Tag Archives: urban gardening

In the beginning….there was an inspirational video.

9 Dec

Today it is snowing…snowing a lot, snowing so much that instead of gardening I will read about gardening…..fiction, non-fiction, poetry, holding a book, tablet, reading online, a paper magazine or catalog, it doesn’t matter.   Last year when it was snowing, I watched this video posted by Roger Doiron, Founder and Director of  Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI).  It inspired me so much that a couple weeks later, My Urban Farmscape was born, and I joined this revolution that Roger speaks of.    Have I done what I intended to do since my first post on January 1, 2012?  Maybe not as much as I would have liked to, but it’s a good start.  Thank you Roger for the inspiration.

To read my first post, click here http://wp.me/p1GoP9-I  

To start the video…you know what to do.  When you’re done, share it with your friends.

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are we done gardening yet?

30 Sep

It is not in doing what you like,

but in liking what you do that is the secret to happiness.

Sir James M. Barrie

It is the last day of September and I have to admit, after gardening this past summer in the dust, I’m looking forward to a long cool autumn to re-energize my overheated body and sun-leathered skin. Some gardeners that I have talked to over the past few weeks said they gave up long ago on their gardens. “Too hot! Too dry! Maybe next year.” I detected slight sounds of guilt in their cracking, squeaking, high pitched voices. In the community garden I belong to, many people abandoned their garden over the summer. I’m so confused. How could anyone give up on gardening? I didn’t know that it ever ended. Could these just be the crazy thoughts of an obsessed gardener? There must be a devil and angel gardener on my shoulders. I’ll be the first to admit, I wanted to give up too, but something (or someone) kept me going. “Patti…you need to go out in the garden…you will know what to do when you get out there.” These were some of the whispers that would haunt my ears. Ok, alright! I would go out, and before I knew it, hours would pass. I lose track of time, and get lost in the many things that occur in this amazing world. For me, gardening is never done, and this is the best time of year to prep the garden for next year. Here are a few things to remember to do this autumn before you decide to hang up your shovel for the year.

  • Weed, weed, weed! Perennial weeds are growing like gangbusters and will spend the winter months sending their roots deeper into the soil. Make sure you remove all weeds! Annual weeds have flowered and set seed. You don’t want these to disperse in your garden. The key to eliminating weed problems is to clean, clean, clean!
  • Aerate the soil. This can be done with a spade or fork. Gently lifting the soil while weeding or adding amendments will be sufficient. You could also use a shovel, broadfork, or small tiller.
  • Amend the soil. Autumn is the best time to add bone meal, greensand, and rock phosphate which will improve soil fertility in a sustainable earth friendly way. Follow directions on the bag for amounts. You can find this in local garden centers and nurseries. Save composting for spring time.
  • If you experienced a drought this past growing season, it would help to water your garden. Hopefully we will get a good snow this year to help build the low soil water content.
  • Get your soil tested. Now is a good time to get your soil tested by your local county extension. This can also be done in the spring. Be consistent from year to year. If you have it done in the spring, then continue to do so.

So, to answer the question, “are we done gardening yet?”.

The answer from me is, “NEVER!”

Happy Autumn Gardening!

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UFO’s: Urban Farmscape Options

6 May

I sometimes think to myself “there is no way I have the space to grow what I want to grow” or “there is no way that I have the time to grow what I want to grow”. I hear this from others too, well maybe a few crazy gardeners I know. Even when I gardened at my organic farm I still didn’t have the time, or maybe I just didn’t like growing certain plants, especially those brassicas. So what other options do Urban Farmscapers have?

The first option is probably one that you are more familiar with, Farmers Markets. A weekly visit to your farmers market will ensure that you are buying fresh seasonal produce. Well, this may not be true. What!? The biggest piece of advice I have for you is when shopping at the farmers market, get to know your farmer. There may be vendors that buy produce wholesale and bring it to the market. This is just like your grocery store produce manager. You can quickly identify who these vendors are because they typically have produce that is out of season, or maybe something like bananas, and as you know, bananas don’t grow in Michigan! There is nothing wrong with these vendors, especially if you are shopping for bananas or tomatoes in May. For seasonal produce, get to know your farmers and support your local economy by making your purchases from them. The best opening question is, “Where is your farm?” Find out if they are certified organic, how many acres they farm etc. A farmer that follows organic methods, and sells less that $5000 per year, can say they are organic. What about the farmers using the words “natural” or “chemical free”. Ask questions about their growing practices, what kind of compost they use, how do they fertilize or handle pests and diseases on their crops. Like I said, get to know your farmer, odds are if they are a local farmer they are working hard to bring you the best produce they can. Some farmers markets will only allow people to sell only what they produce themselves. Rochester and Traverse City Michigan come first to my mind.

