Attention
all Mill Valley Children's Garden supporters: Sloat Garden Center is sponsoring
Growing Up Green Week, November 6 through 16, 2009. During this time, if
you bring in our Edna flyer
, a percentage of your
purchases will be donated to the Children's Garden by Sloat. The higher our
participation, the greater the benefit we will receive. So if you were
thinking about your fall and winter garden (good time to get trees for planting
when the rains start) or purchasing some garden tools or furniture, shop at
Sloat between November 6 through 16, 2009 and be sure to present them with our
Edna Flyer. Thanks for supporting the garden.
Sign up now to win the great Chili Cookoff of 2009 in either the meat or vegetarian category (or both). The Fall Harvest Festival is Sunday, November 8 from 12 - 4 pm. See poster here Chili Cook-Off flyer FINAL.pdf
This year's Fall Harvest Festival is coming this way Sunday, November 8th from 12-4 pm. We have lots of fun activities planned for the
whole family including fun-filled contests, like the chili cook off; pumpkin carving;
pie eating; and eat the hanging apple. Fun activities include pony rides,
an obstacle course, face painting, prize fishing, bottle game, potion making,
bird feeder building and planting seedlings for your winter garden. There
will also be a silent auction with donations from local restaurants and
merchants as well as a rolling cart garden-to-table cooking
demonstration. Food and beverages will be available including Grilly's
burritos, homemade chili, a bake sale and apple cider. This fun-filled
festival need lots of volunteer help. If you are interested in
volunteering, please contact Barbara Bleckman (barbaracrampton@comcast.net) or
Jen Sheetz (Jmsheetz@hotmail.com) to
sign up.
A quick post about the
gardening philosophy that I follow, sometimes called lazy/no work/no
till/lasagna gardening which is based upon sustainable principles found in
nature. Walk through a forest and notice the diversity of flora, fauna
and fungi happily co-existing with no human intervention (tilling, fertilizing,
irrigating, etc.). Nature creates fertile soil by slowly creating a
living mulch with fallen leaves, decomposing organic matter, animal/bird
droppings, etc. which feeds the soil from the top down. Nutrients slowly
seep into the soil and feed the plant canopy, while the natural blanket of
mulch retains soil moisture, regulates soil temperature and restricts weed seed
germination. The soil is rarely disturbed except in landslides, erosion
or fallen trees. When the soil is disturbed, nature rushes in to fill the
vacuum usually with fast growing "weeds."
In our gardens, we
can attempt to replicate this system by disturbing the soil as little as
possible (when soil is disrupted weed seeds come to the surface and soil health
is diminished). When crops are finished, they are removed as gently as
possible (cut the plants at soil level and allow the roots to compost in
place). When new crops are planted, mulch (hay, leaves, compost, etc.) is
applied as a top dressing around the new plants which will act as a weed
suppressant, a temperature regulator, water retainer, and, as it decomposes, a
fertilizer. Over time, this sustainable method builds better soil with
more nutrients while reducing the labor involved. Enjoy...
No-till Gardening
...less work can yield better results
By Greg Seaman Posted Jan
28, 2009
Gardeners traditionally dig, or turn over
the top layer of soil before planting to get rid of weeds, and make it easier
to use fertilizers and to plant crops. This also speeds up the decomposition of
crop residue, weeds and other organic matter. Tilling the soil is often the
most strenuous of a gardener's tasks.
A complex, symbiotic relationship exists between the soil surface and the
underlying micro-organisms, however, which contributes to a natural, healthy
soil structure. Digging into the bed can interfere with this process and
disturb the natural growing environment. It can also cause soil compaction and
erosion, and bring dormant weed seeds to the surface where they will sprout.
With 'no-till' gardening, once the bed is established the surface is never
disturbed. Amendments such as compost, manure, peat, lime and fertilizer are
'top dressed', i.e added to the top of the bed where they will be pulled into
the subsoil by watering and the activity of subsoil organisms. Weeding is
largely replaced by the use of mulch. By adding material in layers, the
underlying soil surface remains spongy, making it easy for the young roots of
newly planted seedlings to work through the soil. This is similar to the way
soil is formed in nature.
Benefits of no-till gardening
Promotes natural aeration and drainage.
Worms and other soil life are important to healthy soil structure, their tunnels
providing aeration and drainage, and their excretions bind together soil
crumbs. No-till systems are said to be freer of pests and disease, possibly due
to a more balanced soil population being allowed to build up in this
comparatively undisturbed environment, and by encouraging the buildup of
beneficial soil fungi.
Saves water.
Thick layers of mulch allow water to pass through easily while shading the
soil. This reduces water lost to evaporation while maintaining a moist growing
environment beneficial for root growth.
Reduces or eliminates the need to weed.
Most garden soils contain weed seeds which lay dormant until the soil is
disturbed and the seeds become exposed to light. With no-till gardening, these
seeds will remain dormant indefinitely. Of course, some weeds will appear in
the beds, borne by wind or birds. These weeds are easy to remove by hand if you
pull them early in the morning or shortly after watering, while the soil is
damp.
Saves time and energy.
Whether you turn your garden beds by hand or use a gas-powered rototiller,
you'll save energy by using the no-till method. Although some effort is
required in gathering materials for mulching, and applying the mulch during the
growing season, no digging or turning of the soil is required.
No-till gardening helps soil retain carbon.
Healthy topsoil contains carbon-enriched humus and decaying organic matter
that provides nutrients to plants. Soils low in humus can't maintain the
carbon-dependent nutrients essential to healthy crop production, resulting in
the need to use more fertilizers. Tilling the soil speeds the breakdown or
organic matter, which releases nutrients too quickly. A steady, slow release of
nutrients is more beneficial to plant growth.
Builds earthworm population.
