Oct 31, 2007 8:26 am US/Central
Project Energy: Making Homes Green Even Outside
(WCCO)
-
-
Project Energy recently returned to look at how natural energy resources can be used outside houses.
CBS
WCCO-TV returned to the old
greenhouse where we have been following all of the things they've been
doing to try to lower their energy usage and to try to lower their carbon
footprint. Don Shelby has spent a lot of time inside, but wanted to go outside
to show how they're trying to maximize their natural wealth. Recently, he spoke
with Paula
Westmoreland there.
-------
Don Shelby: What does it mean to maximize natural wealth?
Paula Westmoreland: When you're trying to maximize natural wealth, you
want to improve the soil, you want to use water efficiently, and you want to
grow as many kinds of different plants as you can because the greater the
variety of plants, the more photosynthesis you're capturing and turning into
natural wealth.
Shelby: So it's like carbon capturing?
Westmoreland: Absolutely, absolutely. In addition to designing,
you know selecting the plants that are going to work. We also design the root
systems. Different kinds of roots, different root depths. We position the
plants to try and capture the maximum carbon from above ground to deep in the
ground.
Shelby: You're talking to a guy with a brown thumb, so why should anyone care
about how deep the root is?
Westmoreland: If you have roots that are different depths, you're
partitioning that resource and being able to tap nutrients that are deeper in
the soil so you're not competing at the same level.
Shelby: Now Paula, usually people think of gardens for beauty or they think of
gardens for food. But you seem to have added a third thing. Like an ecological
function.
Westmoreland: We use native plants as a foundation and add a lot
of edibles in. We feel like it's really critical to connect people back to the
land in a way. And the land for most people is their back yard. And being able
to harvest some food from your back yard is a really good way to connect
people.
Shelby: Do you have a food plot in this plan?
Westmoreland: Absolutely. Come on over here I'll show you the
design. Over in this corner we've got annual raised beds. They'll be companion
vegetable beds and you can rotate them from one position to another each year.
Shelby: What's going to be in there?
Westmoreland: You can have things like carrots and beets and mixed
greens. Whatever you want. It's custom based on what the family in the
household wants to eat. And surrounding that we have three large raised perennial
beds. One would probably asparagus with sweet alyssum and dill. Those are good
companion plants. And we'll also have strawberries, chives and borage.
Chives is a good pest repellent and borage is good for attracting beneficial
insects.
Shelby: And when we get into a drought condition, no worries because you got a
cistern and you're going to use rainwater.
Westmoreland: Absolutely, right.
Shelby: I love the idea of community. The house is about technology and energy
savings and things like that. But this garden is really about the earth, as is
the house.
Westmoreland: By designing relationships and weaving relationships
between people and animals and land and soil. So many of those relationships have
been severed in one way or another. People aren't really connected to their
food the way they used to be. And you can do it in an urban back yard. You
don't need to go out to the woods to do it. And I think that's what's
empowering to people. You can actually take positive steps.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
