Dustin Bajer

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Ecological Garden Design Course

September 13, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

Available For Members of Shrubscriber.com

Ecosystems Are Their Connections

The more connected a system is, the more resilient it tends to be. What lessons can we draw from this, and how can we build resilient connections in our yards, communities, and school gardens?

This 4 week, ecological garden design course will cover basic ecological principles and teach you how to apply them to your garden space. Each week will consist of a pre-recorded video lesson, a live question and answer session, and one assignment—complete lessons and assignments at your own pace.

  • 1st Week of October – Water, Access, Structures
  • 2nd Week of October – Sectors & Zones
  • 3rd Week of October – Needs & Yields
  • 4th Week of October – The Power of Placement

Ecological Garden Design is available for all members of the Subscriber community. Register for this class by visiting Shrubscriber.com

What You’ll Get From A Nature Inspired Garden

This 4 week, garden design course will cover basic ecological principles and teach you how to apply them to your garden space. The connections created with your ecologically inspired garden will:

  • Decrease labour and input costs by properly placing elements where they’ll thrive.
  • Decrease waste by designing it out of the system or incorporating it back into the garden.
  • Embrace biodiversity as a resilience-building tool.
  • Reduce or eliminate watering by capturing and soaking it into the landscape.
  • Increase garden yield

Ecological Garden Design Course

What You’ll Get From This Course

  • Video lessons and assignments that you can complete at your own pace.
  • Hands-on question and answer sessions.
  • Ongoing support.
  • Step by step ecological design techniques to layout or improve your garden.
    • Garden Site Map
    • Zone Map & Plan
    • Sector Map & Plan
    • Needs & Yields Analysis
    • An Ecological Garden Site Plan

Register

Ecological Garden Design is available for all members of the Subscriber community. Become a member today by visiting Shrubscriber.com

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Projects Tagged With: Biophilic Design, Course, Edmonton, Shrubscriber, Six, Wix

Shrubscriber Feature Member – Yong Fei Guan

September 8, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

Twin Brooks, Edmonton

Shrubscriber Feature Member Yong Fei Guan

Shrubscriber Feature Member Yong Fei Guan

Yong Fei Guan is an Edmonton artist researching heritage goji berry plants. Yong Fei grew up in Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China, where her family consumed dry goji as a culinary herb and medicine. Ironically, due to the hot and wet climate of Guangdong Province, Fei had never actually seen a fresh goji berry until she moved to Canada 14 years ago. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Edmonton, Shrubscriber, Shrubscriber Feature Member

Shrubscriber Feature Member – Julie Kusiek

August 11, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

Queen Alexandra, Edmonton
EPSB School Trustee Candidate – Ward F

Julie Kusiek, Shrubscriber and EPSB Trustee Ward F Candidate

Julie Kusiek is the past president of the Queen Alexandra community league, a mom to four, and a fierce community advocate. She has a master’s in political science focusing on youth engagement and believes that gardens are a great way to bring youth and other generations together. Gardens are a great way to encourage active citizens as they grow up. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Edmonton, Shrubscriber, Shrubscriber Feature Member

Shrubscriber Feature Member – Sherry Heschuk

July 21, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

The Shrubscriber Community

Shrubscriber is an online community that advocates for nature-based solutions to problems impacting Edmonton. We bring together climate-conscious citizens, nature lovers and gardeners to fund trees for community projects. Become a shrubscriber today and help build a biodiverse, food secure and climate-resilient city.


Virginia Park, Edmonton

Sherry Heschuk is an educator and community activator, splitting her time between teaching in Athabasca and volunteering in her home neighbourhood of Virginia Park.

In 2019, Sherry began working for Commonwealth Games Association as the Edmonton ambassador promoting sports for newcomers (S4N) to the city. While in her role, she noticed that many participants showed up hungry and increased interest in sports nutrition. In working to provide participants, Sherry realized that many of the girls and women in the community were interested in sharing their garden stories. One of the Newcomers was a youth beekeeper, which led to her becoming a certified beekeeper through Dustin’s beekeeping courses. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Edmonton, Shrubscriber, Shrubscriber Feature Member

Shrubscriber Feature Member – Jonathan Crane

July 14, 2021 by Dustin Bajer

The Shrubscriber Community

Shrubscriber is an online community that advocates for nature-based solutions to problems impacting Edmonton. We bring together climate-conscious citizens, nature lovers and gardeners to fund trees for community projects. Become a shrubscriber today and help build a biodiverse, food secure and climate-resilient city.

