Update

So I've been avoiding you. And I'm sorry. Oh well though "you" is a general term for the people that don't even read my blog in the first place so really its no big deal.
So I picked green beans today and there were enough for the father and I to have some, along with peas from the garden and the CSA, and a single carrot. The outside was very purple, the inside not so much. Basically just the peel was orange and the inside was yellow. But I'm not too worried about it. I think next year I'll grow orange though as they're supposed to taste better. And I think I'll plant more because they're doing really well and don't have problems with pests really. I'll also plant more beans. I estimate that I've only gotten about 3/4 of a pound so far, but they're still producing so I'm not considered about that number. And I didn't even plant that many. The ones in the earthbox definitely grew faster though, but they sort of are covering up the carrots. I think if i plant beans again in the box ill just do 2 rows because 8 carrots is pretty measly and the beans are sort of smothering them anyway.

The potatoes are basically failing and I don't know why. I've used organic bug spray and serenade on them and they stopped their spiral downward but still look pretty much like shit. The tomatoes are doing well but I planted them too close together. And Isis Candy grew like a maniac but has one baby cherry as far as I can see. And its flopping all over the place. One of them has a very manageable habit but I don't know which yet because the 'maters are still green. Cream sausage has done very well, and I think I'll plant more determinate types next year because it has loads of them and its not to big. Some dumb animal ate like 3 of the green ones though. Asshole. The cucumbers are doing well too but the stupid deer keep eating they're leaves off. They've grown up to the top already and the deer can't reach that far so its okay now. The lettuce is all flowery and happy, but so far only the yugoslavian red has any opened ones. I plan to pollinate and save some before the Forellenschuss opens up. Hopefully that one will just self pollinate.

The peas did well except they had a bunch of caterpillars so I'll have to keep an eye on that for next year. And Japanese beetles are freaking all over the place I'm going to look for some organic killer but if I can't find any I'll probably get some anyway. I'm sick of them.

Serenade, How I Love Thee.

My tomato seedlings that had blight at about 3 inches tall are growing strong and loving the room for their roots now that they've been transplanted. As you can see in the picture post they are already growing strong. The determinate variety (yellow sausage I believe) already has fully formed flower buds that look as if they will open tomorrow. I can't believe how quick they are to get flowers. I think I'll plant a determinate variety every year so the tomato season begins earlier. I also might try Early Girl because I've heard that the name is no lie. The blight is 100% cured and I can't believe it. After the tomato catastrophe last year I wondered if I could even grow organic tomatoes. It appears I can, which makes me really happy. I hate chemicals. The Serenade sort of smells bad to begin with, and after a few days of being mixed with the water and sitting around it really begins to reek. I don't know if that is the bacteria dying or something else, but I continue to use it anyway. Seriously though. I am in awe of how well it worked. If only I had known about it a year ago when I just watched my tomatoes die of blight, not knowing 1) what was killing them and 2) what to do about it. I will keep my Serenade on hand, but I also will keep them well mulched, well ventilated, and growing within the bounds of their cages to keep them as healthy as possible so the blight doesn't even have the slightest chance. I look forward to the roasted tomato recipe found at Smitten Kitchen because I think that just sounds incredible.

Oh! I also got a scale today, tiny little thing. It only goes up to 6.6 pounds so I guess its good I'm not growing watermelons because I would never get to know how much they weigh. Oh goodness though. I really can't wait for the garden to start producing a lot. The lettuce has really been awesome though. I have been able to give heads to friends and neighbors and they all just love it. I also have plenty on hand for personal use and I love putting it in wraps and whatnot. It makes me feel good to eat something that grew in the backyard. There's just so much pride mixed up in it that you don't get from a CSA or Farmer's Market, though that food is just awesome as well.

Speaking of CSAs. Mine starts tomorrow and I just can't contain myself. Unfortunately (or is it fortunate) we will be getting lettuce from that too. Pretty much a head or two a week which may be overwhelming seeing as we have our own, but I think the lettuce season might be winding down because my backyard gets loads of sun and I have a feeling the lettuce will bolt soon. I'm trying to eat it all up before it can do that on me, but I don't want to feel rushed. I do have some more lettuce seedlings growing so hopefully they'll last a while.

La Hora de Fotografia Ha Llegado

The Bright Side

As I predicted, or rather crossed my fingers for, the tomatoes and peppers are enjoying this heat. I'm pretty sure the pepper I planted from seed, called Fish, has doubled in size in about a week. I think it is time to kill its seed-starter-cup-mate. The friend is much more attractive, with lots more variegation, but it seems to have a problem growing. All of its leaves are oddly deformed and it grows much slower. I think I'll just have to deal with the not-so-variegated pepper plant. I prefer a handsome plant that actually makes peppers to a seductively striped one. Adios, shmexy. So far the lettuce and peas are doing alright. I rigged up some sun shades for them and have been misting them before school and after school. The lettuce of course practically wilts into the ground while I'm gone which might be bad for flavor and general lettucey happiness, but at least they haven't died. I did find an invader though. Some narsty little caterpillar, surely not for a good butterfly species, was hiding in one of my romaines. It had poop all over the place and was just sulking in there. I attacked it with my hose's jet function and intend to remove it. I am a believer in monarch butterflies and swallowtails and all, but this caterpillar reeked of badness. If it is a good one that'll be a bummer, but at least its only one of them. If I find more I will be upset.

