Category Archives: gardening

Backyard Harvest

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tomato-harvest

I keep taking photos of the beautiful tomatoes I’ve been getting from my garden. I said taking photos, not posting photos. Argh. I’m so behind on sorting through my photos!! I was lucky not to have the tomato blight that wiped out so many people’s crops. I bought a 6-pack of heirloom tomato seedlings this spring, but the names weren’t identified, so I don’t know what they are. I know the ones on the right are green zebra tomatoes, but the beautiful persimmon-colored ones are a mystery. I want to find out because they were absolutely sweet and delicious. The little cherry ones were so sweet, it was like candy from nature.

We’ve been getting shorter days (sob) and cooler nights, so the days of tomatoes are coming to an end. I have basil that needs to be cut and turned into pesto and lemon verbena that I have some ideas for. I planted some salad greens (a mesclun mix, mache and spinach), which are already coming up, so I don’t feel as though my garden has come to an end. I love the weather at this time of year, but it always brings a bit of melancholy with the shortening days and the approach of the winter cold.

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Zucchini Sex

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I learned something new in the Berkshires this weekend. There are male zucchini flowers and female zucchini flowers. The males provide the pollen and then drop off the vine. The females collect the pollen and then grow a zucchini.

See if you can tell which flower is which. I’m not giving any hints. I think you can handle it…

female-zucchini

male-zucchini

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From school yards to school gardens

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BYELIZABETH LAZAROWITZ

Tuesday, July 14th 2009, 9:39 AM

It’s a rural lesson in an urban jungle.

Students at 10 Brooklyn schools will be toiling in the soil this summer and fall, growing vegetables to feed their classmates as part of an effort to get student-grown foods into the school cafeteria.

“We want to eat the stuff we grow,” said Aidan Israel, 7, a student at Public School 107 on Eighth Ave. in Park Slope, who has been helping cultivate peas, kale and basil in the school’s yard. “It tastes fresher than the stuff in the store.”

With its fall harvest, PS 107 – which is in mobile “earth boxes” while its new garden is closed due to a school renovation – will join a program started last autumn by the Department of Education’s SchoolFood department and the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets.

Dubbed “Garden to School Cafe,” it began with 20 schools citywide – nearly half of them in Brooklyn.

Next year, the program, which lets school cafeteria staffers put kid-gardened produce on the menu, will expand to about 25 schools as part of a broader effort to source school food locally, said Billy Doherty, who heads the program for SchoolFood.

“It’s something that’s important in terms of teaching the kids how to eat better and connecting them to farming, to help them have an overall healthy lifestyle,” Doherty said.

Last week, PS 29 science teacher Tina Reres and a group of incoming prekindergarten students gathered around one of four long gardening beds built behind the Cobble Hill school. They tied up tomato plants, searched for bugs and then lettuce shoots that, if all goes well, will be part of a meal the school’s students will get to eat in the fall.

“It’s a chance to learn where your food comes from,” said Kristin Berman as her daughter Julia, 3, dug in the soil. “City kids don’t really know that.”

Some of the schools – like the Urban Assembly School of Music and Art in DUMBO – are combining food-growing with culinary lessons. Students in the school’s Teen Iron Chef program grew parsley and mint for tabbouleh and demonstrated how to make it, said Lynn Fredricks of FamilyCook Productions, who runs the cooking program. “For them to actually create the food itself is pretty amazing.”

Pesto pasta from school-grown basil was a big hit with kids at PS 29 last fall, Reres said.

But whether getting locally grown foods will really get kids to eat more veggies remains to be seen.

Mia Espinosa, 4, turned up her nose at the peas she had excitedly plucked from the PS 29 garden.

“She won’t eat anything green,” her grandmother, Carmela Panico, said, sighing. “Maybe next year.”

elazarowitz@nydailynews.com

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Gardening with a Purpose

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from Detroit Lakes-Online, July 8, 2009

Increasing urban sprawl is creating more homes for people by taking away habitats for wildlife, forcing nature’s creatures to become vagabonds on the move or leaving them homeless on the streets.

In fact, according to The Biodiversity Project, a leading environmental advocacy group dedicated to conservation initiatives, one million acres of open space, including parks, farms and natural areas are lost to sprawl each year.

