Welcome to the Lodestar Gardens Learning Center
A Farm-Village for Aspiring Artists & Farmers of All Ages
Living off the grid is possible in a variety of creative ways, adapted to the unique features of your area. If you are starting from scratch, you have a lot of infrastructure to create for yourself––electricity, water, heating and cooking fuel, buildings of all description. While there are some tried-and-true principles and models, we believe constant adaptability and creative problem-solving are key to developing self-resiliency.
You’ll notice our rugged, high-desert landscape provides a sort of “bootcamp,” if you will, for establishing a hardy homestead. In our daily southwestern temperature extremes and blowing dust in the spring and fall, experimental projects can easily disintegrate––literally. For example, there are sheds in our neighborhood with the exterior siding on the southern exposure literally sandblasted down to the core. So we use screws instead of nails, more screws than less, high-quality exterior paint, and so on.
Experiments in alternative power, permaculture, conservation methods, and strengthening crops are ongoing. While such experimentation is driven by necessity at times, most often it results from our wish to simplify our lives while working with nature to multiply her bounty.
Alternative Building Construction
The Learning Center features a dormitory built with straw bale construction and limestone plaster walls. We have also built and used steel container houses, underground root cellars, a modified earth-ship inspired casita, and a variety of weatherizing techniques.
Photovoltaics
Living in a sunny place like Arizona has obvious advantages when it comes to living off-grid, including the potential for solar electrical generation. We’ve put a lot of thought and research into the facts about our planet’s dance with the Sun and have created calculation tools and models (such as this one) to aid others in optimizing their solar systems.
As with many first-time homesteaders, we began with a small, low-budget system, incorporating both new and used equipment. Since then, we have expanded our solar potential with upgraded technologies and a high-capacity system, replacing lead-acid batteries with lithium batteries. Our solar powers multiple buildings and facilities across the Learning Center.
With the right knowledge, an effective solar system can be built and adapted to any budget, experience level, and location.
Wind
Although we like the idea of using as many resources as we can as we work toward self-sufficiency, we ultimately chose not to use wind generation for supplemental energy as it was inefficient and not conducive to our wind patterns. We found that the small units like the Air404 wind generator we installed early on don’t add appreciably to our power production. It is also extremely noisy and conflicts with another valuable natural resource: the sounds of nature we enjoy so much. When the circuit board burned out on our unit, we realized just how intrusive that noise had become. The generator is still on top of the pole––a reminder of the experimental trial-and-error process of homesteading.
Water
Pumping & Conservation
One of our greatest challenges to high-desert, off-the-grid gardening is pushing enough water out of the deep aquifers in order to irrigate. Our main source of water supply for both domestic and agricultural needs is a solar-powered pump, supported by a 240 volt 2 horse AC pump and a ¾ horse Grundfos AC/DC submersible well pump.
Part of making the water provided by the solar well pump sufficient is using water conserving methods such as drip irrigation to lessen water use, capturing roof runoff in holding tanks, mulching to reduce evaporation, planting drought tolerant species and deploying soil building methods such as microbial supplements to reduce the plants’ water needs.
Aquaculture
Creating a Fertigation System for Greenhouse & Outside Gardens
As our gardens total about two acres of growing space, we chose to create a fertigation pond. This nutrient-rich water would help defray the cost of buying fish and kelp supplements for all our gardens during the growing season.
In the high desert of the White Mountains we have a very short growing season—starting with strong spring winds, followed by June, the hottest month of the year. We must hydrate the soil and transplants multiple times of day. We do hand watering as well as drip line irrigation.
As the weather patterns are also becoming more unpredictable, our best guess is when and whether or not the Monsoons will come. Water and water retention techniques are becoming invaluable to growers. A fertigation pond is one measure we are glad we adopted.
