flavoring (but only the yellow part.) And the stems are generally stripped of leaves, which can be eaten plain or in salads, and discarded due to their bitterness. 

A google search would doubtless bring up a few thousand things which dandelion roots, leaves, or blossoms, would help some of which might be valid and some of which might be based on tradition. It is however, known to aid digestion.

A lot of bitter herbs cause your stomach to release more hydrochloric acid and bile which makes digestion in the stomach go faster. This effect continues in the liver which likewise helps the digestion process go smoothly.

Apparently, it’s an appetite stimulant and I have no scientific reasons as to why that might be. My personal theory though is that after eating a bitter leaf you start craving something sweet, like a brownie. That was my experience at least.

Dandelions also contain high levels of boron and calcium. I have never heard of boron before, or seen cornflakes boasting of their high boron levels so I was curious and looked it up. It’s a trace element and boron deficiency has never been noticed in humans, though they managed to inflict on rats. Anyways, don’t worry about boron deficiency. And, you know, if you feel like it, try eating a dandelion leaf. 

Smoothing out the circle of life

It’s a fact of life that everything dies. And sometimes death occurs at the hands of people engaged in the seemingly peaceful activity of farming. I’m pretty sure I’ve stepped on a few ants in the past ten months. But the type of death going on that had me concerned today occurred on a larger scale.

Animals that are classified as ‘pests’ such as raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, geese, and their insect counterparts like Japanese beetles, ants, aphids, etc. are often killed for the convenience of those owning the land and trying to grow produce on it. The killing of animals makes me uncomfortable, but I am a meat-eater and my continued existence doubtless causes the death of hundreds of animals every year. But I’m at least able to assuage my conscience by knowing regulations in place that prevent the inhumane slaughter of livestock to some degree. Needless to say, I heartily support efforts to raise animals and kill animals humanely and compassionately.

Drowning has sometimes been seen as a “peaceful” and “painless” way to die. It has a certain degree of passivity and doesn’t create a mess of blood and gore. Certainly in the past it’s been used to eliminate pests, and it’s highly probably that it’s a method used today.

I have never gone experienced anything close to drowning. But like almost every kid, I at times engaged in competitions to see how long I could hold my breath, or how far I could swim underwater at one time. And I wouldn’t call the burning sensation in my lungs peaceful or painless.

The American Veterinarians Medical Association would agree. In 1993 and every year since they have affirmed their stance that drowning is not a humane method of euthanasia.

Previously it had been believed that the rise of CO2 in the bloodstream would render the subject unconscious and incapable of feeling pain, and that thus drowning was painless. In 1983 an article published by Gilbert and Gofton stated that drowning animals resulted in death by carbon-dioxide-induced narcosis.

Since then, new evidence has been introduced. The study mentioned above for instance did not monitor the blood levels in their experiment. Subsequent experiments have. Eventually, levels of CO2 result in unconsciousness but not quickly. In fact, there is a spike in adrenaline or norepinephrine indicating stress. Survivors of incidents involving near-drowning report searing chest pain, panic, and terror. Imitated and intentional, near-drowning, most commonly referred to as ‘water-boarding’ is classified by the UN as torture.

I hope killing animals doesn't become a necessary practice, but if it does, I am confident that there is a better method than drowning.

good-natured hooliganism

Gourdening in May

Riverview Gourdens

Today at Riverview we planted gourds and squash. Both of these closely related plants are Cucurbitaceae- an important plant family consisting of of 825 species also including varieties of various melons,cucumbers, pumpkins, and luffas.

 Gourds and squash arrived in mesoamerica roughly 8,000 to 10,000 years ago, the culture they’re most connected with. But though they underwent significant change and domestication in the Americas, they probably came from somewhere in Asia according to DNA evidence. From there, some archeologists suggest they were carried by Paleoindian hunter-gatherers across land bridges that no longer exist to the Americas. Others believe they floated across the Atlantic and took root from there. Gourds have been known to float for up to seven months while still carrying viable seeds.

However they were introduced, they were a pretty big deal to the people there, a staple food item alongside maize and beans. Oftentimes, squash, corns, and beans were planted together—corn provided shade necessary for the squash, and a place for the beans to climb. Squash vines, in turn, cover the ground well and keep down weeds. Beans were the nitrogen fixers. What a great symbiotic relationship! It reminds me of how we try to plan our beds at Riverview so that each crop ends up helping others planted near it.

A note about summer and winter squash—there are different varieties that are specifically summer or winter squash. But the main difference is mostly in maturity. Summer squash is harvested early in the summer before the plants have matured. Thus the rind is tender and edible, and they require little or no cooking. I think I’ve only eaten winter squash because all the squash I’ve ever eaten definitely needed every second under boiling water that it got. Winter squash  is left alone all summer and harvested in fall. It’s much larger, harder, and lasts much longer. They can also be ‘cured’ to last even longer.

Gourds are also very cool. But generally not to eat. They’re not poisonous but they’re rather flavorless, tough, and lacking in edible flesh. Instead, they can be used to make awesome water bottles, musical instruments, utensils, and tasteful decorations. And they have been used thusly for the last 10,000 years.  I’m quite enthusiastic about a gourd instrument so I found some examples of them.

