Sustainable Settings Can't Compost Way Out Of Toilet Issue

CARBONDALE, COLORADO - Sustainable toilets at Sustainable Settings have ironically thrown a wrench into the farm's attempt to comply with health-code requirements.
Brook Le Van, executive director of Sustainable Settings, thought installing composting toilets at the farm and learning center outside of Carbondale would be sufficient to satisfy Pitkin County's requirement for restroom facilities. That has not quite been the case.
The two sides have been at odds for three years over the toilet issue, prompting a two-hour meeting Wednesday between Sustainable Settings' board of directors and Pitkin County commissioners that failed to produce a compromise.
Rather, sympathetic county commissioners told Le Van that Sustainable Settings' ability to host school groups, adult workshops and other programs remains limited, based on the capacity of the two composting toilets that were installed last summer, along with a hand-washing facility.
“No matter how much we support and appreciate and love what you do, you still have to comply,” said Commissioner Jack Hatfield.
“The health issues are very real,” added Commissioner Rachel Richards.
Commissioners essentially directed Sustainable Settings in December 2007 to cease most of its programming because there were no public rest-room facilities available at the farming and ranching operation, located about 4 miles south of Carbondale off Highway 133.
The Sustainable Settings store, where its agricultural products are sold, could continue to operate, but visits by school groups and other programs were suspended.
The board of directors subsequently put the 240-acre property up for sale, intending to move the operation to a place where, Le Van suggested, costly regulatory requirements wouldn't threaten its viability.
The real estate market subsequently tanked, the property was taken off the market and the board agreed last spring that Sustainable Settings would stay put. A commercial well was drilled to comply with a county requirement and the two composting toilets were installed at a cost of about $10,000 — the most the nonprofit could afford to do, Le Van said.
And, the composting toilets meld with the nonprofit's sustainable philosophy, he noted. Having a vault toilet pumped, and the waste trucked elsewhere, would not.
“Are we complying? We thought we were. Now we're finding out, well, we're limited,” Le Van said.
Based on the manufacturer's input on the toilets' capacity, Sustainable Settings remains limited in the size and frequency of groups it can host. Gatherings like community potlucks are not allowed. Neither is camping by visitors.
And, because the toilets are in an unheated building and the hand-washing facility was an outdoor affair, they essentially don't work in the winter months, leaving Sustainable Settings with functioning facilities from roughly May through September or October.
But the farm's representatives suggested Wednesday that the toilets can be emptied regularly, and the contents moved elsewhere at the farm to complete the composting process, meaning they can function all year long and with unlimited capacity.
“It's a litter box, basically,” Le Van said.
State regulations allow for composting of waste elsewhere at the farm, according to Carla Ostberg, county environmental health manager, but that plan assumes that the composting process would occur first in the toilets. If the state is OK with bypassing that step in the process, commissioners indicated they'd agree to it, as well.
Le Van conceded Sustainable Settings needs public restroom facilities, but the cost of installing them is a hurdle. He told commissioners he'd like to work with Ostberg on determining exactly what will be required to meet the needs of Sustainable Settings' future vision, which includes a new barn and a dairy barn, as well as a commercial kitchen where farm products will be made.
The operation currently includes livestock, poultry and crop production, and the farm now has nine dairy cows that will provide members in a co-op venture with fresh milk, he said. Similarly, the farm has members who prepay for a share of the organic produce.
Sustainable Settings had been hosting about 9,000 visitors annually before the county ordered aspects of the operation shut down. Visitation dropped by about half, Le Van said. The drop-off had a financial impact, as some of the programs involved a fee paid to the nonprofit by participants, he said.
The farm also hosts a couple of large fundraising events (with portable toilets) each year, and Le Van asked commissioners to exempt the nonprofit from the county's special events permitting process, which involves time and expense. The commissioners declined. All special events are required to get a permit, said Commissioner George Newman, refusing to set a precedent by letting Sustainable Settings out of the mandate.
from The Post Independent

