Our August 27 solar cooking workshop attracted attention from Luther Krueger who hosts Saturday Solar Cooking Brunches in Minneapolis, gives s.c. demos across the state and interviews solar cooks around the country. He says, I think what you are doing is really up at the top for getting the message out–and DIY cookers are soon to be a big focus of my ….outreach efforts.
To accommodate a wide variety of dietary preferences & needs I bake gluten free, vegan food for demonstrations. Here’s one of many that I have adopted from Rhian
I substituted mulberries in Rhian’s Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
▢60 g (¼ cup) coconut oil (or sub olive or vegetable oil)
▢200 ml (⅘ cup) unsweetened almond milk (or any other plant-based milk)
▢2 tablespoons lemon juice *
▢8 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other sweetener) ( i used 4 Tbsp)
▢1 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢Pinch salt
▢150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) **
▢150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend (or sub plain flour if not gluten-free)
▢2 heaped teaspoons baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
▢¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
▢100 g (1 cup) fresh blueberries ( i subtituted mulberries)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit). I preheated sun oven for 1/2 hr.
Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave (skip this step if using any other oil). (We melted it in sun oven)
Once melted, add the milk to the same bowl along with the lemon juice, maple syrup, vanilla, salt and ground almonds.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
Mix well, adding a tiny splash more milk if it’s looking too dry. (Mulberries were wetter than blueberries so no extra liquid was used).
Add the fresh blueberries (mulberries) and fold in gently, to make sure you don’t crush them. (Mulberries crush!)
Transfer the mixture between muffin cases in a muffin tin.
Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until risen and an inserted skewer comes out clean. (about 90 min. in sun oven on clear, sunny, hot day).
Tastes best when fresh, but keeps covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Let’s resume this cliff hanger from the previous post
TA-DA!
Words can’t begin to praise Kurt and Nils for how skillfully and amicably they work together. Their creation is so beautiful I don’t want to get it dirty!
Soak the earth-floor of each bin.
Finished compost left in the old hot compost system was spread on the bottom of each section and soaked to create moist conditions for composting critters.
Sort garden waste into green and brown piles, max. 1/4″ diameter & 18″ long.
Let greens dry before adding to compost because there’s enough green from kitchen scraps to make a 2:1 ratio of green to brown.
Add a layer of reedy stems – breathing tubes – if you have them.
Layer dry – brown – leaves & stems
Collect vegetarian food scraps
Add food scraps & spread them out.
Cover with another brown layer, rinse out the food bucket & add water around the pile.
If you made a mess when you added garden waste, please sweep it.
Now you have composting bragging rights. When we left off composting last year, we were processing at least 2000 lbs – 1 ton – of food scraps per year. We have more people living here now, so I bet our numbers increase.
On one of summer’s hottest days, several of us die-hard composters made a pilgramage to Cottonwood Urban Farm , one of LA Compost’s regional compost hubs. On our arrival, Elliot Kuhn pulled himself away from unloading and deploying a truckload of food scraps to give us a tour of the composting systems. Several volunteers continued his work while he explained the features of their system that made it possible to safely compost in an urban setting.
I came away with compost-system-envy and hope that we could resume composting after last years rat invasion forced us to put all our food scraps into the city’s green bins. As luck would have it, eco-villager Kyla suggested that we build a system based on the model that LA Compost built at her urban work site. A group of us met to assess the plans she had, select a site and ask community for approval.
Our enthusiastic plans were interrupted for a few months by the COVID19 outbreak that forced projects onto back-burners while we established protocols to safely shelter at home.
Eco-villager Kurt, and Kyla’s friend, Nils – who was temporarily off work – committed to the COVID social distance/ mask wearing protocols while building the system. Nils launched the action with a comprehensive materials list.
component parts
Assemble the frame
Challenges as they assemble frame. In addition to wearing mask & working 6 feet apart for COVID precautions, they are being attacked by the thorny bougainvillea, which I had trimmed to accommodate shorter people – like me.
Attach rat resistent hardware cloth to back, sides & bottom.
Move it to it’s new home site.
Add slats to facilitate turning and unloading compost.
TA-DA!
Words can’t begin to praise Kurt and Nils for how skillfully and amicably they work. Their creation is so beautiful I don’t want to get it dirty!
In the next post, you’ll see that the thought of sending more food scraps to an outside composting site is a strong motivator for me, and as Kyla says, the food will add a new patina to the wood!