The moist conditions of the soil beneath mulch creates the ideal environment
for earthworms, whose activity aerates the soil and stimulates root growth.
Helps reduce soil erosion.
A lack of carbon in soil may promote erosion, as topsoil and fertilizers are
often washed or blown away from garden beds.
Methods used in no-till gardening
Prepare the bed before adopting the no-till method.
With new garden beds you need to establish a good, fertile soil structure
before you can expect good results with the no-till/mulch method. The soil
should be 'double-dug' at least the depth of two shovel blades, and large
rocks, roots and other obstructions removed. Be sure to remove any perennial
weed roots. Amendments such as peat, lime, vermiculite, compost or other
organic material can then be worked into the soil.
Use mulch liberally, in layers.
Mulch is an essential part of no-till gardening. A thick layer of mulch will
keep the soil from drying out and crusting over, which restricts nutrient and
water flow to the subsoil. It also reduces water loss due to evaporation. Mulch
will provide cover for soil insects and often dramatically increases the
earthworm population. However, mulches can also introduce weeds to your garden
bed. For example, try to use straw instead of hay because fewer weed seeds are
found in straw. Leaves, especially from deciduous species such as Maple, add
valuable nutrients to the soil but should not be layered too thickly. Thick
layers of leaves can form 'mats' which restrict water penetration and harbor
insects. You can intersperse layers of straw with leaves, for example, to
prevent matting.
When planting seedlings, pull the mulch back and dig into the surface just
enough to set the plant.
The depth of mulch can be only a few inches when seedlings are first planted,
then added in layers as the plant grows. Pull mulch away from the stems of
tomatoes, peppers and long-stemmed plants. Beds left over winter can benefit from
mulch 12″ - 24″ in depth.
The following lists common materials used for mulches:
Grass
Clippings - Cut grass before it goes to seed. Fresh
'green' clippings will add nitrogen to the soil, which helps plants grow.
If you let the clippings turn brown, you will get the mulch effect without
adding nitrogen. (As plants begin to fruit, nitrogen should not be added.)
Newspaper
- Avoid using paper with colored inks; can blow away in the wind.
Yard
waste - Cut up any branches or woody material.
Compost
- Needs to be 'finished' compost so as not to attract pests. Compost is a
good early season mulch, but as the plant begins fruiting, you should
withhold sources of nitrogen.
Hay
- Good mulching material but beware - weed seeds may be introduced.
Straw
- Good source of carbon; excellent mulching material.
Seaweed
- Adds trace minerals, deters slugs. Should be applied liberally because
seaweed shrinks considerably when dry.
Fine
bark - Can be acidic. You may need to add lime at the same
time.
Wood
Shavings - Avoid shavings from chain saws or tools that
leave oil residues.
Leaves
- A valuable source of carbon, leaves make excellent mulch. Apply in thin
layers, or intersperse with other materials to prevent matting. Sprinkle
soil on top if needed to prevent leaves from blowing away in a strong
wind.
Forest
duff - Pine needles, twigs, woody bits are useful, but can
be acidic.
'Top dress' amendments.
Even a well-established garden bed will need regular amendments added during
the growing season, and in spring and fall. Compost, peat, lime, wood ashes and
other material are easily added to the bed without digging them in. Spread this
material around the plants where needed, and add mulch to cover.
Cut back on watering.
The use of mulch retains moisture, thereby reducing the need for frequent
watering. Reduced watering also helps minimize soil compaction and the
germination of unwanted weeds. Drip-irrigation techniques are very helpful in
this regard because water is delivered to root zones, without being wasted on
unplanted areas or pathways.
Cover crops
These can be planted during the off-season for a garden bed as a way of
discouraging weeds from becoming established, and to return essential nutrients
to the soil. Crops such as crimson clover, oats, rye and hairy vetch are
referred to as 'green manures' because of the fertility they add to the soil.
Rye should not be planted preceding small-seeded crops like onions or carrots.
To replant a bed which has been planted in a cover crop, lay dark plastic
sheeting over the bed and weight down the edges with rocks. Heat will build sufficiently
to kill the plants, then vegetable seed or transplants can be set out after
removing the plastic. Ideally, allow two weeks before planting to allow crop
residues to break down, releasing nitrogen for the new seedlings. This method
takes time, however, and can conflict with the spring planting schedule.
Another method is to hand pull the cover crop where you want to place the
seedlings, and cover the remaining cover crop with a thick layer of mulch.
Another method is the cut the cover crop to a stubble, then gently work the
stubble into the soil with a hoe. This process compromises the 'no till'
method, but can still be sufficient to allow early planting.
Winter cover with hay.
A simpler alternative to planting cover crops is to place a thick layer of
straw and leaves over the garden beds for the winter months. This layer needs
to be deep, as much as 2′ deep, to keep weeds for sprouting. In the spring, the
pile will be lower. When ready to plant, the mulch can be simply pulled back to
dig the hole with a hand spade for the plants. Some gardeners report this
method encourages voles and other pests who nest in the straw and burrow into
the soil. It is best to experiment with this method on a small part of your
garden to ensure its effectiveness in your growing region.
Avoid compacting the soil.
Avoid stepping on the bed, as this compacts the soil. If the bed is wider
than 4′, a board or stepping stones can be set in place on the bed. If a board
is used, flip it over occasionally to allow the underside to dry out and to
expose any slugs or snails.
It should be noted that "no-till" does not mean "no-work". As the mulch
breaks down and settles into the soil, new mulch needs to be added. This should
be done in a timely way, because if the soil surface is exposed to direct
watering, and heavy rain, it compacts. You may need to break up (till) the soil
before planting the next crop, and this defeats the purpose of the no-till
method.
