Community Gardens!

     Last Sunday a group from the Tennessee Valley Community Garden Association toured several member gardens...here's a quick peek.
    First up was the UAH Garden, spearheaded by Claire Heardy.  This is a "claim it and work it" garden, open to students, faculty and employees of the University.  Several folks grabbed a plot and have already started growing this year and it's going to be quite pretty once everything grows up.

There's a very attractive layout and there's even  a picnic table to rest for a bit.

  Then it was on to the CASA Community Garden where Karen Voelker explained that the food from this garden, grown by volunteers, gets delivered to the elderly, homebound clients of CASA.  They are always looking for more volunteers and it is a great way to learn more about gardening from the pros!



       We swung across to the 305 8th Street site.  This is a group home for developmentally disabled adults and they've started growing food for the table, mostly salads. 

    Next on the tour was the Lowe Mill garden, Flying Monkey Community Garden which is growing by leaps and bounds even moving into the interior courtyard.  There's some fun ideas here, which is no surprise given the artistic community there.  They are hoping to start a farmer's market in time. They, too, are always looking for more dirty hands!

    I dropped off the tour here and  Lee took the rest of the tour, since he'd been pruning a new orchard in the morning.  They first went to Howe Street, where a new community garden is taking shape, we spied this one on our last alley tour.  The early succession planting has begun way in the back.  Can't wait to see this one growing this summer!

     A quick trip up the mountain to the Monte Sano Community Garden.  This garden is a rented space garden, with each gardener taking care of their own plot and helping with the common areas.  This is one of the most well organized gardens, with a very effective use of space.  Notice the deer fencing. 

     The final stop before dark was a neighborhood effort in north Huntsville that is growing great!  Eric has a plot behind his house where he's growing for himself and others.  It's looking really good.

    His neighbor, Bill, is also going large.  The fall/winter garden you can see way at the back will be overtaken by a larger summer planting that's being prepped now.   You'd be lucky to live close to these folks.

    That's it for this tour... If you are involved in a community garden project of any kind, contact Tennessee Valley Community Garden Association or if you would like a consultation on your garden project large or small call us.



Meet A Local Farmer - Enas Ragland

I recently received a call from a friend of mine, Tami Jordan, who is with Second Mile. Tami works with the Terry Heights Hillandale Neighborhood Association. In the course of her travels she met Mr. Enas Ragland.
Mr. Ragland is one of the the first true neighborhood farmers in Huntsville in sometime. Possibly in decades.

Enas was in construction until the credit crisis of 2008. As work slowed he needed to keep working so he quietly turned to farming. As he improved his skills, he began to grow more than he could eat and has been selling produce at the Madison County Farmers market for some time now.

      Enas was a SPIN farmer and didn't know it. He had never heard of the concept of Small Plot Intensive Farming before. Specializing in Collards, he is farming his yard in a fairly intensive manner and is showing others in his neighborhood how to grow fresh food as well.

Enas Ragland is one of our hero's and we hope to have more posts concerning him and his efforts to help Terry Heights - Hillandale soon.

Do you know a local farmer ? Do you know where your fresh produce comes from ?

Lee

Garden Tour

So we are driving aound a bit looking for a potential new customer's yard and what did we find tucked into downtown spaces?

Boxes for square foot gardening and neatly stacked urbanite for future use?

Nice neat beds with lovely mulch just waiting for planting!

Then around the corner... those are young fruit trees, a lot of edible plants could be grown between them for several years.

Up through town to the area where the customer lives, and up the alleys around Oakwood Avenue.



Neighbors - Growing Together


I know we often have WAY too many green peppers for our own use, even after we've pickled/salsaed/frozen what we'll use through the winter, not everyone in the neighborhood needs to grow them.  While the planning is gearing up this spring, talk to your growing neighbors and plan a little so that more varieties of vegetables can be grown.

