The Botany of Desire

I just watched this film last night and I wanted to share it with you. This is a very well done film outlining the idea that perhaps plants are using us to the same extent that we use them and that they have developed traits and capacities in order to ‘convince’ us to propogate their species. The idea itself is novel, to most, and presented stunningly well. I am very picky about movies and this one is worth some hot chocolate,  dried mango and a warm friend to snuggle with on a winter night.

Here is what I have understood about the ROCF (Royal Oak Community Farm).

1. It is on school property

2. Profit’s go mainly to the royal oak school system

3. Executive management fee’s are unknown, not in place, or simply not considered at this stage

4. Food will be sold locally in royal oak

5. So far 1 job has been created – which is 1 more than we had.

6. The long term vision is to use more school land(s) to propogate this model.

7. Fundraising activities are in place but currently no 501c3 is.

It is awesome to see more and more energy and attention being moved to producing food locally and I applaud David for his work here. That being said, I am personally concerned with the model he has in place given that an undisclosed, yet substantial amount of profits are going to public schools…which…already recieve state and federal money from YOU and I…and statistically, they waste it. There is something for me about this that feels like the bank bail outs. If this program was aimed to fund local schools so they could turn down federal dollars and thus directly control their education locally…I would be ALL for it. As it is, I personally rather see Mr. Baldwin profit from this endevour than a school. Let me explain…

1. I can sit down with Mr. Baldwin and have a discussion with him about how he spends his money in the community. You cannot do this with school boards and get anywhere. They are not going to change their educational model…that much has been proven. More useless tests, less time outside, less time to eat, more stress, less to no art, less to no music…UGH! Music, Art, Play – take it all away and you wonder why your kids hate school, dislike learning and are not inspired?….!!!

2. I personally rather see individuals or families profit than ‘institutions’

Here is another idea for school farms:

1. Hire a private company to work with the school to design a farm/education model for the students at that school. Transition existing school landscape expenses in the direction of said farm – thereby saving money via transforming it’s direction.

2. The children learn to grow food, eat healthy, run a business and care for their environment/bodies.

3. The farm is intergrated into the schools educational program. It is a farm for the students, by the students with only support and guidance from the outside.

4. The school stays a place of education and does not become a source of competition for other local business.

Now, clearly I am biased in my opinion here given what I do for a living – and still what I am saying makes sense. Schools are paid for by You and I to provide education for our children and our greater community – which, we know for sure they are failing at – but that is another topic. There is no reason that schools should be in the business of competing against local business – which is EXACTLY what the ROCF model is doing.

My children go to Royal Oak public schools. I would LOVE to see a farm at their school that THEY work on, learn from and help grow. There is no way I would support a farm being built on their schools property that profits the school board while my kids get 20 minutes a day to play outside and 15 minutes to eat lunch…which is what our crap school model has told us is part of their ‘education.’ This may sound harsh and angry and it is.We have gone to the moon but we have not figured out children need to spend 50% of their time playing, running, outside, in the open air? Absurd.

Giving money to the public school system is as bad as giving money to banks -yet without looking any deeper into it it feels nice to think you are supporting a “School” -which – the very word in our mind relates to education, higher learning and a better life – yet, in fact, this is not the case.

Here is another idea for Mr. Baldwin:

1. Assist in connecting for profit local companies with cheap land within the city to farm. Let those businesses profit from school land with the conditions they must provide a comprehensive educational model for that school and those kids as part of getting the free land and water. Mr. Baldwin, as owner of the Royal Oak BUsiness Association would then be not only helping provide local restraunts with cheap local food, but also providing local farm business with cheap land to grow that food. That, to me, is a win win win. As it is now, the school board profits, Mr. Baldwin profits and a few restraunts will possibly benefit from the food – but the farmer moves from being self employed to becoming an employee for a school baord and Mr. Baldwin. Better still, Mr. Baldwin could assist in connection said farmers to said schools as consultant/guidance for developing functional educational farm models for the school.

Quick Recap.

1. School Farms? - AWESOME IDEA – for education and run by the students along with consultant/advisor support – within the community.

2. School Farms that profit the school board, are not integrated into the cirriculum, whose food is not going into the cafeteria and whose presence essentially is but eye candy for children staring out of windows in a dull and boring classroom?…NO THANKS.

It is important that we critique each other in a positive way. I love what David is doing in terms of raising awareness and generating energy around local food. Love it. I love that he is making something happen – love it. I do feel the long term effect of the current model he has is detrimental. I have explained why. I would love to hear your take on this.

