DIY Tree Wrap

It's a wrap! Our baby weeping willow tree gets a winter coat.

Anyone in the North Country attempting to grow trees would be wise to wrap the young saplings before we really get slammed with winter temperatures. But throughout the country, growing certain trees in winter climates will require a little wrapping.

How well you wrap your trees is totally dependents on climate, wind intensity, and type of tree. If you're trying to grow a fig tree in the Northeast, for example, you'll want to wrap it with carpet and surround the whole thing with a tarp (click here for the full rundown); if you've got dwarf hybrid peach trees that are perfectly comfy at -25 degrees, you can go with fabrics, bubble wrap, and old feed bags.

In most four-season climates, it's best to wait until around Thanksgiving to wrap your trees, so as to avoid inviting insects seeking out residence. But our frost came Friday night—which meant it was time to ensure these immature trees had an extra layer of warmth. If we get warm nights again, we'll be double- and triple-checking the babies to make sure no pests have set up shop.

We have two baby peach trees and a weeping willow on the property. Here's how we protected them:

How to Wrap:

1. Purchase tree wrap from a garden supply store. You may need multiple rolls of wrap, depending on how many trees you need to protect. The wrap is available as waterproof, crinkled paper or burlap. It generally comes in sections of four-inch widths and may include adhesive to secure the wrap. Purchase tape or rope separately, if needed. Tree wrap also is available as vinyl spirals or self-sealing foam. If you want to make your own, utilize burlap, fabric, feed bags cut into 4-inch strips, or a similar replacement. Foam pipe insulation is great for skinny saplings!
2. Begin wrapping the tree starting from the very base of the trunk and work your way up. Overlap the edges of the wrap to ensure the wind will not penetrate the cracks. Stop wrapping where the branches of the tree begin and secure the wrap with the adhesive, tape or rope, as applicable.
3. Don't worry about wrapping the entire tree. Wrapping the trunk of the tree will allow for enough protection throughout the winter.
4. Place mulch around the bottom of the tree for extra protection of the trunk and roots. Make a six-inch layer of mulch extending two feet around the base. Do not place the mulch directly next to the trunk. Not only will mulch protect the base and roots but it will also help to retain moisture throughout the winter.

Got a great gardening tip to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.

On Growing Eggplants

Fresh eggplant in mid-October!

Talk about a late growing season! It's Oct. 12, and we've just plucked some gorgeous, ripe eggplants from the garden.  A member of the nightshade family, the eggplant is related to the potato and tomato. Eggplant is actually a fruit, specifically a berry. 

We planted black beauty eggplant seeds purchased from Seeds of Change way back in the beginning of the summer. The droughts throughout the season really stunted growth for a bunch of crops; but thanks to extensive mulching in all our rows, the cold has yet to really affect most of our late-summer veggies. Tomatoes are still turning red, and we found these beauties (with several more still on their way!) just two days ago.

Here are some tips we've consolidated regarding raising eggplants:

Nutritional information: eggplant

Eggplants grow in a wide assortment of shapes, sizes, flavors, and colors to decorate the garden or create that favorite recipe. Eggplants can produce round fruits, fat and oblong ones, or slender and elongated fruits. The colors range from shades of purple, black, and lavender, to red, pink, rose, yellow, white, orange, green, and even multi-colored and striped eggplants. You can choose from tiny, marble sized varieties, right on up to giant zucchini sized eggplants.

We started our seeds back in March and raised the young plants in the greenhouse until mid-May. Usually we transplant in June, but the season started early this year so we decided to go for it. If you grow eggplants and tomatoes, a good rule of thumb is to start eggplant seedlings a couple of weeks ahead of tomatoes, and transplant the young eggplants into the garden a week or two after setting out tomato plants.Eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers will all follow a similar growing schedule.

Eggplants can be cultivated in a manner very similar to tomatoes. They will flourish under the same growing conditions, and also prefer a fertilization regimen that favors potassium and phosphorous over high levels of nitrogen, especially when the plants are flowering and fruiting.

Although our eggplants appear to be extremely late bloomers, this vegetable actually likes it hot. Eggplants grow very well in raised beds and can be spaced 12 inches apart in each direction. Healthy plants will quickly cover and shade the bed, eliminating any opportunity for weeds to become established.

Click here for a yummy eggplant parm recipe!

Cold Season Remedy: Tomato Tea

A cold-season surge has hit the North Country. Between all the bronchitis, allergies, chest colds, and pneumonia going around, you'd be well advised to hunker down with a pile of tea, some hankies, and any meds you can get your hands on.