Gardeners Trade Grass For Fruit And Vegetables

FLORIDA - Karin Fields of Fort Lauderdale is enthusiastic about the potential of her yard. She's not going for a fluffy, lush lawn. At least not in the usual sense. Instead, she's happily swapping out sections of grass for artichokes, broccoli and onions.
With established vegetable gardens already tucked in back of her house, Fields is adding fresh plantings in the front yard -- perfectly visible from the street.
"I'm putting [vegetables] in front for more people to see,'' she said. "When they're walking dogs at night, when they're driving by the house, they won't miss the garden. They'll stop and look and they'll ask questions. And they'll want to do it themselves.''
Fields, an organic gardening coach by profession, supports a movement to use residential yards more efficiently and productively. She's among those who regard ornamental grass lawns -- which need water and gas-powered mowers for beauty -- as environmentally wasteful.
"Instead of wasting [water] on grass, we're going to put it right into the garden to make the vegetables,'' she said.
Like Fields, many South Florida residents are giving edibles more attention within their landscaping.
"I think it's a real trend,'' said Gabriele Marewski, owner of Paradise Farms Organic in south Miami-Dade County, who speaks on the topic of edible landscaping at public events.
While much of her land produces organic fruits and vegetables for commercial use, Marewski said she's trading out an ornamental hedge on her property for a personal kitchen garden, complete with kale and mustard greens.
Various factors account for the emphasis on edibles, gardening experts say. High among them is a desire for fruits and vegetables that have fresh-picked flavor and are produced without synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
"The awareness about organic gardening kind of renewed us to look at our yards and see where we could add something,'' said Diana Guidry of NatureScape Broward, a county program that promotes environmentally friendly landscaping.
Another draw, some suggest, is enjoying the outdoors, away from phones, Facebook and Twitter.
"To me, there's nothing more satisfying than being in nature,'' Marewski said.
Lance Gulseth of Hollywood isn't ripping out existing greenery, but when he replaced trees after Hurricane Katrina, he decided that any additions would be edible.
PICKING FRUIT
"I think it's just a nice feeling to walk in your backyard to pick mangoes or pick papayas or pick kumquats,'' Gulseth said. "It gives me a lot of enjoyment to have the yard producing, rather than [just] something that needs to be mowed every week.''
As a novice gardening enthusiast and former Arizona resident, Gulseth is delighted with the variety of food -- including bananas, basil and collard greens -- that's produced in his yard. Much of it, he said, requires relatively little effort and expense. He figures that this year he chowed down and shared about $120 worth of papayas from two trees started by simply tossing some extra seeds into a pot.
In addition to providing flavorful food, enthusiasts say, the variety of edible trees and plants offers the attributes of ornamental landscaping -- texture, color, shade and habitat for wildlife.
Fields said she's especially inspired by Fritz Haeg, a Los Angeles architect who's been a high-profile proponent for replacing traditional lawns with edible landscaping.
"He does it beautifully,'' she said. ``Instead of just a garden, he's turning it into a piece of art.''
For looks, Marewski's favorites include a cranberry hibiscus hedge. "It's gorgeous,'' she said. She tosses the lemon-flavored leaves in salads.
PRETTY PLANTS
Other aesthetically appealing edibles, Marewski said, include jaboticaba, mango and avocado trees. Rosemary makes a nice shrub. And lemon grass works well as a taller ornamental grass.
Another enthusiastic advocate of using organic edibles as landscaping is Desiree Fields (no relation to Karin), a trained master gardener volunteer with the University of Florida -- Broward County Extension Education Section.
Even the hedgerow, she said, looks similar to that of typical hedges in her urban Broward neighborhood. But hers produces such tasty treats as cherries, kumquats, plums and papayas.
Her method of trimming these fruit trees, she said, is specifically tailored to keeping them short and dense.
NOT MUCH WORK
Fields, a personal chef and organic garden designer, is eager to let fellow South Floridians know that when edible landscaping reaches a certain level of maturity and balance, there's minimal work. Basically, she said, her daily effort involves walking around her yard -- in a dress -- and harvesting.
Some of her favorites include strawberry guava, which produces a red fruit and offers dainty white flowers. The Barbados cherry provides her landscape with hot pink flowers with bright red cherries. Even her basil, Mexican sage and tarragon provide flowers. When food is bountiful, outdoor critters are likely to come and help themselves. That's fine, according to many edible enthusiasts. They're happy to share at least some of the bounty. In return, gardeners are treated to music and a show.
"I watch the birds,'' Marewski said. "It's my TV.''
from The Miami Herald

