SOLAR FOUNTAIN MEETING AT BARGO'S

Jeanette Raichyk

With only scattered clouds, the meeting at Jerry and Michelle Bargo's home in Hyde Park was spent outdoors, enjoying the tour of their projects and gathering to discuss tactics and strategies in promoting AEA's goals. Attendees included new members Michael and Birdie Murphy, plus Greg Ernst, John Robbins, and Jeanette Raichyk, as well as the Bargos.

Jerry and Michelle Bargo lead the way for the group to decend the hillside garden path.

Jerry and Michelle have converted the sloping half of their backyard to wildflowers and habitat. Adding color and liveliness, as well as contributing medicinal plants and wild foods for themselves and their local feathered visitors, the garden has been a major project. Jerry and Michelle fended off possible neighbor objections in every imaginable way. Since city home ownership is limited by the invasiveness of regulatory mechanisms that diminish personal freedom, the Bargos actively consulted, promoted and previewed their plans among the neighbors and have even occasionally shared the floral bounty of the garden after it was established. Among the features included in their design, which have been used successfully to gain acceptance of naturalized areas as legitimate gardens, were the formal borders separating the area from the lawn, the stepping stone pathways, a stone seating arrangement, an arbor gateway and the artful use of rail fence at one corner. Even the solar fountain at the edge of the area demands recognition for the garden. Jerry says that Michelle has acquired an expertise in horticultural identification and could defend the legitimacy of each plant. In addition, rather than doing the process in concert with nature, they tilled the hillside and literally installed the plants of their choice rather than taking the longer nature scaping approach. Although the area is clearly beautiful and the benefits are many, the necessity of guardedness has unfortunately still been a reality and the execution considerably taxing.

As the tour group approaches the bottom of the path, it is surrounded by
armloads of wild flowers and leafy delights.

When asked about the initial disruption and ongoing maintenance, Jerry said: "The hillside was tilled twice in spring, seeded heavily, and then watered regularly for the entire first growing season. The seed mix was custom designed to include our longer term goals as well as providing immediate erosion control (some native prairie grasses) and first season color. Some watering was also necessary the second season as we re-seeded some areas that proved too damp or shady for our first-year attempts to establish flowers.

Most of the benches and paths were added over the past season. A slight expansion to the SE corner of the garden was added last autumn. The fountain/barrel was added this spring when we cut down a locust tree that was growing very fast and shading the garden. The cuttings were mostly composted/scattered on the hillside on the NW corner (where the spice bushes are planted). The larger limbs were used to build the decorative corner fence on the NE corner.

The garden is 'mowed' once a year to prevent the saplings that sprout up from becoming trees. We leave the dead stalks standing over most of the winter to provide food and habitat for the wildlife. Walking out to the garden can cause dozens of finches to erupt from their feast some days.

I'm sure that birds and wind bring some seeds into the yard. We do not typically do a lot of 'weeding'. Whatever seems happy to grow there is typically welcome unless it is known to be (or begins to reveal itself as) invasive. Since most plants are edible, medicinal, or both, it feels easy to justify our tolerance for diversity."

The solar fountain blends into the landscape, adds interest and on some days the sound of water splashing.
The sculptural garden seating is another feature to insure neighbor acceptance as landscape art.

Jerry's solar fountain is a work in progress. Conceptually the components are artfully assembled but he is studying the performance of the panel, the wiring harnesses and the pump with an eye to improving the setup. Among the possible enhancements is an MPPT to convert the excess voltage output of the panels (over the voltage needed for the pump) into more amps. Even with direct positioning to the sun today, the fountain was quiet, which provided us with a marvelous opportunity to do some tinkering. Jerry removed the little scultured lilypad, frog and insect display that covered the pump, trimmed off the caulked/waterproof twistees and tested the panel output, the wiring's performance with all of us monitoring the voltmeter.

The problem indeed seems to be too many volts and not enough amps. According to Jerry: "The pump for the fountain is a 500gph 12vdc bilge pump made by Rule. I think it wants about 1.2A. The PV module is a hand-me-down that is very old so I have no information about nominal ratings. My own tinkering has shown that it produces about 18v open-circuit and supplies the pump with about .9A in optimal conditions (full sun on a crisp, clear, spring day). My best approximation is that this module would be designated a 12W module. The pump wants about 14-15W at 12v - not the higher voltage the module wants to float up to (probably about 16-17v)." The pump was selected because it had the lowest draw that Jerry could find but he was open to ideas, otherwise the MPPT was his solution choice.

We had fun "Tinkering" with the load meter to determine why the PV and pump were not co-operating.
The weather was clear and crisp with just a hint of haze between the scattered clouds.

The other part of the fountain design under review was its usefulness to the birds. Michelle had observed that the wide, sloped edge of the bowl was apparently difficult for birds to land on so Michelle was considering branch-like additions to the structure. At the moment the pair of goldfish seemed happy enough having the water to themselves in the former whiskey barrel half.

Following the tour, the group gathered around the table on the deck overlooking the garden, sipped goldenrod tea, savored oatmeal cookies, and discussed future plans for promoting energy efficient homes in Cincinnati, possible webpage enhancements to our hometour map that could serve as a promotional handout, the prospects for biodiesel with current clean-diesel deadlines approaching and analysed the range of Jerry's PV installation projects around the state with the idea of tapping similar prospective clientelle here. John relayed Joe's promo booklets for synthetic oil to reduce dependence on foreign, oil supplies and Mike outlined his ideas on doing a demonstration eco-community at the organic gardens of WoodenShoe Hollow with meditation, music and conflict resolution as well. True to AEA tradition, our gregarious group eventually wrapped up our brainstorming a tad later than planned, each energized and eager to implement all those plans on our AEA agenda.

Edited and composed for AEA Alternate Energy Association by:

Alternate Energy Association