¡Hola, Mis Amigos!

(Hello, my friends!)

I'm Caitlin Cooper and I'm a dirt bag!

My goal is to keep all of our followers informed on the status of The Dirt Bag Brigade! I am doing an independent study this semester with the Global Buckets and will make at least weekly posts(literature and pictures) during the Fall '10 semester about those and the earthen greenhouse(s).

A bit about me:

I am a third year at SVSU and became interested in urban farming during my first year of school. Before this year, most of my urban farming interest has involved the hydroponics system in one of our residence halls at SVSU, Living Center South.

However, my interests expanded during the Winter '10 semester when professor Dr. Brian Thomas proposed a new farming idea to SVSU. He wanted to construct a prototype earthen greenhouse similar to a Chinese model. The purpose: to extend growing season during the cold Michigan months as it has in China . (I won't ramble too much about the greenhouse as he explained it in earlier posts)

Anyways, Alyssa Tarrant and I latched onto this idea and with the oversight of Dr. Thomas we wrote a grant to fund the project. The grant was funded and construction began during the 2010 summer months with Dan Klarich as the student worker. We haven't completed the greenhouse yet but we expect it to be finished within the next 2 or 3 weeks.

Dr. Thomas stumbled on the idea of "Global Buckets" online. Global Buckets or Dirt Buckets are an easy way to grow produce. As our followers know, Alyssa had an independent study during the summer and monitored the growth of the buckets for 7 weeks. I have an independent study this semester and will be monitoring the growth of the buckets inside the earthen greenhouse and compare results with Alyssa at the end of the study.

I will not be planting the buckets until the 2nd week of October- once the greenhouse is finished and will grow with the same soil Alyssa used during her study.

Last week Alyssa and I went to empty out the buckets from her study. There were a lot of slugs.

Coop out.