New York Dog Park Composts Waste

ITHACA, NEW YORK - Several years ago, dog owners in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y., began worrying about all the plastic bags filled with dung that ended up in the landfill.
Leon Kochian, a professor of plant biology at Cornell and, more to the point, the owner of a yellow lab, recalled the thinking at the time: “This is Ithaca. There’s got to be a more environmentally sensible way to do this.”
This year, with Mr. Kochian’s nudging, one of the city’s dog parks — part of the Allan H. Treman Marine State Park — became a dog waste composting park.
Special corn-based bags, made by the Biobag Company, based in Florida, are available at several stations in the park. Dog owners put the bag and its contents into large bins near the park’s entrances, which are removed once a week by a company called Cayuga Compost.
At its composting facility, Cayuga dumps the waste into a pile — mixed with a bit of yard and wood waste — quite separate from the company’s regular food-waste compost.
And there it will sit — until the company figures out what it might be good for.
Late next year, Cayuga plans to run tests to determine the composition of the dog waste (after all, a dog’s diet is arguably more varied than virtually any other animal’s, in accordance with the whims of their owners). If it matures into nutrient-rich compost, it might be applied to potted plants or landscaping, said Mark Whittig, Cayuga’s operations manager. If the compost is of poorer quality, it could be used for blending with topsoil, he said.
The Ithaca group believes that theirs is the first such dog composting park in the nation, though it is not certain. A similar program is in place in the large Pacific Spirit Regional Park in Vancouver, and an experimental program is also under way at a dog park in Montreal, where the compost is processed on-site with the help of sawdust.
The Ithaca program costs roughly $6,000 a year, according to Mr. Kochian, who said that more than enough money for the first year has already been raised in donations. So far, the Ithaca compost organizers are delighted with the enthusiasm their project has generated.
“Imagine if they started doing this in Central Park,” said Bruce Stoff, the communications manager for the Ithaca/Tompkins Convention and Visitors Bureau, in an e-mail message.
from The New York Times

Tesco Welcomes Organic Food Back On The Shelves

UNITED KINGDOM - This week UK major retailer Tesco turns enthusiastically back to organics with a new organic brand manager that will review the range, price, quality and communication for organic food in Tesco stores in all UK.
At Organic Trade Board (OTB) meeting on September 22, Go for Growth, Tesco announced that it has employed an organic brand manager as part of the retailer's promise to get organic produce back on the shelves.
Last year actually Tesco reduced the organic line because of the economic recession and the impact it had on customer spending. "Consumers were trying to reduce their monthly outgoings and they did stop buying organic produce", said Andrea Mulqueen, head of Tesco’s organic fresh produce team.
However, Ms. Mulqueen - talking to OTB delegates last week - admitted that "in hindsight Tesco had made mistakes in removing certain organic fruit and vegetables from the shelves", Freshinfo.com reports. "So in October [2008], Tesco introduced a new buying team for fruit, salads and vegetables for organic. We also talked to the supply base and customers. Now we are nearly all the way back to how it was. We need to support the industry."
Today more than a quarter of the Tesco’s fresh produce customers buy organic, which equates to 3.6 million Clubcard holders.
Tesco's plan to relaunch organic foods will consider the range, price, quality of products: “We now have a top-10 list of organic fruit and vegetables that must be available in any one store, like blueberries, leeks and lemons, that are really important to the organic customer”, she added.
Furthermore, the approach will be specific for each particular store’s demographic and area: “It is about the right range in the right store and getting those customers back,” Ms. Mulqueen explained.
Focus will also be on communication and in-store promotional events.
from Green Planet

