The Principle of Self-Regulation and the Litterless Box

"The purpose of a functional and self-regulating design is to place elements or components in such a way that each serves the needs and accepts the products, of other elements. (Mollison 1988, pg 37)"

In Permaculture, this one principle inspires to create a system that requires the least input for the most gain. It also encompasses true analysis of certain elements and could potentially eliminate the need for unnecessary labor and energy.

Take for example the Permaculture Chicken. The chicken has needs: food, water, shelter, grit. It has intrinsic characteristics and behavious: breed, colour, flying, scratching. Lastly, it produces elements: eggs, manure, CO2. These factors require careful analysis and consideration when planning a site or an area for chickens to thrive.

Designing around these elements will also give us an easier time when it comes to the least amount of maintenance possible.

So imagine, the manure could be scooped up and thrown into a compost bin, but instead why not put the compost bin beneath them. Even better, why not incorporate another element to eat the manure. You could put the chickens above a fish tank and allow the manure to drop in and feed the fish. The nutrient rich water could then be used to water plants. Another element that can be incorporated are worms. The manure can drop down to feed the worms.

However. . If you do use worms you have to remember that chickens scratch. This will cause them to dig up the ground and find the worms and eat them. How do you remedy this? You put another barrier where they can't reach the worms and where the manure can easily drop down to feed them. If you wanted to, you can remove the barrier and let the chickens feast on a product that they helped create.

So. ..

This principle is universal. It can be extended to any element even dogs and cats.

Here's an example with cats. A behavior of our feline friends is that they'll scratch up potted plants and do their business in it, piss and poop. People get frustrated with this and they go to extreme measures to fight it. Furthermore, they spend money buying cat litter and other miscellaneous things to keep the litter box smelling and looking nice. They even buy mechanized tools to clean the box for them, which ends up scaring our furry friends to a shitless state.

Going back to the chicken example, why not integrate existing elements to eat and take care of the elements that cats produce?

Here's our prototype. The Black Cat Collective in Ft Worth including myself came up with the idea of creating a litterless box.

Step 1. Get a box and fill it up with some leaves and bulky materials for bedding material for some earth worms.












Step 2. Fill it in with Earthwroms preferably Red Wigglers. They eat manure (yummy)










Step 3. Fill in the bed with compost and then aromatic herbs. If you put in plants, think about their needs. Some will do fine in shade and some do better in sun.












Step 4. Take away the kitty litter box and see it if works. We're trying it out right now and will post updates on the progress.

If you want to purchase one, we'll have a product in a few weeks.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this design is utilizing not just the poop, but the urine as well. The plants should help to absorb the urine and use the urea as a fertilizer source. We'll most likely also dig the poop into the soil so the worms will get to it. A friend within the collective mentioned cats pooping in drier type soils, so the top part is lightly mulched to provide a dry surface. Hopefully, this will keep the worm bin moist, prevent the plants from drying out too much, and allow our cat friends to do the dirty inside the bin.

References:
Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: a Designers' Manual. Tyalgum: Tagari Publications, 1996. Print.

Get your project on!

Community Cultivators is very excited to share with you the amazing community that is under cultivation in East Austin. It seems like every week several new and exciting developments happen all at once. It's been awhile since we've been able to take the time to capture some of the most amazing developments in on this site. Let's get you up to speed!

Over the course of this past year Community Cultivators started investing in development projects at the Permaculture Park in East Austin. We collaborated with ape99.org to put together few workshops and produce a couple videos you can check out here.

As development progressed, we started hosting workday potlucks to share all the fun and excitement we saw building. Each week, the potlucks ebbed and flowed and we realized that our work projects needed to expand in order to accommodate more participants. 

There were many challenges to this stage in our community's growth. At the same time as our community was expanding... part of the household that was hosting the potlucks was relocating across the street. As each new Sunday rolled around, we confronted these challenges by sharing our ideas for this new space and the community reacted with astounding love and generosity. Within a few weeks an entire 4 bedroom house was cleaned and renovated, gardens were installed, fruit trees planted and a whole yard (previously covered in rusty metal and broken glass) was cleaned, raked and sheet-mulched. It was quit an impressive show of the potency and potential of what was growing up around us!

Today, the Permaculture Park is joined by the Dead-end Homestead (across the street), The Womb (adjacent to the Park and the original location of the Sunday Potlucks... now reborn) and, most recently, The White House Austin (a developing art studio and collaborative a few lots up the road). Everyday has brought new and exciting developments to the East-end of Pennsylvania Ave.

For a time, while we were in the throes of relocation and oppressive summer heat, we considered shifting the potlucks to every other week. At first this seemed like it would relieve some of the pressure of the households involved and allow for more organization of our workdays. This, however, mostly just led to unintended consequences such as a general confusion as to when the next potluck would be held and who might or might not be there.

