Extending the Growing Season

This past weekend, I went out to Wild Onion Farms in Johnston County, NC to help Elizabeth and Andy put the cover on the greenhouse.  Andy installed the solar panel driven fan that puts air in between the two sheets of plastic that cover the house to increase efficiency.

 

Elizabeth had us use a tennis ball method along with some brooms to pull the cover over the hoop frame. I was skeptical but in the end this low tech method worked quickly. 

Basically, you tie the tennis balls into the plastic with a really long rope and then throw the rope over the frame and start pulling. For those of us height challenged, we got brooms to help push the cover up and over. Not too glamorous, but plenty of fun all around through the process, twice. 

Once the frame was covered, we applied batten tape, staples, and sticky zippers to each side for zip-up doors. I kid you not. There are zippers with heavy duty tape on one side that sticks to the plastic to make a roll-up door.

As you can imagine, we were all pretty tired from working and laughing hard at this event and I'll get some more pictures once Elizabeth has filled this "little" gem up with some plants so you can see more about how your food is grown.

Everything Has Its Season

My CSA farmer Elizabeth of Wild Onion Farms in Johnston County, NC sent out a message out today regarding the management of soil on a small sustainable farm and our need to eat what's in season-greens. 

As a graduate of Duke University, Elizabeth is always looking for innovative ways to save water & electricity. So this weekend she will be putting a new fan on her hoop house that is driven by a solar motor. This is a woman who had her house and belongings totally burn down a few weeks before Christmas last year along with all of her stored produce, seeds, tilling equipment and a favorite cat. In the spring, a fellow farmer offered her a free, well-used, hoop house. And not being one to waste an opportunity, Elizabeth managed to pretty quickly pull together a hoop house party and over the course of a couple of days with many volunteers we put up a funny looking hoop house (it used to be on a hillside). This weekend we will return to the farm to help out again and look forward to many delicious crops from Elizabeth as a result.  http://www.wildonionfarms.com/index.html

Eat Your Greens!

We're all in love with sweet, fruiting vegetables.  Tomatoes, squash, peas, cucumbers, you name it.  I'd grow little else but these, if I could, because they sell so well.  But one small farm - and the seasons- have their limitations.  These sorts of vegetables all fall within a few plant families, all take a lot out of the soil, and all tend to share the same insect and disease problems.  This is a small farm, with only a little over 2 acres available for planting annual vegetables.  In order to keep everything growing sustainably, I have to adhere to a pretty strict crop rotation.  I could easily sell an acre of tomatoes every summer, but that won't work in the long run without resorting to an arsenal of chemicals.

Why so many greens?  

Most of the greens available now fall into the large, sprawling brassica family - mustards, etc.  These plants are essential to the farm's overall crop rotation because they tend to inhibit diseases that affect summer fruiting crops.  Sure, I could skip the edible part, and just plant a mustard-y cover crop before next summer's tomatoes.  But if I'm going to plant, it may as well be edible, right? So if you want cucumbers and tomatoes next spring and summer, you need to eat your greens this fall and winter.  Everything has it's season!

SEEDS & DIG Community Gardens: Durham, NC

I must admit that my visit to the SEEDS and DIG Community Garden in Durham might be one of my favorites. I spent a bit of time with Santos Flores the Garden Coordinator, whose energy is simply overflowing with enthusiasm for his work.  


SEEDS was founded in 1994 by Brenda Brodie and Annice Kenan. SEEDS has been renting this property since the inception and the land covers both sides of the road. The garden really started to take off around 2000 when SEEDS was instrumental in the founding of the Durham Farmers Market. http://www.seedsnc.org/index.htm

On one side of the road there is the "DIG" garden where all of the vegetables are grown organically, harvested, and prepared for the Durham Farmers Market by volunteers and students. On the other side of the road by the educational building, there is a garden set up for individual plots that are rented by neighbors. There are only 25 plots available each year and preference is given to neighbors in need.  http://www.seedsnc.org/community_gardening.htm There are herbs and some fruit trees running throughout the garden and those are for everyone to enjoy and use. 