Talking to a neighbor the other day, I was told about Tomato Tea; a miracle tincture that supposedly gets out even the most stubborn colds and flus better than antibiotics. Key ingredient? Garlic. If you've just been hit with an autumnal illness, you'd be smart to give this simple recipe a go:

Basic Tomato Tea

Heat up a mug of tomato juice (with or without a bouillon cube) to boiling.

Add 1 fat clove of crushed garlic

Stir.

Drink two a day (morning and late afternoon) for 10 days.

This concoction will supposedly start to work within three to five days. Can't stand tomato juice? Just use broth or water with bouillon in it.

Click here

for more information about the wonders of garlic.

Protect Your Tomatoes from Frost

A boxful of green tomatoes.

Even after several great tomato harvests this summer and fall, the Better Farm tomato plants are still producing. After a near-frost the other night, our intern Jackson Pittman has been hard at work insulating the garden rows and protecting our produce from the elements. Green tomatoes will continue to ripen off the vine, so today he set about picking fully grown fruits and storing them in a cool, dark place so they can reach their full maturity in peace. Here's how you can protect your tomatoes from frost.


Keep in mind that tomatoes must reach a green, mature stage in order to successfully ripen after being picked. Fruits should be firm and full-sized. Small, hard tomatoes haven't developed enough to finish the ripening process. Pick the green fruits before the first frost damages the tomatoes. If most of the tomatoes on the plant have reached a green mature stage, pull up the entire plant for ripening indoors instead of picking individual fruits.

Fully green tomatoes will obviously take longer to ripen after picking than those beginning to develop a red or orange blush, so separate tomatoes by color. Store the fruits in a shallow, open box in a single or double layer until you are ready to fully ripen the tomatoes. Place the tomatoes with the stem end down if you are stacking them two layers deep to prevent bruising. Store green tomatoes in a 55- to 70-degree location and store those developing their red color in a 45- to 50-degree location. How quickly the tomatoes ripen varies, so check the stored fruits once every two to three days and remove any from storage that develop a full red color.

Tomatoes ripen on pulled plants within seven to 10 days after picking if they are left attached to the plant. Hang the plant upside down in a cool, dark area, such as in a basement. The tomatoes that have already begun to develop a blush ripen first. Pull the tomatoes from the plant daily as they reach their full color. Discard the old plant once all the tomatoes have reach the full red stage of ripeness.

Tomatoes picked individually ripen best at room temperature, or approximately 70 F. It takes the tomato approximately 14 days to reach the full, ripe stage if it is picked when fully green. Keep the tomatoes in a box or paper bag on the counter but away from direct sunlight during the ripening period. Remove fully ripe tomatoes from the box daily for immediate use until all the tomatoes have reached full maturity. Tomatoes will slowly ripen if kept in a 55 F location. Tomatoes ripened at this lower temperature take approximately a month to reach full maturity.

Cold-Weather Prep For House, Grounds

As the nights in the North Country see colder and colder nights, we've begun prep work on Better Farm's main house and grounds to better insulate our people and plants.

There's opportunity in every planting zone for year-round harvesting.

We're doing kale and garlic as our bumper crop this fall, while adding lots of hay, compost, and cardboard to existing plants in the garden to encourage growth throughout the fall (our broccoli, swiss chard, kale, cauliflower, tomato, squash, eggplant, potato, and celery plants are all still growing strong!). For fresh rounds of plants like kale, we

built cold frames

to protect the immature plants and, later when the weather really dips, to protect mature plants from the elements:

Here are some baby kale plants waking up in a cold frame:

It's also time for upping our

levels of mulch on garden rows

and around plants and small trees. Our

baby peach

and willow trees are additionally being

wrapped this week for added insulation

(we're making our own insulation, or you can buy your own).

Inside, we've also rotated our crop in our

aquaponics setup

, starting some various salad sprouts as well as more lettuce.

Studies have found that by

saving even 1 degree of heat during the winter months can help cut your electricity bill by as much as 2 to 3 percent

. Insulating the ducts helps to maintain the desirable temperature without allowing any air to enter or escape and disturb the equilibrium being achieved. To that end, today we

wrapped foil tape around each heat duct

joint in the basement to prevent air leaks and ensure the forced air makes it upstairs all winter long. (You can also insulate your entire ducts; see how

here

).

Inside the main house, we'll be

swapping out summer curtains for insulated winter ones

; sealing leaks in windows and doors, and exploring new ways to increase the efficiency of our kitchen-dwelling wood stove.

Got a great winter-ready tip to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.