I really want peas. I've heard that homegrown peas, like most other homegrowns, are far superior to their supermarket counterparts. I just hope we get some. And also: beans. We may have a problem with some in the earthbox. They sort of got stuck under the black cover thing and may day. I rescued them yesterday and they looked fine but today they look pretty brown. Some are okay, but some, well, not so much. We'll give them a few days before we sound the replanting alarm. The carrots are looking good, both the ones that sprouted in, yes, seven days in the earthbox, and the ones I planted awhile ago with the peas. Its funny to see the difference between the peas and carrots. The carrots have maybe 3 real leaves on them so far, the peas are about three feet tall. Exaggeration, yes, but they are growing really nicely. The potatoes are still the superstars though. They actually are three feet tall and look like maybe they'll flower soon, surely they can't grow much bigger. They must really love this compost they're growing in. The potatoes up in the reject plot look much wimpier. They did sit around inside longer and get a shady area, but still. I like to think the compost was a good idea despite contrary advice.

Probably the most exciting thing right now is school. I have 2 more days and then I am done with JFK High School forever. Just have to graduate this Friday and I can walk away and never look back. I really hate high school. SO much drama and lameness. And the 'rents sort of get annoying around the house as well. I am ready for a roomie that hopefully won't be creepy and we can be best friends and call each other "mate" and whatnot. It'll be a blast. Anyway, all you people out there (Chuckle, chuckle, nobody reads this. story of my life) have a fantastic end of May.

Peace

Where's the good in this?

So my beans finally sprouted today while I was at work. All 10 of them in my little earthbox are up and running. I went over to see the ones in the real garden to find just one alive, the rest bitten off at the stem and ripped to pieces. Goddamn chipmunks/rabbits. If I see one there I just might kill it. Grr. Where is the good side of this? Who knows. And I only have 8 bean seeds left. Does anyone know of a way to scare these sorts of creatures away?

Evicted

So yesterday I went to check on the baby bunnies, as I do somewhat frequently, and they were not home. This was the second day in a row that they were not home when I investigated. I'm not sure if they moved out or what, but I decided that if they were mobile enough to be not there two days in a row that they were going to be evicted. I removed the upper portion of their nest so basically all the have is their dirt floor now. A little bit rude, I must admit, but my lettuce will thank me.

Speaking of lettuce, we may have a problem. And speaking of problems, the peas may have one too. I've heard they don't do so well in extreme heat. Its still may, and yet the next week's forecast is all upper eighties and into the nineties, with heat index of over 100. My peas haven't even started forming blossoms yet, but I'm sure this won't help. And the lettuce is maybe just going to wilt away and die. Not cool weatherman, not cool.

To look on the bright side (there is always a bright side) the tomatoes will love it. They've not been growing too fast but I'm feeling like they're about to shoot up now and start that foot-a-day growth program they were on last year. The beans still haven't sprouted which surprises me. I'm hoping when I go look in on the garden today they will have done that because I want some beans!

Also, I bought the book Backyard Homestead which looks like it will be pretty helpful. It shows you how on a sunny quarter acre you can grow: 50 pounds of wheat, 60 pounds of fruit, 2000 pounds of vegetables, 280 pounds of pork, and 75 pounds of nuts. Double your land to 1/2 acre and raise three goats and a cow. I'm not sure how much meat you can get from a cow but I'm sure its quite a lot. It also teaches you how to "cook, preserve, cure, brew, or pickle the fruits of your labor." Sounds nice for someone that just planted their first -ever potatoes, lettuce, peas, beans, and carrots. I'd like to raise a pig or some chickens but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't fly with the parents.

Anyway, I'm avoiding my psych project so I should probably go.

Peace.

Scoundrels

Since the weather has been pretty warm I decided to just plant the beans today. Those scoundrels at Seed Savers gave me more seeds than they said on their packet, and I mixed the beans with the bacteria that help them fix nitrogen. Well there I was, planting away, when I had gotten about 30 into the ground. Well I looked in my cup with the unplanted fellows and there still seemed to be a mighty lot of them. I counted. 40. What on earth. They gave me twenty extra seeds? The nerve! Those free-seed-giving scoundrels! I couldn't believe it. Normally this would be no big deal, but my garden doesn't have loads of extra space just sitting around, and these moist, bacteria-laden seeds certainly were not going back into their packet. Frustrated, I went up to the old, shade-smothered, weed-infested area we used to call garden and got to work. I first attacked some weeks with a spade thinger and then made a little area that I covered in straw to kill any stragglers. I loosened up the dense clay and then planted about 20 more seeds. There was no more room anywhere. Determined not to let these 15-20 seeds just die, I washed them off and then put them on a paper towel to (hopefully) dry off and maybe remain viable. The type of bean is rather boring, Burpee's bush, but that's the type of bean my mom grew up with so she really wanted that one. I think next year I might go for a Purple Podded Pole. Those ones sure look fun, don't they? Yeah, I thought so, too.

So I can't remember if I posted about this yet so I'll pretend I haven't. One day, a few weeks ago, I was in the garden frolicking in the dirt and generally having a wee of a time when some of my straw mulch started moving. Rather disconcerted, I started to pick away at the straw to see a weird little mole pushing it's way out of the dirt. How dare it! Suddenly, the mole was no longer a mole and instead was two tiny little chipmunks. Good grief. Not only were chipmunks all over the yard digging little tunnels, they had already moved into MY garden. Of course, I couldn't do anything about them so I just gave them dirty looks and covered them back up with dirt. The next day or two there was a rabbit sitting next to my lettuce, which I promptly chased away threatening guns and warfare, seeing as the rabbit wasn't the one with the kids, it just wanted lettuce.