It wasn't long before we were back in the swing of the weekly potlucks. And, with the development of The White House Austin and the rebirth of The Womb, our original potluck location, the community took on a renewed vigor.

Thanks to the vision of Nettie Tiso and her "Womb-ates" a project board was constructed to capture the diverse array of projects that were already in process. We still haven't found a way to dispel the summer heat but we did find a way to manage our projects so that we can enjoy productive activities, in a community setting, without the threat of mass heatstroke.

Now, no matter what time you arrive on Sundays, you can almost assuredly find a project (or several) in action. This past week, while a group was helping Andy Howell construct self watering container gardens (great for apartment balconies or any area where space is at a premium) another group was building a long trail into the beautiful wood behind The White House Austin, while yet another group was touring the Permaculture Park.

We also encourage you to bring your own projects to the table. There is nothing in this word more empowering than to see a community of passionate and loving people take up a project with you. With incredible synergy you'll witness projects that would take you months to complete on your own come to fruition in mere moments!

It's truly inspiring to witness the transformation of these various spaces. The Community Cultivators mission is being actualized in spades by the activity on Pennsylvania Ave. in East Austin. Before too long, it will be time for find new fertile ground to spread the seeds of community. What's happening on your street? Could you bee the next pollinator of a community in your neighborhood?

Join us this Sunday, July 24th for a fun filled day of pallet house construction, trail building, screen-printing, sheet-mulching, building self-watering container gardens, etcetera... while sharing skills, enjoying new friendships and cultivating a vibrant community. 

There is also a very exciting event on the horizon for next week. In addition to our normal Sunday Potluck, the Dead-end Homestead will be hosting an Adventure Kickoff party for Yours Truly. That's right, on Saturday the 30th of July, you are all invited to celebrate the first day of my new adventure. Please check out my personal blog Adventures in Cultivation for more details!

Celebrate [y]Our Interdependence!

This July 3rd, Community Cultivators will be participating in the first annual LoveATX Interdependence Fest @ Austin Art + Music Partnership. We're excited to be apart of this event and celebrate our interdependency with the folks at LoveATX! 

LoveATX is a project of LoveUnity an organization who works to build "home-town security" by empowering local communities and developing local economies. The Interdependence Fest is focused on informing and empowering the local community by:

providing a place for local communities and organizations to connect and network

sharing information about healthy, creative, conscious, and sustainable living

empowering and developing local community and economy

encouraging interdependence/collaboration between individuals and organizations

Sounds like our kind of event!

So, come out and join us on July 3rd and celebrate [y]our interdependence with LoveATX and Community Cultivators!

The fun continues...

Our community continues to ripple out from the Deadend Homestead, Permaculture Park and our new friends at The Shire! We were all so excited this past weekend to have so many friends and family to our Sunday Potluck. Through the selfless efforts of so many loving cultivators we continue to accomplish more than we could ever really expect.

Sharing the love at Pecan Street Festival with EcoSteve
and The Shire.

Each week brings about new wonders for us here at Community Cultivators. Recently, we spent a weekend with EcoSteve and our Shire friends at Central Texas' oldest and largest free art festival, Pecan Street Festival held right here on 6th Street. With thousands of people we shared the beauty of abundance and community through earth plaster and solar cooking demonstrations as well as our miniature off-grid aquaponics system.

The festival was a great success and we managed to even divvy up our resources and continue our contribution to the new Deadend Homestead. If you haven't heard the news, The folks of the Deadend have taken over the house at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue and, with the help and encouragement of so many loving friends and cultivators, completed months worth renovations in mere weeks.

Cardboard, soaked in water and enriched with nutrient tea
is used as a weed barrier and fungal habitat. I deep layer
of wood mulch over the top of that and you've got
the beginnings of a beautiful garden... or orchard!

This past Sunday, we had a great time transforming a formerly dilapidated space, full of broken glass, rusty nails and other hazardous unknowns, into a massively sheet-mulched garden space.  Through the continued generosity of organizations like Wheatsville Co-op, and Davy's Tree Services, we've upcycled bale after bale of cardboard and several yards of wood mulch into rich healthy soils ready to bring vibrant new life to this once "dead-end".

The exchange of skills and knowledge are not limited to mulching and household renovation projects. We have a lot of fun learning new things and sharing our talents within the community. Nettie Tiso with Racecar Apparel put together a screen-printing demonstration and workshop. Her new spring collection features farmers market fresh produce and an exclusive run on Community Cultivators shirts and tanks. We're very fortunate to have so many talented folks in this community!

Nettie of Racecar Apparel preparing the screen for our
beautiful new Community Cultivators tees and tanks.
Special Thanks to Denton Weaver for the design work!