However, others are fighting to reverse this damage from development by providing food, water and shelter for evicted animals, transforming their own backyards into wildlife sanctuaries.

Detroit Lakes resident, Liz Ballard, lives in town not far from Highway 10. Entering her yard from the paved sidewalk one stets through an arch of native vines into a haven of ferns and wildflowers with birds chirping, bees buzzing and chipmunks running across the visitors’ feet.

Though Ballard said that she started her gardens when she moved into town for her own benefit as well — to use as an escape from the city.

“I’ve always been a country girl,” Ballard said. “I missed seeing the animals.”

National Wildlife Federation Ambassador for the Wildlife Habitat Program and sustainable garden landscaper, Mat Paulson, said that the trend of natural gardening is increasing in northern Minnesota as homeowners learn more about the many benefits.

Sustainable gardening attracts wildlife and also helps the environment reducing dependency on pesticides, improving air and soil quality and cutting down energy use on regular garden maintenance. Con

Paulson also said that natural gardening is beneficial for your pocketbook. As native plants and shrubs are already tolerant of Minnesota weather conditions, less care and cash needs to be placed towards watering and expensive fertilizers.

According to the National Wildlife Federation, attracting wildlife is a simple accomplishment:

• Food — This may include providing bushes with berries, flowers with nectar and pollen or supplemental bird, squirrel, and butterfly feeders.

• Water — There needs to be presence of standing water that wildlife can access for drinking and bathing. This can include seasonal pools, birdbaths, rain gardens or ponds.

• Cover — Wildlife need shelter from bad weather conditions and predators such as wooded areas, bramble patches, rock piles and roosting boxes.

• Places to raise young — Wildlife also requires special areas to bear young. Some examples include mature trees, dead trees, dense shrubs and nesting boxes.

Providing these habitat conditions will make your home a portal to the great outdoors. To learn more about sustainable gardening to attract wildlife, obtaining your backyard wildlife habitat certification and listen to Mat Paulson speak, attend the “Creating a Wild Backyard” workshop at Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge at 2 p.m. on July 12 at the visitors center.

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My Urban Farm's Early Harvest

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I have been enjoying the beginning harvest of my little city garden. We’ve had spinach and salad greens for weeks, but now we’re getting bush beans, blueberries, tiny carrots and nasturtiums. It seems that I really went for the multi-colored veggie seeds. Probably wanting color when I ordered the seeds in the middle of winter.

This is the first year that I grew beans and that’s been a big success. I have a lot of light, but it travels between buildings, so technically I’m partly sunny.

It’s been very cold and rainy, which has helped extend the season of the greens. It has wreaked havoc on my basil because we seem to have a bumper crop of baby slugs. So the basil looks like swiss cheese. I pinched it back and already the new leaves look much better. Plus we’ve been having sun, so that should help as well. If I need to I will either put out some beer to lure the slugs or sprinkle some diatomaceous earth around the plants. The DE is made of tiny diatoms, which nick the slimey surface of the slugs and causes them to die. I think I’ll start with the beer though (if I can wrestle it away from my husband). I think the DE might harm the earthworms, which I really don’t want.

I have loads of tomatoes, so it will be interesting to see how they do. So far they look beautiful. I can’t wait for real tasting tomatoes!!!

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Milwaukee to use cemetery greenhouses for food production

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Here’s an interesting story about an organization called Growing Power in Milwaukee teaming up with Forest Home Cemetery to produce food for city residents. Once you get beyond the zombie images, it’s a very nice partnership. The historic cemetery has 3 century-old greenhouses that used to provide flowers, plants and trees for the park-like cemetery. The cost of heating the greenhouses became prohibitive and they were closed about 10 years ago.  

As the article mentions, urban farming is all about finding places to grow food that people wouldn’t have thought of. It sounds as though the cemetery workers are excited about having something positive and life-affirming happening at the cemetery. Soon school groups will not only tour the historic cemetery, but they will also tour the greenhouses and learn about planting and growing food.

I love stories like this. People thinking creatively. People working together. Healthy food going to people who might not otherwise get it. What a great partnership.