Growers Reap Fruits Of Labor At Farmers Markets

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — It was the first time husband-and-wife team Andrew and Christina Norman had brought the vegetables grown on their Covington, Ga., farm to the Peachtree Road Farmers Market, and it did not look promising.
On a rainy Saturday, they were the only vendors there without a tent.
Yet that did not stop a steady stream of customers eager to buy their organic beans, heirloom tomatoes and Brussels sprouts from descending on their tables, cash in hand.
"I was in the wine business, which in the course of the last two years has tanked," Andrew Norman says. "The only other skill I have is farming, and we had to do something to pay our mortgage."
The Normans had sold their produce to Atlanta-area restaurants but never directly to the public.
"It was a lot of fun," Norman says, adding he made about $500 on that rain-soaked day.
Although farmers are struggling during the economic downturn, neighborhood markets are booming. Peachtree Road is one of at least three dozen such markets in the Atlanta metropolitan area, according to localharvest.org, a website that tracks farmers markets.
Nationally, farmers markets are soaring, buoyed by a growing interest in local foods and sustainable farming, says University of Wisconsin-Waukesha anthropology professor Kathleen Bubinas, who studies the markets' economic impact.
At the Peachtree Road market, tents snaked around the parking lot in the shadow of high-rise office buildings as vendors offered organic produce, baked goods, fresh lamb and eggs, as well as handmade crafts and jewelry. Farmers chatted with favorite customers, most of whom brought children or dogs, or both.
The parking lot of the Cathedral of St. Philip Episcopal, which hosts the market, was full by 9 a.m. despite the rain. "We come here frequently," said Hank Boughner of Atlanta, who roamed with daughters Isabelle, 8, and Madeline, 5. "It's fun to talk to farmers and talk about their food. The guy over there has jalapeño pesto that's really good."
Market manager Lauren Carey says about 800 shoppers and about 40 vendors come every week. The market is the brainchild of Atlanta restaurateurs Linton and Gina Hopkins, who founded it in 2007 with help from church members eager to offer fresh produce to the community.
Among the customers was Joel Schellhammer, an Atlanta management consultant, who browsed with his wife, Allie, and their 1-year-old daughter, Catherine. Schellhammer says books such as Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma have made people "more interested in knowing where the food that they are putting in their bodies is coming from." Pollan's 2006 best seller tracks food from four meals from their source to the table.
Schellhammer says some market prices are higher than he might pay at a supermarket but paying a little more makes more sense than "flying fruit halfway around the globe."
Alex Szecsey of A&J Farms in Douglasville, Ga., began a garden in 1979, guided by an organic gardening magazine. He began selling his produce from his 1-acre farm at farmers markets a decade ago and has watched demand grow for his baby eggplants and arugula. The farm is successful enough now to be a full-time occupation for him and his son, Jonathan.
Jonathan Szecsey enthusiastically snapped off a leaf of peppery arugula for a customer to try. It's a best seller, he says. "I usually can spot my arugula customers. It's usually a mother about 35-39," he said. "They will come straight for it. They love it."
from USA Today

Sewerage System Like 'Writhing Plate Of Spaghetti'