Community Supported Agriculture, CSA, is becoming a well-known option for Urban Farmscapers. The idea behind a CSA is that you pay for a “share” of weekly produce. These weeks can range from just a summer, to a full year. You buy your share directly from the farmer, who in return grows and provides your weekly produce. You will learn how to eat seasonally with this option. Your weekly share will consist of what is ready for harvest that week. Cool season veggies in the beginning such as radishes, lettuces, arugula, spinach, onions etc. Then as the summer starts to heat up, beans, squash, maybe some herbs. You still won’t get tomatoes in May, but that’s okay! You’ll have plenty starting late July. I have belonged to a CSA twice in my life. One year I had rotator cuff surgery, and knew that I couldn’t grow as much as I liked, and the next time was when I lived in a studio apartment while transitioning to Mid-Michigan and had no garden at all. I found that I was having withdrawals from getting my hands dirty, and maybe testing the product in the field (secret!). I asked to volunteer at the CSA I belonged to, weeding, harvesting and packing produce. I really got to know these awesome farmers! What a great experience, even if my share for the week occasionally consisted only of veggies in the brassica family, which I mentioned how I despise them earlier, so I gave them with others. While I’m on the subject, I will share how to grow plants in the brassicaceae family, but I won’t share my liking of them, maybe my disliking.

A third option if you don’t have the space to grow vegetables, but want to get your hands dirty, is to join a community garden. Community gardens are popping up all over, becoming one of the hottest local gardening trends. Some organizations are turning city lots into patches of land for people to rent space to grow their own veggies, herbs, and flowers, whatever they choose.

This is the second year for me gardening at My Urban Farmscape. I still wanted more space, so I joined a community garden, Campus Grow, located on the campus of Central Michigan University, in Mt. Pleasant, MI. When I first joined I was excited to have the additional 10 x 10 foot space to grow extra veggies for my family. Then, as I became more involved with other people from the community garden, my plot has started to change from the extra space for myself to the extra space to grow for others. I am really excited to garden this summer while participating with Plant a Row for the Hungry, growing and collecting fresh produce to share with people in need through the Isabella County Commission on Aging. My Urban Farmscape will provide me and my family with the produce we need and in addition I will be making weekly trips to the farmers market. I’m not sure where this year’s UFO’s are heading, I’ll just have to watch and see where they grow. I do know that gardening in a community setting will provide the additional space to feed my dirty addiction to the earth while helping to grow food to feed the mouths of others. This year I won’t be wandering Mid-Michigan looking for a CSA to join or volunteer with. So, whether you like to garden, or just want to participate in the local food movement, get out and about and look for some UFO’s!

Links to Urban Farming Options

www.MyUrbanFarmscape.com of course!

Community Supported Agriculture in Michigan www.CSAfarms.org

Swier Family Farm http://swierfamilyfarm.wordpress.com/

Local Harvest (find a CSA (or other local options) across the U.S.) http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Michigan Farmers Market Association http://mifma.s434.sureserver.com/find-a-farmers-market/

Contact Campus Grow at: campusgrow@gmail.com

American Community Gardening Association http://www.communitygarden.org/index.php

Plant a Row for the Hungry http://gardenwriters.org

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Contained Chaos

18 Mar

My gardening style is what I like to call, Contained Chaos.  I like the look of wildflowers growing in nature, but I also like neatly arranged plants, like using boxwood as a border, or rows of plants like grown in a farm field or orchard.  I think that’s why when I designed the culinary garden at My Urban Farmscape, I wanted my veggies to be planted in raised beds.  Each raised bed is laid out in neatly arranged patterns providing several individual sections to grow my veggies, fruits and herbs.   But that doesn’t mean that when the plants start growing outside of thier boundaries I want to hold them back.  They are allowed to wander and intermingle as much as they like.  It’s like, I try to control them, but then I give up because I know they will grow where they want.  Plants have a mind of their own right, or maybe, the instinct and desire to follow the sun.

When I decided to make my raised beds, I researched the options and chose to make them with 2” x 12” pine lumber.   DO NOT use treated lumber of any kind for growing anything edible.  I looked into options for preserving the wood, but then realized that the wood I chose will last a very long time, and by the time it was rotted, I would have gotten my money’s worth just using the plain pine and it wasn’t worth the added expense.  So, here is what I did.

April Garden

This is the space between my house and the driveway.  It is the sunniest space in the yard, which is what I needed for the culinary garden.  So…..out with the old and in with the new!  I didn’t remove the lawn though.  No need, since 10” of soil would be on top of it, it won’t grow any more.  I did have to transplant the shrubs and cut down an ornamental tree. 