For the last several years, SEEDS has been able to offer an after school program for kids in grades 1-5 which has been successful enough for them to begin summer programs as well for the younger students in addition to the DIG program for teenagers.


The education building is simple and there are some pictures of the building before the garden was in full swing on the website under the history section (http://www.seedsnc.org/history.htm). You can see how many improvements have been made to the site over the years. 

There are different rooms inside set up as classrooms and demonstration areas and everything is painted bright and kept very clean despite the constant use. Volunteers and staff are engaging and there seems to be a lively discussion in every room.


Behind the building there is an area devoted to starting seedlings, composting and a fairly large greenhouse. This garden collects and stores much of the water it uses and you can see the collection points as you walk around the different structures. The gardener in me loves the diversity of these garden areas. There are herbs, cutting flowers, fruits and vegetables and DIG maintains their own bee hives to increase pollination.


There are currently several workshops scheduled for this fall which include growing fruit trees, berries, herbs and fall vegetables.  http://www.seedsnc.org/events.htm  The group recently engaged the Operation Frontline team to help with cooking classes and they want to expand their classes.
 
As a mom, what I enjoyed most about this garden was the extensive shaded play area. And as a designer with a passion for restoration, what I loved was the re-use of materials. Everything from bricks and stones to recycled plastic containers and broken garden tools for signs. Nothing is wasted here. 

If you want to learn about conservation and teach your kids about recycling, this is the field trip for you.
If you have an interest in helping, they can always use volunteers and have a list of 10 ways you can help support their efforts.  http://www.seedsnc.org/help.htm

St. Philip's Episcopal Community Garden: Durham, NC

My second adventure to a community garden was in downtown Durham to meet up with Elizabeth Newman who co-manages the community garden at St. Philip's Episcopalian Church. They have several outreach programs and the garden is a part of their overall fellowship to improve the life for their immediate church neighbors. http://www.stphilipsdurham.org/pages/outreach.htm  Early pictures of the garden's humble beginnings can be found on the church website.  http://www.stphilipsdurham.org/pages/garden.htm

The garden started with a border fence and a large gate, but the fence was never completed all the way around. Neighbors can enter from different points to gather food and the purpose of the fence has become more of a visual barrier to the busy street corner and a functional support system for tall plants.

During the hot summer months, the garden is tended several times a week by student interns and volunteers who come to plant, weed, water and mulch. Early expectations were that neighbors would come together and help tend the garden and harvest vegetables. What really tends to happen is that one or two people stroll in and clean up rotting vegetables and fruit before or after the students arrive. Later in the day, others come and harvest what they need after the volunteers have left. There is little interaction between the church volunteers, students and nearby neighbors. The vegetables are being eaten on a regular basis by neighbors or taken to local housing projects.

For the church, its ministry goals are being met. The garden is providing nutrition for the neighborhood community, if not in the exact way they thought, then in a respectful and understated way. Interns are learning how the food cycle works by starting plants from seeds.

Students also tend to the needs of maturing plants that are producing squash, tomatoes, herbs, greens, and flowers. Along with the adult volunteers, they are planning crops for upcoming years. They have started a blueberry bush hedge and are thinking about locations for  fruit trees and berry patches.

There are already several large trees that provide shade seating on the perimeter of the garden area. There is a slight incline that creates a water drainage issue onto a sidewalk on one side of the garden so volunteers are planning to add more fruit bushes to soak up the excess water this fall.



Volunteers always consider the best way to provide access to healthy snack foods for people using the bus stop. Plants are selected for disease resistance and hardiness. Chemicals are used on this garden. The goal is for people to be able to walk right up and eat whatever they like when they are hungry.