Jonathan Crane
Fulton Place, Edmonton

Jonathan and Megan Crane in front of their home

Jonathan Crane has been the pastor at the St. Augustine’s Anglican Church in Fulton Place since 2013. Shortly after arriving, Jonathan connected with community members looking for a site to place a community garden. After engaging the Church in the project, a community garden was raised on the East side of the church and continues to thrive with a multigenerational community of gardeners tending 30 individual household beds 8 communal beds and other communal fruit-producing spaces. It is a community organization with a number of Sunday morning members engaged as well. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Edmonton, Shrubscriber, Shrubscriber Feature Member

Development and the Future of Urban Forests

December 3, 2019 by Dustin Bajer

Tree Life Expectancy and the Cycle of Urban Development

Since trees can live longer than the buildings, they cohabit the landscape with, development has an enormous impact on the life expectancy of a tree. Developers prefer blank-slates, so levelling the site is common and preferred. Bigger buildings fetch bigger profits, and while mature trees also increase property value, they’re susceptible to damage from nearby excavation, soil compaction, and regrading.

Development Frequency and Tree Survival Rate

The life expectancy of a privately owned tree is tied to (1) how often development happens and (2) the care taken to protect on-site trees during construction. Robust building codes, routine maintenance, flexible zoning, and the housing market influence the former. Setback requirements, market demand, and a cultural appreciation for the value of trees impact the latter. Both can be influenced by strong planning and bylaws that provoke pause or shed light on the benefit of mature trees.

A Thought Experiment

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles, Heritage Plants of Edmonton Tagged With: Edmonton, Heritage Plants of Edmonton, Long Trees, Pine Trees (Pinus spp.), Prunus spp., Urban Forestry, Urbanism, Wix

How Gardeners Will Survive the Zombie Apocalypse

October 26, 2019 by Dustin Bajer

Morticulture. Gardening With Zombies

The zombie apocalypse has happened, and all of the gardeners have been saved – something to do with exposure to healthy soil microbes. Using ecological principals permaculture gardeners have been using needs and yields analysis to use the zombies to their advantage and create a sustainable future.

This presentation is an audio recording from a talk given at an Edmonton Horticulture Society event (October 24, 2019) titled “Gardening in the Zombie Apocalypse.”

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Edmonton, Food, Gardening, Public Talk

Don’t Wait. Plant Your Garden Early.

March 6, 2018 by Dustin Bajer

Plant Your Garden Early

Is May Long Weekend The Best Time To Plant A Garden in Edmonton?

Originally written for and publised by Boyle McCauley News

When I was growing up, my parents kept a large vegetable garden in the backyard. Each spring, my Mom would bring out an ice-cream pail of seeds, a bundle of wooden stakes, a garden hoe, and a roll of twine she got from my Uncle – a nearby cattle farmer.

I watched as she paced the distance between rows – carefully placing one foot in front of the other – before pressing a stake into the ground. She repeated the ritual on the other side of the garden and pulled some twine tight between the stakes to mark the row. Tilting the hoe at an angle, she added a shallow trench along either side of the string. We were ready to plant. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: BoyleMcCauleyNews, Edmonton, Gardening, Urban Agriculture, Wix

Northlands Youth Beekeeping Club

December 12, 2017 by Dustin Bajer

Now Taking Registrations for 2018

The Prince’s Charities’ Northlands Youth Bee Club

From Spring until Fall, students from across the City gather at the Southernmost edge of Northlands to learn about and keep honeybees. Sponsored by the Prince’s Charities, the club has eight beehives on site and enough protective gear to keep stings to a minimum. Each week – weather permitted – we cover important beekeeping topics and perform our routine hive inspections.

The following is an account written by Jacob Tombs – one of our Youth Beekeepers.

Hi, my name is Jacob Tombs, I’m 14 years old and this year was my first year beekeeping. When I started bee club in May, I had no idea how to keep bees and now I feel confident that I could maintain some hives all by myself.  What I must thank for this is the Northlands Bee Club. The Northlands Bee Club is a group of young beekeepers that meets every Thursday from early May to early November (roughly one beekeeping season). Some people are completely new to the club (like me) and for others it was their second year, as Bee Club was only founded in 2016. Under the guidance of Dustin Bajer, we learned the basics of how to keep bees and some other interesting information on bees.

Northlands beekeeping club members removing the frames and inspection two hives.

Northlands beekeeping club members removing the frames and inspection two hives.

There are several reasons why bee club was very fun, useful and interesting. First, it is completely unique. As far as I know, there is no other group in the city of Edmonton that teaches young people how to keep bees. One of the things I really enjoyed, was how over the summer the bees built up. The hives started out small, only one or two boxes, and then by the fall some hives were up to six boxes high. I found it very satisfying to see the bees grow in number and in strength. Another thing that was awesome was the taste of the honey. Most of the honey you buy in the grocery store has a bland plain taste but, our honey had a lighter more interesting taste that comes from all the different species of flower in people’s gardens and in the river valley.

Northlands Youth Beekeeping Club members learn about making nucs from the Alberta Nuc Expert.

Northlands Youth Beekeeping Club members learn about making nucs.