This is a maraca. A percussion instrument, it seems pretty difficult to make but it's easy to play. 

They also make very cool birdhouses. I hope we'll harvest some gourds towards that end.

I can't believe someone actually made fiddles out of gourds. I can't even imagine how difficult that must have been.

Smith, Bruce D., 1997, The Initial Domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 Years Ago, Science 276, pp. 932-934

Yup. And Wikipedia. 

AND PILES AND PILES OF SPINACH

So when I arrived at Riverview today, Oren and Liam were still expecting their order of a forest. Another busy task was at hand though because a local farmer, Steve, needed to collect around thirteen pounds of spinach and had only been able to gather about nine. There are two beds in a hoop house dedicated to spinach and, to help out Steve, Oren ordered Nate (the college-kid wannabe farmer) and me to exhaust the rows of any viable, green leaves. We managed to fill two large bags about halfway with spinach and although I'm not sure if we collected four pounds, they were quite heavy considering a single leaf is seemingly weightless in your hand. I would describe our collection as "a good amount."

While we were rooting through the yellowing leaves of spinach, Liam came across a leaf that was hosting a small colony of aphids. Aphids are these tiny yellowish bugs that almost resemble the dots of butterfly eggs except for their pair of antennae. Aphids are sometimes referred to as plant lice because they can be pretty destructive to the plants they inhabit. They feed on the sap of plants that travels up the phloem in their stems. The phloem is what carries sugar manufactured from the plant's leaves to other parts of the plant that do not conduct photosynthesis, like the roots. So when that sugar is being redirected into the stomachs of aphids, it doesn't bode well for the plant. Here's kind of what the aphids on the spinach leaves looked like

I would also like to mention that I would have not been half as interested about aphids had I not spent the summer at Riverview, in the company of a various assortment of eclectic and populous bugs. I've definitely become quite desensitized to their presence. Anyway, Oren and Liam will probably want to get rid of these bugs- I think Lam mentioned planting some herbs by the spinach would help.

I guess I should mention the trees now. I happen to know the exact figures- 2000 saplings! And each of them needs their own separate hole to call home. Is a certain Louis Sachar book coming to mind to you too?

Oh and lastly, about two days ago, Oren saw a mouse just minding it's own business and probably contributing to the ecosystem in a positive way and wanted to kill it. Mice are an integral part of the food chain in many habitats because they reproduce so quickly and in large quantities and they also control grain distribution by consuming them. I'm not saying you should make any sort of character judgment because of this but...

TREES EVERYWHERE

So. Many. Trees. It’s overwhelming. I don’t think there’s ever been this many trees in one spot in Appleton before. I don’t even know what to do. There are so many.

I can’t give a decent estimate as to how many there are, because I didn’t see them all. The trees are pretty tall, maybe a bit over six or so feet on average.  There’s pear trees, apple trees, peach trees, cherry trees, gooseberry bushes, raspberries, buffalo berries (I have no idea what those are), nantuk cherries (they’re a bush?), frostberries, (whatever those are) and grapes that had really long roots.

Folks at Riverview have spent all day digging holes for them, and making mounds of wet woodchips in the garage to store the ones that can’t get planted yet. It’s going to take a lot of man hours. Luckily, there’s a big group coming out this weekend from Appleton North High School. Kudos to them!

It’s actually very exciting, now is a great time to come to Riverview.  It’s pretty reliably over 40 degrees, the mud honestly isn’t that bad, there’s stuff to do besides painting walls, and, yup, there’s trees everywhere! 

Wednesday's activity revolved around beekeeping. Last year, Riverview had a total of 13 colonies of bees (kept offsite) that were newly started. Unfortunately, 8 of those colonies died, one from starvation, a few from dysentery, some from sudden colony collapse, and some from mites. Tragic.

The contraption was a series of tall drawers that fit about 6 vertical sheets of wood maybe a foot-and-a-half tall. The drawers could be stacked on each other, and pulled out to remove or view the wood inside that eventually becomes layered with honeycomb.

We were taught by Hava and Oren how to sort through the drawers filled with honey comb from the colonies that had died. After scraping off dead bees, mold, and the remains of waste (especially from dysentery afflicted colonies) we assessed the amounts of honey, wax, pollen, etc. and sorted them accordingly.

The sheets filled with honey were put aside for extraction; those with some honey, and some pollen (characterized by the darker color inside the combs) were left to be fed back to the colonies at a later date. Those without very much honey or pollen will be used to make candles from their wax once scraped.

Sometime (tentatively the first Wednesday of May) there will be a city council meeting regarding whether to allow Riverview and other residents or local groups in Appleton to raise bees. With sufficient space and training, beekeeping is completely safe and beneficial—and not just to the beekeepers themselves. Bees are important pollinators and increase crop yields and flower fertilization in up to about a two mile radius of their hive. Plus; a growing concern among environmentalists is the huge decline of bee populations throughout the United States in the wild. Starting colonies which can break off to form new colonies is an excellent way to help remedy this problem.