Remember, small business is the HEART of the American experiment. Without it, we all end up employees. My grandfather started his company fixing toilets and went on to help build Nuclear Power Plants. He always told me growing up “Michael, it is better to be broke and work for yourself than to work for someone else.” True or not – the spirit of that comment is something I really value and is a way of living I advocate for myself and my children. I feel if the ROCF model succeeds and is expanded it will hurt small farmers – NOT help them. I do not see how this position can be argued otherwise…please enlighten me if I am missing something here.

I leave you with a clip from one of the luminaries of our time talking a little about education.Be warned, there is some heavy langauge in this clip.

Lastly, it is a good thing to have food growing around us – no matter what the details of the matters are – so long as this farm is producing organic food – without the use of GMO or any kind of chem – then it adds to our food security. This article is made to stimulate thought and to encourage investing our time and energy in the ‘best’ direction. I support David’s efforts, will continue to post on his farm and am an advocate for local food. I simply feel the model he has set up could be improved upon a great deal. This is not an attempt to discredit anyone – I have lots of bad ideas as many of you know. I am excited to see how Mr. Baldwins vision develops over time and I hope this sort of input will assist in refining the vision of the new world we are all actively building right now.

Love,

Michael

Check out the newest video from our Art Party in May 2009. Special thanks to the The Mati Group!

If you like the video, please do vote on it in youtube and pass it round. The point to this event and the video’s is to  not only promote my business (:) but to generally promote local food, local culture, local art.

Love,

Michael

Today I continued development of our Wild Bramble patch at the personal residence of EdibleWow.com who is our partner on this particular crop we are developing.

The Land

Close to 3 acres of the finest northern suburbian property is home to our Jewel of a Wild Bramble garden. The area where these are growing has been free of lawn care of any kind except mowing for over a decade. There is a stunning red tailed hawk in the mightiest white pine on the property, deer everywhere (they don’t even eat the brambles!!!) an aspiring apiary – this is a really stunning lot we are working with. Video on it to come.

Why:

If you have tried to grow raspberries, of any variety, you are aware that they are tricky to grow. They seem to succumb to a series of problems from insects to fungus.  The wild bramble in michigan is utterly easy to manage and produces in adverse conditions with ease. I have personally never seen them succumb to some dis-ease nor have I talked to a single person who has. In fact, this wild variety is said to carry a virus that negatively effects cultivated varieties of raspberry and thus the wild one’s should be eradicated from any area where cultivated varieties are to be planted. Huh. Think about that. That is like removing a peach tree that grows wild, with no effort on your part, to plant another peach tree that requires tedious management. Ornamentally speaking, yes, it is fun to play with varieties – but practically and functionally speaking, long term ease and sustainability…in my opinion it is the Wild Bramble all the way. I decided to begin managing and developing distribution for this crop because it is so easy to sell. It is easy to sell because I know it kicks ass and so does everyone else who has spent a little time around plants.

Management

Since this is a Wild Berry I want to be working with, I am careful not to over manage it. As you can see in these pictures what I am doing is removing invasive species like honeysuckle, buckthorne and grapevine to create more room for this patch to develop – by itself. I will, to a limited extent reach into less consolidated areas, remove those wild berries and concentrate them to a limitied extent within the patches we are supporting.

What I am experimenting with is what is the bare minimum we need to do to have great production, a great look and assist in the stream of evolution of this plant – careful to keep and maintain it’s hardy, wild and productive nature.

I will experiment with certain soil conditioners, of which I won’t disclose now because those are some gardening secrets I am not prepared to share – lol – but for sure it is 100% organic love stuff.

I will to a limited extent experiment with pruning techniques for this particular plant and possibly trellacing but this very idea starts moving down the path of additional maintenance which leads to additional investment which leads to additional costs which drives a desire for additional productivity until you have lost every sense of the word Wild. Still, I will play with a small area because I am curious…

Growth

Everywhere I see this plant with it is a really nice woodsy loam soil. I cannot recall seeing this plant growing in clay, but I would bet 100 bucks it would. Also, it can grow and produce in full sun, part shade and heavy shade. At a clients home in farmington, we transplanted full shade woodland wild brambles in later spring to a full sun lawn area – they produced fruit that season!!! Wow.

Design

One of my key interests in this project called indiEdibles is to show to you that you can use edible plants in your landscape that save you money, and or make you money instead of useless ornamental expenses. With little more than playing with what is already in these patches, my personal challenge is to work with these areas in a way that also increases their visual appeal. Since my palate will be ‘O Natural’ the design on this will be focused around seeing what has potential and assisting in that potential. Already, the back drop to these beauties are big buckthornes covered in grapevine. Two crap plants by most people’s standards. Yet, to remove the buckthorn is a ton of labor and time. Instead, I am going to manage the grapevine and let it climb and dominate the buckthorn. I will also try to get the grape to produce fruit. This was, the grapevine functions as texture and color, consistantly in a background, it produces food, it blocks the nieghboring property line of site, and it takes me very little effort to do so. I will show you as time moves on how this turns out and you can decide if I succeeded in showing how this particular approach is superior to the traditional way of thinking about a landscape.

