Inner City Farmer

I’ve harvested four big red fatties so far, from two different plants. Only one of the eight tomato plants I put in the ground in March failed to flower. The others are looking good and healthy. If production keeps up, it’s going to be a bountiful summer. Mmmmm, salsa. Mmmmm, fresh marinara. Mmmmm, tomato sandwiches (Recipe: toast, fat tomato slices, a liberal spread of Vegenaise, a dash of Jane’s Krazy Mixed-Up Salt, and some fresh basil leaves.) What more do we need? Perhaps a couple eggs (check), maybe a few cucumbers (on their way), some peppers (picked one yesterday), and an eggplant or two (not looking great, but not dead either). All from my backyard.

Despite my penchant for peeing on trees and recycling my bathwater, I’m not as self-sufficient as you might think. There are some situations that just don’t seem to have any reasonable solutions. Take diapers. Before my boy was potty-trained, I spent way too much time debating the merits of cloth diapers versus disposable ones, when in the end they both suck—cloth ones require wasting lots of energy and water while disposables end up in the landfill.

Debating the merits of various refrigerators has proved to be just as frustrating. The one that came with this house is all but dead. It quickly turns my ice cream into soup. The best solution, according to those who are into hard-core self-sufficiency, would be for me to simply do without. Sure, I could make some sort of root cellar to preserve my perishable food items. Most of what goes into a refrigerator really doesn’t need to be there. But I’m just not that hard-core. This is where I draw the line. If there is one advance created by man that I prize especially, it’s refrigeration. I simply couldn’t stand to live in Texas without being able to open the fridge and grab a cold one.

So today I broke down and went shopping. I had heard wonderful things about Sun Frost refrigerators. They reduce energy consumption by 80 percent. They provide high humidity. They’re quiet. They’re really pretty. But they cost a freaking fortune. One will set you back nearly three grand. Like solar panels, they will eventually pay for themselves, but also like solar panels they’re a hard sell. I only have some many years left on this earth.

However, I did vow to buy one that was part of the government’s Energy Star program. Sadly, most of these fridges are high-end models that are not only out of my budget but also more fridge than I need. Most of the ones I saw consume close to 500 kWh a year, nearly 100 kWh more than the smaller, more inefficient models consume. That doesn’t make much sense to me. A smarter government program (oxymoron) would make the cheapest fridge the most energy efficient, and I would bet it would end up being the biggest seller. I finally found one that only consumes 383 kWh a year, not a huge improvement but it was the best I could find. And it’s as black as Johnny Cash’s shirt. My hope is that one day I’ll slap some solar panels on the roof and then I won’t feel so guilty about my desire for cold beer and ice cream.

The other problem that arises when buying a new fridge is what to do with the old one. Luckily, Austin Energy has a really cool program set up—they’re sending someone to my house to pick my old one up and they promise to dispose of it in an “environmentally-sound” manner and, oh yeah, they’re also giving me fifty bucks. In the end I’m happy with my decision. After four hours of research, I picked the most energy-efficient model I could afford. What more can a lowly consumer do?

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 29% (and dropping)

Despite appearances, this blog has inspired a slew of comments that have made the journey I’m on so much easier. Funny thing though, the majority of these comments have been sent to me via email. I’m not sure if this has been done out of modesty, fear, or laziness… but it must stop! The answer to many of the problems we face as a species can be found in our highly developed ability to communicate with each other, so, for christ’s sake, let’s start talking, even if it’s only to say: “You haven’t flushed your toilet in a week? That is so gross!”

The latest batch of comments to put a smile on my face was sent by a man living in one of the hotbeds of sustainability, good old Vermont. A woodworker and a musician, this man’s got serious skillz, whether he’s making a table or strumming a guitar. Here’s what he had to say:

Re: imperfect cob arches: It’s the unofficial motto of my woodworking biz, “Imperfections reveal and highlight the mysteries of the process.” Hell, yeah, a human made it, from natural materials that behave a little differently here and there. If you want uniformity go buy molded plastic, but if you value interacting with a formerly living, organic material then it’s going to have variations, texture, oddities, character!

Re: meeting the neighbors, egg swaps, sharing gardening tips, whatever: Nothing will be more important as we go than relearning how to give and take and share and trade and support the people we live next to and near. In the future our lives take place at home and in the neighborhood and at the village commons.

Re: okra: Pickled okra kicks ass.

Re: packaging: Packaging can go fuck itself.

Self-Sufficiency Meter: 30% (I lost a chick this weekend to the jaws of an opossum, which means there will be a slight drop in egg production in the future.)

My quest to promote urban sustainability landed me in the strangest of places this past weekend. Camping. At a music festival. Out in the country. But if you think about it a tightly packed campground isn’t all that different from a city. Both have high populations packed into a small area. Both are highly regulated. And both are what you make of them. They can be noisy, smelly, dirty cauldrons of excess. Or they can be paradises. What it comes down to is design and intention. Thankfully, the Kerrville Folk Festival turned out to be as well designed a built environment as I’ve ever set foot in.

The folks who put it on are obviously doing something right—the festival is 37 years old and still going strong. Much of its power comes from its intimacy. There’s one main stage, and, even if you wander in late, you can usually find a nice spot up front. And if you still haven’t had your fill of music after watching five acts play on the main stage chances are good you can catch one (or more) of them hosting an impromptu jam session around a campfire late at night. Such performances have inspired legions of fans, some of whom have attended the festival 20, 25, even 35, years in a row.

For me, the most impressive aspect of the festival, beyond the music itself, was its mind-blowingly simple policy of asking fans to bring their own cups instead of dispensing cheap plastic ones that would simply get thrown in the trash. Bonnaroo, one of the biggest and best known music festivals going today, prides itself on how “green” it is, and yet the statistics provided on its website belie that fact. In 2007, an organization called Clean Vibes recycled 60 percent of the 593 tons of waste produced at the festival, but 27 percent of that waste was plastic, which, we should all know by now, doesn’t truly get recycled. It gets “downcycled,” that is, made into stuff like fleece jackets. It’s this kind of thinking that’s gotten us to where we are today—surrounded by growing mountains of trash. I applaud the folks at the Kerrville Folk Festival for using their heads and eliminating the trash problem before it could even become one.

On the increasingly rare occasions that I drive, my son always gets on my case. “Daddy, why are you driving so slow?” he asks.

“Because I’m not in a hurry,” I answer.

This attitude carries over to the household where, just like on a real farm in the actual country, I find the time to make my boy pancakes from scratch every morning.

One morning not so long ago I produced what the National Inquirer has dubbed “the Miracle Pancake.” Some see in it the face of Jesus, others a simple heart. What do you see?