leangreen.org recycled renovation on a low-budget ration

In the wake of hurricanes Jako (Bri and Jake went snowboarding at Kirkwood) and Z (Bri and Matt went snowboarding in Tahoe), we are regrouping for some wall finishing upstairs. In the meantime, the fruits and veggies on the shed roof have been absorbing rain, growing tall and avoiding the slug slaughter that's been killing our veggies on the ground.

About a month ago, we planted sixteen strawberries on the shed roof in two neat rows that take up half the roof. The other half remains open for veggie starting trays. For the strawberries, we mounded up a light soil mix to 8" depth. First we used a 2x6 (not attached, lightly laid upright) to cordon off half the roof for the strawberries, leaving space for someone to walk down a center aisle between the strawberries and the trays. We had already waterproofed the roof with Metacrylics. Then we laid down a 1/2-inch thick sheet of coconut coir to contain the soil and help control drainage Our soil mix is about half coconut coir and half compost with some crushed lava rock and bark fines mixed in. We mounded up the soil in two rows and planted 8 "Chandler" June-bearing berries in one row, 4 "Seascape" everbearing berries and 4 "Sequoia" June-bearing berries in the other (source was Spiral Gardens in Berkeley). Look for an invite to our Strawberry Shortcake Party in June (assuming we get our oven fixed and installed....hey, Gary, wanna come back to Berkeley for a visit?).

Last fall, we planted a few cacti in trays on the roof, including a native Dudleya in a rocky, barky soil mix. This spring, a volunteer pioneer plant has shot up and it appears to be another native, the Cotton Batting Plant (Gnaphalium stramineum). We have lots of bees buzzing around the roof, hopefully we'll have flowers growing for them soon.

Before closing up our walls, we need to kill the terrorizing leaks. Last week's leak alert level: six buckets. As expected, the intersection of the old and new roof does not want to seal. Our patches seem improved after another re-layering and re-gooping of the cursed roof triangle this weekend. Today's rain should test the job. It's drizzling, zero buckets so far.

Tigger tours the back landing-pad for the garage and mechanical room. We have a drain in the middle of the concrete patio that works well, but we need a threshold at the doors to the mechanical room to prevent water from splashing back into an unfortunate low point at the corner of the door. The water's been getting into the mechanical room and then the bathroom, a constant reminder of our unsealed state. We bought about $100 worth of metal, rubber and caulk for the threshold work and then decided to use a bucket of leftover concrete instead for a $0 waste-reduction solution. Gary Gray, the Denver Pool Pro who doesn't mind dipping his hands in cement, is out for almost two weeks to help us get the walls closed up. We also plan to build a dam within the mechanical room in case the big hot water tank explodes. The water tank is not yet purchased but needs to be chosen so we can plan for the exhaust flue before closing up the walls. The list of things to do before closing up the walls does not seem to end.

I've been keeping track of all our green roof vegetable planting experiments on a google docs spreadsheet. Many plants are growing better on the roof than in the raised bed, mostly because the neighborhood cats use the raised bed as a litter box. We're currently undergoing trials to minimize this fly-attracting and plant-trampling disturbance.

Last night we ate our first harvest from the raised bed garden. We'd like to think the fresh and healthy nutrients helped heal Brian's femur. Maybe a dose of heavy metals in those leafy greens fused the bone to the titanium rod for extra strength. More likely, we just poisoned ourselves.

Urban vegetable gardens are in the news as green strategy for healthy local food, but given the remnants of lead paint and leaded gasoline in our yards, some caution might be wise before eating from city dirt. Widely used before being banned in 1978, "lead is one of the greatest public health hazards facing urban residents." Lead in soil becomes a health risk when directly ingested or breathed as dust, a particular concern for young children who like mud pies. Garden produce, if it has accumulated lead in its tissue or has soil particles adhering to it, can also be a hazard if eaten.

As the paint flaked off our old redwood siding during its storage sojourn in our backyard, I wondered how much lead has settled in our soil. So back in February, I shoveled 12 different samples from around our backyard (to a 7 inch depth), mixed them in a bucket, and sent a handful in a ziploc sandwich bag to the University of Massachusetts Soil Lab for a soil test including a toxic metals report.

According to the lab's brochure, lead is naturally present in all soils, generally in the range of 15 to 40 parts lead per million parts of soil (ppm). During our soil test an "extracting solution" removed a reproducible fraction of the total lead in our sample, resulting in 27ppm of extractable lead. Based on this extraction, they estimate the total lead level at 401 ppm. 4 in 10,000 sounds like decent odds for the lottery. What about the chances of poisoning, a slow and untimely death, nervous twitches, inability to functional mentallee?

In California, 200-500 ppm of lead is commonly found in city soil, but levels of 1,000 ppm or more is considered hazardous waste by the California Department of Health Services. According to UMass, less than 500ppm is a "low" lead level, however, other sources (such as University of Minnesota) recommend that levels exceeding 100 ppm should not be used for gardening because of risk to children, however plants can be safely eaten from soils with levels up to 300 ppm. We're pushing the limits, but the lab report measures another major factor affecting a plant's ability to uptake lead, pH levels.

Apparently, a pH of 6.5 of higher immobilizes lead uptake by plants. I was relieved that we're at 6.6 pH, although it's also relatively easy to increase pH by adding lime. Some plants, like citrus and blueberries, prefer the acidity of a lower pH. With our Mediterranean climate, we're looking forward to ...