Rainy Afternoon and Google Earth

Google Earth can be entertaining on a rainy November afternoon.   I discovered the 'historical' image tool today and wandered off to find our house.  The first image from February 2002

You can see the house with the front yard bisected by a walkway.  The driveway is on the upper side of the house with a patio in the ell and garage to the back.  Trees shade the whole backyard and the front is grass.  Well, short green plants, some edible like dandelions and dock and hmm...well, ok other weeds.  Forward to June 2006

Closer than this and it begins to look like pointillist art, but you can see the back yard has lost some tree cover and the front yard is dead grass/dirt being prepared for gardens.  March 2007 is much clearer.
 

The trees are not in leaf yet, so you can see the back and front pretty well.  The front has gardens with grass strips around them, there is a single fence across the front of the gardens.  The fence helps the place look nice between crops and provides some support for vining plants like peas, hyacinth bean vine and the like.  In the back, you can barely see some white X's, those are square foot gardens placed corner to corner.  The X's are PVC pipe to make little hoophouses.  You can see them closer here.  The light 'trail' on the lower side of the house is our lesson on buying 'soil' and letting it be dumped without examining it.  River silt is not good on gardens.  Quite a contrast with the dark lovely soil Lee has created in the front yard, isn't it?  Soil conditioner and compost are your friends when starting a garden.
The latest shot is from September 2010...

The front fence is covered with hyacinth bean vine..as is the arbor over the sidewalk.  Gorgeous vine and vigorous grower.  We won't grow it over an arbor again as we had to spend way too much time pruning so we could get to the street! 

A note on tree cover.  If you'll notice in the first shot above, the trees in the upper rear corner of our lot shade that area.  They were spindly tired pine trees and by the third shot they are gone.  You can see that by 2010, the neighbor's river birch again overshadows that rear corner.  This isn't a problem for us as that tree is to the north, our cherry on the south side(which almost melds with our southern neighbor's maple)  shades most of our back yard.  However, when you are figuring out where to put your garden, watch out not only for shade or future shade from your own trees, but those of your neighbors as well.

Are You Interested?

        Have you heard of Transition Town?   For a quick overview try the Wikipedia entry and follow the links if you'd like more information.  Here in Huntsville, Michele Sneed of The Farmhouse is gathering people who are interested in all aspects of the Transition movement.  I went to a "mulling" meeting last night to listen to conversations begun a few weeks ago about starting a group here in Huntsville.   They've set up a blog at TransitionHuntsville to get things rolling. 
     There are no hard and fast 'rules' for being part of Transition, the movement is very grassroots and local in focus and development.  Right now the group is thinking about how to express the Huntsville idea of transition.  Brainstorming a bit, we tossed around

Resilience, Local Solutions, Sustainability, Healthy Food, Community Building, Strengthening Neighborhood Relationships, Sharing Wisdom, Scalability, Preparedness, Skills Sharing, Connectedness, Regeneration/Regenerative

    Lots of great ideas and thoughtful discussion on what this all means in the 'culture' of Huntsville.  We have so many great engineers and artists and writers, from all continents and viewpoints, so many established and brand new subdivisions and neighborhoods, I look forward to seeing how Huntsville 'transitions' into the future!
  
edited to add:  authored by Shannon!

Along the alleyways...

     A delightful day for a road trip and so we do what we usually do and that is keep an eye out for veggies! We wandered around town and then slipped up the alleys looking closely for gardens.   

     Our first hit came almost immediately.  These are big beds.  I'll get better at this blogging thing and I'll remember to measure or get more perspective.  I hope the folks tending these are tall, I find more than 4 foot across is too much without stepping in the beds.  Looks like they've cleaned up for the winter..wish I could tell them to sow some nitrogen fixing cover crops like crimson clover or Austrian peas that will provide some green, keep down weeds and add wonderfully to their soil's fertility for next season.   Maybe they'll read this, pass it around!

     They had a very large tree taken down recently as you can see here... wonder if it was before the gardens were put in or if the gardens weren't doing well in the shade?   Perhaps the storm hit it and the safest thing to do was take the rest of it down.

