by Susan | Oct 10, 2014 | Community Gardens
Yep that’s me. I’m on the way to the airport, driving through Tacoma, and out of the corner of my eye I see a Community garden. Stop the car… Out I jump at this great little garden at the Salvation Army in Tacoma.
A vacant lot has been turned into raised beds community garden style. It was so fun to tour the beds and see signs where people were proudly claiming their section of the garden. I think it is so cool to see people growing vegetable and fruit but its really cool to see people growing flowers just for pleasure.
Several beds just had flowers, bright spots in an rougher urban area.
While I was touring I spotted a gentleman tossing debris so I asked him about the garden.
He told me his name was Claude and he was in charge of making soil (he laughed and said get it Claude? ) then he explained his formula for making soil. He uses weeds, leaves, woody twigs and cardboard. He piles the debris into separate piles for a month then he creates a pile that incorporates all the elements with cardboard in between. Within another month the soil is ready. He showed me his pile of ready soil and it looked awesome. Light texture, with some small twigs and dark color.
We talked briefly about Tagro which is a sludge byproduct sold by the City of Tacoma. It was given to the garden for free but Claude did not like to use it. He said it was ‘junk’. I used it years ago and found it lacking also. It had a good beginning composition and spread easily. It worked for about 6 months. Then the soil turned into raw sawdust. This was the filler that they used to mix the sludge in with. Plants struggled from there on out because the un-composted sawdust robbed plants of nitrogen while it broke down further. I’ve seen this same soil making method in England and have used it in my compost bin to create good light compost.
Claude says that the garden works well. He has been involved in several other Community Gardens, but this one works really well. He feels the key is to have people working in the garden that work for the garden as a whole not just their own beds. There are several volunteers like Claude that help with soil, weed the edges and the pathways and help people who work and can’t get to their beds during the week. He even met his current girlfriend while they worked in the garden together. Their shared interest in the community garden turned into a shared interest in each other.
The gardeners here pay $40 per raised bed. All the beds are occupied and they have a waiting list for next year. There is another vacant lot next door that the Salvation Army is going to clear and create more space for the garden.
I jumped back in my car and got on the road to the airport again. It was so fun to stop and meet another gardener. Claude gave me his email and phone so we can keep in touch. I love the stories behind community gardens and the differences between them. Check out your area and see what is near you. Send me an update on cool gardens you find.
by Kristen | Aug 13, 2014 | Community Gardens, LB Tutorial: Growing Food
At the beginning of August we talked about hand pollinating pumpkins (you can read about it HERE). You might remember I had one little problem when I went out to make baby pumpkins. I only had male flowers and didn’t see any female flowers. After a few days of checking in with the pumpkins I still don’t see any female flowers. But when I went to the garden today I saw something a little different…
You can see the bigger flower, which is likely to be a male flower again, but lower on the stem is another bud. This one looks different and I haven’t seem them like this before. It’s so much smaller, closer to the stem but coming out of the same joint. It’s also a little plumper than what the male flowers look like this small. I could be wrong but I’m really, really hoping this is a female flower. REALLY hoping…
Other things I noticed about the pumpkin vines. After the pumpkin vines began to grow they started running behind the tomatoes. I asked the Plantswoman and she said they were probably getting too much sun so they found a shadier spot. Once the trees fully leafed out above the pumpkins providing more shade the vines started to find their way back to their intended spot. I’m actually glad they retreated behind the tomatoes because their vines are ginormous! It will be difficult to find the rest of the flowers and spy out the fruit since the tomatoes are heavy with fruit but we will make it work.
So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed these pumpkin vines will produce an actual pumpkin. I’ll keep you posted!
by Kristen | Aug 6, 2014 | Community Gardens
Over the last few months we’ve been following along with and visiting community garden’s in our area and afield. You might be wondering why we are devoting so much time to this topic so I wanted to share more about it. It’s been pretty eye opening for me as I begin to understand more and more how a community garden can be an invaluable resource to a community. This past weekend my little family and I headed over to Detroit, Michigan to visit with some friend and one of our hosts shared a funny story about the ‘hippie’ in the community garden and the current rant he’s on. While we found the story amusing I think it illustrates a pretty widely held perspective that the folks that work in the community garden are old hippies with wild rants about the government. This is changing.
Food is powerful.
When Susan visited the Railroad Community Garden in Oregon she found a modern family using their allotment to provide fresh veg for their family. “They were a low income family who had used one of the scholarships to get a plot.” This is why community gardens are so important. For many low income families access to a community garden is the most reliable way they can provide fresh, healthy produce for their families. You don’t need to have a yard, you don’t need to go it alone, you don’t even need to have an address to have access to quality produce. Of course you need to put in the work but for folks with more time than money this is not an issue.
The ability to grow your own food is empowering.
Every day families are forced to make decisions based on money not nutrition. When one meal’s worth of fruit and veg costs the same as two or three prepackaged full meals most folks would logically choose to stretch their dollar into the three meals. And what kind of a choice is that? Is it top-noch nutrition? No. Will it fill a hungry belly? Yes. And so the cycle goes. Give a family access to a garden plot and that family has the opportunity to turn the tables on that equation. It may be just for the growing season but still better than none at all.
This issue affects each community differently and so I encourage you to look up and see if your community has/needs these resources and get involved! We may have officially become the new ‘hippies’ with a rant to share.