If you would like these brambles in your landscape this year, holler at me now before we go to market with these. We have a limited number.

Welcome to the first official installment of this little video series I am working on.

My dear friend David Messerschmidt who was working with InDi on our project had the idea to use our office space for an Art Battle event. The way an art battle works is that the guests vote on their favorite piece at the end of the night. There are any number of artists working under any number of themes and mediums with a limited time frame of completion. Funny enough, we had a decent amount of negative feedback on the use of the word ‘battle’ and the idea it was a competition. I would like to take the opportunity to say that it is ironic because such a statement and critique itself is competitive and aggressive in nature but I choose not to focus on the ‘battle’ part of the event in these video’s too much – mainly because we did not win. lolololol We came in 2nd place. And for the record Competition with Honor is a beautiful thing.

I set the theme for this party, naturally, as Urban Farming and left it that loose for the artists to interpret. This was the first party of a 3 party series we had planned but we lost our funding shortly after the event coupled with a substantial personal tragedy that set me back for several months. We are currently seeking funding to continue this aspect of our vision which can be disclosed to those interested in creative philanthropy.

The group I am calling Team IndiEdibles consisted of some very dear people to me. Mary Thiefels has worked with me as design support over the past 10 years for coloring and creating 3d concepts for my landscape sales. I actually met Mary over 10 years ago at Jerusalem Garden in Ann Arbor where both her and I worked but our friendship did not develop until later on. I call her Mama Mary and consider her an Angel. Jeremy Johnson-Lemuix, aka Sunshine, has been a friend and foe for over a decade as well – at one time being my landscape companies foreman for 2 seasons. I fired him and we laugh pretty hard about it to this day with only a mild sliver of angst! lol. I love Sunshine deeply and have watched his music and art develop over the past decade. He is one of the most talented graphic designers I know. In fact, I hired him to design my tree of life logo which has been the staple of my business now for close to 9 years.Sunny has been gardening since he came to work with me 9 years ago and runs a boutique landscape company in Ann Arbor as well as expressing himself through music and art. He is a father, a student and an aspiring devotee of life. I have a lot of feelings for this fellow. Edward Frazier I met close to 7 years ago at a yoga retreat in northern mi called Song of the Morning and I instantly felt an affinity with him. That meeting lasted no more than moments until years later when it turned out that he was friends with Mary, Sunny and several other friends of mine. Edward and I have never spent a great deal of time together, but I have always admired him and paid close attention to his developing mastery of the art of Tattoo and painting. His style is explosively real, dark, profound, moving and drips with the unmistakable quality of divine inspiration. I wanted our mural to be a scape of the city of detroit integrated seemlessly and properly into the landscape with a non-religious benevolent deity over the city radiating blessings onto it. Edward came to mind for this aspect of the mural instantly and he took this vision and made it his own. Watching him translate the scale of his sketch from his pad to the wall and then to ever so carefully develop this piece with the input and assistance of the other members was astounding. I met Shadia Zayed for this first time at this event. She has been a working associate and friend of Mary Thiefels for years and came with Mary. Shadia’s energy and focus from the second she got to our office was moving to me. The whole night she was lit up like a christmas tree and she fit into this group of artists as if they had been family for a long time. Sunshine brought his friend Jess Willard who is a dedicated student of Tibetan Buddhism a musician, an artist and also a cunning ladies man. I met Jess a decade ago at the the buddhist place yet never felt a stong connection with him until that night. We were on the roof of the russel and something very magical happened and I fell in love with Jess – and no, this is not gay – men can love each other, Real Men do. I had no idea Jess was coming that night and he was a pleasant surprise and a foundational presence in the painting. Then there was Chip. Chip is technically an Elemental Diety aka Woodland Gnome of the Highest Order. You will hear Chip’s music in coming videos. He is a Jewel of a human being. Lastly but not least is Nisa Jorbachi who I met for the first time that night. Of course I fell in love with Nisa right away, not just because she has voodoo black eyes and hair and reminds you of a Persian Goddess – but because instantly her 100% engaged energy added to the Fire that was lit within the members of this group. I am sorry I did not have any good film of you two. Please accept my apologies.  This team is part of my Family and what we produced together has moved me deeply. I love you all so much and cannot express what it means to me that your in my life and that we have had the chance to make things like this happen together. May there be many more celebrations.