In conclusion, no-till gardening requires some experimenting to find the right
techniques for your growing region. Ideally, one or two 'extra' beds in the
garden can be used for testing cover crops and spring planting methods. Over
time, the remaining garden beds can be transitioned to no-till. If you have a
good supply of mulching materials and reapply them as necessary throughout the
growing season, you can enjoy the benefits of a productive garden with less
work in the spring, less weeding and less water used throughout the summer.
References:
One-Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka
The Secret Garden, by David Bodanis
Gardening without work: for the aging, the busy, and the indolent, by Ruth
Stout, Lyon Press (1998)
Weedless Gardening, by Lee Reich, published by Workman Publishing (2001)
Lasagna Gardening
By Patricia Lanza
If someone told me years ago that he or she had found a way to do an end run
around the sweat equity of traditional gardening, a way around digging,
weeding, and rototilling, a way to produce more regardless of time constraints,
physical limitations, or power-tool ineptness... well, I would have checked
that person for a head injury. Yet such a system is actually possible, though I
never would have believed it if I hadn't stumbled upon the basics myself.
Lasagna gardening was borne of my own frustrations. After my husband retired
from the U.S. Navy, we began our next period of work as innkeepers. When the
demands on my time became so great that I could no longer do all that was
required to keep both the business and the garden going, the garden suffered.
I'd plant in the spring, then see the garden go unattended. I needed a way to
do it all.
Just when I was about to give up, it happened: a bountiful harvest with no
work. I'd planted, late again because of a late spring. And again, when the
seasonal demands of the business began claiming all of my time, my plantings
were forgotten. In midsummer, I made a much belated foray into the garden. I
had to hack through a jungle of weeds to find the vegetable plants--but what a
payoff! I discovered basketfuls of ripe tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers,
and egg plant. True, there were also basketfuls of rotted, overgrown, and
unusable vegetables (the product of neglect), but the abundance was truly
amazing.
To gain some measure of control that year, I simply stomped the weeds flat
in between rows and put down cardboard boxes to walk on. The harvest continued,
with carrots, onions, garlic, and potatoes persisting among the weeds. Stout
stems of collard greens pushed the plants up to tower above the mess, despite
the native morning glory that tried to hold back growth. Lower-growing Swiss
chard also persevered, though I had to cut out the shriveled leaves and pull a
few weeds to get to the good growth.
Flower seeds, planted in a border around the garden in the spring, came up
and bloomed. As I poked about that messy old garden, I found patches of basil,
parsley, sage, and thyme that had done battle with weeds and grass and won. I
was suddenly very excited about the possibilities.
And the timing couldn't have been better. The inn had caught on, making my
time in the garden more limited. And, as much as I hated to admit it, I was
getting older and losing some strength. I was by then living and working alone,
so there was no one to run the tiller. I bought a smaller model but couldn't
cope with cleaning the carburetor and mixing gas and oil.
Inspired by my no-work harvest, late that fall I began my first attempt to
make and maintain a garden without digging or tilling. Using no power tools and
little more than what was at hand, I layered for the first time. A neighbor's
son had promised to bring me a load of horse manure in a spreader in exchange
for pizza and sodas for himself and his friends. This seemed like a fair
exchange to me. I removed all the cardboard from the paths and gave him access
to back the spreader right up to the garden. He spread about four to six inches
of fresh manure on the entire plot. I waded in and covered it with a layer of
peat moss.
In the spring I had more weeds (smart weed, pig weed, dumb weed) than ever
before, but they were easy to stomp down. I covered the garden paths with
cardboard, then set about hand-pulling weeds from the garden spaces, easily
keeping them clear just long enough to plant. Once the plants were in, I
mulched with compost and peat moss. As the plants grew, I mulched with grass
clippings and more peat moss. My garden spaces were smaller with wider paths,
and I planted closer. I expected that as the plants grew they would crowd out
the weeds. To plant seeds, I created a weed-free planting space with a mixture
of peat moss, sand, and sifted compost laid on top of the rather untidy garden
base.
The business--a country inn and restaurant--was year-round, but from July 4th
to Labor Day I danced as fast as I could to keep up with the heavy seasonal
trade. By midsummer, I found myself once again ignoring the garden. Yet, once
again, the garden produced more than I expected, though it was still weedy and
messy.
There was something missing. I knew I could control the weed growth with
plastic or landscape material, but it wasn't what I wanted. I needed a ground
cover that would suppress weeds, deteriorate, be easy to come by, and cost
nothing. As I lugged tied bundles to the curb for recycling, I found my answer:
newspaper.
ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO LAYER
That fall, I covered the entire garden: the paths with new cardboard and
bark chips and the garden spaces with two or three sheets of wet newspaper and
peat moss, layered with grass clippings and chipped leaves. It was looking
good. In fact, it was beautiful-neat and beautiful!
In the spring, I pulled the weedless layers of dark, rich soil aside, right
down to the newspaper, and planted.
I took time to add compost, peat moss, and grass clippings as mulch to the
plants. It was some year--a great harvest, few weeds, and no work to speak of.
That's when I began to think about a garden built on top of the sod, requiring
none of the traditional preparation: no lifting the sod, no digging or tilling,
just neat layers of organic ingredients left to decompose over the winter.
Once I found the spot--a level, grassy parking lot near a water source--I drew
a sketch of a garden of herbs and flowers in a formal Williamsburg design. It
was all about measuring: two-foot garden spaces and three-foot paths, all
leading to a circle at the center with space for a sundial and thyme garden.
While waiting for my daughter, Melissa, and surveyor son-in-law, Bill, to stake
out the lines, I stockpiled the ingredients: newspapers, flattened cardboard
boxes, wood chips, compost, grass clippings, leaves, rotted barn litter, old
hay, horse manure, sand (left over from a building project), and bags of soil
amendments bought on sale at the garden center.
