The Flagstaff EcoRanch will be giving a presentation for the Flagstaff Garden Club tonight. For any of those interested in the EcoRanch or getting involved with people who share a passion for gardening, come check it out.
http://flaggardenclub.wordpress.com/
Flagstaff Flower and Garden Club,
call Club President Star Hunter at 928-637-4401,
e-mail her at hunterstar@mac.com
or write to: FFGC, P.O. Box 23397, Flagstaff, AZ 86002-3397
Here is May’s Water Data. A total savings of about 1140 gallons. The average American uses about 100 gallons a day and 75% of that is used flushing toilets. Look into low flow toilets. For those of you in the city, usually there is a rebate for purchasing low flow toilets, so check with the utility department.
In other water saving news. My father is in town and we put up 63′ of gutter on the barn in preparation for the monsoons. Tomorrow we will connect it to the water barrel and start planning to build the shower and sink.
Saving time and water. Beds 1 and 2 are installed with drip lines. Soon they will be buried under the mulch so the water percolates into the soil better. The 3 inches of mulch has been working great to reduce evaporation but it soaks up a lot of water when it is sprayed with a hose. The downside of drip lines; a bit more maintenance, more cost, and the tendency to pay less attention to the plants. The freedom from watering with a hose and using less water definitely have tradeoffs, but in terms of water use, it is totally worth it.
We’re making progress with the raised beds, only one more to go. So far we’ve planted a variety of potatoes, lentils, kale, kale, and more kale, peas, nasturtiums, oregano, basil, thyme, chamomile, bok choy, arugula, chard, a variety of lettuces, radishes, carrots, tons of onions, red, blue, yellow corn, and probably some others. To think the EcoRanch got started in September on the property and in under a year it looks like this:
Thanks to all the volunteers and school groups who help on different projects, share stories, and help teach each other.
Cedar, a summer intern from NAU in the Env Studies program is working on installing a grey water system from the washing machine that will help irrigate the berms in front which can then be used to plant.
Alicia and Sam interns in Env Studies and Biology at NAU are collaborating on developing a root cellar at the EcoRanch. With all the potatoes, onions, carrots we will be growing, we hope to store some for the winter.
As June slowly approaches we should be getting out Kickstarter incentives and installing the rain catchment system and outdoor shower. We’ll keep posting more photos!
Beds 1 and 2
Bed 5 – planted with corn and kale. Beans, squash, eggplant to come.
Apple trees around the water barrel to help with microclimate.
Hoop house with 3 types of kale
Asparagus
THANK YOU SO MUCH NPA!!!! We had hard working, motivated seniors from Northland Preparatory Academy visit today. We started with a tour of the EcoRanch and then got down to business. Students built a rock wall, planted fruit trees and shrubs around the water barrel, turned the compost, watered all the plants, dug out bed #3, weaved and laid hardware fabric in beds 3 and 5, built brick walls in bed 5, hauled rocks, filled in bed 4 and planted spinach, kale, lettuce, broccoli, and cauliflower, chased the chickens, and most importantly got in some wheelbarrow joust. We had a nice relaxing lunch and then talked about WWOOFing and college before they needed to return to school. Congrats senior on your last week and good luck in the future at college or work. I hope you return to check out the progress.
It’s been a month since the last EcoRanch post…where has the time gone? Oh yeah, fundraising, ordering, building, teaching, learning, volunteers, interns, planting, planning, and animals!
We were preparing and hoping we would hit our Kickstarter goal, so we started about 2000 kale, herbs, onions, chard, lettuce, and beans so when the weather warms up we could get some babies in the ground. Nicole and Tianna, the first two WWOOFers of the season helped to get the starts going while Matt, Jojo, and Kelsey helped plant some frost tolerant plants. We cover them every night to keep them from getting damaged. Hopefully the random end of spring snow or mysterious summer snow doesn’t kill them.
Getting seeds into the start trays.
Planting onions
Planting onions
Planting kale in the hoop house
In mid April, the Barrett Honor’s Sustainability Club from Arizona State University came up for a weekend of volunteering. Five students helped finish the berms, dig some of the raised beds, and trim back the kale starts.
We hit our fundraising goal and went on a huge shopping spree for the raised bed materials. We will be putting up an itemized list of all costs once we are done buying everything for this project so you can see where exactly you’re donations went. We are also making progress on organizing the incentives so we can send those out soon.
950 Bricks and 20 bales of straw
At the beginning of May, students from the Sustainable Botany Class at Northern Arizona University came out for a few hours to help build our first bed.
Weaving the hardware fabric to keep out gophers
Straw adds organic material and retains water
Shoveling action shot proves we actually did the work
Bed 1 – finished product – Bed 2 – mesh down
Matt and I finished bed 2 and then we put down old pieces of sidewalk and cement to create a walkway and thermal mass between the beds.
First 2 finished beds
And YES, that is hail that accumulated on the ground. Both of these beds have kale, radishes, carrots, arugula, chard, onions, and bok choy in them. PLEASE STAY ALIVE!
Kelsey – master planter!