     Next up is a nice size garden that probably has really good soil!  There's everything growing in there, flowers for attracting good bugs, herbs, okra even!  They may be mixing in some permaculture style gardening.  The small tree on the left wasn't fruit bearing that we could tell.  We didn't have time to get out and poke around too much.  The annuals will die down soon and it will be easier to clean up. 

     These folks have a lot of yard left to grow their garden, but they did well this year.  Still producing on October 14th!  I do hope they enjoyed it and intend to grow more next year.

     This is the only front yard garden we spied this time, of course, we were mostly keeping to the alleys.  They kept this one pretty weed free and now tis time to say goodbye to the summer.  Still a few producing plants and some stalks to make fall decorations!  It's so hard to take plants out at the end of summer before that first hard freeze.  Just a feeeew more tomatoes and peppers please?

    We voted this best October garden as it is still productive with very healthy plants for the end of the season.  Here's hoping they are starting some fall/winter crops somewhere, it's hard to see from the car in the alley, so they can keep eating fresh veggies later on!

   We're always eager to showcase local gardens, so let us know of any hiding in your neighborhood!

Go Local Food!

Talk about local food ... or better yet, eat some!  Thanks to the Huntsville Times for a great article!

You can learn more about local food happenings at North Alabama Food Policy Council where you'll find information on hosting a local food dinner and other events.  HSVGreenLink also keeps up here.

Pass the word and keep us informed of other local food events and sources!

Fall is for Nuts!

Are you foraging for nuts?  You can find several kinds of nuts around the urban landscape, as I was reminded today.  Nut trees are a great way to do some stealthy edible landscaping.

I went to pick up a prescription and then .. well, I had a senior moment and ended up going through a parking lot to get turned around...and what did I spy?

Pears?  No....

Walnuts!  Something had already tried to get into this one but no luck.

Sure enough.. There's the tree, turning yellow for fall, caught between two parking lots and losing some limbs, but still hanging on and producing what it could.

I took just the one to show to the tree expert ....

   He reminded me that we have several Pecan trees in our neighborhood... here's a big one across the street.

We've eaten many of those when the harvest is especially good.   Wonder how it's doing this year? hmmm.

    There are several old pecan orchards around town, mostly just individual trees now as development is swallowing them up.  If you are lucky enough to have a nut tree, enjoy the harvest!  If you have one on your lot and it isn't doing well, perhaps Lee can help you save it... or save your house from one of those big limbs.  If you would like to add some nut trees to your landscape, he can advise you on what might work best in your situation.

The Children's Living Library

Saturday September 18th was the grand opening of the new Children's Living Library.

                Kristen Kualavich, Sustainability officer for the city of Madison, organized the efforts surrounding the project and provided the following information.  

       The Children's Living Library at our Madison Public Library will be the first of its kind that we know of in Alabama. It will feature things like a life size Scrabble board, mini-amphitheater for story time, Madison County soil history and display, veggie garden, boat dock with ship, etc. The scenes in the garden will be tied in to the library with our take on storybook themes like Charlotte's Web and Where the Wild Things Are.

        The garden will be free to enter and open to everyone. Lessons in sustainability and the environment, gardening, art, and music are just a few of the topics that will be taught in the garden. We have a great team of partners that are helping to host these events. Some are the Madison County Beekeepers Association, the Huntsville Botanical Garden, the Madison Gardening Club, the Madison Beautification and Tree Board, and the Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District. Professional landscape architect Lori Severin with 4Site, Inc donated the design of the garden.

    Our theme for the garden is "every child is a story yet to be told". Kristen views this garden as an opportunity for children to learn and explore, for us to help prepare them for their future...to help them tell their stories. Each young person is our next teacher, doctor, councilperson, pastor, nurse, president, engineer, etc. Their success will ultimately be our success as a community!!!

Well done, Madison!

WORM POO?

I had an opportunity a couple of weeks ago to visit with James Steele at Green Leaf Organics, LLC - (256) 714-8292 4153 HWY 72 East, Huntsville, AL 35741. He is excited to offer one of the finest amendments you can put in your soil to help increase fertility and biological activity.
He offers the following explanation of the different “worm poo” you may find on the market.

