Blog Topic: Food & Garden
For our sustainability project we have inoculated a variety of mushrooms in a few different types of substrates (substrates being the medium of which the mushrooms are grown on). We inoculated several oak logs that were cut down this past summer with shitake mushrooms, and one pine log with phoenix oyster. To do that our mentor Malaika ordered some plug spawn online (which are one inch dowels that have been colonized with mycelium. We then drilled holes in the logs, and plugged the holes with the dowels. After all the logs were plugged with the spawn, we covered the plugged holes and ends of the logs with beeswax to contain moisture. The logs should start fruiting anywhere between 6-18 months, and will continue to fruit for up to six years.
Since we love mushrooms and wanted to eat the ones we grow, we decided to grow some in bags also. Growing in bags doesn’t take as long to produce mushrooms. We did this by getting used coffee grounds from a café in Grass Valley, and saving the sawdust from when we drilled the oak logs. We inoculated pearl oyster mushrooms in coffee grounds, and shitake mushrooms in a mixture of coffee grounds and the sawdust. Unfortunately the mycelium is taking a while to spread throughout the bags, so we probably wont see them when they’re done growing.
Then, when preparing for the forest garden, a few trees were cut down. We decided to inoculate the stumps so mushrooms could be a part of the permaculture project. We had to girdle the stumps first to kill the tree because they have natural fungicides that can inhibit mushroom growth, and you have to wait until those fungicides go away. Then we drilled holes and inoculated the plug spawn. In the oak stump we inoculated more shitake, in the pine we inoculated turkey tail, in the honey locust we inoculated maitake (hen of the woods).
Having mushrooms grow here at Woolman will contribute to a more sustainable existence. Our kitchen will rely less on outside sources for mushrooms, and everyone here will benefit from their health benefits.
Here are some pictures of the logs, stumps, and bags we inoculated.
Responses:
As a group, we have faced many challenges, predicaments, and changes in our plan for our Sustainability Project. Through the many stages of our project, we have come together as a group and found a project and goal that is both feasible, productive, and sustainable: A new chicken coop that will provide a space that could house enough chickens to sustain the needs of The Woolman Semester. This includes the initial blueprint of the chicken coop design and a list of materials needed and their prices.
One problem we faced was the short lifespan of these creatures, and how a meat-free school could dispose of chickens who no longer lay eggs.
We searched for chickens that are hardy, well-tempered, and used mainly for egg-laying purposes. Our top choice was the Rhode Island Red Chicken. This breed stands out particularly because of its egg-laying abilities. It is also extremely hardy in all seasons, but especially winter.
The basic design for our chicken coop is a small wooden building and an area for the chickens to move about and forage. The outside area is surrounded by chicken wire to protect the chickens from predators. The chicken coop will be locked with a hook at nighttime to keep the chickens safe when there are no humans watching them.
There are two kinds of chicken coop floors we considered: a solid metal floor with metal sides and a floor made of chicken wire with hay regularly put in. Both keep out digging predators such as foxes. A solid metal floor offers more protection and durability than a simple wire floor. However, the wire floor offers more opportunity for the chickens to scavenge and is simpler to acquire and install.
There will also be a chicken wire fence around the area in which the chickens roam during the day to deter predators.
Unfortunately, chickens have many predators living in the Nevada County area. The most common are foxes, raccoons, mountain lions, hawks, and chupacabras. Foxes have been a big obstacle for Woolman chicken owners in the past. Foxes can dig like dogs and climb like cats, so keeping them away from a chicken coop is extremely difficult.
Though we have faced many obstacles, we have completed our design for a chicken coop. We hope that future Woolman students will continue our work and help to build a more sustainable community here at Woolman.
Knowing that our beloved Dorothy, has been wanting a flower bed for a long time, we decided to take it up on ourselves to create it. When we came up with the concept of creating flower beds, we decided we wanted to make our campus even more beautiful and to increase the flow of pollinators for the orchard on our campus.
We started out this project thinking it would just be as easy as planting some flowers, but we realized we had a few hiccups along the way.