On Peeing Outside

In a recent Podcast, Permies director Paul Wheaton chatted with Anna Birkas, who is in the process of writing a book called “How to Pee Without TP.” Their conversation describes in great detail the methods and maintenance of peeing in the great outdoors and doing so comfortably. Birkas  is also designing a line of pants for women that allow them to pee more easily when outdoors.

(click here for the podcast: 211 – Females Peeing Outdoors)

We're going to use this opportunity to chronicle different perspectives on going in the great outdoors; from outhouses to fertilizer to weed-killer to septic saver. The basic gist: Human urine contains abundant nitrogen, a key nutrient for plants and soil microorganisms. In proper dosages, this can be like steroids for your garden, lawn, or back nine—and save millions of gallons of fresh water from literally being flushed down the drain.

Urine Luck

Garden centers sell urea (which is actually fake urine) as fertilizer, and a whole lot of compost enthusiasts use pee as a compost activator.  Researchers at the University of Kuopio's Department of Environmental Sciences in Finland concluded the following:

Urine produced by one person over a year would be enough to grow 160 cabbages -- that's 64 kilograms (141 pounds) more cabbage than could be grown in a similar plot fertilized with commercial fertilizer. They recommend collecting urine from eco-type toilets, storing it, then scattering it on the soil around the plants rather than directly on them. 

Several million pounds of nitrogen are flushed "away" in the US every single day.  Homesteading is a process of learning to use what you've got, and learning to find value in what society so often treats as garbage. So if you're ready to get serious about using what you have, here are the details: Urine should be diluted 1:7 with water if you keep yourself well hydrated, or 1:10 if you don't typically drink enough water.  Too high a concentration of the nitrogen in urine will chemically "burn" plants.

Know Thy Septic
Not enough people consider their effect "downstream". For every cigarette butt flicked on the sidewalk, every toilet flush, every time you turn on the sink or sprinkler or add fertilizer to your lawn, water (from the sink, tub, toilet, or sky) flushes the waste "downstream". Which is to say, the pollutants continue to exist. They just go somewhere else. This last detail is too easily pushed out of the mind. This was a central theme for industry dumping oodles of toxins into rivers and streams before there were laws about such actions; but still holds true every time you flush something down the toilet or sink. How often do you truly consider the effects of said flush on your yard; on wastewater treatment plants; on the energy required to cleanse that system; or what a leech field actually is?

"My advice to anyone who is against going outside to pee is go learn about septic systems," wrote one woman on Wheaton's permaculture forum. "My dad installed them for many years, so I know how much of an unhealthy, environmental nightmare they are. I also know that WOMEN cause the most pollution in them, stop flushing tampons and pads, they are NOT flushable no matter how many times the damn box lies that they are. Also, the treatment and maintenance of modern sewage systems proves how wrong these systems are. They require so much input and constant monitoring and WORK that they are the definition of unsustainable, you just don't know it because you aren't the one who has to go swim in sh*t and bloody tampons at work every day. When you throw something away there is no away, where do you think all your urine and poo go? Women, of all people, should be more aware of how often they send toxins off for someone else to deal with, when if they had done it right those toxins would have been mere fertilizer for their closed loop of proper health and well-being.

If you're living the rural life and employ (or are thinking of employing) an outhouse, consider using buckets and pails instead of holes in the ground. These containers can be applied to compost heaps (just be mindful of affording ample time for full composting).

What About Medications?
While we're all about encouraging a life in tune with nature, people on medications should be extremely mindful of sharing their daily excretions with the garden. In a recent report, Environment Canada found that when fathead minnows are grown from egg to adulthood in the presence of as little as three parts-per-trillion of synthetic estrogen (used in birth control pills), they are completely feminized. This means that all the genetically male fish express only female characteristics; thus no males are available to mate and to fertilize eggs. This amount of synthetic estrogen is equivalent to dropping a single birth control pill into 10,000 L of water.  A human female using the birth control pill will excrete this amount in her urine over the course of a single day. If you're on birth control, heart medicine, diabetes medicine, cancer medicine or some other such daily dosage of meds, safest bet is to steer clear of your compost pile.