Today, I went to show my friend the cute little chipmunk babies to discover that 1) they were not chipmunks. 2) In the week or two since their discovery, they've grown to practically five times their original size and may be eating all of my lettuce. They must be doing it very sneakily because a plant hasn't disappeared yet, but hey. I know rabbits are sneaky. You never know. They need to move out like right now. I'm of course not going to do anything about them but I will be quite upset if my newly transplanted tomatoes get eaten. Here's some pictures of the cute little things, including one ironic one where it is hiding underneath my Forellenschuss.
Oh yeah. And did I mention how many of them there are? Five. Five rabbits and a mom! That is a lot of lettuce to eat....Isn't it cute? This one even let me pet it for a minute before it realized that I indeed was not a lettuce leaf, after which it launched itself headfirst into the metal side of a meat smoker before disappearing under a pine tree. Very endearing, but surely rather uncomfortable for that fuzzy little nose.

Lettuce!

The lettuce is finally what I think people call "teenager" size. Its not a baby, but its too soon to be a full head yet. The romaine (forellenschuss) is definitely growing much better than the butterhead (Yugoslavian Red). The peas are doing okay, but not shooting up as fast as some people seem to imply. The sugar pod ones are doing much better than the normal snap peas though, that's for sure. The potatoes have grown at least 42 feet since I planted them and are showing the rest of the plants up by far. The random leftover potatoes in the old "garden" aren't doing so hot, but they get less sunlight and have crappy soil. The little tomatoes and peppers and whatnot that I planted are doing just great which makes me rather proud. The carrots had pretty crappy germination and also have only grown like one leaf each so they certainly are in no hurry. Other than that the garden is pretty much just doin' its thing and waiting for more plants...

Do I Know You...?

Let's begin with story time, shall we? One day many years ago when I was but a young chap (ie about 6 years old) my dad decided he should force me to eat asparagus. This presented two problems. The first is that I was already full from eating my spaghetti-o's. The second was that I hated asparagus and did not wish to consume any. Well too bad for me, the asparagus was unwillingly eaten. Unfortunately for my dad, I had such a hatred for this nasty green crap that I promptly threw it up all over the table, and probably all over him as well. I don't remember that part. Just the counter.

The good news is that in my advanced wisdom and age 12 years later I have determined I will like that gosh darn vegetable if it kills me. So, I did some recipe hunting, keeping an eye out for a recipe that did not star el esparrago as the main ingredient. Lo and behold I found one. And I ate it. And I could barely taste those green little stick vegetable things. Thank goodness. Now I'll just slowly increase the amount and find more recipes and voila! A love for asparagus will be formed. Hopefully. Here's the recipe though:

1 pound sausage (I used 3 Johnsonville spicy italian brats and it was just fine)
1 medium onion (I used a really big onion because onions are scary good)
4-5 mediumish potatoes
1 pound or so of fresh asparagus
1/2 cup water
liberal amounts of freshly ground pepper
sprinkle of salt
1/2 cup of cheese

1. Cut up the sausage or brats and chop the onion, cook until the sausage is browned.
2. Add the chopped up potatoes and the water and cook for 10 minutes, stirring every 2-3
3. Add the asparagus and a little bit more water and cook for an addition 10 minutes, stirring every 2-3 minutes again
4. With one minute to spare add the salt, pepper, and cheese and allow to all melt together into deliciousness
5. Serve, eat, and be happy



In other news, the heat today just about killed some of the lettuce. I got home from the ridiculously hard AP Spanish test and school to find just about every single plant keeling over and pretty much near death. I gave them all a good soaking and kept my fingers crossed. A few hours later I went back out to see happily perked up leaves, but also a few battle wounds. A few of the leaves maintained their semblance of death and I highly doubt a recovery. Overall though, crisis averted. Also, check out this blog.

Hemolysis Avoided

Last weekend my sister and mom went to my uncle's house for his twin daughters' confirmations. When they arrived yesterday the carried with them a bag full of treasure. By treasure I mean morel mushrooms. I have not eaten a morel in ten years. They are incredibly delicious and super easy to make. They thing is, since the last time I'd eaten one I was 8, I had of course never cooked one. I was a little bit worried about the prospect of doing this because as I learned in the best book ever written, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, morels are complete with a hemolytic enzyme. I can't remember exactly what this does, but the latin prefix heme- means iron, and in this case relates to your blood cells. And I remember -lyse means to break or split so it becomes quite apparent that something bad could be happening to those all-important red cells. Thankfully, neither me nor my mom died from my cooking. I will admit though, I felt like a bit of a hypochondriac because at every twinge of my stomach or possibly-imagined headache I was certain my blood cells were lysing by the thousands.

The way in which they were prepared is almost ridiculously simple and uber delicious. It goes like this:

1. Put saltines or another such crumby, salty cracker in a contraption of some sort.
2.Break them to tiny bits with gusto.
3. Clean and chop morels while the butter and olive oil heat up.
4. Crack and beat up an egg.
5. Dip morel pieces into the egg to coat and then into the cracker crumbs.
6. Pan-fry over medium heat until browned but not dark.
7. Eat slowly, looking towards the sky in ecstasy at this gift from Spring.
8. Repeat step seven as much as possible.

Hydrogen Power

Imagine with me. Nearly silent cars driving through the streets, running on nothing but hydrogen-based electricity. No emissions but water vapor. No smog, no choking fumes, no backfiring at five in the morning. Global warming screeching to a not-a-minute-too-soon halt. We’ve all been told this could happen, we’ve read magazine articles, we’ve seen the news about hydrogen power, we’ve heard the talk. And yet, despite 160 years of research and development (Romm 23), no real changes have been made. Cars continue to putter along as they spew planet-killing gases into the air. We have been promised time after time that real change was coming, that it was time to wean ourselves from the oil nipple, and yet nothing has happened. “Green” fad after fad has popped up only to be found too expensive or too wasteful to work on a large scale (think ethanol), and Americans, just like people all over the world, continue to pour gallon after gallon of gasoline into their car as they go about their day. It seemed as if hydrogen power was slowly, slowly going to go down the same path. Since its inception, hydrogen power has frequently been overstated and has frequently underperformed, but in conjunction with other renewable power sources, and with an incredibly new and astonishingly efficient fuel cell, its heyday may be nearing.