The 2” x 12” boards were cut to the desired lengths.  If you don’t have a saw, you can ask your lumber store to cut them to the lengths you want.  They will typically do this at no charge.  It is easy to ask them to cut a 2” x 12” by 8’ board in half.  Do this for two boards and you will end up with a 4’ x 4’ garden.  I chose to use 3” deck screws to screw them together.  There are fancy type corners you can get, but it was getting a little too expensive for my garden.  Some of my beds are 2’ x 8’ or longer, so I added a board in the center for additional strength and/or to keep it from bowing.

Autumn Garden Showing Raised Bed Design

Once the boxes were made, they were place directly on the ground.  I filled them about 3/4 full with topsoil.  If you don’t have access to free topsoil, then try to purchase it by the yard.  It is cheaper.  Otherwise, you will have to buy it by the bag.  A 4’ x 4’ box takes about 1/3 yard of topsoil to start.  I then mixed in compost to the remaining portion, ending a couple inches from the top.   My cost for a 4’ x 4’ garden last summer was about $25.00 each.  That is the wood and the topsoil and compost.  You can make these any size you like, and they will fit in most every Urban Farmscape.  These will last for years.  If the ends start to come apart or the boards warp, I will make small adjustments as they come.  I just found this method to be the most practical and affordable. 

September Garden

The first year I was able to harvest a bushel of tomatoes from a 2’ x 12’ raised bed.  I spaced the tomatoes diagonally about 2’ apart.  So in a 2’ x 4’ space I was able to plant 3 tomato plants.  They were indeterminate types which I pruned and staked them.  I will talk about that more when I write about tomatoes.  I also planted blueberries, corn, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, squash, beans, garlic, parsley, oregano, basil, sage, thyme, and several edible flowers.  I planned space for cold frames also.  I overwintered carrots under straw (see poem on Winter Carrots).

Winter Garden

This will be the second season for the culinary garden at My Urban Farmscape.  The warm weather we have been experiencing has made it EASY to clean up and prep my gardens, but the only thing I am planting are my cool season crops such as spinach, arugula, lettuce, carrots, beets, and radishes to name a few.  And that is still in my cold frame (open ends and tops off for now).  Don’t be fooled by Mother Nature!  Our frost free date is about May 15th, still a long ways away.  For now, continue planning and if you like your garden chaos contained like I do, start building your raised beds!  Before you know it, it will be time to plant for the summer!

Coming soon to a garden near you…

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A Garden Revolution Resolution

1 Jan

With the holidays behind me, I will eat sleep and breathe the garden.  For as long as I remember, I have admired the beauty and felt the mysteries of the plant world.  As a child I would examine the “weeds” in the lawn, tasting their bitterness on my tongue as I chewed them between my front teeth, as a teenager walking down a tree lined country road through dappled sunlight noticing wildflowers blooming sporadically along the forest floor, and as an adult growing tasty vegetables, aromatic herbs and brightly colored flowers at my organic farm. I can’t help but hear the conversations that quietly occur among the creatures in this leafy world. 

Growing plants became more serious for me when I returned to college to study Horticulture at Michigan State University.  Initially I wanted to design landscapes, but the more I learned about food production around the world, the more it became clear to me that I wanted to become involved with the local organic food movement.  My farm was located in Southeast Michigan and it became USDA certified organic in 2004.  I grew vegetables, herbs, flowers and Michigan native plants.  As the economy began to collapse, we were forced to sell the farm and ride things out for the next few years, finding work, moving, finally settling in Mid-Michigan.  For me and my family, our lives were changed by forces beyond our control, like many others in the world. For some this may sound like a sad story, but that is not what I am trying to convey.  With these changes I have adapted and learned so much more about people and my relationship with plants and nature.  A couple things I have learned are how to grow more plants in less space along with the many benefits of participating in a community gardening.

So, for 2012, my resolution is to actively participate in a so called “garden revolution” by sharing my knowledge and experiences with organically growing vegetables, herbs and flowers in small garden spaces and community gardens.  You should find something interesting whether you are new to gardening, or a master.  You can expect weekly posts on a variety of gardening topics.  Most of all, if you follow from the start we will work together on planning, planting, growing, harvesting, and preserving My Urban Farmscape .  As the season unfolds, and as time allows, you will find more frequent posts via this blog, Facebook or Twitter.  I also look forward to hearing from you about your urban farmscape experiences.  You are probably thinking, “It’s only January, it’s a long way from gardening in Michigan.”  NOT!  I’ve already started and you need to start too!  Even if you live in a warmer climate, you will find helpful information on organic gardening in small spaces.  Stay tuned to see how.  So…What’s your 2012 Garden Revolution Resolution?

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