gardening

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I was cleaning out my storeroom the other day and came across another recycled solar device that I was fooling with a few years ago.  A one liter clear plastic bottle makes a good hot cap or cloche when you cut the bottom off it.  Plant a seedling, pop the bottomless clear cap over it, and you protect  the seedling from the cold.  It probably adds between 5 and 10 degrees F over the outside temperature by protecting the seedling from the wind and by capturing sunlight in a small, closed space.  My twist on this idea was to find different sizes of clear plastic bottles which could nest one inside the other making a double-glazed hot cap cloche.  A double-glazed hot cap cloche might be able to protect the seedlings even better, keeping that small, closed space even warmer than the outside air.

This afternoon, I planted two tomato seedlings in my garden using this device.  We’ll see whether it works.

Continue reading Recycled Solar: Double-Glazed Solar Hot Cap Cloche
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Todmorden TED Talk:

http://video.ted.com/talk/stre…

A few months ago, some people in Cambridge, MA were inspired by the example of Todmorden in the UK between Leeds and Manchester, a town that decided to grow as much of its food as possible within the town limits.  

Since we started meeting, some of us have begun mapping the Cambridge local food system which already exists.  It includes farmers’ markets every day of the week from Memorial Day to Thanksgiving, the local growing season, and one winter market on Saturday mornings.  There are City Sprouts (http://www.citysprouts.org/) gardens in every one of the 12 public middle schools, 15 community gardens including those at Harvard and Leslie Universities, and at least three restaurants with rooftop or container gardens.  Local organizations include Pick a Pocket Garden (http://pickapocketgarden.org/) which is planting and maintaining public plantings of ornamentals, a yogurt-making coop, and the League of Urban Canners who will harvest and process fruit from neighborhood trees and bushes into preserves, with the owners getting 10% of the product.

The Cambridge Todmorden group may have access to three different sites for public gardens but we haven’t turned any soil over yet, although we certainly plan to in the near future.

A few schools, community plots, and restaurants will not grow any appreciable percentage of the food in Cambridge, MA but it is a start.  There is a local food system.  We are learning how to grow it.

Continue reading Eating the City and Town: Todmorden and Beyond
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On Monday January 30th, the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) held a public meeting at Suffolk University, halfway between the State House and City Hall, to change the Boston zoning laws to allow for agriculture throughout the city, making it easier for local residents to grow and sell fresh, healthy, foods in Boston and the greater Boston Metropolitan Area.  Nearly 300 people attended.  Boston currently has about 150 community gardens serving 3000 gardeners, the highest per capita of any US city.  Now the city is trying to figure out how to change zoning to increase urban agriculture beyond gardening and household use into businesses and economic development.

Mayor Menino, the newly appointed chair of the food policy task force for the US Conference of Mayors, opened the meeting and the keynote address was given by Will Allen, Founder and CEO of Growing Power Inc. (http://www.growingpower.org), non-profit based in Milwaukee, WI which also does work in Chicago, Detroit, Ghana, and around the world.  Growing Power addresses social justice and food access issues through building local agriculture and farm-based businesses and Mr. Allen won the 2008 McArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant for his work on urban farming and sustainable food production.  Growing Power has grown an underutilized 2-acre lot into a farm that produces enough produce, eggs, honey, fish and other meats to feed more than 10,000 local residents and employs more than 100 people on 20 farms, 13 farmstands, and a year round CSA.  

Continue reading Integrated Urban Agricultural Systems
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It was probably around thirty years ago that I went to a basement apartment near Harvard Square for a presentation by two people visiting from Auroville, a religious community and ecovillage near Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, India.  The man and woman talked about their work planting trees and reforesting the area.  They showed slides, focusing on a method they derived by trial and error to provide water for their saplings by molding bunds, small catchment basins just downslope from the tree to gather rainwater so that it could soak down into the roots.  They talked about following erosion gullies upslope to where they began and using stones and pebbles to stop the erosion at the source.  They said that after more than a decade of work, the weather had noticeably changed in the region and the seasonal rains had returned.

How did we get into this mess?

A little bit at a time and because everybody does it.

We get out of it just

that same way.

4/23/01  John Berry, in conversation  

Continue reading How to Heal the World
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I’ve been using my recycled solar cloches for years to start my garden early.  This year, here in Planting Zone 6A, I started planting a few days ago with tomatoes and basil in one solar cloche, zucchini in another, roquette and broccoli in a simple single cloche, and spinach in the space between them.  It was a great early Spring day as I planted the seeds and I was happy to spend an hour in the garden.  I’ll be happier when I see the seeds become seedlings and happier still, a couple of months down the road, when I get to taste my fresh vegetables.

Next week, I plan to plant more spinach and sugarsnap peas.

In the background of two of the pictures, you can see my Dirty F*ck*ng Solar Hippie Backpack which I have been using for about five years.

Continue reading Solar Garden Plantings
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