Our dear apartment managers of the past several years, John and Sandy Maliga, are retiring and moving north to be closer to grandchildren. What a treat it has been to have this team with us for almost five years, and I’m happy for them to be closer to family.
Entrance to main building in L.A. Eco-Village
And so we are searching for a Resident Manager for our 45 unit Urban Soil-Tierra Urbana Limited Equity Housing Cooperative right here in the Los Angeles Eco-Village.
If you, or someone or some bodies, you know might be interested and qualified in joining our Management Team in our intensely urban intentional community, please see our Job Description and required and desired qualifications here And submit your letter and resume to:
urbansoilmanagersearchcommittee@googlegroups.com
Also, please help us spread the word.
Note that our public tour schedule of LAEV can be found here: http://laecovillage.org/home/tours/
UPDATE: the position has been fulfilled. Thanks for your help!
Really nice article on BBC-Mundo, the Spanish language section of the BBC. Written by Beatriz Díez, the article places the L.A. Eco-Village in the context of cohousing and the current housing crisis in Los Angeles. Check it out here: http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-40023183
Adriana & Samantha train grape vine to arch over walkway.
Yolanda & Shaila tame shrubs along walkway.
We harvested garlic, onion flowers, greens, basil, squash pumpkin, potatoes – rather early for several of these . Pumpkin began growing in December!
Hilarious veggies!
Sam models the pumpkin
Shaila demonstrate its dental application
We’re so hungry that we
trust Samantha with a dull knife
Consensus, finally! We’re going to eat.
Water thrifty plants get “high” on 2017’s lusty rainfall.
YAY! After thinning out banana suckers and composting, two trees promise bananas.
We’re trellising some thorny plants along the fence to deter fence-climbing.
Pedestrians from many cultures stop to ask about plants and talk about the gardens they have or used to have in their native countries. Along the fence I like to plant crops – like these peas – plus herbs and flowers that they can harvest from the sidewalk.
In the courtyard
Newly mulched path will help to conserve moisture – make the effects of this rain last longer – and eventually break down to feed the soil.
Draught tolerant plants added to “small fruit” garden. Experimenting with clover as a living mulch
Jujube
prickly pear
Goji berries & weeping mulberry and their new signs.
Parsley and lettuce are easily accessible for community to harvest.
Yolanda has planted papayas next to greywater outlets.
Lower level
potatoes & fava beans planted around olla to slowly water plants during dry season.
Papaya, banana and new grape vine against south facing wall will also help shade this apartment.
I was honored and delighted to have a personal meeting with the Mayor this week. The Mayor goes way back with LAEV to before he became our Councilman, and we only owned one property instead of four. So it’s always a delight to see how far both he and LAEV have come in the past dozen years or so. I asked if we could take a photo, so I could have bragging rights when he’s our President some day.
Here a few of the topics we got to talk about, each of which the Mayor was supportive of. Still a ways to go on advocacy work. But with the help of the “less cars” folks, the permaculture folks, Teresa Baker and her LATCH Collective, Hans Johnson leading the Styrofoam ban, and LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King, and, of course, the passionate folks who live in/at the Los Angeles Eco-Village, it’s all within reach!
Mayor Garcetti and Lois
developments near transit. The City watered this bill down so that developers couldn’t go less than 0.5 spaces per unit. LAEV could demonstrate this for our future developments.
Let me know if you want a copy of what I recommended about these items.
I was delighted to be interviewed by KPCC’s Al Martinez on “Take Two” last week. You can hear the seven minute piece here:
http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2016/09/02/51833/los-angeles-eco-village-aims-for-growth-with-new-b/
Let us know what you think. Thanks for listening. Lois
attending : shaila, sarah, samantha, carrie, dani, yolanda, bambi, jocelyn, lara, carol jessica, ely; cameo: bruce
succulent garden : samantha researched plants that might be suitable for the dry area next to loquat tree in front and possibly in the bulb-out raised bed. Contestants were: yucca, ornamental grass, indian mallow. we choose mallow which is perennial, blooms year round and has orange flowers. as a member of mallow family, may also be medicinal. samantha will check for sources.
clean chicken coop & prune adjacent lamb’s quarters & lemon verbena bambi & jocelyn overcame anxiety about not knowing what to do by expertly hauling bedding from chicken coop to compost and pruning around the coop entry path.
transplant goji berry from sandbox dani and yolanda located a good site for the goji berry & dug & prepared a hole for it’s new digs. Unfortunately, the goji berry had been cut down, but it’s roots were still in the sandbox, so they have been re-located to the bed with banana & papaya trees fed by greywater.
prune apple, pomegranate trees & wooly aphids shaila, sarah & carol pruned & carol and yolanda continued on sunday. Jessica researched the wooly white growths on the trees & diagnosed “wooly aphids”.
carol’s wooly aphids control plan spray with 1 TBSP dish soap dissolved in hot water. [1]
Pruning-at-large lara pruned plants surrounding entry to her apartment. Carrie pruned where needed.
