At the Desert Harvesters Mesquite Milling Fiesta, freshly milled mesquite
flour is poured into a container for Esperanza, a young desert harvester.
For info about this year's event, click here

Who We Are
Desert Harvesters is a volunteer -run, grassroots organization based in Tucson. We strive to promote, celebrate, and enhance, local food security and production by encouraging the planting of indigenous, food-bearing shade trees (such as the Velvet mesquite) in water -harvesting earthworks, and then educating the public on how to harvest and process the bounty. In 2003 we were able to purchase a hammermill with funds from a PRO-Neighborhoods grant. The mill is able to quickly grind mesquite pods into flour, and provide people with a fresh and nutritious local food product. We've put the mill on a trailer so we can take it to various milling events around southern Arizona.

What we do
We have been organizing local milling events in the fall for the past 2 years. Our milling events are usually held in October and November when the dew point has dropped. This follows the summer mesquite pod harvest, and ensures that the pods have had a chance to dry well and will not reabsorb moisture from the humid summer monsoon season weather (the pods must be dry to run through the mill - dry enough to "snap in two" when bent). The main milling event and fundraiser for our organization is coupled with a mesquite pancake breakfast at the Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden in central Tucson. This is a great opportunity for folks to taste the flavors of foods made from locally harvested wild produce, local organic gardens, neighbors' kitchens, and local organic food outlets. We proudly serve mesquite/whole- wheat pancakes made with all organic ingredients, prickly-pear syrup, mesquite syrup, and sometimes, (if we are really lucky) saguaro syrup, along with the more traditional maple syrup. There are also a variety of teas for people to try with local backyard honey. The price of the pancake breakfast is $3 per person and includes live music.

People can bring the pods that they have harvested (up to 15 gallons) and grind them into flour for an additional $3 donation. (Those wishing to grind more than 15 gallons of pods can do so for an added nominal fee). Our mill can grind 10 gallons of whole mesquite pods into 2 gallons of fine, edible four in about 10 minutes. Purchased in stores, mesquite flour costs from $9 to $30 per pound, but because it is abundant, and locally native in our area, it can be harvested for free and ground into flour at our scheduled milling events at a very low cost. Our primary goal is to promote and enhance the awareness and use of locally native food sources, which can thrive on natural rainfall without additional irrigation contributing to unsustainable groundwater depletion. We feel that by fostering a relationship between native plants and local people we can enhance local food security and build a more sustainable community.

How We Run the Desert Harvesters Mesquite Millings
The hammermill is available for your community's milling event. Click here for details.
Note: The following information is how we run desert harvester-hosted milling events, however at events hosted by other organizations the milling may be organized quite differently. Many of the events at which we mill mesquite pods are hosted by other organizations that hire us just for the milling. At such events, it is up to the host to determine how the milling will be organized.

Our milling events are usually held in October/November when we are well out of the humid summer monsoon weather. This follows the summer harvest, and ensures that the mesquite pods have a chance to dry well and will not reabsorb moisture from the high dew point of the monsoon season.

We encourage all those wanting to mill mesquite pods to harvest at least 5 gallons of whole pods so they will have at least a gallon of flour after milling.

Only clean, dry seedpods that "snap" when bent will be milled. If they bend rather than snap they are too moist and will clog the mill. Debbie - could insert a link here to the Harvesting and Storage tips page. Pods must be clean and free of stones, dirt, and leaves, otherwise they will not be milled. We will not risk damaging the mill or contaminating the flour.

Note: carob pods can also be milled as long as at least 10 gallons of mesquite pods are also provided with which we can flush the carob out of the mill. This "flushing" will produce a delicious mesquite/carob flour blend that will go to whoever provides the carob and mesquite pods for milling.

We typically will only allow people to grind up to 15 gallons of whole pods each at the public milling event. In the past, many people with only a few pods had to wait hours behind a few people with many pods. However, if there is no one else waiting to mill their pods, we could mill more than 15 gallons of pods for an individual if they paid the additional fee mentioned below.

If people have more than 15 gallons of whole pods, they must leave them with us in sealed food-grade containers (preferably 5-gallon plastic buckets with lids) with their names and contact info - and prepay for us to mill the extra pods. Within a week Desert Harvesters staff will then grind the pods and call the owners when the flour is ready. If the flour is not picked up within 10 days of notification it becomes property of Desert Harvesters. There will be no refunds. Milling will cost $1 per gallon of whole pods for every gallon over the original 15 gallons.

No individual, household, or family will be allowed to grind more than 50 gallons of whole pods, unless they rent the mill and pay staff at the daily/hourly rate. This is to lessen the chance of folks grinding pods for sale rather than personal use. If you want to grind pods for sale, we have a commercial rental rate for the mill and staff.

To speed up the line of folks waiting to mill pods we form two lines: one line of people with 5 gallons or less of pods, and a second line for people with more than 5 gallons of pods. We will take two people from the small volume line and then one person from the large volume line and so on.