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Care for your urban tree

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A lot of trees have been planted in my neighborhood lately. It is a part of MillionTreesNYC, which is an initiative with NYC Parks and New York Restoration Project. They aim to plant 220,00 street trees, 380,000 trees in parks and 400,000 will come from private organizations and homeowners.
street-tree

We have a little tree outside our apartment building and I was inspired by seeing all of these new trees to take better care of it. I started by dumping several buckets of worm-filled compost in the pit around the tree. When I watered it, the water just ran off the compacted soil. So I figured I needed a better idea of how to care for my urban street tree. I found some great information on the NY Parks and Rec site as well as the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s Greenbridge site. Below is a summary of what I learned.

1) Loosen up the soil- With a hand cultivator (the hand tool that looks like a 3-pronged claw, loosen up the top 2-3″ of soil. Most city tree soil gets compacted, which prevents water and air from reaching the roots. Dig up any weeds that will compete with the tree for nutrients.

2) Flush the soil- In the spring, water the tree well to remove road/sidewalk salt that might have accumulated. Also try and keep animals out as much as possible. Dog urine can throw off the soil nutrients and burn the tree trunk. 

3) Amend the soil- Add a 2-3″ layer of mulch around (but not touching) the tree. The mulch is great at preventing weeds, keeping the soil below it moist and slowly breaking down into nutrient-rich compost. The mulch looks nice and lets neighbors know that you are taking care of your tree. In other words, it might deter people from tossing their trash in your tree pit.

4) Water your tree- The area around a tree that allows water in is quite small for the amount of water a tree needs to flourish. Water newly planted trees about 10-15 gallons a week. Mature trees need about 8-10 gallons a week during periods when it hasn’t rained. 

5) Plant flowers- You need to be careful not to harm the tree when you plant around it. Digging in the pit can damage roots. Raising the soil level against the tree’s trunk can cause it to rot or prevent air from reaching the roots. However, you can plant flowers or plants with shallow roots that won’t disturb the tree. Brooklyn GreenBridge recommends: small annuals like impatiens, or perennial groundcovers like bugleweed (Ajuga reptans) or periwinkle (Vinca minor)—avoid ivy. Small bulbs are good too: try crocus, miniature daffodils, or glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa species). 

An urban tree has a lot stacked up against its survival – air pollution, car doors, dog pee, bicycles chained up to them as well as limited space for them to grow and get their water. Any help we can give them will help them to thrive.

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Test Your Soil

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The soil in my backyard has always been disappointing to me. I don’t think I could ever produce enough compost to turn this dust-like soil into a beautiful loamy soil. Most soil in Brooklyn is considered sandy. When it rains, the water runs through the sandy soil very quickly. It drains a little too soon, which means that the soil is often quite dry. Sounded like my soil, so I thought that’s what I had.

Then I took the Water Garden class at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens and the teacher mentioned different soil types: sandy, clay, silt (the ideal) and rubble. Wait a second! What? Back before people were a little more enlightened, they used to just tear down a building and leave the rubble behind. They would throw some soil on top, and voila, their problem was buried. I mentioned to the teacher that I’ve been picking bits of broken glass and tile out of my soil for the past 15+ years. Every time it rains, there are little sparkly bits that have surfaced. Well, guess what? Turns out I have sandy, rubbly soil. Wonderful. More reason to keep composting.

So now that I’m trying to raise more veggies than flowers, I’ve been thinking about how safe my soil is. Do I have a lot of lead or other heavy metals in my soil? I sent a soil sample to Cornell Nutrient Analysis Lab to be tested. I’m having them test for general soil fertility and heavy metals. Here’s an article in the NY Times today that specifically mentions Brooklyn as having high levels of lead in the soil. My teacher at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens said airborne lead is more of a problem than lead in the soil. I guess the urban plants have a good chance of getting the lead from either end.

The Times article says that fruiting crops such as tomatoes, squash, eggplant, corn and beans don’t accumulate lead as much as herbs, leafy greens and root vegetables. It also said that you can grow indian mustard and spinach for a few years as a way to leach lead out of the soil. Obviously you can’t eat those greens and they say you need to dispose of them as toxic waste. Yikes.