Addendum
Here are a few more outside-peeing ideas:

• For your permaculture garden: Urinate in a watering can, add water, and then water your plants. 
• Naturopaths say it is better for your health not to wear underpants at all, ever, because the air circulation is better for your skin and discourages unwanted bacteria. If you're a lady and follow this trend while wearing long skirts, you can pee outside in a stand, squat, or lean. Air dry, waiting a few minutes before sitting down.
• If you pee in your garden, rotate your location so it does not smell too strong, or kill plants from too much nitrogen. 
• If you want to l kill a plant, simply apply urine to it until it dies. This works very well with poison oak. In that case, it is of course best to use a jar and pour it on without touching the plant.
• Nervous about your neighbors seeing you relieve yourself in your yard or garden? Take a beach umbrella with you, open it, lay it on its side, and tuck in behind it to do the job.
• A pee-only outhouse could have a drainage hose that goes directly into the compost pile.

School Lunch Debate

There's been a flurry of interest in the last few weeks regarding new federal regulations on the subsidized school lunch program. Here's the disseminated information so you have a better grasp on what all the hubbub is about.

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is a

federally assisted meal program operating in nearly 95,000 public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions

. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 26 million children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, and signed by President Harry Truman in 1946.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, through its Food and Nutrition Service, administers the program at the Federal level. At the State level, the NSLP is usually administered by State education agencies, which operate the program through agreements with local school districts. School districts and independent schools that choose to take part in the lunch program receive cash reimbursement and donated commodity assistance from USDA for each meal they serve. In return, they must serve lunches that meet Federal nutrition requirements, and they must offer free and reduced-price lunches to eligible children.

New regulations for the NSLP

were sparked by reports in recent years that almost 17 percent of children in the United States are considered obese. Educators and politicians decided to act by adjusting the part of this statistic they control: school lunches, the

Global Good Group

blog explained. "Before these regulations, the typical school lunch was cheese pizza, canned pineapple, some greasy, fried tater tots and chocolate milk (non-low fat/reduced fat). Now, though: the typical school lunch would be whole-wheat cheese pizza, baked sweet potato fries, raw grape tomatoes, low-fat ranch dip, applesauce and low-fat milk."

Got that?

Old

New

Cheese Pizza                Whole-Wheat Cheese Pizza 

Canned Pineapple         Raw Grape Tomatoes and Applesauce

Fried Tater Tots            Baked Sweet Potato Fries and Ranch Dip

Chocolate Milk             Low-Fat Milk

Not only does this

seem meager

, it still includes all the frighteningly modified organisms Monsanto

so

wants us to love, and ingredient lists we can't pronounce. You'd think that might be what all the outrage is about. You'd be wrong.

While there is wide praise for the effort to boost nutrition and cut calories in school lunches, there are also pockets of concern. The roll-out of leaner school lunches coincides with release of a

USDA report

that says the number of households suffering from food insecurity (hunger) is rising in the United States.

In 2011, 17.9 million U.S. households were food insecure, meaning there was difficulty providing food for all members at some time during the year due to lack of resources, the report said. In one-third of those homes, the problem was severe, causing members to reduce food intake and alter normal eating patterns. Children were food insecure at times in 10 percent of U.S households.

For households with incomes near or below the federal poverty line, households with children headed by a single parent, and black and Hispanic households, rates of food insecurity were substantially higher than the national average, the USDA said. Hunger at home was more common in large cities and rural areas than in suburban areas and other outlying areas around large cities.

In Knoxville, Tenn., Union County schools nutrition director Jennifer Ensley said many students in the federal free-lunch program need the calories the old school lunched provided, as reported on

WATE Channel 6 television station

.

Note: Students are allowed a second serving of fruits or vegetables for free.

But for most American children, consuming

too many

calories is a bigger health threat.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports

that childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, putting children at risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and bone and joint problems

.

Through the Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by the First Lady and signed by President Obama, USDA is making the first major changes in school meals in 15 years, which will theoretically help to ensure a healthier generation of children. The new standards align school meals with the latest nutrition science and the real-world circumstances of America’s schools. These responsible reforms do what’s right for children’s health in a way that’s achievable in schools across the Nation. The January 2011 proposed rule sought to improve lunches and breakfasts by requiring schools to: 

• Offer fruits and vegetables as two separate meal components

• Offer fruit daily at breakfast and lunch

• Offer vegetables daily at lunch, including specific vegetable subgroups weekly (dark green, orange, legumes, and other and defined in the 2005 Dietary Guidelines) and a limited quantity of starchy vegetables throughout the week

• Offer whole grains

• Offer a daily meat/meat alternate at breakfast

• Offer fluid milk that is fat-free and low-fat

• Offer meals that meet specific calorie ranges for each age/grade group

• Reduce sodium content of meals gradually over a 10-year period

• Prepare meals using food products or ingredients that contain zero grams of trans fat per serving

• Require students to select a fruit or vegetable as part of the reimbursable meal