Vermicompost- Worms are added to the material to be composted. They eat the material as it rots. The worms excrete castings, worm dung, into the material as they eat it. In vermicomposting the material is separated from the worms before the worms eat all the material. This results in a very good quality compost/worm casting mixture.

Worm castings- what comes out the South end of a North bound worm. To get worm castings you have to start with a bedding material. Greenleaf Organics uses a humus infused soil. Then you add food or a material to be composted. The worms are left in the material long enough to have consumed the bedding and the material. Greenleaf Organics then sifts the castings to remove any remaining material or bedding that was not consumed. This process results in a very high quality natural fertilizer.

As you rebuild your garden soil for the fall/winter season, you may want to add some of this wonderful material to help restore fertility and improve your soil tilth. Foodscapes uses this product in our personal gardens and in our installations…and we gladly pay full price!

Lee

THE CORNER FARM

        At the corner of Whitesburg and Bob Wallace…there is a little farm. You missed it? Well, it is hiding behind a fence, but you can glimpse it if you are waiting at the light in just the right place.


     Melissa Anderson opened her low cost clinic  in 2008 and decided she wanted to help her clients eat healthier by example. She has built beds and hauled in dirt and planted and now has enough that she runs a small farmer’s market .

I love the raised beds!

      You can go by and visit CityGarden, Inc. - Mon-Fri 11:00-4:30, closed Thursday. They are currently selling out of the lobby of the clinic. 


     She’s opening  a group home for the developmentally disabled later this year and the garden will be a sheltered workshop for them.  She’d also like to have an outdoor summer resturaunt in the garden area that cooks food from the garden served with a little wine and beer!  
     A quick peek around tell us that watermelons and cantaloupe are about to come in and pumpkins are in the ground, we can't wait til fall!

GentleVoice

Community Garden Gathering

A little slow getting this up, but here it is ~ a tale of three gardens... Monte Sano Community Garden, Lowe Mill Community Garden and the CASA Garden!



NA Food Policy - Community Garden Workshop from Kay L Detter on Vimeo.

Thanks to all the participants and to Kay Detter for the great job on the video!

Are You Driving on Your Old Roof ?

     Whitaker Contracting of Guntersville has been recycling discarded roofing shingles for around a year now. One of the main ingredients in a shingle is a form of asphalt. Whitaker Contracting is shredding the shingles at 3 locations in North Alabama, mixing the reclaimed product with new asphalt and surfacing roads with the mixture. The state of Alabama allows a road mix to contain up to 3 % in recycled shingles.



        Asphalt is by-product of the refining process of turning crude oil into the products we use in our cars every day. Asphalt is what is left in the bottom of the refining tower when the process is finished. The escalating cost of oil has raised the cost of asphalt and the cost of surfacing a road.
      Whitaker Contracting accepts shingles at their plants in Douglass, Summit and Guntersville. They do ask for and only accept clean loads of shingles at their plants. Mixed loads mean separation of the materials will be required and of course that takes time and money. Contractors are usually happy to bring a pre-separated load to avoid paying the tipping fee that would have been charged by the landfill. The roofing contractor saves $25 - $60 per ton, the landfill has a little less refuse at the end of the day and the resulting product is no longer wasted but reused in a constructive application.
           In April, the Solid Waste Disposal Authority (SWDA) and Whitaker Construction began a cooperative arrangement to recycle asphalt shingles at the Huntsville Landfill. Shingles delivered to SWDA’s landfill are set aside in a designated area within the construction & demolition disposal cell. When sufficient quantities of shingles are collected, Whitaker Construction brings equipment in and grinds the shingles into a granular product which is then used by Whitaker in paving North Alabama roads.

             Approximately 660 tons of old shingles have been saved from landfill disposal within the past two months. Whitaker is currently taking the extra time to separate debris from the shingles at the Huntsville Madison County SWDA site for the contractors who are loading storm damage debris.