Key Terminology:
- Aquaculture: Growing fish in a living pond
- Fertigation: Fertilizing & irrigating with living pond water
- Aquaponics: Using the living pond water to grow in a hydroponics system
- Pond: Filled with well water, not captured rainwater run-off
Growing & Amending Soil
Our soil is not like the rich black loam that covers much of the midwest and southern states. We sit atop a cinder cone, and the soil is described as “silty clay.” It needs a lot of TLC to become productive for gardening. In a sense, we are farming our soil as much as our crops, and so we pay a lot of attention to soil health, amendments, composting, mulching, and so on. We make 1/3 of our soil amendments. We have greatly expanded our square footage from about 4500 square feet to 2 acres. The new beds are split between our greenhouse, the growing tunnel, outside beds, and fodder production.
Food Preservation & Preparation
As food preservation is a key aspect of homesteading, we built a solar-powered downdraft food dehydrator. We started with a conceptual drawing of this design, but the details were up to us. Over the years, we have logged our experimentations with drying times for a variety of vegetables and herbs and identified successful recipes for ourselves and the community. We have also created & taught methods for solar-assisted cooking and food preparation.
High Tunnel
We strive to achieve year-round maximum yields in a 35 x 72 x 15 ft passive solar-heated tunnel. We selected a high tunnel design that would accommodate gutters for rainwater catchment, and chose Solex as the material for the high tunnel shell for its durability, insulation and light-diffusing qualities. The beds are covered by 19-weight Agrobond row cover that lays on wickets one foot above the plants for frost protection. We have experimented with a variety of earth-friendly soil supplements (including indigenous micro organism—IMO’s), non-GMO seeds, climate control techniques (including air circulation and extending the season approaches using cold frames and row covers), and growing techniques such as vertical gardening.
Hoop House, Green Houses, & Other Methods
We use and teach a variety of methods to extend our very short growing season, including a hoop house, high tunnel, and outside sun and wind protection measures (hoops & netting, row covers, walls of waters, mulching, etc.)
Animal Husbandry
We raise chickens and goats on the farm, benefitting from both their edible products as well as goat manure, a key ingredient in our soil-building. We look to supplement our animal feed with grain and sunflower seed production next year on a tilled acre on which we previously experimented with green manure and fodder crops.
Ongoing Experimentation: Johnson-Su Bioreactor & IMO Soil Enhancements
We built a Johnson-Su Bioreactor––a static, aerobic composting system using a wire mesh cylinder designed to produce highly microbial, fungus-dominant compost in about a year without turning––and began the year-long biofurcation process of compost material. The amount of nutrition that emerges from this composting process is staggering, backed up by the data. This simple botanical biological process creates intensive composting even having success in Arizona.
We’ve also experimented with using indigenous microorganisms (IMO). This is a fermentation-style compost that enhances the soil. The duff underneath our trees serves as the perfect fodder for this.
Beekeeping
Bees are among the most important pollinators in the world. Keeping bees on site is one way of ensuring that crops are productive. We experimented with keeping bees on site for two years. However, we found that our high-desert area cannot adequately support a healthy hive given the high volume of foliage and pollen they need. Now, our bees are happiest in their natural environment. Every day, our bees wait outside the greenhouse to come in!
Lodestar Community Library
Thanks to such donors as Kalbrey Enterprises, the library has over 700 books with a focus on creating self-resilient individuals and communities. The library has internet access for additional research. Set on a quiet hillside that faces west, the library is a fine place to think and read. It also serves as a classroom for the Lodestar Learning Center students on appointed days.
Labyrinth Building
We are members of the International Labyrinth Society with two of our own on-site labyrinths, each with a different energy and landscape. Led by renowned douser Susan Trumpfheller, eleven people built our affectionately-called “Womb Labyrinth” and “Wild Labyrinth.” Residents and visitors enjoy access to peace-filled, contemplative spaces at the gardens.
Hillside Farmers Market
We have been selling our fresh, chemical-free produce to restaurants and local markets since 2004. In our programs we teach our harvesting, food processing, packaging, food regulations, and market strategies in order to jumpstart your own market. Presently, we’ve created a seasonal farmers market for our village right in Apache County called the Hillside Farmers Market.