When Bill was through with the survey and gutter nails were tied with bright
survey tape at corners, I connected them with string.
Next, I laid cardboard on the paths and covered the cardboard with bark
chips. I then covered the garden spaces with thick layers of wet newspaper,
overlapping the ends, and covered the paper with one to two inches of peat
moss. Then I laid a three- to four-inch layer of dried grass clippings over the
peat moss and added another one or two inches of peat moss. I continued to
alternate layers of waste material and peat moss. Midway through, it struck me
that the peat moss was akin to the cheese layer in a real lasagna.
By the time I was finished with all the material I had collected, the garden
spaces were 24 or more inches high, and it was well into November. I worked at
the last of it until late in the day and quit only when I felt snow covering my
head and shoulders. Just before walking away, I sprinkled a dusting of wood
ashes on top of the layers. It was like the parmesan cheese you add to the top
of a real lasagna just before you put it in the oven.
This was all done on top of the sod--without lifting, digging , or tilling.
IS IT SOUP YET?
My winters at the inn were long and cold. Snow covered the top of the
mountain from November until late April. When I took the first spring walk in
the gardens, I carried a trowel to check on the frost depth. I poked about in
the earth in gardens from the front of the inn to the back by the barn, leaving
the layered garden till last. Eventually I found myself standing in front of
the new garden. What had been two feet of layered soil amendments was now just
about six or eight inches high. I pushed the trowel down through rich, black
soil to the paper layer and found most of the sheets gone and another five to
six inches of loose earth below. I could plant anything in this much loose
material. The lasagna layering had worked beautifully!
When the weather finally warmed, I pulled the soil apart in the new garden
and planted herbs and flowers. I continued mulching each time I cut the grass.
That's it! No other work---no weeding, no watering, nothing! I couldn't believe
how the plants thrived and how easy it was. I didn't need to worry about garden
chores during my busy season anymore.
The guests at the inn admired the new garden, and I shared the process. The
old vegetable garden, previously kept hidden, was now a showplace. Folks who
admired my gardens could see they were weed-free. I told everyone about the
lasagna method, but I could see that few really got it. They either didn't believe
me or had no grasp of what it all meant. But I knew. It meant I could be a
really good gardener and still be able to keep up with the demands of being an
innkeeper. It meant I could put the rototiller up for sale. Best of all, I
stopped worrying about getting older and not being able to keep it all going by
myself. I could have it all!
For those who are in doubt, I suggest you take a walk in the forest and
renew your relationship with Mother Nature. She is the original lasagna
gardener, though not as neat as me. In nature, debris drops to the forest
floor, and without any help from man, creates layers of dark, rich humus. Tree
and wildflower seeds fall into the debris-turned-humus, sprout, and grow.
Unless you live in the forest, you probably want a neater, more organized
garden. But to have any kind of garden--neat or otherwise--you first need good
soil. Traditionalists would agree on the good soil premise and either crank up
the tiller or get out the cultivator. My neat layers promote good soil without tillers
or cultivators. You take the first step by simply covering the earth, creating
a moist dark place where earthworms will come. Once you see worm activity, you
know you're on the right track to having good soil. All additional layers of
organic material encourage and feed the earthworm population. Worms are
nature's rototillers.
But wait: what about the Ruth Stout advocates who say, "So what? It's
all been done before." Well, perhaps I am Ruth Stout reincarnated, only
neater, and with some fundamental differences. I don't just use spoiled hay on
top of a garden that has been plowed every year for 30 or 40 years. I layer
right on top of sod, flattened weeds, or between rocks. I don't throw all the
refuse back on top of the hay. I tuck unsightly waste under the paper, both for
worm food and to keep it out of sight. Also, I don't have to worry a whole lot
about snakes or rodents. I don't like to share too much of my space with
either, and they do love that loose hay. Last, I never take my clothes off in
the garden, no matter how much I would like to.
LASAGNA-MAKING 101
Before you buy the first plant, or lay down the first sheet of wet
newspaper, take a look around your property. Check to see where you get the
best light; that's where you'll put your garden. Decide on the shape and
contents of your garden. The size of your plot will determine how much material
you need to make your first lasagna. Your material list will change depending
on where you live. Some folks have more leaves than others, some have seaweed,
others ground cornstalks or apple pulp. Some of the lucky ones have access to
animal manure.
There's no hard and fast rules about what to use for your layers, just so
long as it's organic and doesn't contain any protein (fat, meat, or bone).
Before I go any further, let me just say that the basics of making garden
lasagnas are simple:
You need less loose material to plant in than you might think. In the spring
of '98, I layered an area where a dog pen had stood for years. The property
belongs to a 79-year-old man who was upset about his inability to garden as he
once had. Until recently, a 100-year-old white pine tree had occupied the
center of the fenced-in area. But its roots had begun to do real damage to my
friend's house and surrounding properties, and so the tree had to be taken
down.
Once the tree was removed, the area was bright and sunny, but,
unfortunately, the ground contained 100 years worth of layered pine needles.
First, we covered the area with lime, then laid whole sections of wet
newspaper on top of the pine needles and covered the paper with peat moss. We
bought a small truckload of barn litter mixed with our local clay soil and
covered the peat with two inches of this mix and then two more inches of peat
moss. Additions of one to two inches of grass clippings, two inches of peat
moss, one to two inches of compost, and more peat gave us a total of about six
to eight inches to plant in.
We pulled the layers apart and planted 31 tomato plants, four squash, six
cucumber, four basil, two rosemary, four parsley, and twelve cosmos. It was a
jungle, but with staking, pruning, and tying, the garden produced so much fruit
that the entire neighborhood helped eat the harvest, and the cosmos were so
beautiful they took our breath away.