We realized that there are a lot of deer that live around the campus. Therefore, we had to research on ways to deter the deer from eating and destroying our plants. In addition, we wanted to make sure our plants would survive the winter so we did some research on mulching and cold frames. Furthermore, another important aspect of planning where to put our flower beds, was taking into consideration of how much light they would receive for their success.
The last problem we encountered was increasing and keeping the population on the campus. We wanted to make sure that they would be visible to the visitors and residents of the Woolman campus. Our original thought was to place them on the south facing side of the admissions office. The area that we planned to put our flower beds was not agreed upon by the head of school. Although we were not able to go with our original plan, we were able to find two additional spaces to put our flower beds. The first place where the flowers are located is surrounding the bird bath. The second place would be in front of the office doors.
Although we had a lot of obstacles we were able to overcome and successfully create beds you see today...
~Special THANKS to: Jacob, Malaika, Grace, Sandy Cumen, and Kristen!!! (thanks for ALL of your help...couldn't have done it without yawl!!!) =)
THIS WAS OUR SECOND TO LAST WORKING DAY! :( CHLOE AND ILANA GETTING IT DONE! HIWOT AND HER PERFECT SMILE! ILANA PLANTING A BULB! ( Ahhh... the sight of progress... ) OUR AWESOME BIRDBATH WITH THE ILLUMINATING SUN! OUR AWESOME COLD FRAME! (YAY! ITS WORKING!!!) THAT WAS OUR FINAL DAY WORKING...FLOWER POWER FOR LIFE YO!!! =)
Dear Woolman friends and family,
For my sustainability project, I am constructing a creative print-media journal about the power of place at Woolman, focusing on the sustainability of storytelling. I will implement a “Letters to the Land” living history program for Woolman. Through this program, I am asking students, semester alumni, John Woolman School alumni, interns, faculty, community members and more-- to write a letter documenting their experiences at Woolman, specifically focusing on preserving their memories for the future. I am hoping for these letters to be a biannual tradition that will document the rich and diverse culture of this place.
In your letter, please reflect on the time that you have spent here and what it has meant to you. I encourage you to do this by recalling a specific experience, conversation, or revelation that occured during your time at Woolman. Through this experience, further discuss your current and developing relationships with this place. It is important to be authentic in your responses, as the purpose of this project is to record both the struggles and triumphs that inevitably take place at Woolman- honesty will make this project more powerful!
You may either print your letter (using Arial font, Size 12) or write out your letter in a thoughtful and readable manner (for instance, writing your letter on stationary would be awesome- but not on a crumpled piece of paper!) Letters should be about two paragraphs to one page in length (although longer is totally fine). Please begin your letter “Dear Woolman.” After that, you have complete artistic control! If writing a letter does not see like the right format for you, other options include providing a picture, collage, poem, drawing, or any other artistic format your heart desires. If you have any questions, please email Emily (Global Issues and Peace Studies teacher) at emilyz@woolman.org.
Other things you might want to think about while writing:
- Your relationship and connection to the land and people at Woolman
- What you imagine for Woolman's future- hopes and fears etc.
- What you would like future semesters to know about Woolman and/or experience during the semester.
Thanks SO much!
Annelise Hildebrandt
Responses:
Photos taken during Permaculture class. Sammi, Graeme, William, and Doug plant Oak seeds.
Responses:
As a part of my intern duties, every two weeks I prepare and spray compost tea on our entire garden. The "tea," prepared using a giant tea bag filled with 9 pounds of our own compost, among other things, is designed to harness the yummy bacteria, yeast, and other microorganisms living in our compost and distribute them to our fruits and veggies to aid in root growth, nutrient intake, and fruit production.
What I didn't realize when I signed up for this position is exactly how literal Malaika, our fearless garden manager, was when she said I had to spray the *entire* garden. Although our ~1 acre of food and flowers doesn't seem much at first glance, it turns out there's much more area to cover than I might have originally thought.