        Homeowners should make sure their roofing contractor is aware of the effort and ask them to take a clean load of shingles to the Whitaker sites or the Huntsville/Madison County Landfill.

         Hats off to Whitaker Construction and the SWDA for stepping up and leading a recycling effort in a meaningful way!

      For information, call the Solid Waste Disposal Authority, 256-880-6054.

Edited 7/6/11 to add information!    

Congregational Supported Agriculture (The Other CSA)

       Traditionally, churches or faith congregations reach out and serve those around them, meeting spiritual needs, of course, but also dealing with physical needs in the community. Food is a great way to fulfill both needs. The buying power of local churches can greatly impact the local food economy and allow your congregants to connect with farmers and those who are hungry in your community.

     So, how can a church get involved in supporting local fresh healthy food and ministering to those who grow and eat it? There are as many models as there are churches! Here are some ideas that are working across the country. After you’ve explored the options, create a plan that will work for your congregation. Large congregations, small ones, even individuals alone, can have a huge impact on the community, the lives of farmers and those who are hungry.

Model One: Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is also known as "subscription farming." You buy a subscription from a local farmer just like a subscription to a magazine, but instead of receiving a magazine each week; you receive a "share” a box or bag of fresh, locally grown or raised fruit and/or vegetables. Some CSA’s also offer farm-fresh eggs and/or meats.

           CSA’s are the simplest model and one that can start tomorrow, just encourage your congregation as individuals to join a local CSA. Enrollment is limited, but they may be able to add more in a couple of months with your commitment to buy.

          CSA’s are an excellent way for individuals to support local food production, but we can expand this concept to harness the buying power of groups. Churches large and small can focus their food dollars to support the growth of local healthy food for their members and the larger community. The church could buy “shares” to be delivered to the elderly / homebound or to low income members of the church to help them eat healthier. We urge you to look for truly local farms or farmer networks. This will cut down on travel time (and fuel!) for your produce as well as keep your dollars local. This model integrates well for churches that have Angel Food programs. Imagine having some fresh veggies or fruit to give out when folks come to pick up their boxes!

To find a CSA, visit localharvest.org or ask your co-workers and friends for references.

Model Two: A Church based Farmers market. The Church Of Nativity has opened the “Greene Street Market” this May in downtown Huntsville. Farmer’s markets work well for small acreage farmers and are a great way for value added products to be introduced to customers.

      A farmer’s market needs a customer base and farmers. Organizing and maintaining a farmers market is running a business. Someone has to be responsible for

Recruiting farmers,

Advertising the market,

Arranging for the market to be set up,

Deciding what ‘products’ can be sold and by whom

Clean up after the market

      Instead of ‘doing’ a farmer’s market, you may want to support a particular market close to your church. Encourage your congregation to buy there or perhaps fill a church van with people who need a ride to buy fresh healthy vegetables. You might consider buying leftover vegetables from a local market to donate to local ‘food for the hungry’ organizations.

For more information see the Alabama Farmer’s Market Authority

Model Three: Congregational contributions to a Bonus Bucks or Double up Coupon program.

      This program can have a major impact on healthy food choices. The idea is to match “food stamp” (now called “SNAP") spending at farmer’s markets with congregational donations. The church's contributions are used as bonus coupons and allow low income market customers to double their purchasing power. Experience shows these type programs really increase sales to the people who need fresh food most.
     Remember that this program also doubles sales for the local farmer. If this program is of interest to you, partner with a local farmers market and contact Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit founded by former Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services, Gus Schumacher, which provides the technical assistance necessary to implement a double value coupon Program.

Model Four: A Congregation based Buying club

       The idea here is to ‘pre-order’ food each week from a contracted farmer. It’s almost like a CSA but there is more customization involved. After committing to purchasing some minimum amount each week for the season, an order form would be available, say on Sunday, and the order would be delivered on Wednesday (for example).

    This type of program involves a lot of planning, AT LEAST 90 days in advance:

Choosing a farmer to work with

Product selection ~ what needs to be grown?