Once the harvest was finished, I pulled the stems and disturbed the layers
for the first time. Pieces of the paper layer came up with the roots. So, too,
did the biggest earthworms you can imagine. The soil was still probably a bit
acidic, but it will get better in time.
To prepare the new garden for another year of planting, we spread the
contents of a large composter onto the space, and the garden took on several
inches in height. The last mowing of grass provided enough clippings to add
another few inches. When the fall came, we mowed the leaves for a top dressing
of four inches of chipped leaves. I love an edged garden and so the last thing
I did was cut a sharp, clean border around the sides, throwing the edging
material up onto the garden, with grass side down, for another layer of more
good dirt. It looked beautiful!
Close planting and mulching greatly reduced the amount of weeds in the dog
pen garden, as they do in all my gardens. It also meant less watering, since
the paper and mulch kept the soil around the root zone cool. Even though we
pushed it a bit by planting 31 tomato plants, the staking, tying, and pruning,
in addition to close planting, created a healthy growing environment, with few
garden pests. It was another test, and the results have left my friend
confident that, as he enters his 80th year, he will be able to continue
gardening with the lasagna method.
Indeed, lasagna gardening is so simple that the hardest part may be getting
started. I suggest beginning with that walk around your property to determine
what you can do with what you have. If you get lots of shade, plant a shade
garden or cut some tree limbs. Track the light for a couple of days during the
spring and summer. You probably have more light than you think--not sun, but
light. Lots of rocks? Try rock gardening. You might learn to love the wonderful
world of small plants that thrive in rocky terrain. Too little space? Look
again. If there's a foot of space, you can plant in it.
There's no such thing as work-free gardening, but the lasagna method is
close. Once you train yourself to think layering, and learn to stockpile your
ingredients, you will work less each year.
Following are some of my favorite vegetables, along with tips on how I grow
them the lasagna way:
ASPARAGUS
Many gardeners shy away from this tasty crop, mainly because it's difficult
to grow through traditional means. Not so with lasagna gardening. I still
remember the first year I planned my asparagus patch. Turned out to be one of
my best vegetable trials yet. For fun, I grew a tray of plants from seed,
started indoors in February. In early spring, I added the small seedlings to
the assembly of roots--one, two, and three years old--that I had accumulated to
plant together.
Using a mattock blade, I scraped a shallow opening in a newly made lasagna
bed, an inch or two deep. I combined the roots and seedlings in the opening and
covered them with a sifting of soil and peat moss. Once the roots were planted,
I covered the top of the row with a mixture of manure and peat moss.
As the roots sprouted and grew, I added sifted compost and grass clippings.
In the fall, I added more manure and a thick layer of chipped leaves for winter
mulch.
During the first spring, I watched the asparagus emerge and grow. I invited
inn guests into the garden to help me cut and eat the first tender stalks. Then
I mulched, mulched, then mulched some more.
The second spring, I cut so much asparagus we had some to freeze. It was all
so easy: plant, mulch, harvest, and enjoy.
Site and soil. A heavy feeder, asparagus needs well-drained
soil and at least six hours of sun. The fall before planting, build a lasagna
garden on the site you've chosen for your asparagus, using a base of newspaper
topped with 18 to 24 inches of layered organic material. By spring, the lasagna
bed will have composted to ideal soil conditions for asparagus.
Planting and harvest. The time is right when the soil is
thawed and crumbles in your hand. Plant in rows two feet apart in two shallow
trenches, with a rise in between. This lets the crowns sit on top of the rise,
with the roots in the trenches. Plants should be 18 inches apart and covered
with two to three inches of soil and compost mixture.
As the plants grow during the summer, continue covering with the compost
enriched mixture until crowns are four inches deep.
In the fall, cover the entire bed with a blanket of eight to ten inches of
chopped leaves or other organic mulch. Each spring, feed the bed compost
enriched with manure. In colder regions, pull the mulch back on half the bed to
get an extra early harvest, saving half the bed for later harvesting. Once the
harvest is over, the remaining shoots expand into ferny top growth. When the
ferns turn bronze, cut them back.
BEANS
I usually wind up planting many more beans than I actually need. But with so
many varieties--all so much types to grow--who can resist!
Once the last chance of frost is past, plant your favorite bean seeds.
Divide your seeds into thirds and plant every two weeks for a longer harvest.
Once I have a lasagna bed in place, I plant bush bean seeds along the edges.
They only need a few inches, since the plants will lean out over the sides of
the garden, leaving room for taller crops.
I plant pole bean seeds around the base of teepees made from six-foot bamboo
poles. Plant seeds around the base of each pole, and when they start to climb,
give them a boost up the trailing twine you have tied from the top.
Site and soil. Beans grow best in well-drained soil that's
high in organic matter. A new or established lasagna bed in full sun works best
for all types.
Planting and harvest. Fix supports in place before planting
pole bean seeds. For both types, pole and bush, just push the seeds into loose
soil about two inches apart. Cover the seeds and press the soil around them for
direct contact.
Keep the soil evenly moist until seeds emerge, then cover the soil with a
good mulch to keep the soil cool, the leaves clean, and the garden weed-free.
To avoid rust, don't work beans when foliage is wet. Once beans start to
appear, keep crop picked to encourage new bloom. Rotate crops every year to
avoid pests and disease.
CUCUMBERS
Bush cucumbers can be grown in small spaces and containers. Climbing
cucumbers need strong support, so plant close to a fence or trellis. I like the
climbers and try to see what kind of new supports I can come up with each year
to make the garden more interesting. I loved the string cradles we tied to a
stockade fence one year. The vines grew up strings hanging down into the row,
then up the string cradles and onto the fence.
Site and soil. Cucumbers need good drainage and rich soil.
Lasagna gardens are just the thing, when enriched with fresh manure. However,
wait three years before planting in the same place to avoid pests and disease.