• Use a single food-based menu planning approachUse narrower age/grade groups for menu planning

Leading the backlash to the new guidelines is Fox News, which has repeatedly referred to the guidelines as an

infringement on personal freedoms by the Obama administration

and Michelle Obama. As such, Fox provides

happy

validation (

War on Health

) for those who oppose new guidelines for health school meals - even to the point of

praising

the nutritional value of sugar-laden chocolate milk. Last Saturday, Fox's Alisyn Camerota reported on the "

rebellion

" by kids (actually written by a teacher, acted out by kids) who are purportedly upset with the new guidelines. Then the founder of "Regular Folks United" and "a concerned parent," Lori Roman, was introduced.

Lori Roman

was from 2006 to 2008

director of ALEC

(American Legislative Exchange Council), a group founded by right-wing activists for the purpose of

enacting

conservative legislation and policies such as privatizing education, breaking unions, and passing voter ID laws. She is also president of the "

Salt Institute

" a group dedicated to the awesomeness of salt. Roman's "Regular Folks United" is a Tea Party group which, among other things,

denies

the greenhouse affect.

Roman's comments? That the government is replacing "Mother knows best" with "

federal government knows best."

She claimed that it "

is wrong on so many levels"

adding that "the one size fits all

doesn't make sense."

Doing her "mom" shtick, she opined that the bureaucrat who took away the salt and butter "

mustn't be a parent

" and

"moms are noticing."

She said it was ironic that a program that was supposed to do away with hunger is "making them hungry." She also noted that "poor kids" won't get a snack from home to supplement their hunger. (FYI, Roman does not have a background in science or nutrition. Her undergrad

degree

is in business and her Masters is in Administration).

Let's cut through all this bickering to ask two basic questions: If there are going to be federally funded programs to feed the hungry, is it okay to have basic federal regulations regarding nutrition behind said programs?

If our tax dollars pay for school lunches, is it appropriate to have a menu that complies with standards of basic health? How could this be applied to other programs, such as food stamps?

DIY Blacksmithing Forge

With a few metalworkers frequenting the farm and a recent betterArts residency application from a blacksmither, this past weekend was spent putting the beginning touches on a homemade forge for metalworking.

A forge is the hearth upon or inside of which fire is kept for the purpose of heating iron or steel until it is soft enough to be bent

(usually on an anvil). The forge provides a safe, fire-resistant structure in which to keep the fire, and to which a source of air blast can be piped to increase the heat of the fire. Most modern shop forges incorporate a chimney structure to remove smoke from the fire, out of the shop safely. The blast of air raises the heat of the fire in the same way as blowing softly on a small flame to help light a campfire.

The blacksmith's forge has remained similar in design and purpose for millenniums. Some of the differences being in the materials we now use to build our forges and the source of air supply and delivery. Despite its modern look, the modern forge works exactly the same as those of its predecessors. Over thousands of years of forging, these devices have evolved in one form or another as the essential features of this type of forge:

• Tuyere -- a pipe through which air can be forced into the fire

• Bellows or blower -- a means for forcing air into the tuyere

• Firepot or hearth -- a place where the burning fuel can be contained over or against the tuyere opening.

During operation, fuel is placed in or on the hearth and ignited. A source of moving air, such as a fan or bellows, introduces additional air into the fire through the tuyere. With additional air, the fire consumes more fuel and burns hotter.

To make our forge, we decided to forage. Found objects included old tire rims and a steel water tank. Here's a small schematic:

Then Adam and Greg got to work:

A forge typically uses wood, bituminous coal, industrial coke or charcoal as the fuel to heat metal. The designs of these forges have varied over time, but whether the fuel is coal, coke or charcoal the basic design has remained the same. We've also begun looking into modifications, like

building a waste-oil forge and foundry

.

A forge of the type we're creating is essentially a hearth or fireplace designed to allow a fire to be controlled such that metal introduced to the fire may be brought to a malleable state or to bring about other metallurgical effects (hardening, annealing, and drawing temper as examples). The forge fire in this type of forge is controlled in three ways: 1) amount of air, 2) volume of fuel, and 3) shape of the fuel/fire.

Stay tuned for images of the finished product!

Skeletons From the (Water) Closet

Our new, bare-bones bathroom design

There are few things worse in interior design than a dim, outdated bathroom. Of the three we have at Better Farm, the older bathroom upstairs fit that description perfectly; with a toilet that only occasionally flushed, a dark design, and peeling flooring.