Determining how much your congregation will commit to buy

How the program will work (forms/how much time between order and delivery)

When and where deliveries can be made

How produce will be kept until picked up… etc

       This year you might want to sample and interview several farmers and choose someone to work with next year. You may end up working with a vegetable farmer and another farmer for meat and/or eggs.

Model Five: Community Garden

      Community gardens that survive long term have paid staff or VERY highly highly motivated and dedicated volunteers. Everyone wants to do this in the spring…but the heat of summer and the hard physical labor is tough. There is constant pressure from weeds and insects. People want to go on vacation; other programs compete for volunteer time.

If in doubt, buy food from the local farmer!

     That said, your congregation can grow thousands of pounds of produce each year on a typical church’s property. This would be a wonderful supplement to Angel Food boxes. Whether the food makes for a healthier congregation, better meals at a mission or improves the diet of elderly neighbors…your church will serve as a model for creation care and service. Volunteering at a local community garden is an excellent first step before committing to developing your community garden plan. If you decide a community garden won’t work, but you still have several ‘garden’ volunteers, look into programs around the community. The CASA garden on Bob Wallace always has work learning opportunities for whoever shows up!

For a list of community gardens in Huntsville, visit http://www.hsvgreenlink.com/storage/Community%20Garden%20Resource%20List.pdf and for more information about community gardens visit: http://www.communitygarden.org/learn/

Model Six: Give the Gift of a Garden.

      Getting fresh vegetables and hope into the hands of the “least of these” is the mission. You’ve heard of food deserts? It is important to get fresh vegetables into low income neighborhoods…but the most pressing need is for children to have access to healthy food. What if we could get every child who takes home a ‘nutrition pack’ for the weekend a garden of their own?

      Perhaps some members of your congregation could be mentors to a child and help with that individual garden once a week or so…perhaps others could commit money to buy tools, seed or other supplies… a congregation could adopt a whole street of gardens. Or work with a school full of children who do not receive proper nourishment over the weekend or during the summer, Morris Elementary recently started a school based garden, remember?
       Elderly people also need Garden Angels. Perhaps these seniors only need someone to till in the spring… or they might appreciate weekly help for those tasks that are just a little too hard. CASA of Madison County can help you identify home-bound seniors for your congregation to serve. Perhaps there are shut ins that used to attend your congregation who would be thrilled with a garden maintained by church members.

      What next? There are as many ways of supporting local food production and consumption as there are congregations…and these ideas can spread. Workplace and social groups are another “space” that can grow support for locally grown food in the local community. Buy local, eat local, serve local!



Clean Food Network - Your Real Local Farmers

I would like to tell you about some friends and mentors of mine, Dove and Russell Stackhouse, owners of Rusl n Doves farm in Geraldine. They are founding members of the Clean Food Network. They are also two of the best farmers in the South. Their love for the soil and their knowledge of plants and their ability to teach others is awe inspiring.

The Clean Food Network (CFN) is a network of 18 small to medium eco-friendly local farms. Eco-friendly means they strive to be sustainable and minimize the use of off farm inputs. It also means these farmers use regenerative techniques to build soil and improve the micro climates they impact through their farm operations. Most importantly it means Clean Food, food that has no synthetic pesticides on it. The physical removal of insects and the cultural practice of sanitation to remove infected or diseased plants is always the first choice of these farmers. As the CFN Farmers improve their soil each year the need to use pesticides, even the “organic” ones decreases.

I know all of this sounds to good to be true, but these folks are here, not on the West Coast. The CFN provides the highest quality, hand selected and picked produce year round. The network also provides grass fed beef, free range pork and lamb, chicken as well as eggs. These products contain no antibiotics or growth hormones. The network's farmers adhere to national standards or exceed them in actual practice.

CFN also provides you with value added products ranging from Cheeses and Jams, Baked Goods, to Soaps and Lotions. You can buy fair trade coffee ground and roasted locally. The proceeds from the coffee go to help Mayan women and children with education and health care.