Bee Decline:
Although most beekeepers and farmers have been aware of it for a long time, it was only in the last few years that the United Nations Environment Program added to the voices cautioning about bee population decline. They note that the declining bee populations in Europe and North America are following a similar trend in China, Japan, and possibly even Egypt and other parts of Africa.

There’s a lot of ideas and theories about why bee populations is declining. Chances are, it has multiple causes that work together.

Insecticides:
According to Michael Wines of the New York Times in an article titled, “Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms” (March 31^st, 2013) The growth of a particular type of insecticide called  neonicotinoids are to blame. The American Bird Conservatory certainly seems to agree as they published a review of 200 studies, many of which were industry research, obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act (I find that added detail particularly interesting. Maybe someday I’ll go more into depth about how that works.) Their meta-analysis called for a ban on neonicotinoids used as seed treatments based on their toxicity not only to birds, but other organisms as well (like bees and other pollinators.)
Also in March, the Environmental Protection Agency was sued for allegedly performing inadequate tests on these pesticides, and approving them despite extremely harmful side-effects. Groups who joined in the lawsuit against the EPA included a coalition of beekeepers and conservation and sustainable agriculture advocates.

Interesting fact: Germany, Italy, and France have all banned the use of neonicotinoids because of their potential threat to bees around the country (the Guardian.)

Another study, published in the Science magazine found that when bees consumed one pesticide, they suffered an 85% loss in the number of queens their nests produced. Another study found that bees exposed to pesticides had more trouble returning ‘home’ meaning they failed to come back from food-foraging trips.
Of course it should be mentioned that companies that produce and sell insecticides claim that when used correctly, there are no ill effects causing bee mortality and they have their own studies they use as backing. But environmentalists and others argue back that those studies are not in the public domain, cannot be scrutinized or peer evaluated, and are therefore not as convincing as other studies.

Too Few Flowers:

There’s some concern that the loss of flowering plant species might be responsible for some of the bee decline. I did not find any studies either affirming or negating this (it is a pretty hard cause to set up an experiment for, I would imagine) but it’s a great excuse to plant more flowers. Just about anything would be helpful.

Varroa Mite:

The Varroa Mite is a parasite which possibly might give beekeepers a fright keeping them up at night. Mites get into the cells of bees, preferably drones, and suck the ‘blood’ of the bees, weakening them. From there, they rapidly reproduce and spread and infect the rest of the colony. Studies have found that bees infested with the mite are more susceptible to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder, for a quick refresher on what that is, refer to Jaffna’s last post) and infection.

Air Pollution:

Air Pollution is another factor that could be affecting bee populations. According to a study by the University of Virginia, air pollution might mess with a bees ability to ‘smell’ and find flowers and thus food. Pollutants such as ozone (smog) and nitrate radicals, often released from cars, can bind with ‘scent’ molecules and inhibit their ability to smell sweet. If bees can’t find the plants and flowers with nectar, not only does it hurt their hive, which might suffer from starvation, but it also has a huge impact on plants. Unfortunately, unpollinated plants can’t reproduce, and there are less flowering plant next year. Which leads to horrible cycle of less bees, less plants, etc.

It’s hard to tell people not to use their cars, but perhaps it’s best to be mindful and drive efficiently, carpool when you can, and ride your bike as much as possible. Don’t have a bike? Volunteer at Riverview this summer and you can take part in their earn-a-bike program! Guess what?! You’ll earn a bike!

Bee Importance:

The bees are needed to pollinate crops that feed the world's growing population. Of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, more than 70 are pollinated by bees, according to  the UN.

Achim Steiner, the executive director of UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) said: "The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century. Human beings have fabricated the illusion that in the 21st century they have the technological prowess to be independent of nature. Bees underline the reality that we are more, not less dependent on nature's services in a world of close to seven billion people".

So spread the buzz!

Sources!

norfolk honey (picture)

beeguardian.org

Michael Wines of the New York Times

The Guardian

UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program)

Science Magazine

University of Virginia

Oren but mostly Hava

An unceremonious funeral

Knock! knock!

Who's there?

Honey!

Honey who?

Honey. Collected from the combs of five hives whose winged inhabitants succumbed to the cruelties of survival and whose bodies were now being ruthlessly scraped into heaps on the ground in order to collect the last of their livelihood from their hives. 

If you laughed, I would seriously recommend getting an x-ray of your heart, you know, just to see if its there. 

Today at Riverview, Mira and I were put to the task of cleaning out the trays of honeycomb used by the tragically deceased hives. A rather casual autopsy was done by Oren, who concluded that one of the hives had died of starvation (because the bees were found burrowed into the honeycomb,desperately trying to find food of some sort) (do you realize how sad this is? This would be like finding a body halfway into an empty fridge or cupboard), one or two had lost a battle with a bacteria that caused dysentery (which can happen if the hive experiences a drought- like the one this summer) and one was also speculated to have possibly been choked by the freezing fingers of winter (because the bees were found clustered together). Especially intriguing were the last two hives, which were not filled with carnage like the others. With only fifteen or so bodies within the combs, Oren speculated that these bees had gone through COLONY COLLAPSE.

