Dirt Bag Extravaganza 2!

Wednesday, October 6th

4:00-7:00 PM

SVSU Greenhouse

We need help to complete our first prototype earthen greenhouse! The first volunteer day was successful and we would love to see everyone from the last volunteer day plus some new faces!

It's ok if you can't make the entire time, we appreciate any help during the 3 hours!

It's a great opportunity to get involved and meet new people. Snacks and drinks will be provided.

If you have a shovel, please bring it!

Hope to see you there!

¡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.

Method

We figured out that the best method for filling the dirt bags was to have one person hold the bag and the other person fill. It takes a 5 gallon bucket of dirt to fill 1 dirt bag. Normally we would have to take some of the dirt out of the buckets with out hands and then we were able to pour the rest of the bucket right into the dirt bags. We also experimented with using some water to help pack the dirt in the bags and it seemed to work really well. We had no exact measurement on the water. We did try to put enough water in to keep the dirt moist throughout the bag.

For actually building the wall we were able to tamp the bags with a couple of bricks we found. We did out best to stagger them so that they will make a sturdy wall. We put down barbed wire in between the rows in order to lock the bags into place with each other. on the sides we started tapering the wall so that it will be in a downward slope.

Dirt Bag Extravaganza!

Thanks to all of our wonderful volunteers we had a huge turn out for our Green House raising!

We were able to finish digging the hole which ended up being about 4 ft deep and also build up!

The walls are about three rows high with dirt bags. This gives us about a foot and a half to two feet. I also think we have enough dirt bags filled to build another row on top of that. One more volunteer day like this and we should have a running underground greenhouse!

Here is a picture of all the extra dirt bags filled that we still need to build with.

Before and After

This is the hole. At it's deepest point it is about 4 foot deep. It is not fully dug out yet but it is very close. The front corner will not be dug as deep so it serves as a step to get in.

Digging what we have so far took around 9 hours with 2 people. It will probably take another 2 to 3 hours or so to dig with a single person.

Our big event is Tomorrow!!!

Hopefully we will be able to put up at least one of the walls.

Dirt Bag Extravaganza August 18th!

The Dirtbag Brigade is attempting to build our first prototype Chinese Green house. The goal of the Green House is to help grow wholesome food for cheap during the frigid winter months of Michigan. The event will be 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM at the SVSU Greenhouses. Come help fill dirtbags and give this great project some life! There will be free food and tee-shirts for anybody who comes to help out. Stop by for part of the time or the whole time!
Be there at 3:00 on Wednesday August 18th! It's sort of like a barn raising, except with dirt bags!

Rest in Peace Basil 10

When I went to post for this week, I realized I skipped a week. So I will start with week 4.
Last week watering took about 25 minutes. Basil bucket number 10 is the most unhealthy looking bucket. I thought about thinning out the plants. I didn’t because most of the plants were growing really well and there are only two weeks left to grow. I made note of the buckets that had plants that looked a bit on the weak side. The number of healthy basil plants outweighed the unhealthy ones 70:15. I left the unhealthy ones to see if there was any hope.
The spinach plants do not look very healthy. Aside from spinach bucket number 7, most of the basil plants are small and beginning to wither. My only thoughts about spinach bucket number 7’s success is it is placed in an area that receives a smaller amount of sunlight. Even so, other spinach plants in the same area do not share 7’s health.
This week is pretty much the same story as last week; some plants are looking extremely fruitful, while others have died all together. Luckily there are definitely more healthy plants than dead ones. Basil bucket number 10 is completely dead. Basil bucket number 1 though is looking excellent. This week I pulled 16 basil plants because they were completely withered or just entirely too small to be worth harvesting next week.
The spinach is the same as last week. The spinach harvest will be very minimal. The plants for the most part are small and some are browning at the ends. The spinach is taking about half the amount of water as the basil.
The plastic bags covering spinach bucket number 9 and 10 came off. I was thinking about replacing them, but decided against it seeing that I will be harvesting early next week. The purpose of the bag is to prevent weed growth and I am not too concerned with weeds commandeering the buckets in a week.
Watering this week took longer, obviously because the plants needed more water because they are bigger. I spent about 35 minutes watering compared to the 20-30 minutes I have spent in previous weeks. No complaints though, 35 minutes a week to raise roughly 100 plants, not too bad.
Finally I made some tomato basil soup with my dad this week. It was incredibly delicious. If you have lots of tomatoes I can give you a taste bud exploding recipe. If you need the basil, you know where to find it: the SVSU greenhouse where basil flows like worm tea. Hold off until I can measure the harvest though.