Though hydrogen is the only gas commonly thought of for use in fuel cells, it wasn’t always so. Dr. Peschka, one of several authors of Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier, informs us that people first tried to use the combination of carbon and oxygen gas to produce carbon dioxide and energy, but the temperature required was much too high for practical purposes (Peschka 40). Joseph Romm provides a short history of hydrogen power in his book, The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate. Romm says that sometime during the 1830’s, Sir William Grove, a prominent scientist of his day, discovered that hydrogen would work much better in fuel cells (40). He discovered how to reverse electrolysis, a process that consumes electricity (Snook), and combine hydrogen and oxygen gases to form water. After that, Grove “quickly built the first fuel cell, which he called a ‘gaseous voltaic battery,’ or gas battery” (Romm 23). Romm goes on to say that “by 2003, more than 160 years after the first fuel cell was built, and after more than $15 billion in public and private spending, only one fuel cell with significant commercial sales existed, and purchasers of that product received a government subsidy to buy down the cost” (23).That it took a subsidy speaks volumes about what hydrogen has been like. The fact that the government had to step in and help a company means that that company could not manage to produce its product and make enough money to cover its costs. The high costs have plagued hydrogen power from the beginning, and as Dr. Peschka tells us, “the current state of technology does not permit economic use of hydrogen-air fuel batteries so far despite intensive development efforts” (41). Regardless of this view, and though hydrogen power received a fraction of a percent of the U.S. Department of Energy with one to two million a year in 1993 , in 2003 President Bush decided to increase that by over a thousand-fold, “proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles” (Romm11). Still, though, no cheaply-produced, functioning fuel cell has been built by the public sector to this day.

A simplified fuel cell “convert[s] the energy of a chemical reaction between a fuel such as hydrogen and an oxidant such as oxygen directly into electric energy and heat (23).” As previously stated, the most common fuel is hydrogen. The problem lies partly in the design of the fuel cell, which requires precious metals to catalyze the reaction. Using chemistry equations of free energy you can determine that “80% of the reaction enthalpy [or heat] is converted to electrical energy” (Peschka 40). Combining hydrogen and oxygen gases, a reaction that releases energy, captures that energy as electricity which can be used to do work. Just like Ron and Harry, Mister Spock and Captain Kirk, and Sherlock and Dr. Watson, when hydrogen and oxygen come together, big things can happen.

“Fuel cells produce electricity, heat and water by catalyzing the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen” (Romm 24) by using a platinum electrode. This happens as protons (also known as hydrogen ions) pass through a membrane. Electrons are incapable of such movement. To join the protons they must travel through a wire. The passage of electrons through a wire creates a current as they move to join their proton and oxygen to make water (Romm 24). It sounds easy enough when put like that, but several complications arise.

The first complication is how to produce the hydrogen. Currently, the easiest method is to make it from natural gas. The main component of natural gas is methane , or CH₄ (“Producing”). According to Hoffman, author of Tomorrow’s Energy: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and the Prospects for a Cleaner Planet, a plasma torch creates H₂ and something called “carbon black” through a complicated process called the Kvaerner Process. He goes on to say that the process is extremely efficient, and the byproduct carbon black is used in the production of many things, such as “rubber, tire[s], plastics, paint, and ink” (67).

The problem with counting on natural gas being there forever is that it simply won’t be. Just like petroleum, our natural gas resources are finite. In the short-run, we can use natural gas as a temporary method of commercializing hydrogen, up until either we run out or manage to convert to renewable forms of hydrogen production. The most logical, in my mind, would be to use water. This is the simplest way and infinitely renewable. Although there is not an unlimited amount of water on the planet, when the hydrogen is used for energy water is created, so it is just a cycle. That is the beauty of fuel cells, but also where many people get confused. Some people think that hydrogen itself is being used as energy, but it is really more an energy storage unit. When it is formed, chemical energy is held in the bonds that hold each hydrogen atom together. When it is combined with water, energy is given off. All we have to do is find some way to split it and we are capable of an almost limitless source of energy.

A method that has been tested many times over is using solar power. One of the first plants used solar panels to create from 280 to 350 kilowatts of electricity (Hoffman 57), which was then used to split water into its two components. This type of hydrogen production is very simple, but can only be used in places with a lot of sun. Hoffman also discusses another plant similar to it that was built in California. It was designed to bring together all of the necessary equipment in one area to produce hydrogen. He continues to tell us about the whole process, which began with solar radiation. Using photovoltaic solar panels, the plant converted solar energy into electricity. The electricity was then used to hydrolyze water. The oxygen gas was undoubtedly released into the atmosphere. The hydrogen was then purified of water vapor before being pressurized for storage. The hydrogen produced on site was then used to fuel two trucks also owned by the same company. The two trucks performed various environmental audits and other work, adding up to about 100 miles a week. They held 2600 scf (standard cubic feet) under 3600 pounds per inch, which is an energy equivalent of 5 gallons of gas (54-5).

A much more efficient way to create hydrogen from water is to do it at high temperatures, using steam. High temperatures alone can split up a molecule, but there is no doubt that the temperature needed to split water is incredibly high. Thus, some plants decide to heat it up to somewhere between normal temperatures at the temperatures high enough to split water. By heating it up to around a scalding “1000°C” (Hoffman 64), the amount of electricity required to split water is “reduced… by about 30-40 recent relative to conventional electrolysis” (65), and has been reported to have “achieved efficiencies of about 93 percent” (65).