The church ministry wants local residents to feel totally comfortable and safe coming into the garden for whatever harvest they need for their family. They are happy to provide for their neighbors.

The church is in need of volunteers to help maintain the garden in the fall and through the winter. They also need several large blueberry bushes and might consider some fig and apple trees. If you can help in any way with larger plants that would come into maturity a little quicker for them, please contact one of the Community Garden Co-managers: 

Bob Kellogg or Elizabeth Newman at 919-949-7258

403 East Main Street, Durham, NC 919-682-5708 main number

Emerson Waldorf School Community Garden: Chapel Hill, NC

This lovely 20 acre farm is part of the Emerson Waldorf School in Chapel Hill, NC. It is just a short walk on a wooded path from the school's main campus. The school has just over 50 wooded acres. 

Primary school is out of session for summer, but there is still a flurry of activity with summer camps. The garden has a number of volunteers overseeing the summer crops and getting ready for fall plantings in newly prepared beds.

At the front of the driveway to the farm there is a simple painted sign marking the entrance. The path to the actual garden is marked with another larger hand-painted sign at the parking area. You instantly feel at home when you get out of your car and put on your sun hat.  

There are a couple of small buildings on the site that provide teaching space and storage for vegetables and tools.  Everything about this garden is relaxed. 

I first visited this school back in the mid 1990's and I was pleasantly surprised by all of the changes that I saw this summer. Since its inception in 1984, the school has embraced multi-sensory learning and if you would like to know more about the education model used here, I encourage you to visit two sites that go into more detail: http://www.emersonwaldorf.org/about/  http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/ 

The main purpose of this garden is "to help students and parents find a responsible balance between nature and technology" in a culture that would have them rarely going outside. There are places for all ages of children to work and play. 

As you come up to the actual garden from the path you notice that this is a utilitarian garden. The fencing is simple, the arbors are made of found materials, and access to several piles of compost is undisguised and right within reach. One of the few man-made objects is an umbrella to provide a bit of shade during the long hot days. There is a play area just under a tree for younger children to dig and pretend to garden while older students and their parents work close by.
 
The main portion of the garden is divided very simply into rows with different sections for pollinator flowers, root veggies, leafy greens and tomatoes. There is also a section for home-made compost at different stages and that was being used to prepare a bed for a fall planting when I was visiting. This garden is new enough that all of the soil must be tilled and then amendments added in by hand to increase the viability of the land. It will take years and many volunteers and school classes before the land produces its best crops.

The garden is fairly flat so irrigation hoses are woven between the rows to help with our extreme early heat this year. Signage is rudimentary and easily moved as the crops change over the weeks. Weeds that are not overtaking plants are left alone since the volunteers are limited and working in 90+ weather can be dangerous. No chemicals are used so that students can observe nature at its best and worst.  Everything about this garden is simplistic.


Much of the summer harvest is sent home with volunteers but in the fall, the harvest will be put into a school farmers market. Parents can pick up  fresh vegetables when they come to pick up their children. Students and parents help with the entire process from picking, cleaning, and sorting, to managing sales. Every aspect of this garden provides hands-on experience and valuable life lessons.

If you have an interest in volunteering at this garden or you would like to make a monetary or plant donation, please contact the school directly. They would like to add berry bushes and some additional fruit trees and will probably be in need of some garden tools, wheel-barrels and hoses as they expand. 


You can contact the school at mainoffice@emersonwaldorf.org
http://www.emersonwaldorf.org/about/
http://www.emersonwaldorf.org/community/ews-farm/

Growing a Community Garden in North Carolina

I thought I would start my first blog talking about community gardens in North Carolina, and more specifically, around the Triangle area where I live. As I travel further, I will include additional posts on gardens and sustainable farms.

Community gardens are not a new idea and they never really disappeared totally. They are simply in a phase of rediscovery for many communities around the US. Pamela Price has written a brief history of community gardens at  http://knol.google.com/k/the-american-victory-garden-past-present# which takes a look at the history dating back to the 1600's in England and I found this useful to understand some of the concepts still in use today.