Let's take a closer look at where we started from.
In 2010, the walls were a hodge-podge of repairs, hippie cob, and outdated appliances: the cumulative efforts of 40 years' worth of people needing different things from the space.

 

The door to the bathroom,  along with all the other doors on the second floor, wasn't properly hung, didn't fit the door frame, and didn't exactly work with the existing hardware.

The linoleum on the floor was cracked and peeling from all sides, especially the doorway:

Something had to be done! I've learned in the last year to love white-on-white, and wanted to experiment with that upstairs. Check out some of these beautiful images I found:

Then Kristie Hayes-Beaulieu, one of our betterArts residents this summer, gave us one of her beautiful x-ray images from her gallery show in July. I decided to make the whole bathroom design work around this image, which lent itself nicely to the white decor. Luckily we also have amassed a large collection of skulls and bones from various adventures, feathers, and a few other oddities that when showcased together made the room a stark, skeletal exploration of the body (and a few branches and trees thrown in for good measure). Green initiatives employed:

• Keeping our low-flow shower head that we installed last year
• No-VOCs, eco-friendly Olympia paint (white eggshell)
• Upcycling our interior design—saves us money, keeps items out of landfills (the only purchased items came from Craigslist, including the sink)

We were also able to secure free tongue-and-groove flooring that was someone else's excess, and caught a break on a bunch of perfectly good doors. With all these components in place, here's what we came up with:

Reclaimed shelving from Craiglist, cigar boxes, muskrat skeleton, and an unidentified animal skull adorn one section of the bathroom.

A sink and vanity off Craigslist, donated curtains, and upcycled mirror create a compelling white-on-white decor.

Found branches in a tall vase, old chair from inside the house, and donated hooks create a nice contrast to all the white.

A horse skull, found by Han Solo.

A row of x-ray images captures the eye.

From left to right: human torso, deer head, human ankle, dog head, human head, goldfish, human hand, chicken skull. All images were found online and printed at the farm.

Antique bottles add an apothecary vibe to the room.

Many thanks to the following volunteers for their help: Greg Basralian, Adam McBath, Elyna Grapstein, and Kevin Carr. Thanks to Kristen Caldwell for the shower and window curtains.

Got a great DIY design idea you'd like to share? E-mail us at info@betterfarm.org.

Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Lessen Your Eco Footprint

Let's review the basic tenet of sustainability, which demands that one action be capable of going on indefinitely. Example:

Food Scraps — Chickens — Fresh Eggs and Fertilizer — Garden and Dinner Table — Food Scraps

In the above example, food scraps and free-range roaming is nourishing chickens, who provide fertilizer and food for the system supporting them. That fertilizer nourishes the plants growing in the garden, which feeds the people, who turn the food scraps back over to the birds. This system is sustainable; as long as there are an appropriate amount of chickens, food scraps, and gardens, all branches of the chain stay in business. Another example, using our aquaponics setup:

Fish in Tank — Fish Poop in Water Fertilizing Plants in Grow Bed — Plants Filter Water and Send Nutrients Back into Tank

But any system where there is more going out than coming in, or vice versa, ceases to be sustainable. Example:

Massive Drilling for Natural Resources > Heating, Fuel, etc. in Homes > No More Natural Resource

In the above example, oil or natural gas is a finite resource not being replenished at an equal rate of removal; similar to the depletion of rainforests and old-growth forests.  In sustainability, what you take needs to be replaced in order for you to take and give it all over again. So in your daily life, how much more are you taking out than putting in? Below are some quick, extremely simplistic things you can do right now that will limit what you're taking out. Next time, we'll talk about ways to put back in.

1.

Stop Using Tissue Pape

r

Paper napkins, paper towels, facial tissue, and yes, even toilet paper account for a huge amount of all trees cut down annually. As per the records of WWF, 10 percent of the 270,000 trees cut every day are used in the manufacturing of toilet

paper

. It doesn’t come as a surprise that an average American household uses more tissue

paper

than the rest anywhere in the world: The North American usage of tissue

paper

was estimated in 2005 to be 24 kg per capita which is six times higher than the global average of 3.9 kg consumption per capita. And while it's great to buy recycled tissue paper, there's still an awful lot of energy and fresh water (and, often, natural resources like fuel) going into the process of recycling. There's really no "green" way to use disposable products. Some people really go all the way with removing tissue paper entirely from their lives (

family cloth

, anyone?!), but I'm not quite there yet. How about easing into this transition with these three ideas:

• Handkerchiefs Back in the day, Kleenex didn't exist. Everyone had handkerchiefs! Ladies and gents carried lovely, embroidered hankies, hankies of different silks and cottons, hankies of every color. King Richard II of England, who reigned from 1377 to 1399, is widely believed to have invented the cloth handkerchief, as surviving documents written by his courtiers describe his use of square pieces of cloth to wipe his nose. Certainly they were in existence by Shakespeare's time, and a handkerchief is an important plot device in his play Othello. The use of a cloth handkerchief is occasionally considered old-fashioned or unhygienic, or both, in some parts of the world, mainly due to the popularization of disposable paper handkerchiefs (talk about subversive marketing!) and the fact that they are stored in a pocket or a purse after being used. However, they are a potentially more environment-conscious choice, as cloth handkerchiefs are reusable. I don't know of a single person who has ever been made sicker by having a hanky on-hand. Try it out and see if you don't also agree they're much gentler on the face.

• Rags Companies like Bounty have made mega fortunes off of convincing you that spills need to be picked up with soft, super-absorbent, disposable paper towels. But you know what works better than paper to pick up liquid? Fabric. Every single time. Those old, stained, ripped T-shirts, sweatshirts, towels, and sheets that you'd otherwise throw in the trash make perfect rags that you can use, wash, and reuse hundreds and hundreds of times. For cleaning windows and mirrors, crumpled-up newspaper works just as well. Ditto for absorbing oil run-off on bacon, fried green tomatoes, or deep-fried anything. Keep a pile of folded rags in a kitchen drawer, or hang a decent-looking one on a hook near the kitchen sink.

• Cloth Napkins Whether you want to buy your cloth napkins at a store or make your own, this is such a no-brainer it's ridiculous everyone's not already made the switch. Why are cloth napkins reserved for fancy dinner parties only? You can toss your entire family's cloth napkins into the laundry pile after a meal, they take up minimum space, and it's so easy to make your own out of old clothing garments and fabric scraps, there's really no excuse not to.

2.

Stop Bagging your Purchases in Disposable Bags

I know this one gets kicked around a lot, and I know a lot of us now have more than our fair share of reusable, adorable totes with cutesie messages like "Save Our Mother"—but it still always amazes me how few people stand in line at the supermarket with reusable bags; or at the pharmacy, clothing store, or pet shop. Most commonly, people walk out of their homes without remembering to grab their totes. My suggestion: Keep three or four reusable bags in your car at all times. No car? No problem—put a hook near your front door and hang your bags there so you're always reminded to grab one (or several) on your way out.

3.

BYO Doggy Bag

Here's another big one. There's really no reason to send any food back into the kitchen at a restaurant, only for it to be tossed right in the trash. Whether you take the food home to be your leftovers, tossed to the chickens or dogs or pigs, or thrown into your compost bin, no food should ever go to waste! Up the ante by bringing your own to-go box so as to avoid the completely unnecessary, grotesquely outdated and unsustainable Styrofoam container.

4.

Get Your Feminine Hygiene Products Right

Ladies, listen up.

Landfills are over-taxed with feminine hygiene products.

In 2000, more than 55.9 million women (in the U.S. alone) were monthly users of disposable feminine hygiene products. The 41 year menstruation span (11-52 years) creates billions of pounds of disposable feminine hygiene products being "dumped" into the environment each year

.  Want to make a switch? Good. You've got lots of options. 

There's a whole category of disposable menstrual products made by companies like Seventh Generation and Natracare that are unbleached, made with less plastic, made with plant materials, etc. While they are still disposable, if you are not ready to try reusables then this is a good way to go. Eliminating these nasty ingredients from the manufacturing process (and keeping them away from your tender bits) can only be a positive. But please take 'biodegradable' claims with a grain of salt. If you're composting your biodegradeables in your yard, then these claims may apply (though how long it takes for a "biodegradable" product to actually break down can vary wildly). Please, please remember that in a modern landfill, nothing is breaking down. No air and water reaches any of those products, so they never get to fall apart and turn into dirt. 

If you want to take your feminine hygiene to the next level, there are a lot of

reusable options. You've got your reusable menstrual cups, like the

Diva Cup

made from silicone, and

The Keeper

made from natural rubber (they also make a silicone version for women allergic to latex). Then there are the reusable cloth pads that you wash and wear, like

Glad Rags

,

Lunapads

and

homemade varieties

 (or

make your own

).

Grist did a comparison of various types of pads

that might be helpful. There are also

sea sponge tampons

, made from, yes, sea sponges.

5.