Another one of my favorite things about bee club was the field trips, we went on three throughout the time that bee club met. The first one was a trip to Beary Berry honey to see what a commercial beekeeping operation was like and to Alberta Nukes which makes nukes (mini hives that you get in the spring to create new hives) to learn about nuc hives.

Our second field trip was a walking tour of some of the hives in the downtown Edmonton area, we visited a hives at the Edmonton Event Centre and the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald and a protected tree because, Dustin happens to also be studying protected trees in Edmonton.

Beekeeper Patty Milligan leads a walking tour of some downtown Edmonton beehives at the Shaw Conference Centre and the Hotel Macdonald.

Beekeeper Patty Milligan leads a walking tour of some downtown Edmonton beehives at the Shaw Conference Centre and the Hotel Macdonald.

 

The last field trip, which was my favorite, was a trip to one of the NAIT labs where we studied bees under a microscope and dissected them.

Two Bee Club members dissect a honeybees under a microscope at the NAIT Biological Science Technology Lab.

Two Bee Club members dissect a honeybees under a microscope at the NAIT Biological Science Technology Lab.

 

Finally, I met a lot of new people that had the same interests as me and I learned a lot of things that had absolutely nothing to do with beekeeping but, that were interesting all the same. For example, did you know that carrots flower on the second year after they are planted?

In conclusion, bee club is interesting, fun and useful if you ever want to keep bees and the club is (amazingly!) completely free!

For more information about the Northlands Youth, Beekeeping Club, visit Northlands.com.

Click Here To Register For The 2018 Beekeeping Season

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Beekeeping, Edmonton, Education, Urban Agriculture

Urban Agriculture as a Response to Climate Change

December 7, 2017 by Dustin Bajer

Urban Agricultural Systems Inspired By Nature Can Mitigate Climate Change

Ear of wheat grown in a monoculture.

As climate changes and extremes become more common (floods, drought, storms, etc.) growing food – especially in monoculture – will become more challenging. Monocultures rely heavily on external inputs.

 

Layers of a food forest.

Forests aren’t immune to climate change, but they’re less susceptible because of the connections they contain – forests are diverse, and the end of every process is the beginning of another. Forests cycle water, nutrients, and create microclimates conducive to life.

 

Cities are like forests. Layers of a city.

Cities are like forests. Cities are places for maximizing connections, and they’re filled with opportunity. Whereas a forest might cycle water, nutrients, and energy, cities cycle ideas, information, culture, and resources.

 

Biophilic cities bring nature into cities.

Ecologists describe the border between two ecosystems as an ecotone – a special place where the diversity of both systems some meet. If we could bring nature into the city, we could create a system with all the variety and potential of each separate systems – while creating unique opportunities for these systems to interact in beneficial ways that solve problems.

 

Burdock plant protecting bare soil.

Here’s a secret – nature loves cities. Nature will colonize even the most inhospitable urban environments. And as it does, it will hold onto water, cycle nutrients, and create microclimates. We often fight the parts of nature best adapted at doing this.

 

Drink your problems away. Root-beer from invasive plants.

The key to blending nature and cities is to link them in creative ways – in ways that turn problems into solutions. (Drink your problems away. Root-beer from invasive plants).

 

The drain monster is eating your potential.

In cities, we tend to collect and move water away from our landscapes. Forests, in contract, capture excess water when it’s wet and put it to use when it’s dry. Forests cycle their resources – using water twice is the same as having twice as much water.

 

Swales on counter collect water for a downhill food forest.

In the face of climate change, we can take inspiration from nature and integrate passive water harvesting and storage into cities – especially when combined with the potential to grow food. Small changes in topography can direct water to the soil where it can be accessed.

 

Parkallen Community Garden water harvesting swale.

Here’s a water harvesting feature (swale) going into the Parkallen Community Garden. It’s built on contour and is designed to spread and soak water along the length of the garden.

 

Vegetables growing on a water harvesting swale. Parkallen community garden.

Once planted, fruits and vegetables can access free water stored in the soil. This simple technique stores excess water during wet periods and makes it available when it’s dry – mitigating floods and drought.

 

They're called leaves for a reason. Don't bag your leaves.

Ecosystems don’t create waste  – they cycle it. Though, we tend to bag ours and send it to the landfill. When we throw out our organics, we’re robbing our landscapes of essential nutrients. They’re called leaves for a reason.

 

Carbon powered herbivore.

Watering non-food producing monoculture designed to shed water then bagging and throwing away the result is insanity. This landscape could capture and process the water that lands on it. It should cycle and accumulate its nutrients. It could be producing food.

 

Water harvesting and food producing bed between two houses.

This patch of lawn has been converted into a raspberry garden. Beneath the ground, water harvesting features collect water from the roofs and spread it across the length of the yard. Covered with mulch the beds soak up excess water like living sponges and make it available to the plants. These simple techniques reduce flooding, reduce drought, cycle waste, and grow food.