But community gardening goes back much further. Many early civilizations had some sort of community farming in addition to foraging and hunting to sustain growing populations. The differences between community and allotment gardening blur over time. Any garden today can offer both opportunities in the same space pretty easily with simple land management and a good overall design.


American history allows us to trace back recent community gardening to WWI when the government recruited people to help grow food in "Liberty Gardens". It was considered your personal contribution to the war movement to help provide food for yourself and your community members that could not provide for themselves.The government encouraged people to use canning and drying methods to store food and become self-sufficient for longer periods of time when commercial food might need to be sent to the war front.  In the 1930's the WPA (Work Project Administration) hired masses of unemployed  to work in "Relief Gardens" to raise the spirits of the population as well as provide food for the community during and after the depression. And then in the 1940's as we entered WWII, the government promoted "Victory Gardens" to reduce fuel consumption and preparation for diminishing food supplies caused by the war. By 1944 these "war gardens" produced upwards of 40% of the fresh vegetables for families and helped offset the larger food production that was used to supply the war efforts. As time went on and people returned to work and industry flourished after the war, companies took on the role of preserving food for long term storage and gardens diminished as did personal time to tend to them. Authors like Laura Lawson (City Bountiful, A Century of Community Gardening in America), Thomas Lyson (Civic Agriculture: Reconnecting Farm, Food, and Community), and Mark Winne (Community food security: A guide to concept, design and implementation), among many others, have written about community gardens and their potential usefulness in times of scarcity.


Allotment gardens are a little different. They are considered to be plots that are rented out to individuals to plant whatever they like and keep all of the produce for themselves. The cost of the plots is normally very nominal but this is changing in some areas where privatization has occurred. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/01/privatization-allotment-gardening.php Allotment gardening differs from what is referred to as "sharecropping" where part of the land owner provided seed, animals and equipment as well as credit for the labor force. A good reference of articles can be found at: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/sharecropping.aspx .  Allotment gardening is still prevalent throughout urban areas of Europe and highly populated areas of the US where open land is unavailable except through private, faith-based, and government efforts.


While viewing some of the existing community gardens in the Piedmont NC area, I found that mixing the use of the land provided both an aesthetic and useful quality to the site. Combining mature hardwood trees with fruit trees provides shade and seating areas to rest as well as places for birds to nest.  Well-laid paths provide exercise  for non-gardeners and highlight the beauty of the land. Open borders of fruit bushes provide easy access to snacks and a barrier for sound and lights at busy street corners.  Low fencing can provide support for grapes, a place to stake medium vegetable plants and a method to keep out little critters who would demolish a harvest. Taller arbors can be used to stake taller plants or create canopies of shade where there need to be work areas to clean produce in the field or set seed trays. A division of space for allotment plots and a general garden provides community food and individual harvests of special produce. And if there is room, a secure play area for children allows the whole family to participate in the gardening experience in some way. There's a great list of gardens in NC that you can look up and visit, but this is just a tiny fraction of what is out there:  http://nccommunitygarden.ncsu.edu/

In my own area, some towns are really still struggling with zoning codes and understanding the relative importance of these spaces for their communities. They are multifunctional and don't fit in neat categories. They have personalities that fit the surrounding area. In an optimum situation, they can include space for educational programs, food storage, farmers' markets, exercise and play. These spaces can join people with new opportunities that might not otherwise meet. They can challenge our bodies as well as our minds in their infinite design and purpose.


Follow me as I tour and post my comments and pictures and maybe you will be inspired to work or start a garden in your neighborhood. Initially I will be writing about three very different gardens in Durham and Chapel Hill. One is at a private school, another is at a church and the third is at a non-profit center. Each has a different set of goals and methods of gardening but they all share the gift of food and love of service to their communities.