If you've yet to make it out to one of these incredible events don't worry, you're not alone. And you can also take comfort in the knowledge that we will continue to cultivate our collective communities, one potluck at a time.

Attending a potluck is easy. Simply click the 'like' button on the right hand side of this blog and we'll keep you informed of all our events through facebook. Not on facebook? No problem! Come out and visit us any time at the dead-end of Pennsylvania Avenue near 12th and airport or contact us via email.

From a manageability standpoint, we've decided to cut back on the frequency of our now famous potlucks. We are now only hosting potlucks every other Sunday afternoon. You are of course encouraged to stop by any time and we always welcome new visitors. Having the potlucks less frequently will allow us to be more intentional with our efforts and insure that we are providing the best possible experience to everyone involved.

Finally, I'd like to invite you all out to a wondrous adventure at the Hundred Acre Wood for the second annual Grackle Fest the weekend of June 3rd - 5th. Community Cultivators will be continuing in the spirit of Sunday fun with 2 hours of workshops on Permaculture, Aquaponics and Community Cultivation starting at noon on Sunday, June 5th. Something for everyone!

Backyard food security

Here at Community Cultivators we like to highlight those folks who are really taking the ideas of sustainability to new heights. The backyard of Denton Weaver's home in Northeast Austin is a prime example. Through the use of recycled materials, a strong imagination and a vision for highly productive food systems, Denton has created something we can't help but recognize as a revolution in local food security.

More than just a backyard garden, Denton looks for ways to put our waste to work... producing food for himself and the community. In what would otherwise be an average backyard, Denton has begun to explore new and creative ways to produce a large amount of food in a very small space. He does this through an innovative system known as "Aquaponics".

Aquaponics takes the familiar systems of Aquaculture (farming of fish) and Hydroponics (plants grown in liquid medium) and bridges them together to create a closed-loop system that produces almost no waste and is capable of unbelievable productivity. Perhaps the most astounding and promising aspect of this bio-integrated method of food production is the incredible lack of water being used compared to conventional gardening systems.

In a conventional garden, you might have to water daily to keep your plants happy and productive. Much of this water seeps through the soil or evaporates before your plants can put it to use. Often times this escaping water takes many of the vital nutrients, those essential building blocks of healthy plant growth, with it as it leaches away. The "closed-loop" water circulation within an aquaponics system resolves this loss of vital nutrients and water through a symbiotic relationship between plants and fish.

In aquaponics, water is continually filtered through gravel beds where rhizobacteria and plant roots strip out the fish wastes, such as ammonia, nitrates, nitrites and phosphorus, that would otherwise build up and become toxic to fish. In turn, these fish wastes serve as liquid fertilizer for plants. Very little water is lost to evaporation and, unlike most traditional gardens, the water is continually recirculated requiring only 10% of what might be used to irrigate the same amount of produce in a typical garden.

Denton prepares his floating-raft grow-bed system in the
repurposed hull of small sailboat.

Looking something like a Rube Goldberg machine for gardeners, Denton's backyard system is built largely out of recycled materials.

"I found the old miniature sailboat hull on the side of the road with a 'free' sign on it!" Denton happily exclaims. "It just worked out that I was looking to experiment with a floating-raft design. It's my sunken boat garden!"

"The fish tank is a large sand filtration system for natural swimming pools I recovered from the dump. I'd say about 90% of the materials were on their way to the landfill."

There are many challenges to designs such as this and Denton has spent a considerable amount of time experimenting and retooling his designs.

"It's all a work in progress," he concedes. "We've just started to establish the grow-beds and we're still looking to find more fish."

Currently, Denton has only a single fish swimming around in his fish tank with a plan to add several more as the system stabilizes.

"Even with a minimal amount of fish solids, we've still managed to propagate several tree cuttings and the root systems of our water-loving lettuces are really healthy."

"Eventually I'd like to have several varieties of fish and other aquatic life. It's all about diversity and trying new things," he says with a smile.

There are a lot of reasons to appreciate that motto and it's one that Denton lives by.

"Soon I'd like to have enough food to start selling at the farmers market but, more than that, I'd like to show others how they can grow a ton of food in their backyards without a lot of waste."

Community Cultivators Bike Brigade of the East Austin Urban Farm Tour

One year ago sunday, the inception of Community Cultivators began at East Austin Urban Farm Tour. In a chance meeting, a vibrant community would soon take shape and come to be know as our now beloved Community Cultivators.

In honor of this most auspicious occasion, Community Cultivators invites you to join us on a Bike Brigade of this, the second annual, East Austin Urban Farm Tour.

Buy Tickets for the East Austin Urban Farm Tour here!