"What's colony collapse?"

Prepare yourselves my friends, because it's a panic unlike any other. More imminent than economic collapse if we continue our current governing strategies. More powerful than the supernova of a collapsed Red Giant. More shocking than an earthworm with a collapsed lung (fact: earthworms do not have lungs). It's sudden. Unexplained. A mystery.

I hope you didn't get too worked up because this may be a disappointment.

A colony collapse- or if you want to sound medically educated, Colony Collapse Disorder, or if you want to sound educated and cool, just straight up C.C.D- is when a colony of bees abandons their hive for no obvious reason. Apparently, unexpected desertion like this is common. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, one third of all colony losses have been attributed to CCD. That's not a good statistic for the bees or the beekeepers. There are actually researchers who have tried to pinpoint possible causes of CCD. Though none are currently supported by definitive evidence, there are four main focuses suspect to the crisis: 

Pathogens: though no specific one can be attributed to the total occurrence of CCD, there is correlation between hives infected with viruses and hives that eventually collapse. 

Parasites: Along with the absence of bees, another common indicator of a collapsed colony is the presence  of mites, specifically the varroa mite (I think Oren mentioned a hive that had mites?). Researchers believe that these parasites may transmit viruses that affect the colonies and cause CCD.

Bad Management: Stress brought on by long journeys of migration and overcrowding in artificial hives has also been thought to cause CCD. If this is the case, beekeepers of malpractice need to hang their heads in shame, have flour, butter, milk, and sugar stuck to their legs, be squeezed into an averaged-sized kitchen with a hundred other people, and forced to make bread all day (and then have half of their labor eaten by individuals of a "superior" species without profit). Don't worry, the hives at Riverview were not abused.

Environmental Stressors: Also our fault. This could include having bees exposed to pesticides or having access to pollen of a limited diversity or low nutritional value. Living near contaminated water could also be another factor. 

Currently, the consensus is that it is probably the perfect mix of assaults from above that bombard a weak hive at a vulnerable time.

And as I've come to learn, bees are quite vulnerable.

Hava, a really smart girl (maybe even smarter than Oren) who often helps at Riverview and is a student at Lawrence (and Lawrence's first beekeeper), informed us about bees and their ease of becoming susceptible to disease (not as good as Mira's poem but hey, I try). See, bees, like the offspring of generations of incest, do not have a lot of genetic diversity. This makes them have a weak resistance to a lot pathogens, if they penetrate the hive's walls. I'm now going to make another, seemingly digressive comment about Hava, that will actually directly transition into another main point quite smoothly. Hava has a great vocabulary. Today, she used the word "fastidious" and though I never learned it's meaning for the SAT, I will always remember it now because, when used to describe bees, it characterizes them as nature's innate germaphobes. Hava explained that, while they lack internal immunity, bees create environmental immunity by keeping their hives in tip-top shape via the removal of parasite-infected larvae and constant, fastidious cleaning. 

While we were excavating the combs, Mira and I noticed that, while some where filled with the recognizable honey-colored yellow we associate with the food, others were combs of sticky blackness. Hava said this colored honey might be from buckwheat nectar. Rachel mentioned this to us earlier this summer as well- the color of honey depends a lot on the type of flower it's nectar is taken from. The well-known colored honey in most commercial products is clover honey, which is popular for its sweet taste and light texture. Buckwheat honey is less sweet, but loaded with antioxidants and helps boost immunity (apparently you can use it as natural cough syrup as well). When I was in France, most of their honey was Chestnut honey- which has an almost reddish color. Apparently there are over 300 different types of varietal honey in the U.S. alone. Do we even have that many ice-cream flavors?

We don't get to talk to Hava often but it was nice to have a conversation with her today, and I sure learned a lot- look at the size of this post!     

The Incoherent Synopsis of April 16th

Some days anything you say or write ends up sounding scrambled and goofy, so it seems just as well to embrace it and enhance it by attempting to write some poetry. Which is what I did. I caution anyone reading this that all the rhymes were forced, there is very little standardized syllable count per line, and at places I digress from whatever point I originally intended to make and rambled on about something that might seem unimportant. Can we all agree to name our kids something that has at least one other rhyme in the english language? Hmm, I suppose it's a bit hypocritical of me to complain about that though.

Today was pretty muddy, which was sort of cruddy,
but not really, for I had a buddy!
The hooligan Jaffna, whose name literally rhymes with nothing.

Anyways.

It was rather chilly, so we felt rather silly,
for not dressing warmly, much less uniformly.
But we tied down some plastic,
with twine, how fantastic!
So we were in part successful,
despite the weather being stressful.
And then we went inside,
before our fingers died.
Because it was exceedingly cold,
Turtles can live to be really old.
Or so I've been told.
I  haven't actually ever met one.

And then we were enlightened,
and thus our day was brightened,
with lots of information
regarding herbaceous sensations!
Who knew lavender could
make tea that tasted good?
Or that when stuffed in pillows,
caused aromatic billows
and freshened up the room,
with a smell not unlike a bloom?
My life is more complete,
ain't that neat?

