A Clean Slate to Sustainability

Posted on 02. Jun, 2010 by admin in On the farm

My journey in Arizona has led me to move to a new house recently.  This is something that I’ve wanted for some time now due to my desire to have a backyard filed with fruit and citrus trees and other edible landscaping.

My last apartment was just that.  An apartment with a balconey that received not even enough day light to attempt any success in growing veggies on my balcony.  I instead used a 10′x10′ plot of land 12 miles away at a family members house.  This wasn’t convenient at all as I felt very disconnected from my gardening attempts.

Now my plans are endless and the backyard is my open canvas for me to do what I want with it.  I will be meeting with a landscape architect firm that specializes in permaculture and edible landscaping options.

I am looking forward to plotting out my backyard such that I can incorporate many sustainable practices.  Just to name a few items on my to do list, or better yet, my wish list:

• Rainwater and Greywater harvesting
  • I plan to use this water collection to irrigate all the non native, water intensive trees and plants.
• Sustainable permaculture design
  • I want my backyard to be fertile enough that a self sustaining garden and other vegetation can grow with as little effort on my part
• Solar Tube Lighting
  • This has become a very low cost, highly energy efficient and very useful way to bring passive lighting into the house to rely less on lights that rely on the power company.
• Solar Hot Water
  • Living in Phoenix is obviously an ideal place to harvest the sun’s energy and turn that into something useful like a solar hot water system.  Again, relying on the sun instead of the gas company is one more step in making living in an urban environment as sustainable as possible.

I am sure as I continue to live at my house and realize other areas that could make The Sonoran Farm a more sustainable place to live I will consider those options.  At the time, many projects have a longer return on the investment than I may perhaps live at this house.  I would still like to consider these alternatives such as solar power.

At the time, my only hesitation to installing solar photovitalic (PV) cells on my roof is the up front investment with a pay back period of perhaps 12+ years since my electric use is only that of one person and not a typical American household occupancy rate.

I will of course keep you posted on all the latest happenings here on The Sonoran Farm.