Tickets are only $35 and proceeds benefit the the Farm & Ranch Freedom Alliance. Tour includes cooking demos and tastes by local celebrity chefs and samples of local wine, beer, and spirits!

We'll meet at the unforgettable Permaculture Park (3609 Pennsylvania Ave) at noon. We'll leave out for the Hausbar Farm at 12:45pm.

The pace will be slow and mellow to accommodate even the greenest riders and this event is 100% child friendly so bring along the tikes with bikes and remember, children under 12 get in FREE!!

If you can't make the meet and greet at the Permaculture Park, meet us at Hausbar Farm at 1pm or link up with the Bike Brigade anywhere along the way!

After an amazing day enjoying local fare and touring East Austin's wonderful Urban Farms, the Brigade will make the trek north to join other party goers to bid Mary Hess a loving farewell with more friends and fabulous food.

Please join us for this very special event in honor of the still very young but thriving Community of loving Cultivators!

The amazing progression of the Dead-end Homestead

In harmony with the beautiful Spring weather, the permaculture excitement continues to blossom on Austin's East side. The timing, in fact, has never been better to get involved! So many educational projects to work on, amazing people to connect with and delightful local dishes to savor... it's what we mean when we talk about community cultivation!

Thanks to the contributions of so many wonderful volunteers, the Dead-end Homestead has made some impressive transformations over the past two weekends. As Cooper's relaxed demeanor would suggest, the atmosphere is laid back and stress free. When the main goals of the day are to have fun, learn something new and cultivate new friendships... there's never a reason to rush.

At the same time, it's always very impressive to see the tons of projects we manage to knock out in short order on any given Sunday afternoon. The Mulch-crete hoophouse has only one more wall left to pour before it's ready for a layer of plaster to seal it all up. The swales have been cleaned out, mulched and drainage piping laid. Several compost piles have been spread around various fruit trees and grape vines. And several large piles of wood mulch have met a quick death at the end of a pitchfork. All the while, the ambiance remains one of relaxation and leisure. Take it from Cooper, life at the Dead-end Homestead is pretty darn sweet!

Speaking of sweet, this past week we were blessed with a somewhat impromptu wild bee capture workshop taught by Carrie "Queen Bee" Guipe. She showed us what we need to build "swarm boxes" and use those, scented with lemongrass oil, to attract wild bee swarms. After the bees establish a colony in one of our swarm boxes we can build them "top bar hives" so they can begin to build combs and produce delicious honey! The process is actually fairly simple and said to be mostly fool proof -- so long as you don't try to agitate the bees that is.

Carrie graciously set us up with all the plans, basic materials and laid down plenty of wisdom to get us started. Needless to say, she's sweet as honey, and it was very inspiring to have her stir up the dormant hive in us!

To continue on the path of organic design, Daryl Stewart, founder of ape99.org and host of the Permaculture Park, the one acre site that makes up the core of the Dead-end Homestead, laid out this lovely walkway that makes a beautiful accent to the swale system traversing the land. Fed by the top swale on the property, this walkway will boarder and help to retain a small pond. If you're at all familiar with the Central Texas climate, we sometimes wait months for the rain. When it finally does bless us, we want to hold onto that water as long as possible or risk the serious drought conditions that have surely been the tragic end of many a backyard garden. Creating plenty of small retention ponds helps to keep the humidity high for our dry seasons and, better still, attracts an abundance of aquatic creatures that help us build balanced and resilient ecosystems we can all enjoy.

This and other projects at the Dead-end Homestead is only a fraction of the fun work cooking up. If you've yet to make it out to a Sunday Potluck yet, there has truly never been a better time! As the weather starts warming up and approaches the unbearable 'Jul-august' the work and fun slow down and we start seeking more indoor activities. The opportunity to get some practical, hands-on permaculture education awaits. Best of all, it's completely free of charge! Just bring some work gloves, a wide brimmed hat, some sturdy shoes and an open mind... the rest will come naturally.

If you can't make the work party, the potluck usually starts around sundown and is always accompanied by friendly faces, live music, interesting conversation and, of course, some of the best food Central Texas has to offer! If you come for the potluck be sure to bring at least one dish that will feed 6-8 happy people and, whenever possible, use only the freshest local fare. For those participating in the work parties, no need to bring anything aside from the aforementioned hat and gloves, we're more than happy to feed you and keep you hydrated! Of course, if you have a dish you just have to share... by all means, your generosity is an important part of what makes us a thriving community!

With that in mind, come join us at the beautiful Dead-end Homestead this Sunday! For details check out our facebook event listing. While you're there, join the Community Cultivators facebook group and stay up to date on all the cultivation action, of which, the Dead-end Homestead is just one piece of the big vision we're cultivating together!