Street Orchards for Community Security
© Brad Lancaster, 2004

My view of public streets was radically changed when I heard ecovillage designer Max Lindigger tell a story of an insightful walk he took with his grandfather. "Look there," said his grandfather, pointing to condominiums being built on the once forested slopes above his village in the Swiss Alps. "That's where we grew and gathered food during the war. The forests were common land, a reserve of community resources. What commons remain? Where will we grow and gather our food in the next catastrophe?"

I then looked at my Sonoran desert city of Tucson, Arizona and asked myself, "Where are my community's forests, our commons? Where would we get our food in times of need?"

Over 450 native food plants grow wild in the intact areas of the Sonoran Desert.1 The velvet mesquite tree is one of the keystone species producing a reliable crop of diabetes-deterring,1 naturally sweet, protein and carbohydrate -rich seeds and seedpods in both wet years and drought.2 Thus it used to be a staple of the indigenous people's diets. Yet the vast majority of these trees and the greater ecosystem have been bulldozed within my city to be replaced with a hot and inhospitable pavement of impermeable streets, parking lots and buildings or landscapes of exotic plants dependent upon irrigation from dwindling water supplies. The pavement drains much of our scant 12 inches (304 mm) of average annual rainfall out of the community through runoff and evaporation. Yet, this pavement is also the corridor through which most of our food arrives. According to the WorldWatch Institute, the average American meal travels a ridiculous 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,414 to 4,023 km) from the farm to the table.3 If oil supplies fueling semi-trailers disappeared we'd be without food. If the power that fuels our well pumps went out, we'd be out of water. We are creating the conditions for catastrophe.

But that can change by turning "wastes" into resources, and turning challenges into opportunity. The majority of public land - our commons - in the urban setting is our public streets and adjoining right-of-ways. All too often there is little or no vegetation there, let alone a forest. But the resources (soil, local nursery and backyard grown native plants, rainwater runoff, and people) to grow a forest, or at least regionally appropriate orchards, are there.

Once established, native food plants can survive on our natural rainfall patterns without irrigation. With harvested rainfall these plants can thrive. The vast majority of Tucson's stormwater runoff is currently diverted straight from roofs, driveways, patios, parking lots, and convex landscapes to public streets that flood to resemble rivers; the runoff then exits via storm drains. If we recognize that runoff as an asset rather than a liability, we can harvest it before it runs down the drain to sustainably grow native food forests on public rights-of-way along the neighborhood streets that act like ephemerally flowing riverbeds, and within public parks and on private property.

That's a big part of the idea behind a collaborative effort in my hometown called Desert Harvesters, which strives to promote, celebrate, and enhance local food production and security by planting indigenous, food-bearing shade trees in water harvesting earthworks, and then showing folks how to harvest and process the bounty. Annual events include neighborhood tree plantings, milling events that grind mesquite seedpods harvested from neighborhood trees into delicious flour, and native/local food feasts. (continued below...)

Planting Community Roots
We encourage neighborhood activists to organize tree plantings in their communities, emphasizing hardy, food-producing shade trees native to the Tucson Basin. We provide a list of the recommended trees, their description, and some of their uses on our website. These trees are the best for the area, since they have adapted over millennia to our local climate and soils, and coevolved with the native wildlife.

Neighbors can purchase these trees in 5-gallon sizes for just $5 each thanks to generous subsidies from Tucson Electric Power Company and the local program Trees for Tucson. A community tree-planting day is set for each neighborhood to distribute their trees, and it's kicked off with a free workshop on how to plant them in water harvesting earthworks. Volunteer crews of neighborhood residents then set out to plant trees along their streets, sidewalks, and in private yards. Within hours of planting the neighborhood feels changed for the better-more neighbors know each other. The trees show the care and commitment people have for their community, and water harvesting earthworks can be observed by all. Within six years of planting the trees are full and beautiful, regularly blooming with seasonal color. Neighborhoods find that as native habitat grows back within the urban core, exotic pigeon populations start to be replaced by native bird life such as cardinals, flycatchers, cactus wrens, hummingbirds, curve-billed thrashers, white-winged doves, gamble's quail, and gila woodpeckers. The community's Sense of Place becomes reconnected to the flora and fauna of the local ecosystem, which is becoming reestablished, right outside their homes. Within eight to ten years of planting, the tree-shaded sections of the neighborhood are noticeably cooler than unplanted areas. This confirms what studies have shown - shade trees growing along streets can cool the summer temperatures of urban neighborhoods by 10 degrees F if the canopy shades enough of the hardscape.4 This can greatly reduce a community's power consumption since less power is then needed to mechanically cool buildings. Plant a tree and you plant an air conditioner.

