Cortland County Sustainable Living Tour 10/8/11

Twin Oaks Dairy Tracking Solar PV System

Uttech Property

Please join us for the first annual Cortland County Sustainable Living Tour on October 8, 2011.  The day includes two tours.  Tour highlights will include: Straw bale and earth-berm construction, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, geothermal, sustainable gardening, passive solar, LEED Silver building standards, and energy retrofits.

For more info please go to: cortlandgreenhomes.wordpress.com  or contact Beth Klein (607-753-5682) solarbeth@gmail.com

TOUR 1: Businesses and Organizations

10:15-11:00 Cortland YWCA, Cortland  - solar PV system

11:30-12:30 SUNY Cortland Professional Studies Building, Cortland – Meets LEED Silver standards, geothermal heating and cooling, and more

1:00-2:00 Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture Visitor Center, Cortland – Geothermal, solar PV system, and other green building techniques.

Tour 2: Farms and Homes

9:15-10:00  Twin Oaks Dairy, Truxton – tracking ground mount solar panels

Klein garden and Solar PV system

10:30 – 11:30 – Klein home, Solon  - ground mount solar PV system, solar thermal hot water system, on-demand hot water, wood stove, root cellar.  Jon Wood of Cortland and owner of  Green Sun Solar  will be on hand to talk about his solar thermal installation here.

12:00 – 1:30 –  Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown/Marathon
Karl and Jan North Home: Earth-berm construction and passive solar, and more.
Donn Hewes and MaryRose Livingston Home: Straw bale construction, passive Solar, and more.

2:00-3:00 – Uttech home, Lapeer – Solar PV, solar thermal hot water, wood stove and more

Uttech Solar PV controllers

September Garden Update

Well here it is September 18th and we haven't had a frost yet (probably going to jinx us now). We don't consider it fully fall until the Hummingbirds have left. We did see them yesterday, but not today. We'll have to be more observant tomorrow to see if they are still around. Last year, September 8th was the last day we saw them.

Our garden is still producing pretty well as a result of the warmer September weather. Our popcorn is the tallest we've ever had, onions are all harvested now and are huge. We've pulled up all the late cabbage and have two big crocks full of sauerkraut. The early cabbages that we cut off (leaving the roots and a few leaves) have put up fairly decent sized additional cabbages. Brussels Sprouts are "sprouting", pole beans and eggplant are still coming in pretty strong, and the fall veggies I planted (carrots, turnips, beets, peas, lettuce, kale, spinach, and swiss chard) are doing fairly well. The cucumbers, zucchini and bush beans are all still producing some, but the end is near for them. The winter squash got a very late start, but we now have some pumpkins ripening, a few butternut, few spaghetti, and thanks to some "volunteers" several acorn squash. The leeks are still sitting in the raised bed, waiting for a frost before I pick them for storage. And I probably need to yank up the celery and get it into some sand for storage soon, too. Despite the late blight which hit most people's tomatoes and potatoes, we managed to get some potatoes and enough plum and cherry tomatoes to can enough juice and sauce for us.

It will be time soon for us to get the garlic planted and to also plant several daffodil bulbs around our apple trees. We are trying a permaculture technique that Paul Knapp (Cobblestone Valley Farm in Preble) told us about. An organic farmer friend of his from Wisconsin has planted daffodils, mint and comfrey around his apple trees and is seeing some real benefits - so we also decided to give it a try. We were able to get some comfrey from Karl Frost (Frosty Morning Farm in Truxton) and have that planted. We are hoping it helps out our struggling apple trees which are having a hard time in our horrid soil and windy location.

Sunday we are looking forward to gathering with some other Cortland County gardeners to talk about our successes and failures this gardening season and what we might need to consider with the late blight for next summer.