 

Plant your water before you plant your garden.

This vegetable garden is growing on top of a series of water harvesting features that take water from the roof of the house. A bed of organic much is added on top and planted with vegetables and perennial food plants.

 

Storing water in healthy soil has the potential to mitigate climate.

When I first started working in this yard it was unbearably hot – south facing and void of vegetation – the soil baked. After adding ten cubic yards of mulch, dozens of bags of leaves, and 24 straw bales the earth is coming back to life and the microclimate of the yard has transformed – it’s humid now and doesn’t get as hot or cold. This yard now captures all the water that lands on it and converts it to food.

 

Apple tree and pear tree espaliered against a south facing wall.

Urban environments are exceptional places for creating and taking advantage of microclimates – especially for food production. These fruit trees are planted against a south facing fence to increase the length of the growing season. Water harvesting features below the ground bring water from the roof to the base of the trees.

 

Whitemud retaining wall orchard. Quisnell retaining wall orchard.

Vast microclimates create large potential. The south-west facing retaining wall by the Quinelle bridge would have made an amazing fruit orchard – absorbing the sun’s energy throughout the day and radiating it back at night.

 

Just outside of Edmonton's growing conditions - the 'resilient' peach.

Just outside of Edmonton’s growing conditions (zone 4a) – the ‘resilient’ peach (zone 5).

 

Just outside of Edmonton's growing conditions (zone 4a) - the American persimmon (zone 5).

Just outside of Edmonton’s growing conditions (zone 4a) – the American persimmon (zone 5).

 

Just outside of Edmonton's growing conditions (zone 4a) - the largest fruit native to North America - the Pawpaw (zone 5).

Just outside of Edmonton’s growing conditions (zone 4a) – the largest fruit native to North America – the Pawpaw (zone 5).

 

Volunteers planting a food forest in Edmonton's river valley.

We can choose to come together and create innovative food-producing systems that benefit the city and the natural world. Since 2014, I have been partnering with the City’s Roots for Trees program to plant thousands of native edibles in the river valley.

 

A community is a forest.

A forest is a community, and a community is a forest. It’s a dense web of connections, ideas, and potential. Working together is probably the single biggest strategy that we can adopt from nature to grow food and mitigate climate change.

 

Map of Edmonton utility lots for gardening and urban agriculture.

There’s no shortage of places to do this – backyards, front yards, boulevards, vacant lots. The City of Edmonton recently released a list of public utility lots available for gardening.

 

Highlevel bridge park and food forest.

One of my favorite things to do is reimagine the cityscape as food-producing ecological systems. I used to call this “postapocalyptic Edmonton”, but I’d rather see them in a preapocalyptic reality.

 

Anthony Henday roundabout food forest

I will admit that some of my drawings are a bit tongue in cheek – but we have so much unused space, and we should be putting it to productive use.

 

West Edmonton Mall Community Garden

This is a favorite of mine. West Edmonton Mall Community Garden.

 

The long tail of urban agriculture.

How much food could we produce in the city? Probably not all of it – but let’s not underestimate the food producing capacity of many small players. What we need are people who are willing to try and the regulatory and political conditions conducive to doing so.

 

Wild goji berries growing in Edmonton's river valley.

What I can tell you is that in addition to capturing water, reducing waste, and temperating the local climate these systems will be uniquely Edmontinain – like these, naturalized Goji berries left behind by Chinese market garden community.

 

Capilano apricots guerrilla planted in an Edmonton scrub bed sometime in the 60s.

Or these – Capilano apricots guerrilla planted in a city scrub bed sometime in the 60s. This is a uniquely Edmonton variety – it exists nowhere else int he world.

 

Biophilic city street that stores water, nutrients, co2 and produces food.

So let’s take inspiration from nature and create a city that cycles nutrients, tempers climate, and captures water and our imaginations.

 

Let's create a forest city. City as forest.

Let’s create a forest city.

Filed Under: Dustin Bajer's Articles Tagged With: Avantgarden, Biophilic Design, Edmonton, Urban Agriculture, Urban Ecology

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Dustin Bajer

Teacher, permaculture designer, master gardener, hobby beekeeper, consultant, and network nerd living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Read More

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Recent Posts

  • Ecological Garden Design Course
  • Shrubscriber Feature Member – Yong Fei Guan
  • Shrubscriber Feature Member – Julie Kusiek
  • Shrubscriber Feature Member – Sherry Heschuk
  • Shrubscriber Feature Member – Jonathan Crane
  • 11 Woody Superpowers That Can Grow Better Cities
  • Funding Community Tree Planting With Shrubscriber
  • Making Walnut Ink And Dye
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  • Teaching Online Beekeeping Certificate Courses

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