After party sweet & juicy pomegranates from our pruning, and cold, sweet watermelon brought by bambi were our rewards while we chatted in the courtyard after working. Many of us went from there to sea dragon for supper & more lively conversations.
Next garden group planned for Sept. 17
olive (non-bearing), bananas (poor producers), apple; foreground – lots & lots: nasturtiums, Nichole
Even though I do this several times a week, setting the conditions for kitchen waste to become fertile soil is still the most amazing transformation.
Jonas finishes this compost pit with a layer of soil.
We planted nightshades: tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos here last year, and it was cover-cropped with clover during the winter. After another round of cover crops, how about some corn? Will we get enough light? Not the best exposure, but let’s experiment
compost cover-cropped with flax & buckwheat
Now that I think about growing corn, i think i’ll toss in some lentils to boast the nitrogen in this cover-crop mix. I’m using “seeds” that we stock in the food lobby bulk room.
Poppy and nasturtium GLAM.
I imagined a decadent scene: a Nasturtium riot spilling onto sidewalk and into the street. Irma and I had to curb their enthusiasm ’cause they were crowding out the neighbor-ladies seats.
Visitors to the ecovillage are encouraged to help with our projects.
ernesto (visitor) and irma (member) dug holes for potatoes in composted lower level site. Potatoes will alternate with sunflowers for an interesting visual, and clover cover-crops will protect the ground while everything is growing.
ernesto practiced hilling potatoes using un- composted straw from the hot compost bins. the large leaf pale green (fuzzy) plant is mullein. It will send up a stalk with yellow flowers that bees love
bulb out garden on Bimini. revived by carol and irma last year; maintained by visitors: ellary, daniel, carla supervised by carol and watered by shaila.
This area of the courtyard gets scant sun from end of Nov., so what better time for garden construction? Motivated by recent draught and desire to conserve water, i’m experimenting with sinking the garden beds below the paths. i figure it’s like hair – if i don’t like the haircut, it’ll grow back in.
02. one of the 18″ holes at the “U” end of a bed that has just been “lasagna” composted for 12″, keeping it 6″ below the path, which is built up with some of excavated hard pan.
03. 1st layer of kitchen scraps on top of some reedy plant material – the breathing tubes. within 8 weeks, i expect these kitchen scraps to be converted to composted so
il.
04. lasagna style composting kitchen scraps covered with water, soil & corrugated cardboard; repeat x 12″.
05. ready for next layer of kitchen scraps & a “worm transplant” from another active compost site. note border of nasturium transplants along outside
06. newly composted bed (right) , raised path (left).
most of beds are cover-cropped with clover when they’re finished, but i decided to plant some of the bulk room fava beans adjacent to the transplanted volunteers.
07. volunteer favas, tomato & lettuce rescued from this construction site
08. fingerling potatoe patch
couldn’t resist planting fingerling potatoes from george in one of the trenches. composted soil will be used to hill them up until bed is 6″ below path.
09. site for circular herb bed which will not be connected to drip irrigation. Lavenders, sages & rosemary – low water needs plants are planned.
10. Queen comfrey continues to provide leaves for comfrey fertilizer tea.
We use the recipe for Apple Pan Dowdy from my ancient Fannie Farmer cookbook.
Edy does the math to double the recipe and makes the cottage pudding topping.
Apples, raspberries and concord grapes from our gardens are baked in the solar oven with cinnamon, nutmeg & ginger and placed in the bottom of the pan.
It took about 1 1/2 hours to bake.
Edy carries his creation to the art studio opening
INGREDIENTS
PREPARATION
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Arrange the sliced apples in a greased pie pan or 9-by-9-inch baking dish. cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar well. Add the egg, and beat until smooth. In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt, and add this to the butter-sugar-egg mix, alternating with the milk. Spoon this batter over the apple slices. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the cake is golden brown. Cool slightly before cutting.
eating 1st corn
shucking 1st corn from garden
somerset grilling 1st corn from garden
from the garden
cucumbers, apples, serrano peppers
concord grapes between 117 & Bim Ter.
Los Angeles Eco-Village 