Saturday the 13th

Saturday the 13^th at Riverview. Yes, I am writing this on Sunday when I finally got around to it, but never fear, the details are as fresh as a eighteen month old twinky in my mind.

First of all, it was amazing how many cool volunteers showed up. I think they were all kids attending Fox Valley Tech but I’m not entirely sure. There were far too many to all do one thing so we split up into groups. In my group, we planted things! With me were Dariela, a foreign exchange student from Honduras, Won, from South Korea, and Katelyn, from somewhere else in Wisconsin, why can’t I remember? Oh well. So first we all planted a 500 cell tray of Sedona FI onions. That was tons of fun. 2000 onion plants right there.

Then we planted the last of the shallots, some Italian flat leaf parsley, and two different types of peppers. And believe it or not that took us about two and a half hours!

Some friendly neighbors came over and fed us cookies sometime in the middle of all that which was very nice of them even, and Sarah the seed-saver took cuttings of some pussy willow and distributed it to what I think were her relatives?

Tuesday, April 9h

“I tell you I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different”

Reading things by Kurt Vonnegut is pleasurable, provides a refreshing perspective, and makes one’s life more meaningful. Just like Riverview. [Yup, that phenomenal transition right there was completely original.]

Did you know that there’s a bunch of goofy little plants at Riverview (and doubtless elsewhere) that just keep growing taller and taller instead of wider and leafier. Honestly, back in the good ole days plants didn’t do none o’ this type o’ shenanigan, no sir, they just grew up prim and proper like teapots and salad forks. By golly.

Why do they do that? First, perhaps, we should talk about light and plants. Plants like light, they need it to grow. In the wild, light is a limited resource and plants must compete for it. If you’ve ever left a potted plant in the same spot by the window for a few months, you’ll have noticed that when you look at it again, it seems lopsided. The parts of the plant that have grown most are those with the best access to sunlight. The tendency of plants to grow towards light is called phototropism.

Growth of plants is controlled (like so many other things in life) by hormones. Specifically, the hormone auxin. Where there is auxin there shall also be growth. The concentration of auxin within a plant allows plants to exhibit, in addition to phototropism, the also convenient and beneficial hydrotropism and geotropism. 

Hydrotropism is when a plant grows towards a higher concentration of humidity or moisture, and geotropism is when plants grow in either the same direction of gravity (roots) or the opposite (stems.) They might not be recognized by spell check, but I assure you they are words. 

Let’s pretend for a second that seeds are sentient***. So a seed is in the ground, it senses moisture so it decides to germinate. It senses gravity and orients itself sending its roots down and its stem up. And it’s thinking about budding out into a leaf or two, but it can’t sense any light. Perhaps, thinks the seed, there is a larger plant blocking it and it needs to be taller before it can spread out a leaf that will get some sun. And then it enters this loop and keeps growing up at a rapid pace.

But, jokes on you plant, there wasn’t anything in your way, I just left you in the dark too long. And now you’re awkwardly tall and if you make some leaves you’ll just tip over and die, and you can't really just keep growing, and you can't shrink and then grow leaves. You're as hopeless as a lactose intolerant earthworm searching for nourishment in the South Pole.

Hopefully the daily occurrence of nighttime won’t be long enough  for this process to happen.  Hopefully, though evolution, plants have come up with a way to avoid that. Or maybe it was cloudy, or they were in the shade too much, but for whatever reason, we have got some leggy plants. 

Solutions? We'll just have to be extra careful that the finicky varieties get bright light while germinating. For the ones already too leggy, we can try replanting them deeper, covering up part of their stem. Or we could let them die. 

***I mean no disrespect to Jainists when I imply that plants are not sentient. 

Reading 'bout buckthorn, feelin' forlorn

So it’s Sunday and Riverview is closed. And lacking the social life to keep me occupied, I began browsing the internet to try to learn more about Buckthorn, specifically, how to get rid of it. And I must say I’m pretty impressed with how successful Buckthorn is about messing up people’s plans to kill it.

Buckthorn isn’t native to the Americas, it came from somewhere in Europe/Asia. We moved it over in the 1800's although it didn't become common until the 1900's. For quite a while it was sold as an ornamental and useful plant because it grew quickly and acted as a windblock. Farmers would buy it and plant it around their fields because the thick foliage blocked wind very effectively. Well, it certainly fulfills that. In Minnesota, it’s considered a ‘noxious plant’ and can’t be sold or transported. It’s so invasive and damaging to wildlife that it’s illegal.

Buckthorn seeds are really pretty sneaky. If you’re a bird, you might try to eat their berries. You will regret it. They have a pretty severe laxative effect and after consumption birds will quickly get rid of them and often become weak and dehydrated as a result. Disgusting thought it may be, diarrhea is a good environment for these seeds to grow, but it’s worth mentioning they can stay dormant in the soil for six years without dying. And they can float in water for up to a week while remaining viable.

Because they’re not from around here, they have no natural predators which also means they do nothing to feed or help the local wildlife. But they excrete chemicals that can actually inhibit growth of  nearby vegetation. They’re also really annoying in that they have thorns which are painful to walk through. I know this from personal experience. And their wood is completely useless and can’t even be used to burn or build. Burning the wood is impossible because of the sap in it and building with it is impossible becomes it cracks and snaps too much to be safe or reliable.