Rocks and Milk Jugs painted black and filled with water act as thermal mass
Other plants we have in the ground; asparagus, onions, garlic, kale, peas (but they died from the cold the first night), chiles from the Andes, potatoes, and black beluga lentils.
Kelsey and I drove to Phoenix yesterday to pick up the 3000 gallon water barrel. I was a nervous wreck driving it up, but the Santa Fe was a rockstar hauling machine. We made it safe and sound and we will hopefully have this done within a couple weeks.
Last, the bees are awesome. They have been busy collecting pollen and as of today, the queen is laying and there are many capped brood.
The red pollen is cottonwood or willow and the bee with the red dot is the queen. These pics were from about 3 weeks ago. The following three are from today. Notice the caps on the cells and the size increase.
Also, if you are interested in beekeeping, check out this flyer from Patrick Pynes, Honeybee Teacher
Sustainable Backyard Beekeeping Course
Next on the to do list:
We hope you can make it out for a visit or to lend a hand.
The summer will now be packed full of excitement and work! WE MADE IT!!! WE HIT $9,000! Thank you all who helped out financially and by word of mouth. We hope you can make it out throughout the summer to see how the project is developing and keep following us on our website to see updates and photos. The ASU Barrett Honor’s Sustainability Club will be up this weekend volunteering and will be the first to break ground for these raised beds.
Thank you everyone for understanding and appreciating the mission of the EcoRanch and for helping us make social change in Flagstaff!!!
Below are some photos from yesterday while hiving the bees. Patrick Pynes, Honeybee Teacher, came and assisted us. The bees are gentile, happy, and making themselves a home. We need to check on them next week to be sure the queen is doing well, but so far it looks like they are off to a good start.
Leveling the Hive
Getting the Feeder Ready
Gearing Up – We Probably didn’t Even Need It!
Checking out the Bees
Getting Ready to Pull Out the Queen
The Queen In Her Lair
Setting the Queen
Pouring the Bees In
The Bee Are In
Checking to Make Sure All Is Okay
Today:
Tomorrow:
We are excited to hit this goal because that’s when all the fun begins. Digging in the dirt, building beds, playing with the dirt and planting the 1600 starts we have going right now! We have a bunch of classes from NAU, ASU, and NPA that will be joining us this spring and summer to help volunteer and we hope to bring out more school groups in the fall. The goal of this project is to demonstrate that we can change the way food systems work and by doing that, we can make less of an impact on the environment.
Click on the link, donate, and choose an incentive. Name a chicken, name a raised bed, or come stay at the EcoRanch.
We need NAMES!!
Today marks the halfway point of our Kickstarter Fundraiser; we have reached $5397. Thanks to our 40 backers! If you know someone that would be interested in supporting our project, please encourage them to help us by clicking here. We need $3600 more to hit our goal of $9000 or else we receive nothing. Please help and pass this on via email, word of mouth, Facebook, and any other way possible. On April 24th, when we reach our goal, we will order everything we need and start breaking ground for the beds. This project is designed to educate about sustainable agriculture, local food networks, and water conservation. We will have WWOOFers, 1 intern from Prescott college, 2 interns from NAU, the Sustainability Club from ASU, the Sustainable Botany Class at NAU, and high school students from Northland Preparatory Academy and Upward Bound volunteering from April through June. This project will help educate these students, promote a more sustainable way of living, and allow them to get hands on experience. If you have any interest in visiting or helping please contact us at flagstaffecoranch@gmail.com.
You can also help the EcoRanch via our Intuit Fundraiser. This fundraiser is separate from the Kickstarter and only requires a click to vote for us. You can vote everyday or vote from multiple computers! If we get this grant, we will be putting it towards STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) projects such as greenhouse design/building or bike powered energy.
Aside from our fundraisers, a lot has been happening on site. We had the first two WWOOFers of the season, Nicole and Tianna, arrive last week. They have been extremely helpful in digging swales in the front field. These will slow water runoff so it infiltrates back into the ground. They have planted bulbs, flowers, onions, got our starts going, and helped in finishing the fourth hugelkulture. When it finally warms up and stops snowing, we will plant potatoes, lentils, and summer savory in that fourth hugelkulture. We have 800 starts of vates kale and 200 of lettuce, thyme, chard, dill, and squash. There is some lacinato kale planted in the hoop house and more trays are on their way so we can get peas, beans, more kale, and a bunch of herbs and medicinal plants started. Because of the short growing season, we need to have as many plants ready to go at the end of May, beginning of June.
The golden mean beehive, made from Ponderosa Pine locally milled at AP Sawmill, is also ready to go; just finished today. Despite the cold wind and my poor carpentry skills, it looks pretty good and I think next week when the bees arrive, they will be happy to have a home. We are going to start them in Cottonwood or Camp Verde where it is warmer and they will have access to more pollen, then bring them up here in June or July.
Are you planning on visiting the Grand Canyon this year? Or maybe you are just looking to get out of the busy city and spend time immersed in nature. If so, a couple nights at the Flagstaff Grand...
Flagstaff EcoRanch 