Feb 25, 2019
Community members turned out Saturday, Feb. 23, for an installation workshop at Mangia!, one of our demonstration food forests in Vacaville. The installation focused on the front yard of this property, which already has a backyard orchard with vertical gardening and a sedgefield meadow.
Volunteers learned about water-efficient front yard design, dug swales to divert roof water and planted fruit tree guilds to transform the front yard.
The demonstration food forest is part of our Solano Sustainable Backyard program, funded by the Solano County Water Agency.
Check out the video below from workshop participant David Avery!
Feb 18, 2019
By Elena Karoulina, Executive Director
At Sustainable Solano, we are often asked how we come up with our programs and ideas. Our answer: We plant a seed and nourish it until it roots, grows and matures. A seed can be a spark of imagination or an inspiration from a community member, another organization, a book or article, or even a documentary.
We do not rush to put the seed into the ground, we need to ensure it is viable and that the plant it will grow into is strong, healthy and is needed in the community it is planted in. Most programs have been in what we internally call a “concept stage” for months or even years. When the time is right, when the soil is fertile, when rain is in the forecast (for us, that means funding), the seed is planted. Most programs start as a small pilot to ensure we learn the most difficult lessons early, on a smaller scale.
One of these conceptual seeds has been planted this month – our vision for a Sustainability Curriculum for high school students.
Framed by One Planet Living, a sustainability framework from Bioriginal, we envision a comprehensive education and certification/workforce development program aiming to equip young members of our communities and future leaders with a deep understanding of society’s sustainability and resilience, rooted in the system design and appreciation and knowledge of planetary limits, and practical skills to actively participate in the creation of a more just and resilient world.
We envision a four-year curriculum, correlated with California’s state curriculum for high schools, with a focus on the four pillars of the One Planet Living principles: Land & Nature, Sustainable Water, Local and Sustainable Food, and Zero Carbon Energy. The other six elements are softly built into the core curriculum (e.g. Health & Happiness or Culture & Community).
We would like to offer a comprehensive standard training to all schools in the county, taught by Sustainable Solano instructors, followed by an optional hands-on practical training and certification. These practical skills will be developed and practiced on real projects in our communities — replacing the remaining lawns, installing greywater systems and solar panels, working in community kitchens and retrofitting houses for sustainability. This workforce development should be followed by paid internships, where funds earned by trainees are deposited into their savings accounts in local credit unions. These payments will not only provide trainees with a starter banking account and start them saving, but will also teach a soft lesson in the local economy.
The program’s outline as of now is:
Freshman Year: Systems Thinking. Planetary Limits. Protecting and Restoring Land. Permaculture and Biomimicry.
Optional practical training/certification: 72-hour Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC)
Sophomore Year: Sustainable Local Water. Watersheds. Secondary Water (greywater and rainwater). Water Budget for All Landscapes. Flooding and Drought.
Optional practical training/certification: Greywater Installer Training
Junior Year: Local and Sustainable Food. Solano Local Food System. Foodsheds. Climate-Smart Agriculture. Humane Farming. Healthy Diets.
Optional practical training/certification: Food Handler Certification, Cottage Food Operator or State Food Safety Certification (TBD)
Senior Year: Renewable Energy.
Optional practical training/certification: TBD (e.g. solar panel installer)
We will be developing these ideas into solid business plans and grant proposals in the next couple of years. We are beginning to connect with other organizations doing similar work in the county and the state to form partnerships that strengthen each organization and further our missions.
Last month we received funding to plant the first seed: Solano Community Foundation awarded an ED Plus grant to Sustainable Solano to develop a pilot curriculum program in partnership with St. Patrick-St. Vincent School in Vallejo! This very first project will focus on sustainable water and permaculture; the materials designed for the students will enhance their classroom learning, especially math and science classes. The hands-on practical application will involve building swales to slow, spread and sink rainwater, building a rainwater collection system and learning about greywater. The students will even build an earth bench using natural on-site materials. This project runs in conjunction with a demonstration garden coming to this school under another program, Solano Sustainable Backyard, funded by Solano County Water Agency.
Please let us know what you think about this idea! We are looking for support, partnerships and inspiration to bring this vision to life in Solano County!
Nov 21, 2018
The Shalom demonstration food forest installation wrapped up Saturday. This was phase one of a larger goal to create a community garden in Vacaville. The past few weeks have been incredible community events, but the devastation of the fires and shootings weigh heavy on my heart. In spite of the smoke, people showed up and as a team we installed the Shalom garden. In spite of the fear of violence, Pastor Sue and husband Jim opened their home and served lovely meals. The fair share ethic in permaculture was embodied on these Saturdays:
Kathleen brought pineapple guavas.
Ron, Sue and Neely shared their bounty of pomegranates.
Kevin and Jessica brought tools and strength.
Kristina from Lemuria donated two flats of vegetables.