It’s also a host to things like aphids and some harmful fungi that kill trees and other native wildlife.

How to get rid of it:

Small shrubs can be pulled up, but if any of the root remains, it might regrow according to some. An outline from the biology department of the University of Minnesota assured me that it resprouts only from the stump, and not from the roots. They seem pretty legitimate but I would say that if you can get rid of the roots, you might as well.

Unfortunately, most of the buckthorn at Riverview is far too big to be pulled. The other option is to get a saw and cut it off at the base as close as possible to the ground. We have to be careful about this because if we let the branches fall, they’ll simply root in and start multiplying, so we have to bring them somewhere else. Because their seeds are so hardy, they’re not good for composting. And if we transport fallen branches anywhere we have to be careful to not spread around the berries and seeds. The seeds can be destroyed through burning, although I’m sure there’s other ways, that seems to be the most widely recommended. But even after we get the branches are berries away, eliminate them, and are left with just a stump, we’re not done.

Most sites on the internet recommend getting industrial-grade herbicide (triclopyr) and applying as much as three times to kill the buckthorn which is incredibly hardy. Some even recommend taking cans of it and soaking the stumps in it. I don’t believe that Riverview will do that because we avoid chemicals of death whenever we can.

 Another approach I read about was the tie garbage bags of sacks or something to block sunlight from the stumps. It’ll slow the growth, and as new buds try to come out, they can be clipped back until it finally runs out of steam. It’ll probably take a long time, probably many months per plant.

And the final step is of course to replant other hardy, native, and less aggressive plants in their place, like conifers and dogwood and eventually smaller vegetation too. Smaller plants can’t really flourish with buckthorn releasing chemicals that inhibit growth, sucking out the nutrients from the soil, and outcompeting them for the sun. But when the buckthorn leaves, there’ll be room for them. 

Friday and Saturday

Friday started with a festive seed-planting party in the greenhouse. Sarah, naturally, was geeking out over everything that was starting to germinate. Mizuno, yet more spinach, peas, carrots, cilantro, tomatoes, and possible a few more things that I'm forgetting were planted. We should hopefully see them sprouting up in about a week.

Since I generally have to go to school once in a while (by which I mean five days a week) I generally miss out on eating lunch at Riverview. Owing to a much-deserved spring break starting though, I was able to stay much later than normal. Thus I feel obliged to mention the delicious lunch thing I received. Green stuff, lentils and rice, and eggplant soup! Okay, that description was lacking and vague and possible not very flattering, I'll admit. But it was really good.

Next we wandered down to the ravine and trekked through the stream to where it empties out into the fox river picking up trash. A group of kids from Lawrence, including Nate the future farmer are hoping to turn it into a project, cleaning it, planting a diverse array of vegetation around it, and adding in fish as well. The stream is fed by run-off from all the surrounding streets which helps explain the incredible amount of plastic bags, cigarettes, lighters, cans, etc we found in it.

Also, a lot of the land around the ravine is woodsy and festered with buckthorn. Buckthorn is an invasive and aggressive plant that's woody and, as implied, thorny. Maybe someday a crew will go out and work on cutting it back and replanting with cuttings of dogwood, which is native, beautiful, not prickly, and nowhere near as aggressive. In that entire area, we'll need to plant conifers which can hold their own against the overwhelming brambles of the buckthorn.

On Saturday we started out with six and ended with two. I shouldn't play the sexist card but I'm totally going too. All the men ditched and by the end it was just Rachel and I scooping up mulch and and wheelbarrowing it to where it was needed--a four foot path along the muddy exterior of the hoop houses and then soaking up water in hoop house #4 in the furrows between the beds which had about six inches of standing water in them.

To be fair to those who left early though, sickness is aground in the Appleton area and the coldness isn't making it much easier. Plus; they got lots of work done before they had to leave which is always appreciated, and it's quite possible that they have lives and commitments and obligations outside playing in mud and other such activities at Riverview for hooligans. Luckily, I am not so burdened and can live life as a full-time hooligan.

What even is chickweed?

What the heck is chickweed?

Yup that’s admittedly the first thing that popped into my head when I first heard of it about eight months ago.

The next thing I learned was that it was a sensitive issue around Riverview. Some members being righteous supporters of the chickweeds right to live and provide nourishment, others critiquing the unwillingness of the general population to receive nourishment it that particular form. I think some type of compromise was eventually reached.

But I decided I should better educate myself on the issue.

Chickweed is a widespread, hardy annual plant that thrives in cold climates. Numerous sources agree that it is edible, but most add that it is “not very tasty.” (Sorry Sarah, I know you’re on their side.) It looks like this.

Kind of pretty. I’m afraid to say most articles then go on to explain the best ways of eradicating it. But you know if you dig around you can find some people posting ‘chickweed pesto’ recipes among other things, and apparently it can be used on cuts and other wounds to reduce pain and promote healing.