A concern that frequently pops up in peoples’ minds when they think about hydrogen is safety. When people think of hydrogen they often think of one thing, the hydrogen bomb. This is what I thought of as well, but hydrogen gas is relatively safe compared to other sources of energy. Hoffman puts the fear of hydrogen bombs to rest in the safety section of his book:

There is no technical connection between the hydrogen bomb and hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel represents chemical energy and combustion/burning processes; the hydrogen bomb works at the atomic level via principles of nuclear physics. But, as Dan Brewer noted in his Ispra paper, the linkage provided by the word is “apparently enough to stir the imagination of the public and excite fear and suspicion of the fuel.”(246)

That certainly puts to rest the fear of small hydrogen bombs forming every time there is a car accident, but there are still other dangers associated with the use of hydrogen.

What can happen are hydrogen fuel fires. As we all know from the Hindenburg disaster, when large amounts of hydrogen gas are allowed out of containment, terrible things can happen. When you think about it, the same thing could happen with gasoline or other hydrocarbons (hydrocarbons being a class of molecules, such as methane propane, and octane, that are made mostly of hydrogen and carbon). In several experiments performed by the military, hydrogen fuel, liquid hydrogen, or LH₂, was spilled and tested for dangers in several ways. The first was a simple side-by-side controlled fuel spill in which liquefied hydrogen gas was spilled along with JP-4 jet fuel. The jet fuel spilled and slowly spread along before being evaporated by wind. The hydrogen on the other hand, boiled instantly on contact with the ground and evaporated extremely quickly. Also, though hydrogen is easy to ignite, it does not explode (Hoffman 236). According to Hoffman, “researchers spilled and ignited as much as 5000 gallons of LH₂ in an open space, but there were no explosions” (236). That hydrogen burns but does not explode is a great comfort, but the good news does not stop there. Hoffman adds that even when shot with bullets and struck by simulated lightning, containers of liquid hydrogen may burn, but the flames are less fierce and more short-lived than those of jet fuel under the same conditions (236-7).

I know what you’re thinking by this point. This is all very nice I’m sure, but really, who cares? Starting now, you do, because of something incredibly exciting for anyone that gives one whit about the environment. The Bloom Box was almost an accident, never originally intended to be, just like so many other important inventions that we count on to work every day (think of a key flying in a lightning storm and what that led to). As Jennifer Schenker informs us in her BusinessWeek online special report article, K.R. Sridhar, the inventor of the Bloom Box, had originally been assigned to make “a device that would use solar power and Martian water to drive a reactor cell that generated oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to power vehicles.” She goes on to explain how Sridhar simply reversed his first project, which used hydrolysis, to the Bloom Box which uses up oxygen and hydrogen to make steam, heat, and electricity (Schenker).

A less simplified and more realistic version of how the fuel cell, known as a “Solid Oxide Fuel Cell” or SOFC, works is provided by Sridhar’s company’s website, bloomenergy.com, and his interview in BusinessWeek. The cell is made of a common sand-like powder instead of expensive metals, such as platinum (which is what we used in my chemistry class to electrolyze water). “The ceramic core acts as an electrode. At high temperatures, a hydrocarbon fuel—ethanol, biodiesel, methane, or natural gas—on one side of the cell attracts oxygen ions from the other. As the ions are pulled through the solid core, the resulting electrochemical reaction creates electricity (Schenker).” This is very similar to all other fuel cells that came before it, but the twist is that it is cheap enough to make on a large scale, and thus is tantalizing for commercialization.

Since they are so much cheaper to produce than older fuel cells, combining a lot of them in one box, to about the size of a loaf of bread (Bloomenergy), is not going to cost an arm and a leg. The intriguing part is that one bread-loaf sized stack of the ceramic electrodes can generate enough electricity to power an average American home (Bloomenergy).

Currently, the boxes run mostly on natural gas. Sridhar cedes that though his invention uses hydrocarbons and thus does produce carbon dioxide, a powerful contributor to global warming, it is much, much more efficient that coal plants (Schenker). Schenker says that since the Bloom box doesn’t use combustion processes or burn the fuel, less energy is lost as heat and more can be used to produce electricity. In a trial at the University of Tennessee, a “Bloom box capable of powering a 5,000-square-foot home proved twice as efficient as a traditional gas-burning system and produced 60% fewer emissions (Schenker).” Despite that, when I first heard that they currently run on natural gas, I was slightly let down. I did a little bit of comforting research on it, and my worries are slightly assuaged. Natural gas is composed “approximately 90 percent” (“Producing”) of methane (CH­₄), but it also contains small amounts of other gases such as propane (C₃H₈) and butane (C₄H₁₀) (“Producing”). Unlike many other energy sources, methane is a renewable resource. According to the website, it is found not only along with oil in oil fields, it is produced when waste breaks down. It is even produced by animals and given off when they, well, experience flatulence. Landfills are also a major source of this. By law they are already required to capture and contain this gas. Most of them end up burning it just to get rid of it, but according to Julie Schmit in her USA Today article, a landfill in Oklahoma is about to start supplying the Energy Servers at EBAY headquarters (Schmit). I doubt that landfills alone will be able to provide us with enough methane to power all of the millions of cars in the United States, but in conjunction with traditional natural gas and hydrogen production via solar or wind, hopefully we will be able to one day have oil be only a greasy splatter on the pages of history.