I think a very good solution is to have raised beds or containers. That is pretty much what I have. I have herbs in an area that has only composted soil. Everything else is pretty much in pots. I might add a raised bed in an area that gets a bit of sun to grow more greens than I’m able to at present. I’m enjoying the veggies so much that I’m crossing my fingers that my soil passes it’s test.

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Scrawny asparagus

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asparagus stalk

asparagus stalk

I bought what was advertised as 2-year asparagus crowns this spring with visions of tender fresh asparagus in my head. I was not prepared for these pathetic hair-thin stalks to grow out of my soil. I think I was conned. They look like first year stalks to me. If you look at this video, you can see stalks of different years. I’ve been suckered, which means I’m going to have to wait at least another year or two to be able to harvest them. They need to grow to nourish the crown. If I got impatient and cut them this year, the whole plant will probably die. Bummer.

My friend Stephanie went to visit a friend of hers and blogged about her asparagus. Now I have asparagus envy.

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Creating a Rain Garden

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columbine

columbine


Last wednesday I took a class entitled Creating a Rain Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was a free class through their community horticulture program called GreenBridge. I hesitate for purely selfish reasons to talk about them, because they offer the most amazing classes free of charge and they fill up very quickly. Okay, there, I did it. You should definitely check out their classes. They have composting workshops, container gardening workshops, seed starting, etc. I will be taking their Edible Landscape class in June. I think all of the classes for the spring are filled up at this point, but you can get on their mailing list for future classes.

At the start of the class, we took a walk through the gardens. We walked through the cherry esplanade, which was in full bloom. The garden was closed to the public, so we were alone there at dusk. We passed through the lilacs and their perfume lifted me off my feet. We then walked through the native plant section of the garden, which is a nice, private section of the garden. There were lots of bunnies out and Robin, our teacher, said that there are wild dogs in the garden that come out at night, but are very shy. The walk was magical and now I have to figure out how to get a job there!

So what is a rain garden? A rain garden is designed to soak up rain water, especially from roofs, driveways, patios, etc. They look like a regular garden, but help to prevent valuable water from running off to the sewer system. You chose a site that has a slight downhill grade, or you dig a small depression that encourages the collection of rainwater. Many communities plant rain gardens in the green space between the sidewalk and the street. They cut the curb in front of the garden, which allows the rain running towards the storm drains to water the garden. If that isn’t clear, here is an example, which gives instructions as well.

One important thing to note about rain gardens is that they aren’t ponds, and therefore won’t attract mosquitoes. Sometimes they are filled with water after a rain, but other times they are dry. This requires plants that can handle both wet and dry conditions. That brings me back to one of my favorite topics…native plants! Native plants thrive in your area, which means they are adapted to live with the weather you get. (ie. temperature and rainfall) Once they are established, you won’t have to pamper them as you do with exotic species. You also have the added benefit of attracting loads of wildlife to your garden in the form of butterflies, bees and birds. And probably my personal nemesis the squirrel.

Okay, back to the rain garden…Think of the garden as a bowl, or as my teacher said, a pie plate. In the center of the garden, which is the bottom of the depression, you will collect the most water. You will want plants that can handle wet conditions. On the edges of the garden, there will be a slight incline, so the conditions will be dryer. You pick different plants for the dry conditions. Here’s a list of native plants that thrive in the different conditions in NYC. Actually these plants would be appropriate for most of the Northeast.

solomons seal

solomons seal


By the end of the class, I realized that I wouldn’t be able to handle the quantity of water that runs off my roof when it rains, so I’m going to concentrate on planting more native plants that require less watering. I think I may also plant around the tiny tree in the pit outside my apartment. Right now there’s just dirt around it. Other people could think about green roofs as a way to absorb rainwater and prevent runoff.

Here are some factoids to encourage you to think about rain gardens:
* In the summertime 40% of our water use goes to watering lawns and gardens. Rain gardens rely soley on rain, so they don’t waste valuable resources.
* Rain gardens allow 30% more water to soak into the ground than a regular lawn.
* 300 million gallons of sewer overflow (rain runoff mixed with good old regular sewage) are diverted to the Gowanus canal each year. Other overflow goes to Orchard beach, Jones beach and others, causing them to close due to unsafe bacterial counts. Euw!

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