Click below to see the latest community garden posts!
by Kristen | Jul 30, 2014 | Community Gardens
Well, it’s finally happened, we are starting to harvest veg from our community garden plots. I visited the Peterson Community Garden with my friend Megan this past Friday and the amount of produce that is now available through out the garden is impressive. Megan said some of the plants seem to be doing fine and some don’t seem to be doing that great but they are keeping an eye on things.
This little beauty is a major win in my mind. It’s a cantaloupe! Being born and raised in the NW I’ve never seen a cantaloupe on the vine nor have I ever dreamed a home gardener could grow them on their own. Such funny perspectives we can adopt sometimes… But here we stand looking at a lovely vine with about 10 or so little melons getting ready to go.
This little guy is already starting to get the cantaloupe “fuzz” although it be still pretty small.
When I first wrote about the Peterson garden everything was so neat and organized with clearly defined raised beds. Fast forward just about a month and a half and you have a veritable garden jungle! It’s just amazing to me!
As Megan and I watered their plot we talked about their tomatoes and I wondered what they will do with the bounty (there are lots of little green guys just waiting to ripen up). She said they were going to take a class about preserving the produce and then they were hoping to save the extras using what they learn at the class. I wondered about supplies and she said they only needed to bring the jars and produce and the class would provide the rest. This is so encouraging to me as I can get overwhelmed by the preceived monetary outlay of a canning project. When we moved we (perhaps foolishly) sold all of our canning supplies. I’m kind of dying a little over it now thinking about how much use we could get out of it now. Knowing you can “complete the cycle” by preserving your produce via canning with the community garden makes me feel better about it. It’s a great reason to come out of my own little bubble and be involved in what’s happening in my own neighborhood.
Come back later this week for a look at our tomatoes over at Albany Park…
by Kristen | Jul 28, 2014 | Community Gardens, garden food
Spring and summer have been off to slow start where we are but that is not deterring our tomatoes! We’ve got lots of tomatoes coming in and ripening quickly. Beside the few pictured here we also have Brandy Wine and Amish Mom tomatoes coming right along.
Here are our grape tomatoes. There are so many more in the upper vines just waiting for a few more sunny days.
Idigo Rose tomatoes… This one still kind of freaks me out a little. Tomatoes are in the Nightshade family and the poisonous version sports little tomato like fruits that start green, go red and then black. I’m sure these will be delicious once I get over the life threatening part.
Yellow pear tomatoes still growing. When they are ripe they will be a lovely yellow color. There have been a few that we’ve tasted already but the flesh is a bit mealy. No complaints here though and the kids don’t seem to care.
And last but certainly not least, green zebra tomatoes. Subconsciously I’ve been waiting for these guys to get red and then I read their name again. They are supposed to be green! I pulled gently on some that looked ‘done’ and they fell into my hand so we can put them into the rotation of harvest.
That’s what is going on in our garden right now. What are you harvesting in your garden?
by Kristen | Jun 20, 2014 | Community Gardens
Today we get to take a tour through the Peterson community garden and I’d like to introduce you to Megan, Zach, Karrie and Caleb (if I can get them all there at the same time I’ll post a picture). They heard about the Peterson garden around the same time and decided to work together on a plot. All four would consider themselves novice gardeners and have been learning a lot through the community garden program. As Megan and I walked through the garden you could tell there were gardeners of all skill levels, even some that hadn’t started planting yet. There are plots that are bursting their seems already and some that have their first little seedlings coming up.
Currently “Fab Four” are growing Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, peas, tomatoes, carrots, chives, basil, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, red pepper and cantaloupe! When Megan ran me through the list of edibles in their garden I was impressed and excited for them. I’m especially excited to see how the cantaloupe turns out. That also happens to be a favorite of the Four as well. It really goes to show how much can be grown in a relatively small space.
I’ve really enjoyed getting to see a new community garden come alive. We will keep checking in on the Albany Park and Peterson gardens as the season progresses. We would love to see what you are gardening right now. Are you a part of a community garden too? Gardening in your back yard? Gardening on your balcony? Tell us about it!
by Kristen | Jun 13, 2014 | Community Gardens
With summer rapidly approaching and the weather warming I thought I’d give you an update on our local community garden (if you missed our first post on this you can read it HERE). I’ve been seeing a lot of photos on Facebook and Instagram showing what folks in the Northwest are pulling out of their gardens and I’m a bit jealous. Our spring here in the Midwest was delayed due to the deep freeze we received over the winter. I’m eager to see more coming out of our gardens soon. For now let’s take a look at what’s growing right now…
Tomato and basil plants… a match made in heaven!
Lettuce
Swiss Chard
Tomatoes and basil went in first with lettuce and Swiss chard not far behind. They are doing well.
Creative use of “found things” for our beans.
The crew set up a new raised bed complete with beanpoles for beans with more beans along one of the fence lines.
Young pumpkin plants under the screen, Mother’s Day marigolds in hand painted pots.
We contributed a few of our pumpkin plants and they are hanging out happily under the screens to keep them safe from critters until they get bigger.
Raspberries
The raspberries are loving the sunshine. Hopefully we will see some fruit soon.
What do you have growing now? Have you fresh cut flowers on your table, fresh veg from your garden? Drop us a line below and let us know!
