seed starting

I M REALLY ENJOYING THESE AQUAPONIC FILMS. I HAVE been getting price quotes today for the pilot 1,000 gallon aquaponic system in the greenhouse, mostly looking at pond and aquarium supply companies such as these. The system will utilize solar panels. The heated water will disperse the heat at a higher heat index due to the physical properties of water. It will greatly help to stabilize the temperature of the greenhouse. I really appreciate the aquaponic systems that utilize appropriate design or re-purposing into functional design conceptualization. Take a look at how these barrels are being used: Barrelponics

Check out this barrelponics project out of Kenya called Faith And Sustainable Technology F.A.S.T. with all sorts of great projects and sustainable appropriate designs working toward breaking the cycles of poverty.

The fausnauchts turned out really nice tonight, and lent begins now in less than an hour. We are going to start some of our seeds in the greenhouse tomorrow, starting with the earliest brassicas and moving onward. I like it when Easter is early like it is this year, and the 40 days marked by a moon. I learned from one of my favorite Nuns around the neighborhood all about fasting and kneeling on the rice and reconciliation, catechumenate, and passion Via de la Rosa. Oh the purple !!! It's coming...

Springtime in the greenhouse is just never the same way twice. Different every year, like the changing days of Easter being pulled by the moon. =)

It will be a luxury to have fish emulsions as being produced regularly at the greenhouse. I like the idea of growing tilapia fish so much, just because it's from the Sea of Galilee, I have even heard it called St. Peter's Fish and his feastday should have a fish fry June 29

Im really excited about so many projects that we have going in this spring. Drip line irrigation, seedlings, chicken coop, rainbarrel production, fruit tree orchard, farmer's market, the convent, rain garden natives, naturally built shed, and the aquaponic/worm composting/micro-green systems! <3

Continuing the Conversation

We had an amazing morning over here in Waterfront South in Camden, NJ continuing the conversation about sustainability with Sustainable Cherry Hill and friends. It's an exciting time. THe greenhouse is ready for planting and The Center For Transformation convent is well under way with the kitchen going in this week. Soon the retreat center will be ready for people who want to come. Keep in mind that everything is covered with two feet of snow, and we're still harvesting greens out of our bathtubs in the greenhouse. The tour visited all around the neighborhood for the Environmental Justice Reality Tour where we observed literal concrete problems and poisons and a flourishing green micro-economy.

Continuing the conversation:

Poet of Poverty: A continuing conversation

As a follow up to the January screening of "Poet of Poverty" at the Cherry Hill library, the Center for Transformation and Sustainable Cherry Hill are hosting a continuing conversation in the Waterfront South neighborhood out and experience the signs of hope, including the renovation in progress of the Center’s home, Eve’s Garden, the future sites of a fruit orchard and more vegetable gardens, the new community theatre, the new community center with a gym, etc. We will then gather to discuss what we’ve seen and heard, and imagine the next steps in the partnership between the Center for Transformation and Sustainable Cherry Hill. Come and join us.

The Junior Farmers Marco and Lenny gave a very informative portion of the tour inside the greenhouse where they described the bicycle -powered rainwater catchment system, the re-purposed food grade barrels, and the trench for the closed-loop aquaponic system. They were awesome. People were really excited about the rainbarrel. win-win-win Hire youth to repurpose food grade barrels for distribution around the sewershed. We've been giving a lot of nice tours lately.

The conversations were amazing. It felt like everybody keeps doing their part and together we are making huge leaps and bounds exploring concepts such as combined stormwater systems . The bottom line is....how do we transform our problems into resources? How do we use our ingenuity to re-purpose, up-cycle the waste stream??!!

here's some other ways some other people are talking about it:

I feel as though it's ok to start thinking about Lent even though it's not here yet, because we are dancing in the face of it tomorrow morning. Lent is the time of the year when christians usually give up something or fast and its the 40 days before Easter starting on Ash Wednesday. tonight is the end of the epiphany as we are dancing at the face of Lent until we are consumed.i am reminded of emma .

And while we're dancing in my kitchen we should celebrate Fauschnaut Day. The story that I always heard growing up was that on Fauschnaut Day, or Fat Tuesday is the last day before lent, and all the lard needed to be used up, so they used it all to make specialized Pennsylvania Dutch doughnuts called fauschnauts.

Since i don't store a lot of lard but i store lots of blueberries i realized that it was time to get all the frozen blueberries out from Hammonton NJ and make muffins. They are really really good, come by and make a smoothie. This is my dance in the face of the never-ending winter.