Other interesting things about chickweed. It’s actually classified as an herb, not a weed. It’s called chickweed because chickens really like to eat it. Please feel free to start a raging debate below in the comment section about whether it should be lovingly grown or heartlessly pulled.

Monday, March 25

Currently in Greenhouse 1 there are lots of spinach plants, some kale, plenty of rosemary a few happy spots of chickweed, and garlic all sprouting up on the four beds that extend for about thirty feet under the warm, heat-trapping plastic. In other words, there’s plenty of room for more. At least that was the rationale behind this morning’s delightful seed-planting session.

I planted four rows of spinach on one side of the upside-down “V” shaped bed, fellow volunteer Andy planted some ‘atomic red’ carrots, Carly planted the normal, orange carrots, and Nate the future farmer (not to be confused with friendly Nate of the orange hat who’s planning on running a triathlon because he’s cool) planted snow peas. Liam (the guy who should be in a ukulele commercial) offered free advice and sprinkled plants with water.

What an excellent day to plant! And I mean that in a scientific way of course. Because today is one of those days with a funny thing happening in the lunar cycle. Some people might think trying to maximize germination by planting when the moon is in certain positions is lunacy (ha ha ha!) but at Riverview we’re giving it a serious shot.

Some of the earliest studies took place in the 1950s by Mary Thun in Germany. She experimented using potatoes and found potatoes were more successful (grew better) when the moon was, from our perspective, positioned between the constellations of Taurus, Capricorn or Virgo. Also know as a "root day.”

Further observations and experimentation resulted in a type of agricultural practice under the larger field of biodynamics that contends that certain types of plants do better when planted underneath certain zodiac signs. I think I should throw in here that some people and websites consider biodynamics and a lot of the practices a form of pseudoscience.

But, as a counterpoint, it’s an observable fact that the moisture content of the soil is highest during the full and new moons when they exert a strong pull on the water in the earth. Professor Frank Brown from Northwestern University for instance, conducted a 10-year and found that plants absorb more water during the full moon.

Another interesting thing I came across is the practice of planting according to the zodiac signs, and their corresponding elements. Neither the 'fire' element nor the 'air' element are supposedly good for planting, but the 'earth' and especially the 'water' element supposedly are. From March 21 to April 20th is Aries. We're planting under the fire sign. Oops. Either I've grossly misunderstood the whole planting according to the element thing or no one is actually following this. Whatever! It's interesting.

Fire - Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Air - Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
Water - Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Earth - Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn

Today is March 25^th, the full moon is on the 27^th. That means that in the upcoming days the moisture content in the soil should peak, hopefully providing a bit of extra momentum to our seeds thinking about germinating.

I felt like I should include a reference even though probably no one reading this cares.

E. A. Crawford, The Lunar Garden: Planting by the Moon Phases(NY, NY: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989), pp. 9-26 & 47-50.

The last few days have been a comedy of errors in terms of making mobo-greenhouse number two. First, I take full responsibility for not cutting the two long sides very well. I take only partial credit for the fact that one of those boards was warped. I take some credit, and give some to our good hooligan friend Emma for our tendency to split the wood we were trying to predrill. And I thank chemists over the world for developing epoxy.

Epoxy is pretty cool. It's also a thermosetting epoxide polymer. What does that mean? A 'thermosetting' anything is something that irreversible cures. In this context 'cures' means sets or hardens, like glue. The 'thermos' part is because often the curing process involves heat, or happens faster with heat. Epoxy is no exception to that.

'Epoxide' refers to the types of atoms and the patterns those atoms are arranged in The most basic form is an oxygen atom attached to two carbon atoms of a hydrocarbon like so....
                                                       

• And a polymer is a chain of monomers. And a monomer is just a molecule. And a molecule is just a bunch of atoms. And atoms are just a bunch of quarks and gluons and who I am I kidding no one really knows what exactly they are. 

  Alright. So epoxy is basically a type of glue that dries in a very strong bond. Except to keep it from curing too early, its two components, the polyepoxide and the hardening agent, are separated. I believe the polyepoxide remains basically the same, and the hardening agent can be tweaked to make the reaction and curing process slower or faster.

  So once you have all the epoxy goop on the things you want to stick together, you let them cure. And once they're cured, there's strong, 3d bonds, connecting everything together. It works on metal, wood, paper, even human skin (hence you wear gloves when handling.) 

  If you're an Appleton East student, Mrs. Pezzi would be a great person to ask on why these particular bonds are so strong and form with so many different materials. 

  Also, if you heard gleeful whooping bordering on hysterical joy--it was probably Sarah looking at the germinating seeds. Don't worry, I think this is standard Sarah behavior. 

Dear readers whose existence is dubious, I am happy to say that there are now four hoop houses with plastic on them. To be honest though, the fourth one is still in progress. That's what we helped with this morning. My primary job was drilling these little self-tapping screws as close to the bottom of the hoops as I could get so that we could wind twine around them. It also was to help relieve the pressure of the poles.

I found this fascinating. The hoops are hollow metal, and they go pretty deep into the ground (an incredible amount of man hours went into pounding them into the ground.) And there's water in the ground that starts to rise up into the pipes. When it freezes, the water wants to expand, and the pressure gets more intense (also I think the metal constricts a little bit.) So as soon as I make a hole, a stream of water bursts out and I have to wait for it to stop before screwing it in all the way.