NEW ZEALAND - Steve Mace is passionate about his work - inspired by the massive environmental contribution worms will make when used in a sewerage system that will serve the two towns of Wyndham and Edendale.
Mr Mace is the managing director of BioFiltro, which is based in Wyndham, and has become somewhat of a pioneer.
His company recently built the first vermiculture sewerage system of its kind in New Zealand.
There are about 75 worldwide.
The system was completed two months ago and all that remains is for the households to be connected.
He joked he would be putting a picnic table and chairs at the site as it would be odour-free and the system would be a wonder to behold.
Mr Mace and former Fonterra Edendale site manager Max Parkin were directors in the company and they also had an investor, he said.
Mr Mace described the system as being "no-frills" with low overheads and no odour.
"We like things clean, to look clean and people won't smell it," Mr Mace said.
The system had been designed to take up to 528,000 litres of sewage a day, he said.
The sewage would be piped into the site and would go through a self-cleaning filter system, which included a standby alternative programmed to kick in if there was a problem, solids would be scraped out and put into a wheelie bin.
The self-cleaning mechanism meant the potential for odour was eliminated, Mr Mace said.
There are two underground tanks each capable of holding 100,000 litres.
This means the system has a 12-hour storage capability.
The wastewater is then sprayed on a packed bed of plastic, screens, sawdust, rocks and bacteria.
Worms within the sawdust bed provide aeration and consume the bacteria to create humus.
One of the features of the system was the standby equipment, which featured at nearly every step of the operation including when the effluent was sprayed on to the bed, he said.
The effluent is sprayed on to the bed for 15 minutes, then there is a 10-minute rest period between bursts.
The system runs 24 hours a day.
The worms are at the top of the food chain - they consume bacteria and create pathways through the sawdust, which provides oxygenation.
The remaining clear liquid was treated by a UV unit before being discharged into the Mataura River, Mr Mace said.
The system is extremely quiet with the noise barely audible.
Stainless-steel piping is used in the new system because it lasts longer.
Because Mr Mace and Mr Parkin are from the dairy industry, which is used to getting projects up and running in a tight timeframe, the project was managed to come in within budget and within the timeframe set out and without varying the original plan.
The whole site was contained in a fraction of the land that would have been needed if a lagoon system had been installed, Mr Mace said.
It had been estimated the total cost of the project would be $1 million less than installing a traditional sewage treatment method.
The plant had its own worm farm and tiger worms were used in the operation, he said.
The worms will become a self-sustaining population.
The worms have been fed milk powder and water, but had cow manure added to their diet recently just to get them used to the change in diet they will encounter when the system is hooked up.
"After a while it [the bed] will be just like a writhing plate of spaghetti," he said.
It took 45 days for a worm to mature and there were 10 to 15 worms in one egg and each worm had a life-span of 12 to 14 months.
There was a potential that each worm could have 300 offspring, he said.
The system is also compatible with other conventional sewerage systems.
It can be set up alongside existing systems to provide efficiencies.
While the humus was rich in nutrients, there were a lot of regulations around the use of such material in New Zealand and as yet it could not be used by consumers, he said.
However, that is not the case in Chile where gardeners could buy humus in 1kg bags.
Mr Mace believed that once the New Zealand Government had established that the product was stable and free of pathogens and viruses, it would be able to be sold commercially.
from The Otago Daily Times

New Varieties For Urban Gardeners

The vegetable garden looks to be "Sweet ’n’ Neat” next year, thanks to some new varieties of tomatoes by that very name.
More urban dwellers are joining the trend of growing their own produce, and tomatoes are the No. 1 choice of those growing edibles.
Gardeners can choose from several new varieties, such as Sweet ’n’ Neat Scarlet, Sweet ’n’ Neat Cherry, Sweet ’n’ Neat Yellow and an impressive Little Sun Yellow. While determinate varieties fit a smaller garden situation, these new patio varieties open the door even wider, enticing everyone to grow some, even if it is in a container.
In addition to these tomatoes, there are also great selections suitable for growing in baskets, such as Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow. The Tumbling Junior Yellow will be introduced next year and, although small, you can expect a bounty of delicious tomatoes.
In Mississippi State University trials, Dr. Bill Evans harvested 4.5 pounds of Tumbling Tom Yellow tomatoes in one picking. At this year’s California trials, I counted right at 40 cherry-size tomatoes ready for harvest on a Sweet ’n’ Neat Scarlet in a 6-inch container.
Tomatoes aren’t the only produce going compact. You’ll have your choice of sweet or hot peppers, zucchini squash, acorn squash, eggplant, okra, pumpkins, basil, strawberries and more.
Whether it is the global economy or food safety scares that have fueled this trend, it cannot be argued that there are some great family benefits to these small urban gardens. Children are growing up in a fast-food world where poor nutrition and sparse outdoor time are common. Children involved in growing vegetables may become future gardeners.
The urban vegetable garden certainly doesn’t have the same look of our grandparents’ gardens, especially since urban gardens are smaller. It is the proverbial "piece of cake” to get the soil rich and fertile. The products needed to accomplish this are available at most garden centers by the bag or even by the scoop if you have a pickup.
Urban gardens normally are constructed on raised beds and enclosed or separated from lawn areas with wood or rocks. This will give you the best in drainage and aeration, and will help keep out encroaching grass. Simply use the string trimmer around the edges.
This style of garden is easy to tend from all sides without compacting soil by constantly making trips to hoe or weed. Harvesting is as simple as reaching in and picking your produce.
Fall vegetable gardens are great because the produce ripens at a cool time of the year, delivering the best flavor. If you miss planting for fall, make sure you jump on the bandwagon come spring.
from News OK