A special thanks to DJ Frank Raines and DJ Brian Hill.

A special thanks to Swami and Mr.Bs for your loving and gracious support. Look what we did together~ Cheers to success!

Love,
Michael

You can talk to the owners here, you can talk to the brewer’s – this place is a family and when you show up you are part of it – at least, this is my experience.

Also, they are huge supporters of green initiatives in the city and just recently I saw Dan loading used barley into compost bins heading to become rich soil.

See you at Motor City sometime -

Love,

Michael

Along with building gardens I love working with film and I am brand new at it. This is my first solo edit actually – it is not hard to see I am not super savvy on final cut yet, but I enjoy it a lot. I had to film Frank’s party after the first time I experienced it. I will let the video describe the rest for you.

I love your feedback so pass it along.

Love, Michael

If knowing is half the battle, is the other half not knowing?

Ready?… I propose to you that if you live in a climate that can have a freezing winter (or in my not so tactful opinion – ANY climate) and you have spent money on FLE’s, you are the victim of a landscape crime. You have been ripped off.  The crime is being perpetuated by a ruthless suspect known as ‘Greed,’ sometimes accompanied by ‘Poor Taste’, ‘Suggestability’ and ‘Irrational Reasoning’ who seem to be possesing the pyhsical forms of human beings that refer to themselves as ‘landscapers,’ ‘landscape purchasers’ and ‘whoever the hell choses the general pile of cheap, useless and often ugly filth that fills the garden sections of wallmart, homedepot and lowes.

Here is why…

1. The Sales Pitch for getting FLE’s

a. It looks SOOO Sharp and Clean! (I had a hard time writing that)

InDiLogiC: Ok, really? Maybe, Maybe there are a few extremely talented artisans who could craft substances that would not only highlight natures beauty but even add to it – there are more than a few – I would bet you agree with me that the producers of  FLE ’s would not be filed into this category. I am a fan of clean lines as one medium for design and utility, let me be clear on that.  My perfect world, though, does not include FLE’s near my home. By no stretch of the imagination is this stuff attractive. Through HGTV and endless magazines, aka Marketing Vehicles, companies have succeeded in creating ’socially acceptable standards’ in design that happen to correspond in a high degree to what those companies or closely affiliated companies sell. It makes sense. It is clever marketing if you find success in propogating mediocrity. You know, the happy smiling hip young couple sharing a secret grin standing over their 2,000 dollar in ground, custom garbage liner as if they just found the ‘greatest orgasm ever button’ on each other’s forehead. Didn’t you see that banner at Lowes? Me neither, I don’t go to Lowes unless I cannot find a cheaply made tool somewhere local. Is this cynical or honest?

b. Unlike a natural cut edge, you won’t have the expense of having to recut it every spring. It will save you money!

InDiLogiC: ….not when you look a little deeper.

1. We charge, depending upon how much money we think you have, between $100 and $300 for a typical larger suburban landscape for a solid natural cut edge once a year.  To install FLE’s into that yard would cost over $1,500 or 3 to 6 seasons of paying someone like us to edge.

2. It is expensive to install FLE’s because it is so labor intense. It is so labor intensive because EarthMama don’t like it – anyhow, what this MEANS is that when it inevitably pops out of the ground, sinks into the ground, shatters from freezing, is destroyed by mowers or crumbles from it’s self loathing it is VERY expensive to fix. It requires redigging all of the trenches where it moved. Worse, when you do that, it is like interupting a song with a random new sound – meaning, it is even more tricky to get the flow of the lines back in order – assuming it was installed with some degree of love. SO, 3 seasons from now when you THOUGHT you were going to start feeling some return on your investment you have to reinvest, often close to 30% of the initial investment, just to make it functional and ’sharp and clean’ looking again. Anyone who knows about this stuff in climates that freeze (or as I said, I think FLE’s should be turned into signs warning future generations about them) knows what I am saying is true. If, by some rare possibility FLE’s did save you money, it is utterly nominal.

c. It stops weeds from going from your lawn into your bed because we dig it 10″ down

InDiLogiC: If you hear this, say you have shat yourself and run in the other direction. Nothing is going to stop weeds from getting into your beds….because A. They are stronger than your landscape plants and B. EarthMama wants them there. She is Intelligent. There is a reason She wants them there – for You. For Your well being. Listen. Help spread some intelligence fertilizer on the asphalt covered fields of the current mental collective so we can grow ourselves some Brilliant Beings.