An interesting side effect of the widespread use of “energy servers” (Bloomenergy) is that hydrogen powered fuel cell cars might actually become obsolete. If each house produces its own electricity using Bloom boxes, families can simply use that electricity to run a purely electric car. There would be no need for mass change in the auto industry, just a greater emphasis on cars that run solely on electricity. The car that jumps to mind is the Tesla. If everyone bought a Tesla and charged it at home, we wouldn’t even need to change the auto industry at all. That probably isn’t feasible seeing as I heard a Tesla will set you back about $100,000. I’m sure the big car manufacturers would be able to think of something to stay in business though. Sridhar figures that it will be three to five years before Bloom boxes come to your neighborhood at a competitive price (qtd. in Schenker), but after the 160 years we’ve waited, time will surely seem to fly. $3000 is seen as a competitive price for the Bloom box small enough to power a house (Schmit). That may seem expensive at first, but the amount of money you could save with a Bloom box would make the investment worth it, especially when you imagine using it to run your car as well, and all the gas money you would save. Think of how good it would feel to never have to go to the gas pump again. It would definitely be an “in your face” moment for all of the people that detest the major gasoline companies and all they stand for.

Surely one of the most important facts about Bloom Boxes is that they are able to be cheaply produced (seeing as the only two ingredients in the fuel cells are sand and ink), and the company can still profit. Though company profits seem like a bad thing, as long as nobody is getting hurt they can be extremely beneficial. Companies that make profits by doing good things, such as selling fuel cells to help stop global warming, tend to spend profits on things that further their original goals. Also, unlike FuelCell energy, one of the original fuel cell companies that has accumulated losses that add up to at least “$600 million” since its first fuel cell was sold (Schmit), Bloom Energy looks as if it will eventually not need subsidies or other help to keep its head above water. I say eventually because currently the state of California is giving a 20% subsidy and the Federal government is giving a 30% tax credit to companies that purchase and use the Bloom Boxes.

Bloom Energy’s biggest breakthrough, the one that allowed them to come up with the Bloom Box, was figuring out how to allow both the fuel cells and the metal plates between them to heat up at the same rate. This prevents the fuel cells, which are each only as thick as a business card, from breaking while expanding as the temperature goes from room temperature to “1472°F” (Schmit). By reducing the number of breakages, Sridhar has made it much more cost effective to purchase a Bloom Box, because it will not have to be fixed or replaced as often as otherwise may have been the case.

Due to the fact that for 160 years hydrogen power has either failed or been way too expensive, Sridhar and his company have been in “stealth mode for eight years” (Schmit). Sridhar wanted to be sure his Bloom Boxes had “solid field experience with real customers to tell its full story” (Schenker). Now that several companies have purchased and installed Energy Servers, we have been allowed to hear more of the story. On Bloom Energy’s website, plenty of information about the purchase of Bloom Boxes by major companies has been provided, and the proof that Bloom Boxes work is overwhelming.

One of the lucky companies that was allowed to buy them was Google. According to a Google executive, they “continually implement innovative and responsible practices across our company, [and] are proud to be one of the early customers of Bloom Energy” (qtd. in Bloomenergy). Google purchased enough Bloom Boxes to provide them with “400 kW” of electricity, enough to power about 400 homes. Since its original purchase about a year and a half ago, the servers have provided Google with “3.8 million kWh of electricity” at “98% availability” (Bloomenergy).

A second, even larger, use of the Energy Servers is up and running at the Coca Cola Odwalla Production Facility. The servers there are capable of cranking out “500 kW” of electricity, and they even run on “renewable biogas” (Bloomenergy). By using a renewable energy source, the company will be able to save money while “reducing over 5 million pounds of CO₂ annually”. The company was looking for, and found, a “flexible solution that could provide constant, reliable power to around-the-clock bottling and manufacturing operations” (Bloomenergy). You might just say they’ve found it.

To answer the question posed in the title, yes. It most certainly is time. We have waited for 160 years, never completely giving up hope, but never given a good reason not to. After the failure of FuelCell, hydrogen might have completely lost impetus and just maybe would have died. Then came the Bloom Boxes, almost too good to be true. And unlike the other fuel cell makers, who bragged about how good they would be before they crashed and burned, Sridhar shows that he is prepared to build his industry from the ground up. He has the proof to back up his word. He has promised us that within the next ten years, we will see affordable Energy Servers come to us, and I believe him. His company has both the brains and the brawn to lift the hydrogen industry out of the gutter, get it on its feet, and make it run. I don’t know about you, but I personally wait, a little bit impatiently, for the day when I can drive away from the gas station, and never look back.

Prom!

Well today is my senior prom which is all rather exciting, but I'm not such a fan of dances. It'll still be a blast though and if you're lucky I might post a picture of myself and the date.

In gardening news, the peas have sprouted and look rather weird. I've never grown peas before so this is interesting. The first planting of lettuces are approaching leaf lettuce size and I might be robbing a few leaves for my tacos that I'm having for lunch. Mmmm that sounds really delicious does it not? I'm not sure if its allowed to steal from head lettuce or romaine, but oh well I plan on doing it anyway.

I hilled the first set of potatoes that basically just shot up out of the ground like nobody's business. The carrots have finally sprouted and I can see that I was a little bit disorganized in my planting. There will be like 5 inches of no carrot and then suddenly three on top of one another. I guess I'll have to thin those out which makes me sad. Also, the cucumber seeds I started have sprouted and I just can't wait to get my hands on some fresh cucumbers for cucumber salad and homemade pickles. I like using Mrs. Wage's (I think) kosher dill mix. I just pour it over top and refrigerate and the pickles are absolutely delicious. I'm also very excited for one of my favorite recipes that I'll get to enjoy 100% homegrown in 1.5-2 months. It goes like this:

New potatoes with the skins on, halved or quartered
Fresh rosemary
Fresh peas, shelled or sugar snap
Butter

Now that I think about it the butter will not be homegrown. But all of the vegetables are in the ground so assuming no catastrophe occurs we'll get to enjoy that soon (ish). Hey I think I'll post up my essay about hydrogen power. For all of you people that dream of clean energy, this paper is a tantalizing story of a new technology from an up-and-coming firm from Silicon Valley. I think I'll go put that up in a second post after lunch.