Divina brought her infectious joy.
There are too many generous acts of kindness to list.
With facemasks on, members of our Solano community came together to build a garden and somehow exist between the speechless beauty and bottomless grief.
Even though I felt deep gratitude, for the kindness of the community, I awoke on the Sunday after the final installation feeling weepy and moving around my home directionless. Then I remembered that I came home from the installation with pomegranates! I got lost researching pomegranates and the best way to separate the seeds for juicing. As I separated the arils, I had a few bowls next to me. The worms got the membrane; the chickens received some of the arils that I was too lazy to separate. I pressed a beautiful burgundy apple pomegranate juice for my family and saved the peels of the pomegranate in the freezer to make a tea. While I got lost in the task I listened to the Mr. Rogers documentary, “Won’t you be my Neighbor?” The tears began to flow as he relayed his mother’s advice that when something is happening that is scary to always look for the people that are helping. I just spent three Saturdays surrounded by the people that are helping.
Oct 15, 2018
By: Gabriela Estrada, Project Coordinator for Sustainable Solano
As a new member of Sustainable Solano, I have had the pleasure of interacting with different members that play key roles in advancing a message of Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. While the message is clear and the work that has been put forth just as fantastic, it has been even more interesting discovering the instances and uniqueness of everyone’s relation to different aspects of sustainability and permaculture.
This month in Vacaville, while reflecting on this, I had the pleasure of learning about sustainable landscaping through presentations from local sustainable landscape experts, Jeff Barton and Kathleen Huffman.
The first of three workshops were led by Jeff Barton, whose lighthearted and authentic demeanor allowed for his audience to become engage and comfortably ask questions. During his presentation, Jeff spoke about his journey through sustainability and the tremendous impact that joining Sustainable Solano and digging his first swale had on him. This experience made him realize that “The solution to a lot of the problems is embarrassingly simple: We need to go back to basics and ask what the soil needs”.
This statement immediately allowed for people to reflect on and to firmly nod their heads. As the presentation continued, it became more of a conversation, and people voiced questions and concerns, to which Jeff did his best to answer, given his experience with similar problems. He shared that getting a pineapple sage plant, helps monitor the water of the entire garden, since it’s a plant that is very receptive to water usage, and encourage everyone to get one. I’m currently still looking for one.
While he spoke, it was clear that what he is passionate about the land and the people in it. For Jeff, it is a people first approach that will be key in making the world more sustainable. As such, we were encouraged as an audience to do just that, take care of our neighbor by sharing surpluses.
As the workshop continued, it was interesting to see how engaged people were and how responsive they were to the topic by chiming in their own ideas. While I really appreciated the level of engagement from everyone, what caught my attention the most was the level of engagement that his son (one of the youngest people in the room) had about the topic, and how full of curiosity he was. Given that he is the next generation, I see a bright future ahead of us.
For the second and third workshop, I had the pleasure of hearing from Kathleen Huffman, who proudly shared with her audience that she was from Oklahoma and that she still said things like “Ya’ll”. After a couple chuckles from the room, she shared her experiences of growing up on a farm in Oklahoma, with wind mills, and the ways that her upbringing shaped her future. Throughout her talk, we got to see pictures of how she transformed her own backyard and learned about her design process.
She shared how everyone can become more sustainable simply by changing our way of thinking and “finding better ways to take care of the soil in ways that makee sense for our needs”. As the presentation continued, it became clear that Kathleen was passionate about creating systemic long-term solutions for the world, and that the way she approached solutions was shaped by her own lived experiences.
In both workshops, Kathleen shared tricks she learned along the way that had helped keep her garden pest free like using coffee grinds from a local coffee roaster to take care of slug problems and using worms as little workers of her yard. As I saw her audience quickly writing notes and ask questions, I realized that one of the things I appreciated most about hearing her talk was her narrative and how she approached issues by observing and doing her research.
The principles of permaculture are Earth care, People care and Fair share ,and it is exactly these principles that both Jeff and Kathleen embody in their Sustainable Landscaping classes and efforts. Though they both come from different walks of life and relate to issues differently, one thing was clear: they both authentically showcase their love for the land and their belief in mixing the old and the new in order to create present-day solutions. And, while one of the main goals of creating a sustainable landscape is to conserve water, by attending these workshops, I gained so much more than tips to reduce my water usage. I got to see how two different passionate people use their authentic narrative daily to showcase solutions and to increase the possibilities of what the future can look like.
Oct 1, 2018
Since the launch of its Sustainable Backyard program in 2014, Sustainable Solano has created 15 food-producing, self-sustaining demonstration “food forest” gardens across Solano County on both public and private land. These gardens are primarily irrigated by secondary water sources (diverted roofwater, laundry-to-landscape greywater systems). The food forests are designed based on a permaculture design system of food production that utilizes the wisdom inherent in natural woodlands and the understanding of beneficial relationships between plants to create and support landscapes that grow food for human use.