Planting and harvest. Wait until the last frost is past,
then plant prestarted seeds covered with floating row cover in colder regions,
and seeds sown directly in the garden in milder climates. Keep mulched and
don't till, as cucumbers are shallow rooted. Maintaining at least six inches of
mulch at all times keeps the roots cool and moist, but they still need an inch
of water each week. Pick the fruit when it's small and most flavorful. Once the
harvest starts, don't miss a day, or you'll have candidates for the compost
pile instead of the salad bowl.
GARLIC
If you've never tried growing garlic, you've missed something special. I
make a rich lasagna bed, let it cook for four to six weeks under black plastic,
set strings up to keep my rows straight, and push in single cloves just enough
to see they are covered. When the foliage is full and seed heads form, I cut
and use them just as I would cloves. When the foliage turns yellow or brown,
it's time to lift the garlic.
Loosen the earth and gently shake off any dirt. Let the cloves cure by
hanging them in a dry place. The individual cloves will each make a head, so
you will have plenty to use, as well as to save for next year's seed.
Site and soil. Good drainage, full sun, and plenty of
manure-rich compost are best. A well-built lasagna bed has the perfect growing
conditions to start, then all you have to do is add grass clippings or chipped
leaves for mulch to keep the soil evenly moist and weeds at a minimum.
Planting and harvest. Gardeners in the Northeast and zone 5
and colder climates will get best results from hard-neck garlic planted in the
fall and harvested the next summer. Milder climates can grow soft-neck; plant
in the spring and harvest that same fall.
If you haven't room for an entire bed just for garlic, plant some in groups
of three to five cloves in flower or vegetable beds. Folks who have bug
problems swear by the positive effect garlic has on its companions.
LETTUCE
Anyone can grow lettuce. The problem is most folks grow too much at one
time. Use a little restraint and make successive plantings. Mix lettuce seed
with sand so you will not have to do so much thinning. I broadcast a mixture of
cut-and-come-again lettuce once a month for the duration of growing time for my
zone.
Site and soil. Lettuce likes it cool and so is ideally
suited for spring and fall plantings. I use other taller plants to shade my
lettuce in summer. It's best to prepare a site for lettuce in the fall, adding
a high nitrogen amendment (such as fresh grass clippings) to the top two inches
of soil.
Planting and harvest. Lettuce is a fun crop to grow in
containers, as borders, and in tiny spaces that would only go to waste
otherwise. There's really no safe place to hide when I start looking for places
to plant. I've planted Ruby Red and Oakleaf lettuce in my herb and edible
flower containers and flower boxes. I interplant herbs and lettuce in the
border gardens that surround my antique roses. The Mesclun mixes are wonderful
in big terra cotta saucers that stand alone in part shade.
When guests come for dinner, I give them a colander and a pair of scissors
and point them toward the garden. They come back with an interesting collection
of edibles and never forget the experience. Lots of good gardeners start out by
getting their feet dirty in someone else's garden.
POTATOES
No need to dig trenches or to hill up. Build a lasagna bed to eliminate
grass and weeds, don't use any lime or nitrogen rich materials (such as grass
clippings), lay down one or two sheets of wet newspaper, lay seed potatoes on
top of the paper, and cover with spoiled hay or compost. You can use pretty
much anything you have that is dried. Chipped leaves are great for covering the
tubers. I use hay that is well-cured and lying next to my potato bed, so I
don't have to carry it too far.
Site and soil. Potatoes need full sun, good drainage, and
can tolerate acid soil. Preparing a lasagna bed and adding bone meal or rock
sulfate produces a good harvest and large tubers. Avoid planting potatoes where
you have grown them or their relatives (including eggplant, peppers, and
tomatoes) for the past three years.
Planting and harvest. Be ready to plant in early to mid
spring and have enough material to cover the bed with ten inches of mulch. Be
prepared to add several inches of cover to the bed as plants grow. The
important thing here is to keep the tubers covered so they will not see the
light of day. By the end of the growing period, the plants will be propped up
with hay or other soil amendments.
Slip your hand under the mulch to harvest a few small potatoes when the
beans are ready to pick. Let the rest continue growing until the foliage has
yellowed. Don't try to dig! Lift the mulch and pick the clean tubers up off the
newspaper.
Be on the watch for potato bugs. Try to catch them when they are small.
Sweep across the foliage with a broom. They will fall into the mulch and, when
small, not be able to find their way back up to the leaves.
TOMATOES
The toughest part of growing tomatoes is choosing the kinds you will grow.
You'll likely want to plant several different varieties each year: there's
early, mid season, and late ones; tiny pear shaped, cherry, patio, plum,
slicing, and cooking varieties; plus, tomatoes for juice and for stuffing, not
to mention new types and heritage.
Site and soil. Tomatoes need full sun, an inch of water per
week, and protection from the wind. Ideal conditions are a lasagna bed that has
been around for at least a year and has not grown any of the relatives:
potatoes, eggplant, or other tomatoes.
I prepare my site by installing water jugs buried up to their shoulders
between where every two plants will be. A pin hole in the sides facing the
plans should let enough seep out to keep up consistent watering. I place a tall
stick in each jug, its top colored with red paint or nail polish. This helps me
find the sticks, which helps me find the openings to the jugs when all the
foliage hides them from view. I fill the jugs with a funnel and the water hose.
You can add liquid plant food to the water if you like.
Planting and harvest. Wait until after the last frost, then
plant the seedlings. Create a well of soil around the stem to help catch any
rain. If you have prepared the lasagna bed in advance, all you will have to do
is scrape the soil aside and lay the plant down up to the last four leaves.
Press the soil around the plant to make direct contact and push out any air
pockets.