Peace!

The World's Smallest Salad

Good News! I went out to check on my second lettuce planting and the seeds are sprouting! I must have forgotten how small the fake leaves were on lettuce seedlings because they seem sooooo tiny! Wow that is three sentences in a row with exclamation points. I should calm down. Also, and I should probably post a picture of this, some bulbs managed to grow up through the layer of compost. Before we planted the garden there had been some pretty wimpy bulbs growing in one spot. Since all but one had died the year before, and by early April there were no signs of the remaining one, I decided to just bury it. Turns out it was a bit tougher than I thought and grew all the way through the one foot thick layer of compost that fills my raised bed. I was more than a bit surprised, and also happy. The problem is it grew up at the back of one of the tomato cages. Hopefully for it it will grow big enough to get strong before the tomato plant that will also be there overshadows it. If not, well, I'll just have to wish it goodbye one more time. For some reason, my debilitating plant empathy doesn't apply to these bulbs. And when I say debilitating I mean it. Pulling out anything that might make food or killing any plants makes me really sad inside. This is why I am so bad at thinning plants. Take my tomato seedlings for example, I am afraid to kill one of them so that I only have one of each type for fear that the remaining one will die and I'll be out a tomato plant for the year. Thus, I have two of each kind I started from seed and I'm probably going to end up planting all four plants. The bright side is that two of them are determinate so they won't grow up to be monsters anyway, and the other is a cherry tomato so maybe it won't get as big.

Other exciting news from the farm is that I have eaten my very first salad. As you undoubtedly inferred from the title, it was rather small. As all of the regulars out there already know, I have been itching to thin out the seedlings, and today was the day. In this next batch of seedlings I won't have to thin quite so early, but as that was my first time planting lettuce I planted two seeds per hole not realizing the impressive germination rate. I ended up with four plants in a 2-3 inch wide area because I had 2 sets of on-top-of-each-other seedlings. I went out and picked the smaller of each of the pairs to give the remaining one a bit more room so it wouldn't have to fight for water and nutrients and all the good soily stuff. I brought in my 1/100th of an ounce of lettuce, took its picture, washed it, and ate it. I put about one drop of dressing to add some flavor. It was quite possibly the best salad of my life. I can't wait until I can have a big bowlful of the deliciousness. I think part of the excitement is that it is homegrown and thus naturally superior, but the fact that Forelenschuss is darn attractive probably helps too. I could eat like 5 entire heads of it before I got bored and stopped. Anyway, I'm a real pig so that's fine. Right now I'm thinking about my favorite salad recipe, which goes something like this and is absolutely delicious.

Lettuce- lots
Tomatoes- maybe 1/4th of a cup, diced
Peppers- about 1/4th of a cup, diced
Onions- .25-.75 cups. I looooove sauteed onions so I put in a ton.
Salsa- as much as you would put were it normal salad dressing
Ranch- just a small amount to taste
Cheddar Cheese- a healthy sprinkle

Directions:
Saute the peppers, onions, and tomatoes (you don't have to saute the tomatoes if you prefer raw, but raw tomatoes aren't my favorite so I like to give them a little heatin). While they saute tear up a liberal amount of lettuce. Sprinkle the cheese on top and then pile on the sauteed vegetables. Add the salsa and dressing to taste. Eat, enjoy, and be happy (and healthy!).

Lettuce!

Goodbye, Paper.

I've spent the past two days slaving away over the computer working on my ten page research paper. I did on something about which I'm pretty passionate, and that is alternative energy, more specifically hydrogen power. I had been sort of procrastinating on it, as I do for most things, so I really just had to go to town on it and get it done. It is finally ten pages, with but three lines on the tenth page. The requirement was 2 lines on the tenth page, so I basically just barely made it. After the finish I had to move a few things around and for a few horrible minutes I thought I had to write more, but then I fixed it and life was good again.

I went in to work for one measly hour tonight because the scheduled night shift called in sick. It was good to get more money, but with a grand total of under $9, was it really worth the gas? Probably not. But still, my college account is going to enjoy the almost imperceptible boost I'm sure.

In the garden I'm still waiting for the carrots and lettuce to sprout. And the peas. I realize it is supposed to take about a week, but I wish the seeds would understand my desire for them to grow and just shoot up a bit faster. The potatoes are growing as fast as can be, which is pretty exciting. I'm sure having a bit of energy stored up really helps them grow fast, but no matter how it works I'm grateful that someone around here understands my impatience for green.

Despite the fact that the Solid Waste Agency warned against it, our 100% compost garden seems to be doing alright. None of the seedlings have keeled over yet so that's at least a plus. Speaking of seedlings, some of the lettuces seem to have grown an inch overnight. It is, of course, not fast enough for me. I want to try homegrown lettuce so bad! I think the day is quickly approaching in which I begin thinning and having a super-mini salad. Tomorrow after school and before work I'll go out and take a few pictures of it all, and I'll try extra hard to put up some of the pictures of our flowers that I got. We currently have snapdragons, violas, a really shnazzy gerbera daisy, and some purple shamrock thing. Oh and a coleus that I overwintered. It is super cool how you can just overwinter one of those. I live in Iowa so it sometimes gets to around -50 in the winter, but if you just pull of a stem with a few sets of leaves, pull of the bottom set of leaves, and stick it in a pot somewhere inside the thing will grow and become a brand new plant. I just reversed that process and stuck a new stem back outside, and it's looking pretty sad right now. I'm hoping it will be alright, but if not I'll try again and maybe let it adjust before sticking it in full sun. The very topmost leaves haven't wilted much though so I'm thinking maybe they'll weather it out and grow up nice and big.