Earlier this year, some of the metal got warped and we think it was because the frozen water expanding pushed the pipes partially up out of the ground, which bent the wiggle wire that was connecting them. Moral of the story: if you're sticking a hollow metal pipe deep into the ground and you want it to stay uniform in height relative to another metal pole, drill holes into it to help release any water pressure that might build up inside it.

Economics and a bench

So today I dared to venture another question about economics. I'm taking my first semester of Econ at East and it's an interesting class because there's a definite science behind how one decision can affect an entire market yet no definite answer exists to fixing problems. It's like a battle of logic and, for me, it's difficult to distinguish flaws in differing economic opinions.

So I ask Oren. Out of all the inquiries Mira and I have thrown at him, he always seems to articulate a pretty good answer. Plus he gets kind of excited and worked up about the topic of economics and that's amusing within itself so...

Question: "What do you think about raising minimum wage?"

Oren thinks that by giving minimum wage earners more money, money will be more likely to circulate through the system because people of lower income are more likely to spend the money they earn. I read an article about this opinion so it was cool to understand that reasoning. Then Oren went into trickle-down vs trickle-up economics. Pretty interesting stuff right there.

Oh and while our heads were being saturated with economic theory, Mira and I helped Oren unscrew and move a bench from the Community Center to the garage. Then we shoveled out one of the hoop houses with Liam in preparation for covering it with plastic.

This delightful Wednesday morning was spent in hoop house number three. Three beds are complete, and hopefully this week we'll finish up the final one on the north side. That bed is slightly different, there's a bigger path between that bed and the adjacent one and it's not dug, its instead built extra high. I'm not entirely sure if there's reasons other than maximizing the amount of sunlight it gets. I'll try to remember to ask someone.

Sink Installation is still underway.

It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow, and they might try to get the plastic up on one of the uncompleted greenhouses. I'll explain this a bit more; Riverview set a goal to build ten hoop houses a year for at least three years. so far this year we have the metal frames and hoops of ten set up, but only three of them have plastic over them and are warm enough for stuff to be grown in them. And of those three, only two of them are actually planted. It's kind of an experimental year. We're figuring out what grows what doesn't, even though the idea is that hoop houses keep everything warm, some nights it still sinks lower than we'd like in temperature. So we need pretty hardy plants. The most resilient plants so far are spinach and rosemary. interestingly enough. Next year, stuff will actually be grown, harvested, and sold. Theoretically.

We had another high school volunteer today, by the name of Emma! How excellent! Nate (the friendly guy in the neon orange hat) and Liam (ukelele commercial guy) were also here.

Tuesday

Random interesting discussion we had this morning: Chain Corporations; good or bad for the economy?

According to Oren (that hippie farmer always wearing a baseball hat)—they’re bad. Sure, they provide jobs. For every dollar you spend at Walmart, a portion of it will indeed go into the wages of a local employee, who will then spend a portion of that dollar back into the local economy. So that's good. And, like with most companies, a portion of that dollar you spent will go to the cost of the stock that Walmart purchases (from some supplier somewhere). That's not necessarily helping the local economy, but it's inevitable for some products. But a lot of that dollar, goes up the food chain of Walmart employees and ends up in the hands of a small group of people, like a CEO and top executives, not living in Appleton, or Wisconsin, or anywhere around here. And that part of your dollar just got sucked out of your local economy.

 

Whereas for a small company, centered in the Fox Cities, (I shall call it Malwart) all of the dollar you spend (minus whatever you pay your suppliers) goes back into your local economy. After all, all the managers, the executives, if there are that many of them, live close by and will spend that money on local goods. So a dollar spent at Walmart does less to improve the economy than a dollar spent at Malwart. So heed my cry local Wisconsinites! Create new businesses with funny names and we can spend our way back to a happier economy! Maybe.

I feel conflicted for bashing Walmart for a couple reasons. The first of which being that Walmart is not the only huge international corporation picking profit from various small cities around the world and depositing them all in the hands of just a few individuals. The way our economy seems to work is that large-scale corporations allow increased efficiency that tends to allow them to be more competitive, have lower costs, be more successful, and expand. Many large corporations, like Walmart, McDonalds, etc. manage to keep prices lower than local competitors and thus people buy from them instead. Is it fair to blame them for being competitive when it's our choice as the consumer to buy there?

Plus, if Appleton had a very successful start-up business that became national, and Appleton remained the headquarters, and the owner used the profits he/she received here in the Fox Cities, we probably wouldn’t be bashing them. So even though some of the dollar we spent at Walmart left our economy, it's still going out there goes to help some economy somewhere (Walmart's Headquarters are in Arkansas.)

So what’s the answer? I don’t know. But I thought I’d assemble a list of stores around the Fox Cities that are locally based, state-based, nationally-based, or internationally-based. Even if it doesn’t affect my behavior as a consumer, it’ll still be interesting. And if it's not, well, hey--no one's forcing you to read it.