Additional indigenous food trees in the Tucson area include foothills palo verde (Cercidium microphyllum) and blue palo verde (Cercidium floridum) producing delicious flowers and barley flavored seeds, and desert ironwood (Olneya tesota) producing peanut-flavored seeds. Many native plants also have medicinal value and provide craft materials such as dyes, wood, glues, fiber, and more. Native food trees in other regions might include oak, pinyon pine, sugar maple, or date palm.

The Harvest
Harvesting advice is given on our website, and harvesting workshops are given in areas of the community where the trees have been planted. The harvest extends well beyond the picking of fruit and seed. We also try to get folks to realize the value of harvesting the local resources that will support and enhance the trees - such as rainwater runoff and mulch. The implementation of rainwater harvesting cisterns is encouraged to augment water harvesting earthworks with captured roof runoff, and enhanced water harvesting earthworks are utilized along streets to use street runoff to passively irrigate the trees planted along the streets. This simultaneously enhances local water resources while creating a beautiful, multi-purpose greenfrastucture of flood-controlling landscapes. For more information on these strategies please see my book "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands" (www.HarvestingRainwater.com).

In addition to harvesting runoff, the basin-like earthworks passively harvest mulch in the form of leaf and fruit drop. The mulch increases the rate at which rainfall is absorbed into the soil, minimizes water loss to evaporation, and naturally fertilizes the soil. Rather than strip mining nutrients from the trees and soil by raking away fallen leaves and fruit drop, we encourage folks to let this organic matter collect within the basins around the trees to naturally decompose and cycle back into the vegetation and soil. Prunings are cut up into 4-inch (10cm) long sections and laid beneath the trees from which they were cut. Harvest your leaf drop and prunings, and the nutrient loop becomes regenerative. Trees grow taller and stronger.

Milling and Enjoying Mesquite
We live in a society that is often short on time and in search of convenience. Traditional means of grinding mesquite pods and processing other wild foods often demand more time than busy folks are willing to give up. So we sought to speed up the process and make it fun. Thanks to a $4,900 PRO Neighborhoods grant (www.proneighborhoods.org) we were able to purchase a farm-scale hammermill and mount it to a trailer to make it mobile. We take the mill to various public milling events around the community to which folks can bring their harvested mesquite pods. The hammermill can grind 10 gallons of whole mesquite pods into 2 gallons of finely textured, naturally sweet flour in just 10 minutes. Traditionally this would've taken hours.

The milling events are typically held in conjunction with local farmers' markets or mesquite pancake feasts to enhance the diversity of available foods and to expose folks to the wonderful flavors and potential abundance of locally grown foods. The events are organized in October and November at community gardens, the community food bank, and community centers to correspond with the late summer garden harvest and the end of the mesquite pod harvest. Mesquite pancakes served with prickly pear and saguaro syrups or backyard honey "plant the seeds" of the native foods' delicious tastes and potential within the minds and palates of the hungry public. Sale of, and feasting on, local garden produce like corn, squash, tomatoes, and tepary beans, and cultural foods like tamales, sweet potato pie, and pickled cholla buds are encouraged. Local musicians play as folks eat and the hammermill is fired up to grind the mesquite pods brought by community members who harvested over the summer. Flour goes home with the harvesters, and mesquite breads, cookies, and sauces are cooked up in their kitchens.

By planting, harvesting, and sharing the produce of the native ecosystem and backyard gardens these foods become sustainable parts of our daily experience, community/cultural identity, and food security. Many of these plants, particularly the natives, do not need imported resources to grow. By incorporating such strategies as water harvesting, passive mulching, and strategic planting (such as along streets or on the east and west sides of buildings) local resources are enhanced, wildlife can prosper, neighborhoods are beautified, and communities are made more liveable. By sharing and celebrating community efforts and resources knowledge is spread, the value and appreciation of local resources grows, and community ties and investment build. All of this is an integrated means of designing to thwart catastrophe, while enhancing our lives now. And the benefits steadily grow both with the trees, the relationships we have initiated with our neighbors, and a deeper connection to place and the resources that sustain it.

Brad Lancaster is a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant, and activist living in Tucson, Arizona. He is a co-founder of Desert Harvesters. In addition, he is the author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands - Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape (www.HarvestingRainwater.com).

References:
1. Hodgson, Wendy, Food Plants of the Sonoran Desert, University of Arizona Press, 2001.
2. Niethammer, Carolyn J., The Tumbleweed Gourmet - Cooking with Wild Southwestern Plants, University of Arizona Press, 1987.
3. Halweil, Brian, Home Grown - The Case For Local Food in a Global Market, WorldWatch Paper 163, WorldWatch Institute, 2002.
4. Hammond, Johnathan, Marshall Hunt, Richard Cramer, and Lauren Neubauer, A Strategy for Energy Conservation - Proposed Energy Conservation and Solar Utilization Ordinance for the City of Davis, California, City of Davis, CA Energy Conservation Ordinance Project, 1974.