The program officially expanded to Vacaville in mid-August. Since the launch, sustainable landscape classes have been offered to Vacaville residents covering sustainable landscape design, wise-water practices and permaculture.
On Saturday, October 13th, residents will have a hands-on opportunity to help create Vacaville’s first private demonstration food forest garden, alongside their community, by attending the first demonstration installation workshop. The selected homeowner is a long-time Vacaville resident with a vision to transform his front yard from barren, dead grass to an oasis of edible and beneficial trees and plants. This demonstration food forest garden will be named “Healthy Futures” with the goal of providing nourishment and serve as a community asset to learn about sustainable landscaping.
All are invited to help transform this lawn into a thriving ecosystem fed by secondary water sources. The garden will take three full days to complete and each public installation workshop will be hands-on.
This first workshop will focus on digging swales, diverting roofwater, planting fruit trees and sheet mulching to increase water-holding capacity and improve soil health. On Saturday, October 20th, with the guidance of Greywater Action, attendees will learn about greywater use and how to install a laundry-to-landscape system that diverts water from your washing machine to your garden reducing the need for potable water irrigation. Day three, Saturday, October 27th,, will wrap up the project with attendees planting a community of plants with multiple functions that support a healthy, diverse ecosystem, installation of water efficient in-line drip system.
The selection process for these sites are based on criteria such as yard access, greywater feasibility and sun orientation. Sites are assessed and selected by Sustainable Solano’s Advisory Board made up of dedicated Solano County residents aiming to raise sustainability awareness in Solano County.
There will be yearly ongoing workshops and tours of these demonstration food forest gardens on private and public land in each city. This project is made possible by funding and support of the Solano County Water Agency.
Aug 15, 2018
When it comes to the changing the environment and global climate change, the cause of the problem — humans — can also be the key to the solution.
That was the hopeful message permaculture expert Lydia Neilsen brought to a crowd of listeners on a warm August Saturday morning at Morningsun Herb Farm in Vacaville. The event shared Neilsen’s insights on how permaculture can help restore the local water cycle and was also the official launch of Sustainable Solano’s expansion of its Sustainable Backyard program into Vacaville.
Neilsen began with an overview of the ethics and principles behind permaculture for a crowd where about one-third were new to the concept. Everything stems from the ethics of:
• Earth care (repair, conserve and regenerate)
• People care (seek peace and guard human rights everywhere)
• Fair share (giving back what you have extra of, whether time, money, produce, etc.)
“Our actions have become decoupled from their consequences,” she said. Permaculture involves getting back to that system of relationships.
She then turned to the intricacies of the water cycle and how that has been disrupted — and what can be done on an individual and community level to restore it locally.
“We have been treating rainwater as a nuisance,” she said, referring to how cities pave, pipe and drain water away.
That approach and the removal of plants create dry, dead soil and intensify heat. Rising heat can push water vapor away and create areas that are hotter and drier than if trees and vegetation were present to capture the sun’s rays and not only shade but also to photosynthesize and release oxygen and moisture back into the air. On the scale of a forest, trees work to harvest water vapor, creating low-pressure zones and pulling in more moisture, moving it inland. Take away the forests, and that cycle is disrupted.
“We’ve been impacting it for a long time negatively, and now we can impact it positively,” she said.
The permaculture approach of slowing, spreading and sinking water is a different approach from how rainwater has been treated, keeping water where it does the most good. The other factor in the equation is the need for vegetation.
So much that the world faces is on the global scale, but there is hope to be found in what can be addressed on the human scale.
“What can I do with my shovel to make an impact?” she said. An individual can do a lot through thoughtful observation to determine what needs to be done to help the land — and such efforts can spread. As one crowd member said, “It’s so easy. I mean, I know it’s not easy, but it’s so logical.”
A fruit tree guild — a central fruit tree surrounded by supporting plants that supply mulch, fix nitrogen, attract insects, suppress grass growth and help accumulate nutrients — is “a great place to start,” Neilsen said. Add a greywater system that reuses household water in the garden and it’s a step toward healing that local water cycle by nurturing water and plants on the property. “Imagine if whole neighborhoods were putting in food forests like this,” she said.
Sustainable Landscaping Program Manager Nicole Newell noted that approach is being used in Sustainable Solano’s backyard demonstration food forests. The program, which is taking applications through Sept. 21, will select two private yards and one public space in Vacaville for the demonstration gardens, which volunteers will create through a series of workshops to capture rainwater, install a greywater system and create water-wise, sustainable gardens.
Resources:
During her talk, Neilsen mentioned several books she turns to as resources on the topics she discussed. They include:
Water for the recovery of the climate — a new water paradigm (a research paper)
Hidden Nature: The startling insights of Viktor Schauberger (by Alick Bartholomew)
Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison
Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands And Beyond by Brad Lancaster
