This Morning, We Made Paper...

This morning, we made paper.  The main reason that we are even engaging in this project is our love of the earth and our desire to do some very positive things.  So this morning, we made paper.  We made paper from recycled news papers that would have been thrown into landfill.  We made it mainly so that we could break that cycle.  We made it also because paper is considered one of the benchmarks of society.  We also made it because we could.
The main reason, though is so that we could say thank you.  We could not do the things that we do without those who support us.

In the course of The Floating Farm and our other projects, we are going to make some mistakes and there will be setbacks, but on our way to building this community and creating this thing, we are going to make a lot of really great things, but today we made paper.
We throw words around like sustainable, self sufficient, permaculture and more.  These are tick marks that take a while to get to on the time line and along the way come with accumulation of knowledge. but today we made paper.

We decided on how the crates would stack up on the platform. We pulled more seed potatoes and started a new crate for more potatoes. We cloned tomatoes, sifted compost, watered plants and did inspections all before 9 a.m. and today we also made paper.

In a couple of days, our supporters are going to get the paper that we made this morning, with special notes and thank yous on them.  They have the option of looking at them and putting them on their mantle or in a book as a keepsake.  Or, they can chuck them out in the yard or into their own compost pile so that they break down and make their soil better.  They can do a lot of things, but today WE made paper.
Tomorrow means doing a lot of the same things as we prepare to put the floating farm into the water.  It means a lot of waiting and adjusting to changing plans and changing tides.  This morning we made paper.
Soon, again, we will be doing community clean ups and dinners and talks, but today we wanted to say thank you.  Today, we made paper.

If you would like to support us with as little as a dollar and help The Floating Farm grow great food, clean up the rivers and lakes, provide a platform for artists and more.  We are proud o be a part of the Epoch Convergence group so please go to our Patreon page and become a supporter!
https://www.patreon.com/epochconvergence

Help get us started and we will send you a card.  We will also keep you up to date on all the things that we are doing in your area and send you all sorts of little gifts and goodies for your support!

Digging In...In Praise of Litter! (kinda)

The Seedlings Week 1

We have begun digging in and growing up on the farm.  For the amount of projected volume we would like to do to start off, we have realized that we have to up instead of out.  The Floating Farm will initially be just a large platform with a lot of things going on on it.  The primary goal will be to grow as much as we can and learn some lessons.

This allows us to bypass a lot of challenges that a lot of other farms have to deal with.  First, we are instantly organic.  We do not have the worries about soil contamination because we have imported all of the soil and growing media that we need.

Potatoes coming up

We do not have to battle with the sunlight issues.  This summer is already shaping up to hit the 90's and only get HOTTER! The Floating Farm allows us to explore methods of dealing with sun and shade by changing the positions of everything. sot that the heat of the sun is not frying the plants or animals.

Still, first things first.  We had to examine what we had an abundance of and thanks to a very dirty world, we had PLENTY of resources but not a lot of money.  This means lots of bottles to build with and though labor intensive, it is satisfying.

We are cleaning up little pieces of the world and using what we find to grow things!  Simple enough, right?

We need your skill, your will, your creativity to help us keep building this thing.  We need your support and your thoughts on how take this thing of ours to the next level.  Yes, we are building from waste, taking things that others have tossed, but we need help on every level!

Want to help?  Donate!

Or Spend a two weeks as an intern on our floating farm in Clemson, in Augusta, and in Savannah!


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Seedlings, week 2 

repurposed cooking oil containers and Coke bottles

Non-gmo corn drying

The start of the vertical garden and the walls of River Lab

Soon to be covered with organic soil and used to water the vert. garden

chard, spinach growing in the improvised earth boxes.

Harvesting non-gmo corn seeds and ready to save for  The River Lab

Is Boaty McBoatface taken?

NERC got some great suggestions...can we?