The goals of the CFN are to provide the highest quality food, picked at the peak of it's nutritional value. The produce is usually less than 24 hours from the field. They strive to offer people choices beyond what the consolidated food system offers. The Clean Food Network's goal is not to just save family farms in the area, but to grow more farms to feed Huntsville and North Alabama. Sharing knowledge and experience to help new farms as well as farmers transitioning from conventional farming to sustainable, less toxic, soil building farming techniques. The network is working to broaden markets for local eco friendly farmers and to increase the number of sustainable farmers to maximize consumer choice.

The Clean Food Network farmers truly are your Real Local Farmers. Once you try Clean Food you will understand why so many customers say “Thank you for growing such good tasting food. This reminds me of the garden fresh vegetables my grandfather used to grow.”

To get started with CFN, click here. 

Meet Kay Detter

I had lunch with a lady I have known for a couple of years now.  We keep showing up at the same meetings and seminars.  Kay Detter has just recieved her LEED Accredited  ..Congratulations!

I have known Kay long enough to know she is totally dedicated to becoming a trusted source of information, an interface, if you will, between Green technology and the homeowner or the apartment dweller.  Kay has spent two years educating herself on the elements of the Sustainability and Green wave.  She now knows what works and why.  With some technologies "Green Washing" can occur.  Someone puts a positive spin on a product or service that may not be all that green.  Kay has taken a long hard look at the options we face as consumers.
Much of this information is available at her website HSVgreen particularly for Level I questions.  However, implementing many of the cost saving strategies can be a daunting task and is unique to each consumer, family and residence.  Kay is available at a reasonable fee to visit with you and simplify the myriad opportunities each of us has to become better stewards of our individual, and shared, resources.
Kay's advice is simple...have a plan and tackle one challenge at a time.

Check out HSVgreen.com or give Kay a call.  The time is right for Green Irene.

What are the neighbors doing?

I was driving through an older part of Huntsville to show my wife a property whose owners were offering me the opportunity to create an urban farm next to their home. Near the end of the street, we turned around for another look.

A house on the corner lot caught our eye as it was surrounded by curving beds with lots of perennials. Wait! I just saw a tomato plant, why there is okra too. Putting the truck in reverse I eased back to get a better view, sure enough this is a stealth edible landscape. Intermingled among the day lilies and hostas ( which are also edible) and hidden among the ornamental shrubs I saw tomatoes, squash, okra, and herbs, oh my herbs. They weren't easy to see but they were there. Grabbing a business card, I wrote a quick note for permission to take some pictures and ask a few questions. I went to the front door and left it hoping the owners would call me.

Judy Bobula called a few days later and most graciously allowed me the opportunity to visit with her and her husband George, and take a few pictures. The Bobula's primary reason for having the vegetables out front was a lack of light in the back yard. They had tried unsuccessfully to grow vegetables out back but they simply did not have enough hours of sunlight. They created the large perennial bed out front to take up lawn space and provide some flow to the yard, as well as provide balance to a magnificent dogwood out front.

The Bobulas started with crepe myrtles about 4 years ago and have moved several plants several times, growing their front yard garden slowly experimenting and having fun. Often, as beginning gardeners, they had no idea how a plant would adapt to a particular location and the light that spot afforded. The Bobula's have the attitude that if something doesn't work it is OK, and that plant that isn't happy or doesn't look quite right can always be moved or another found to take it's place.

The Bobula's are seeing more folks utilize vegetables and herbs in the landscape as well. Cabbages as ornamentals and Rosemary as a foundation planting are being seen more often. Judy mentioned that the President and First Lady's garden at the White House, the first garden there in over 40 years, has given people permission to plant and enjoy vegetables. George has been most pleased with the okra this year, the soil and light conditions in this years location have combined to give them the best tasting okra they have ever had. One thing they both agreed on was "you don't need as many tomato plants as you think", one year they had seven plants and were giving the excess bounty away on a regular basis.

When asked for advice they also both agreed " start small" and don't be afraid to try a new plant or to place an old favorite in an unconventional place.