Well I think that's all for now guys. I'll hopefully post up some pictures of everything tomorrow for y'all to admire.

Peace

Decorah

Going to Decorah was a blast! When we got there we picked up my sister and grove down to the Co-op there, Oneota Market. They had these awesome miniature heirloom tomatoes for sale and I wanted to buy them so badly and make some salsa, but in the end I decided not to. They were only about four bucks for a container of them though and they were oh so tempting. We spent a little bit of time looking around at all the stuff before ordering our food. Most of us got panini sandwiches. Mine was absolutely, incredibly, phenomenally delicious. It was called "Pesto Pantheon" and was sooooooooo good. The recipe, as far as I can remember, went something like this.

Pesto Pantheon Panini
2 slices sourdough bread
fresh mozzarella cheese
sliced tomatoes
pesto
thick-cut bacon

They just piled all the stuff on and grilled it, then served it with a pickle spear. It reminded me of Panera, but it was definitely much fresher and much healthier.

We then went to a place called Sugar Bowl, just a block away. If you are ever in Decorah I highly recommend it. It is of course not good for you, but it is absolutely delicious. After that we went to Seed Savers and I couldn't resist buying a few transplants. I ended up with rosemary, hollyhocks, coneflowers, and something called a cupplant. Oh, and some lupine. The last three plants are Iowa natives that should grow without much fuss, as well as help out some native bugs (hopefully). We'll see how that goes, fingers crossed that none of them die.

Well guys that's all for now.

Peace

Grow Grow Grow

I'm in the stage of my garden where I have so little work to do that I tend to just stare at my plants after they've been watered. And since the lettuce is the only thing growing in the garden so far that is all I look at. As I've said, I've never grown lettuce before so it is pretty intriguing to watch it grow. My seedlings are starting to shoot up their first real leaves. Though "shoot up" is a bit too exciting for what they are doing. More like painfully thrusting up into the cruel world. Doesn't that sound a little bit slower to you? It did to me too. Anyway.

I'm about to go plant my peas, which are currently taking a little bath to soften their seed coats. I don't know if that actually works but I read that it does somewhere so I'm going to try it just in case. I just hope they don't drown. And tomorrow I'm going to Decorah with my cousin and uncle! It's going to be a blast and we're going to pick up my sister who goes to college at Luther and then have lunch at the Co-op there. After lunch we will of course be taking a trip to Seed Savers to look around at what they have going and get some seeds and maybe some transplants. I don't really need anything else. But who isn't addicted to looking at all the cool heirloom vegetables. Let's be honest.

I'll take a picture of my baby lettuces (though baby is a little bit bigger than what I have, maybe I should say lettuce fetuses?) and my homemade pea trellises, which are sitting in my homemade raised bed. It is all rather exciting for me.

Catching Up

Since I decided to do this after we had already built the garden and gotten stuff ready I'm just going to write a summary of what's been done in our first year of a garden.

We (meaning mostly I, and some input from the family) decided to plant 5 types of tomatoes, 4 types of peppers, two types of basil, chives, peas, green beans, potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and strawberries. Me and my dad built the raised bed frame, which is about 30' x 3.5'. My friend and I used her truck to take a trip down to the solid waste agency and have it filled with (free!) compost three times. It took all day and was hard work, but it was a blast. We then went to Earl May and got straw for mulch, marigolds to do their magic thing that tomatoes apparently like, and strawberry plants. Unfortunately we only get six strawberry plants and our planter takes nine, so our six are just waiting to be planted. We then made some rows in the mulch to plant lettuce, for which I am VERY excited because I've never had anything but supermarket iceberg, with the occasional romaine thrown in. I chose Yugoslavian Red Butterhead and Forellenschuss as our lettuces because they both had some nice seed catalog prose. Also, a few weekends before my friend and I planted the basil, dill, moss rose flowers, and some tomatoes in a seed starting setup.

Most of the lettuce seeds have now sprouted and I'm am impatiently waiting for them to grow some leaves so I can thin them out while sampling my choices. I also planted the potatoes, but having so many different types of plants in a relatively small garden means that I only have a total of about 7 feet of potatoes, plus our two Potato Grow Bags from Gardener's Supply Co. That probably won't end up being very much potatoes but we also have our CSA, for which I am also VERY excited because we will have so many fresh local vegetables and I will be able to feel all good and happy about inside while I stuff my face.

As I write this I should really probably be working on my research paper that I haven't really started yet, or doing my calculus, but oh well.

Just in case any of you wanted to know what types of each plant I'm growing, I'll give you a list of all the fancy-sounding heirlooms because the other plants just have lame generic names anyway. If I end up having fantastic harvests of peas or something, you can just ask me where I got them later on down the road.
Tomatoes: Yellow Sausage, Isis Candy (sounds sooo good), Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Gold Medal
Peppers: Fish, Tolli's Sweet Italian, Buran, and something else (we ordered plants from Seed Saver's so long ago)
Basil: Thai and Purple

Alright that paper is really calling... peace.

El Jardin

This blog is a way for me to chronicle my first year being what I consider a "real" gardener. Example: up until last year I didn't know what the mysterious disease that kept killing my tomato plants was called. I've never planted carrots, peas, potatoes, lettuce, or beans. And I never had a real garden. But the winds of change began to blow late last summer after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. That book began to change the way I thought about food, animals, and my future. After that a whole host of small things happened. I learned what CSA's were and became jealous, probably for the first time, of my aunt's eating habits. I started religious reading and re-reading seed catalogs. I started getting Organic Gardening. I started giving evil looks to those paltry, fake tomatoes in the grocery stores. I went to a Farmer's Market.All of these may seem small, but together they started my dreams of one day eating (almost) completely local food. My dreams of growing my own food and raising my own chickens and eating their eggs.