The River Lab goes into the water on June 20th and though it we think the name,  The Floating Farm says it all, we were thinking that we should have something a bit more catchy.  The platform is a pretty simple thing.  It is really just a flat platform, supported by 55 gallon plastic drums.  We are going to use it to grow food.  We are going to use it to host events.  We are going use it to display art.  We are going to use it to do research.  We are going to use it help clean up the Lake Hartwell and the Savannah river this year with plans next year to work on the Chattahoochie  and in year three we take to the sea along the South Carolina coast.  Think about it as something like The Enterprise for the river.

We are reaching out for a little help in naming her.  What do you think?  Boaty McBoatface?  The Enterprise?  Should we stick with The Floating Farm?

We are always welcoming suggestions and we will be posting them here on the blog and offering you a chance to vote!  Send us your suggestions at grow@thelifecooperative.org . If your choice is chosen, you win a t-shirt with the name on it.

or

Just vote and be entered to win a chance to win a t-shirt and other prizes.

Growing up on the farm...vertical gardening.

July 2, 2016
Space is at a premium all over the world not to mention at The Floating Farm.  We have started working on ways to go up instead of out.  Our seeds are starting to come in full force and we have to strategically place them so that we are able to grow them upwards and not necessarily outwards

We are beginning to sprout a number of things and as the roots begin to dig into the soil and stabilize things, we are thinking about how to start growing up on the farm.  The key is stability and looking at how we can put more thing up on the platform rather than wide.

To conserve space and weight we have been using crates.  They are solid and uniform, a lot like the oil containers we used for the DIY Earth Boxes from Meet Me On The Water

There are thousands of these crates thrown in the trash every day.  We are saving them form the trash stream and they are the perfect framework for walls and allowing us to manage the light and heat for the plants.

Would you like to help us grow up?

You contribution goes to help to helping us build more of the floating farm!

Meet me on the water, the beginning of the Floating Farm.

"I went into the woods because I sought to live deliberately...."  That is the quote most commonly associated with Walden.  It is one of my favorite books but that is not my favorite quote.  I have always believed that though quotes are great, the book should be taken as a whole and all aspects of it should be, for lack of a better term, ingested.  "A mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation..."

It is definitely a book that should be taken as a whole and one that fits the idea of the Floating Farm and River Lab.  We wanted this endeavor to be bold and adventurous.  We wanted it to be educational.  We wanted it to be profitable.  We want it to be sustainable and inclusive.

This is the blog where we are going to talk about these things.  We are going to talk about learning about our world, how these things and these projects are coming along and how we are moving forward.  We are inviting you along for the ride.  Meet us on the water.

5 bells...
We are consigned to dry land for the next three weeks. We training to rise and shine at five in the morning.  We can get a lot of things going first thing in the morning, but the biggest thing for us is dodging the heat of the day.  As we construct the River Lab, one of our biggest considerations is the heat of the day and how to focus the sun to the plants that need it, without roasting the humans who don't want it.

The design for river lab is simple. It is a box that rests on a platform, supported by plastic 55 gallon drums.  Easy right?  We have to keep the vessel in the current and still take all of these things into consideration.  Once we hit the water, and in fact every day, the routine will call for rising at 5 bells and getting things done before the heat of the day arrives.

We go into the water on July 2.  Right now we are concentrating on the plants and getting them growing and situated in a way that can be transplanted to a floating environment. This has basically meant finding containers that can accommodate them.  The goal is ever the same and we are constantly seeking modular, uniform containers.  We have settled on the oil containers that that hold fryer oil from fast food chains.  They are sturdy yet pliable enough to be manipulated.  They are food grade which was a big plus.

We are cutting the tops off and flipping them over to insert them into the bottom part.  This allows a platform to hold up the soil.  This way, we are able to create a kind of earth box with a water reservoir at the bottom.  The reservoir is fed through Coke bottles.

Right now, as these come together. everything is a hack with the mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle, flowing through our heads.