Once the jugs and plants are in place, make a collar of one or two sheets of
wet newspaper, place it around the stem, and cover the paper with mulch.
Depending on the type of tomatoes you have chosen, you will need to stake, tie,
prune, and pinch. Keep the water jugs full and check plants regularly for bugs
or disease. Don't get impatient; tomatoes need lots of long hot sunny days and
warm nights. Again, depending on the cultivar you have chosen to grow, you can
look forward to your first harvest in 55 to 100 days after you set the plants
out.
And, oh, what a delicious harvest! I love tomatoes warm from the
garden-standing over the row, biting into one, the juice running off my chin,
dripping from my elbow, the acid tingling my tongue. It just doesn't get any
better than that.
Patricia Lanza is author of Lasagna Gardening, A New Layering
System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Kidding!
Why Are You Working So Hard? Blow Up Your Rototiller
California poppies (Eschscholzia
californica) are exquisite, self-sowing annuals found from Mexico to Oregon.
Billy Goodnick
The delicate canyon sunflower
(Venegasia carpesioides) thrives in the cooler environment of shaded coastal
arroyos.
Billy Goodnick
Sometimes called mountain lilac, the
Ceanothus species as a signature plant in the mountains and seaside cliffs of
much of California.
Billy Goodnick
California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) are exquisite, self-sowing
annuals found from Mexico to Oregon.
Photo: Billy Goodnick
A
commanding, metallic voice crackles over the bullhorn. "Step back from the
rototiller, get down on your knees, clasp you hands behind your head."
As
the terra-terrorist haltingly complies, a team of darkly clad commandos inches
forward on their bellies. Suddenly, with blinding speed, the well-rehearsed
ensemble kills the engine of the growling, grinding metal monster and swiftly
ushers the gardener into a waiting unmarked van. Their destination, the CGGRC
(Cool Green Gardening Re-education Center).
California poppies (Eschscholzia
californica) are exquisite,
self-sowing annuals found from Mexico to Oregon.
Scenarios
like this fire across my synapses more often than I'd care to admit. That's because
I have a strong emotional response when I see people ignoring one of the most
basic tenets of sustainable landscaping: Work with, not against, what nature
gives you.
That
includes your soil.
My
most recent "trigger" was an article in a local newspaper instructing reader
about creating "your perfect paradise garden." The writer used the usual "10
tips" approach, including "How to help your soil." Readers were told to dump
bags and bags of store-bought soil amendment into their beds to create a rich medium
for their plants. "That way," the writer enticed, "you can grow anything your
heart desires."
"Even
if it means you have to put the plant on life support," I thought.
Here's
my philosophy. How about designing with nature rather than working against it?
A
Lesson From Nature
Living
here in Santa Barbara, California, I look out at the Santa Ynez Mountains every
day. Acres and acres of native chaparral vegetation burst with shades of blue
Ceanothus flowers and entice with the rusty trunks of Manzanita.
I'll never tire of the golden
sandstone formations and rugged chaparral that hug the Santa Barbara coast.
Shimmering
golden California poppies dot the hillside in spring. Canyon sunflower brightens
the dappled shade along the arroyos.
Nature
does this with no help from me or anyone else, thank you very much. No one
turns on the sprinklers, spreads fertilizer or amends the soil. No weekly
gardener, no "projects" that consume your three-day weekends.
Here's
my philosophy about adding all that organic material to your soil: Go with the
flow. Why pay good money to add stuff to the soil, then rototill until the
natural, living community of unseen flora and fauna is churned into oblivion?
It's
Alive!
The delicate canyon sunflower
(Venegasia carpesioides) thrives
in the cooler environment of shaded coastal arroyos.
Many
gardeners are unaware of the billions of living organisms that inhabit a handful
of soil. An interconnected web of life. An ecology we cannot see.
Instead
of trying to change your soil, select plants native to your area. If these
don't give you the aesthetic palette you seek, draw from areas in the world similar
to yours. It stands to reason that there's somewhere in Europe or Asia or South
America with a climate and soil conditions just like yours. It also stands to
reason that plants from those regions will thrive in the same conditions as the
ones you already have.
Sometimes called mountain lilac, the
Ceanothus species as a
signature plant in the mountains and seaside cliffs of much
of California.
In
my coastal southern California climate, I design gardens using plants from
Chile, southwest Australia, South Africa, Italy, France, Spain, Libya, and my
home state. They're all adapted to my Mediterranean climate--dry summers, wet
winters and moderate temperatures. Most need little or no fertilizer, can get
by with minimal summer irrigation, and if I provide enough diversity, no pests.
I
work with what nature gives me and let the fittest survive. My clients are
overjoyed.
Best
of all, this approach helps me avoid a run in with those commandos holed up in
my frontal lobe.
The garden is made up of a rose garden entrance leading to
the Kindergarten raised beds (5). Through the arbor there are 22 more
raised beds on the left side of the path and a reading circle and bench,
pumpkin patch and butterfly garden on the right side. Along the
playground fence, there are citrus trees, blueberries, grapes and other berries.
Along the field fence, there are apple trees, mulberry tree, persimmon tree and
a kiwi teepee. At the end of the pathway, there is a berry patch,
followed by an artichoke bed. An apple and pear orchard is beyond with a
vegetable bed along the playground fence bordering the orchard. There is
a greenhouse on the other side of the orchard and worm bins and two compost
heaps past the orchard.
There are lots of volunteer opportunities in the garden, none
of which require gardening experience or expertise. The first Saturday of
every month (unless a holiday weekend) there is a garden workday, open to all
who want to come out and volunteer between 9 am - noon. The tasks changes
with the season but may include, weeding, planting, pruning and general
maintenance. This month's workday will be September 12.
Friends of the Garden (FOG) meets once a month, generally
the first Tuesday of every month (this month it will be September 8).