The first time I sprayed compost tea, it was peak harvest season and all of our vegetables were growing in full force. It took me almost 5 hours of slowly walking with a heavy backpack sprayer to cover 80% of the foliage and ground cover around the garden. Though I had prepared for the worst, I found as I walked that I saw the garden in a whole new light. Plots I had never seen before came into view - one covered in corn, squash, and beans in a "three sisters" planting in the Old Garden, which looked like autumn in early September; a patch of raspberries that was hidden from the rest of the garden that needed immediate care; a patch of lettuce that we had seeded upon my arrival now nearly ready for harvest. Even better were the non-plant garden residents I had never seen before - a large number of bright green frogs on the huge leaves of cucurbits (squash, melons, and cukes), tiny garden snakes among the potatoes, and cats that even in the 5 weeks I had lived here I had never encountered. It seemed the garden was larger not just in physical size, but in its population.
Some argue the merits of compost tea, especially compared to the amount of effort and labor put into it. Opponents claim that the microorganisms in solution are so dilute and widely sprayed that they would never make it to the roots and truly impact the growth of our plants. I would argue that simply the act of giving time and attention - really, loving kindness - to all of our plants is enough to justify the practice, and love them I do. After each batch, there is a little tea left over that can be given to my favorite crops as an extra snack - during my first batch, I gave it all to the tomatoes, which were producing heavily and in need of all the nutrients they could get. Now that a frost has cut back tomato production significantly, I give big sips to our raspberries in the lower garden, the soybeans that I can't wait to steam as edamame, and the late planting of potatoes that need all the love they can get.
I am grateful for the opportunity to witness the garden's evolution over these weeks, and to orchestrate the growth and happiness of the Tea itself. Every batch we've prepared this year has tested with the highest levels of bacteria, yeast, and fungi possible - meaning that we are getting those lovely critters to all of our plants just when they need it. In this photo, you can see a cross-generational collaboration for compost tea - Althea, our resident scientist at 2 years of age, *loves* the sprayer almost as much as she loves eating fresh veggies out of the garden! It really is an awesome opportunity for *everyone* (and everything!) that lives in and loves the garden to work together. :-)
Responses:
This week the Woolman Semester visited various food production companies and farms in order to gain more knowledge on how our food is made. The part of this trip which influenced me most was when we visited the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory.
Before we started the tour, we took a group picture with a giant, plush, anthropomorphic jelly bean. My roommate and I jokingly kissed the cheeks of the jelly bean for one photo. I didn't even think about how unsettling it was that I was putting my lips next to a mascot for the idea that processed sugar and cornstarch is okay.
As the tour began, I happily breathed in puffs of sugar and crowded next to the other tour members to watch a tiny TV screen showing a pear peeling away to reveal a pear flavored jelly bean. The implication was that the jelly bean was whole and pure, tasting just like a pear. (They even said at one point during the tour that every Jelly Belly jelly bean tastes "exactly like you think it would".) The screen then showed us a video telling the history of Jelly Belly, weaving a charming family tale. I didn't even stop to think about how this quaint little family was now producing modified cornstarch in multiple factories across the nation. We then moved on the elevated ramp to the next station and viewed the factory in motion, the workers looking like ants below us. At the time, nothing seemed wrong with watching these little white ants pile sugar, corn syrup and flavoring into various machines which pushed and pulled and turned them until they popped out as jelly beans. Some of the ants even smiled at us as we walked by. The tour guide nonchalantly mentioned that all jelly beans which were dropped on the factory floor were donated to local farmers who fed them to their pigs. The entire process seemed satisfying, pure, and safe from the beginning to our free samples at the end.
After leaving the factory, I started to leave the fantasy world which was displayed to me by the tour guide. I started wondering what exactly this "flavoring" was made of and how exactly these machines pushed and pulled this sugar, corn syrup, and the ever mysterious "flavoring" into the right shape every time. Rapidly the charming fairytale of wholesome jelly beans fell apart.
It becomes very easy as a society to accept this story of quaint families, happy little white ants, and dollops of sugar cased in flavoring. We pretend that the things we like are the things that are good. As uncomfortable as it is, we must delve deeper into where our food comes from, how it is made, and how every being which comes into contact with it is affected. Are the workers paid fairly? Does this quaint little family realize that they hold an almost-monopoly? Are the pigs who are fed jelly beans negatively affected by them? I don't know, because I was willing to accept the pleasant fantasies of the tour. However, I plan to learn more about it here at Woolman, and I hope that you will join me in finding out more than the cover story on where our food comes from.
