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.



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.

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 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

New blog added!

I've enjoyed wandering over to Our Southern Table and have now added them to the sidebar.  Maybe someday we can visit!

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!

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.