Entertain in Style

It's tempting to have red Solo cups, plastic cutlery, and paper plates at your next backyard barbecue, New Year's Eve party, or kid's birthday party. But this creates an unseemly amount of waste that's just going to require a lot of energy to recycle (yes, you

should

be recycling all those plastic cups, forks, and knives) or—you guessed it—end up in a landfill somewhere far, far away.

My top recommendation here is to use real dishes, real forks and knives, and real glassware. For easy cleanup, put a few rubber tubs out and a pail with designations marked on them: plates, glasses, compost, etc. When they're full, just pour warm soapy water into the tubs for easy cleaning and empty your pail into your compost pile (or feed your chickens, they love love love table scraps!). We do this at all our gallery openings, and have never had an issue with an inconvenient clean-up. And I guarantee your guests will take notice should you serve them in glassware with cloth napkins—this is a simple way to class up any occasion.

If you are having a big guest list, please consider using biodegradable plates, cutlery, and napkins. And don't send them to a landfill (see reasons above)!. When your party's over, put your biodegradables into your compost pile or bury them.

Click here

for a cornucopia of biodegradable items for entertaining.

De-Skunking

Has your dog ever been skunked? Have you learned that the classic bath in tomato juice is but a mere myth? So have we.

Last night, our beloved dog Kobayashi Maru was skunkified. Horrified by the scent, we quarantined her onto the back porch while we planned our attack on the stench. In an act of desperation, we utilized a recipe from a local trapper; consisting of 2 parts hydrogen peroxide, 1 part baking soda, 1 part laundry detergent. Our bath was successful, but the event also sparked some interest in how to keep this from ever happening again. 

Through research, we have learned that one of the better skunk repellents is hot pepper. Just boil one chopped yellow onion, one chopped jalepeno pepper, and 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper in two quarts of water for about 20 minutes. Let it cool, and spray this around your property every 3-5 days to keep skunks away from your home. This may also double as a pest repellent in your garden!

'Falling Leaves' Hike Oct. 13

Art, Food at Better Farm for Harvest Weekend

Better Farm is slated to participate in Jefferson County's first Harvest Tour Weekend from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, and 12-4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, with fresh produce at our farmstand, handmade items, T-shirts, and a gallery exhibit featuring sculptural work by visiting betterArts resident Kevin Carr.

Those interested in learning more about agriculture in the North Country—and sampling some great, local food—will have the opportunity to visit dozens of farms and agribusinesses to tour facilities, meet the animals, sample the wine, buy fresh produce and homemade goods, and see exactly where their food comes from.
At Better Farm, our farm stand will be open, featuring fresh produce, handmade items, and T-shirts. Our gallery and studio space will also be open with art for sale. Kevin Carr, this month's artist-in-residence, will have his completed work on display throughout the weekend. We will additionally be offering tours to the general public of our gardens, outbuildings, and studio spaces. Here are a few photos of Kevin's work:

Kevin is a 22-year-old artist from Canandaigua, N.Y., who has been living in Redwood for the month of September as part of the betterArts residencyprogram. Carr earned a bachelor of fine arts from Alfred University's School of Art and Design. He has served as director of Alfred University's Robert C. Turner Student Gallery, and as a teaching assistant at his school's painting department. His work has appeared in several galleries and in print. 

The work he has produced during his residency is centralized around concepts of sustainability and recycling; utilizing otherwise discarded objects such as bottle caps, plastic bags, and bread ties. "A lot of my work is about collections of objects that are often overlooked because they appear insignificant," Kevin said, "but when displayed in large masses they become significant and make people think about what the object really is, what it does, and why it is so small. For a while, I have wanted to create works involving recycled items, things that would normally be thrown away or tossed somewhere to sit forever. Imagine thousands of beer bottle caps, bread clips, plastic grocery bags, or discarded receipts shown or displayed together in a systematic way. This would draw the viewer's attention to how throwing away something small like a rubber band or a toilet paper tube can actually cause a large amount of waste when 15 million other people also just threw away one of these objects. I aim to bring my creative and systematic way of lying out and creating work to prove a point about waste with a project about recycling.The sculptures I create promote recycling and sustainability." 

 The fall season is a beautiful time to travel our country roads, look at the great colors of the season and purchase a vast variety of fresh produce.  Gather the kids, grab a cooler and hit the road! Your neighborhood farms will be ready to show you around, answer some questions and help you learn more about agriculture in the North Country.

For more information about the harvest tour and other agritourism opportunities in the North Country, visit www.agvisit.com. Better Farm is located at 31060 Cottage Hill Road in Redwood. Call (315) 482-2536 for more information. To learn more about betterArts, visit www.betterarts.net.