Responses:
I left for the food intensive a vegetarian and came back having eaten more meat then I used to in a month. In one week I had my views put onto a merry-go-round and spun so much that they no longer knew right from left and top from bottom. Our first stop brought me close to something very familiar, the smell of manure and the soft low of cows. The conditions that shocked some of the other people seemed normal to me. The perfume of the manure pile brought tears to my eyes, because of home and the pungent odor. I know that scary looking instruments used in the cows care are safe and humane and it took the edge off the feedlot.
That day we also visited a slaughterhouse. My only knowledge of slaughterhouses came from horror flicks and TV shows. I was surprised at how clean the whole operation appeared. The efficiency reached by the gleaming metal machinery was fascinating. The whole process was a lot more sanitary and humane than I thought it would be. While there I realized that if I knew an animal had been slaughtered in such a manner I could eat it. My new found perception on meat got a chance to show itself during that tour when the tour guide gave us bags of beef jerky and other pre-cooked meats. I was able to eat the jerky without seeing the old images of horror movie slaughterhouses and with the ability to respect the unknown cow it had come from.
My views were flipped in more ways than meat though, as I found myself turned off by the polarized sides of food. Where I once thought that organic equaled good and GMO was bad, I started to re-evaluate. I started to wonder if, in the struggle for a more sustainable future, a mixture of both practices was what was needed. Genetic Modification can be more than just adding pesticides to the plants, it can also mean making plants able to grow in inhospitable areas or add nutrients back to the ground while growing. The “good” organics on the other hand became too biased, with people picking and choosing data just as much as the “other side”. I felt alienated because I wanted to find a bridge between the two sides were I could comfortably try to understand and combine the points of view. In a way, I wanted my revelation about eating meat to be true for organic and GMO crops, where you can have it as long as you take knowledge with you.
The building looks like any other around. The only difference is the feeling that comes with looking at the large doors. My knuckles grow white as my finger nails dig into the palm of my hand to keep myself from running back to the safety of the Suburban. I glance wearily around at the faces of those closest to me and see their concern. I must look like I’ve seen a ghost. I have in some aspects of the word. Standing outside the building makes me feel like I'm staring at a sleeping monster. One false move could wake the beast from its slumber.
Let the tour begin.
The man in front of us says his name but all I can see is his t-shirt. The slogan reads “bacon is meat candy”, a harmless enough shirt if we weren’t standing outside a university slaughterhouse which happens to be this man’s chosen profession. The man talks about the treatment of the animals. “It’s the most humane way of killing them” I try to tell myself. Even the voice in the back of my head shakes. He brings us around to where they keep the animals. All I see in the currently empty stalls are the faces of those animals that once stood there. I hear their feet walking along the same path that we walk now. They don’t know where they are going, but we do. I feel lightheaded as the man talks about stunning the animal and bleeding it out until there is nothing left. The heavy door opens and we are told to walk inside. My nose is assaulted by the smell of too much bleach and stale metal. It’s too bright, the florescent lights glow and bounce off the stainless steel room, in an unnatural way. The man describes the next steps of butchering the animal, and my mind sees it all. I see the blood pooling and slipping down the drain. The animal died with the last beat of its heart. I feel dizzy, lightheaded and my hands start to shake. Tears spring to my eyes as I try to shake the images from my head. I walk out the same way that we came in, muttering something about needing air to the teacher closest to the door. I feel the sadness and death emanating from the building like an ice cream cone melting in the bright California sun. I can hardly see where I am walking with my vision blurred and obscured by the image of pooling blood.
The rest of the group came out of the deadly building carrying bags of beef jerky and sausage links. I wanted to vomit. How could they? The very thought of eating meat, particularly after that, made me sick. Yet, there they were, eating away as if nothing had happened. We climbed into the Suburban and I pray that I never see that place again.
Looking back I think that, as scary as it was, I’m glad that I went inside. I had been so convinced that I wouldn’t even be able to do that. It took a lot courage to even go. I have never been very good at dealing with the sight of blood. I knew that it would be difficult. At the time it felt worse than it does looking back. The needless mass killing of animals is something that I feel very strongly about. I don’t think that we have to give up meat entirely, but I do think that we, as humans, eat more than our fair and healthy share of animals. Just like with everything moderation is key.