I hope I have given a convincing arguement as to why we should all make an effort to make sure our friends and family don’t get ripped off – spending hard earned money on ugly, impractical things they are told they need. By doing so we not only save money, create less substance pollution we also decrease the over abundance of Taste Pollution. If you are offended by this and you love FLE’s and derive fabulous satisfaction from them I in no way am intending to bully you into not enjoying what you love. Enjoy. You are far more loving and accepting than I.

IndiOut

ps – people actually paid to have these things done to their property…hence my use of the word ‘crime.‘

However, in the meantime, if you want to participate, read on…

For those of you who love this kind of work and wish to support:

1. Videographers and or Editors (currently volunteer only)

2. Authors for the blog who are experienced and knowledgeable, dynamically, about matters related to local food/lifestyle. (volunteer only)

3. Rare heirloom plant specimens – maybe from your grandma or grandpa’s garden – something you would like to see us propogate and preserve. (to be discussed)

4. 10 million dollars (seriously…want to see real change happen real fast?….)

5. Sources for truly organic compost (meaning no trash)

6. Recycled – cement block, brick, cedar and or old wood planking, pvc piping, old 2×4,

7. Buy local food from local farmers.

8. Spread the word

9. We will be hiring additional help in the spring for constructing the gardens, though our crew is pretty solid – if you think you have the chutzpa to hang with us, hit me up and tell me why.

Here is a fun video I want to share with you for taking the time to check this out.

Hello!

Check out this great article on my goji plants in HOUR magazine. READ ARTICLE HERE

Thank you Alexa for yet another awesome article on my work! Alexa has written about my companies over the past 9 years several times – thus, in my mind, she is the most talented writer in the city right now! lol

I took the plants from SEED to BERRY in 2 seasons while over wintering them in pots TWICE! What this means is this plant is Extremely hardy. At night I would have dreams of a berry colored woman telling me secrets about how to grow the plant, what it needs, how to prune it, how to transplant it and how to make it sing. I prefer this story more than how I really figured those things out

So – your goji’s by the end of this year would be multi-stem and around 4-6ft high depending on when we start growing them for you. All of the plants we did grow are being kept for production and experimentation. Sadly, half of my goji crop died last year due to a rare landscape disease commonly called ‘divorce.’ So we are taking orders right now to start growing your goji hedge. These plants express a luminous, shimmering silverbluegreen presence with airy long branching, similar to forsythia or red stem dogwood. This plant can be left to grow wild, or pruned into geometric hedges. It can even be grown as a vine.

I have read that the bark is anti-bacterial. The leaves taste AMAZING and are great in salads and tea. The berry is worthy of rolling around in naked. This is an exceptional plant. Get your order in.

Check out the first video we did on the goji last spring. Word JP! Thanks for being there with me on that one.

How I got turned on to growing Goji -

So have you gotten one of these phone calls ‘Hey Old Pal! Wow, I really missed your voice, it has been so long – hey, there is this new business…’ Yep…lolol…you know the rest. Well there is a company selling Goji Juice and they are using an MLM format and selling this juice for around $30 a bottle…yes THIRTY. So, 2 ‘friends’ of mine call me a few years ago trying to slang this thirty dollar kool aid on me because it is ‘Goji’ juice and Goji has this and that and blah blah blah. Well, it is true, the berry has been used in Ayurvedic, Tibetan and Chinese medicine for a long, long time and has numerous dynamic benefits. So, their initial call got me very excited about their product – A. because I trusted them and B. because I loved the berry and new of it’s benefits. Well, as I looked into this ‘wonder’ product I found out that in fact less than 10% of the drink is Goji Juice and of that 10% it is 100% reconstituted juice – meaning they dried the berry and then rehydrated it and then made the juice….Can you think of a single wine maker that would dehydrate a grape, rehydrate it and then try to make wine? BS. Total BS. At the end of the day, this product was $30 pear juice with goji flavor and worse, they claimed it was A. Raw and B. Organic yet could not produce any paper trail to substantiate. Despite their ruthless sales efforts which succeeded in showing me they were without decency, at least in this regard, I stayed farrr away from that goji drink racket and decided to instead start my own Goji Racket- get the real thing, real fresh, really organic and really cheap. In my own findings, the best place on the internet to get dried goji’s is www.gojiberry.com talk to Julie and tell her Michael from detroit sent you along. 100% of my berries from her sprouted. I don’t get any kick backs or anything from her…yet…lol…but I get a kick out of knowing I can bring more business to her. They are family owned and operated and her husband is a Tibetan Medicine Practioner. Worthy of all capital first letters.

So, in short, beware of expensive goji drinks, BS and people who are too friendly or over complimentary just prior to a sales effort (aka – BS).