There is a meeting at 8 am for teachers and parents that can make it before
class and a second meeting following at 8:35 am for parents that can't make the
earlier time. The FOG meetings are open to anyone and are a general forum
to discuss things that are happening in the garden; problems that have arisen;
future projects; etc.
Each classroom will (hopefully) have a parent who will
volunteer as the garden parent. That parent will coordinate with the
teacher to take the students to the garden weekly to spend time in the garden
on various tasks. Weekly emails with suggested tasks and news about the
garden will be sent every Sunday to help garden parents plan their visit to the
garden.
Each classroom will also hopefully have a parent who will
volunteer to cook with students. That parent will harvest produce and
check out the portable cooking station, which includes a rolling cart, a
portable induction cooktop, cookware and a knife, scissors and cutting boards.
This year we are implementing a new plan in the
garden. Once the summer crops have finished, each grade level will be
assigned a garden bed. It will be up to the teachers and garden parents
for that grade level to communicate and collaborate on how they want to use
their shared garden plot. They may decide to divide the bed into
quadrants to be used separately by each class or they may choose to plant the
bed together and share all duties. The goal is to encourage cooperation
and communication and also to ensure that all beds are being maintained.
This will not apply to the Kindergarten beds.
The remaining 17 beds will be planted with individual crops
for use and tending by everyone. This will make it easier for people to
learn to identify the crops we use as they will be clearly labeled and there
will be no other plants in that bed and this will make available useful crops
for classroom cooking or the farmer's market.
Volunteer Opportunities:
Class Garden Parent
Class Cooking Parent
Fall Harvest Festival Committee (lots of volunteers needed -
Festival will be October 25)
Farmer's Market Volunteers (harvesting or selling)
Fundraising/Grant writing
Greenhouse volunteer
Compost volunteer
If you are interested in volunteering or have any questions,
please contact me.
If you haven't been in the garden yet this week, take a walk
in to admire the beautiful Compass Rose that Bruce and Linda Berlinger (BIG
GARDEN THANK YOU TO THE BERLINGERS!) created and installed in the garden to
honor our two wonderful, recently retired teachers, Christy Herrmann and Susan
Johnson. There will be a dedication at the upcoming Spring Garden Fair on
Sunday, May 31, at 1 pm. Here are some pix:
This month's Garden Workday is
scheduled for this Saturday, March 28 from 9 am to noon. The Third Grade
classes are sponsoring this workday so it is extra important for third graders
and their parents to make a strong showing. There will be lots of friends
to work and play with. As always, everyone is welcome and encouraged to
participate; no gardening experience necessary. Tasks include repairing
the greenhouse; amending the soil; sheet mulching the orchard; organizing the
tool shed; organizing the compost area; and much more. Whole Foods will provide
plenty of refreshments and breakfast snacks. Questions: contact Saor Stetler at sstetler@earthlink.net.
Three years after candidate George Bush told us he wanted to be remembered
as the "environmental President," he has done little to earn that
distinction -- unless one regards his catch-and-release policy on bonefishing
as a major environmental initiative.
We know the excuses by heart: A Treasury that is broke, an economy too
fragile to bear the weight of new environmental regulations and a skeptical
chief of staff, John Sununu, who remains unperturbed by the threat of acid
rain, ozone loss and the greenhouse effect.
Still, I'm inclined to take the President at his word when he voices his
concern for the planet. So I want to offer him a suggestion -- a simple,
constructive step that would save the Treasury money, impose no new burdens on
the economy and that even Mr. Sununu might endorse.
True, it is only a symbolic step, but its symbolism is so potent that it
could conceivably set off a revolution in consciousness -- just the sort of
revolution that may be needed if we are ever to strike a healthier relationship
between the American people and the American land.
I propose that, tomorrow morning, President Bush issue an executive order to
the Park Service to rip out the White House lawn.
I imagine that, at first blush, most Americans will be as disturbed by this
idea as I was. We are great lovers of lawn, and the White House rendition is
quite possibly the best there is. I have seen it up close. I have even run my
hand through that smooth, emerald crewcut, and can report that at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue there stands the platonic ideal of Lawn.
There is justice in this: We Americans have traditionally looked on our
front lawns as nothing less than an institution of democracy. Beginning in the
19th century, at the urging of such landscape designer-reformers as Frederick
Law Olmsted and Andrew Jackson Downing, we took down our old-world walls and
hedges (which they had declared to be "selfish" and
"undemocratic") and spread an uninterrupted green carpet of turfgrass
across our yards, down our streets, along our highways and, by and by, across
the entire continent.
Front lawns, we decided, would unite us, and, ever since, their maintenance
has been regarded as an important ritual of consensus in America, even a civic
obligation. Indeed, the citizen who neglects to vote is sooner tolerated -- and
far more common -- than the citizen who neglects to mow: in hundreds of
communities the failure to mow is punishable by fines. That's because our
quasi-public unhedged front yards all run together -- in a sense, the White
House lawn is contiguous with every other lawn in the land -- and the laggard
who neglects to tend his lawn spoils the effect for everyone.
The democratic symbolism of the lawn may be appealing, but it carries an
absurd and, today, unsupportable environmental price tag. In our quest for the
perfect lawn, we waste vast quantities of water and energy, human as well as
petrochemical. (The total annual amount of time spent mowing lawns in America
comes to 30 hours for every man, woman, and child.) Acre for acre, the American
lawn receives four times as much chemical pesticide as any U.S. farmland.
The White House has declined to tell me how much, or what kind, of chemicals
it applies to its lawn. But it doesn't take a Freedom of Information Act
request to figure out that this lush, supergreen and weed-free carpet is being
maintained with frequent, heavy doses of poison. For that reason alone, it
would make ample sense for this Administration to set an example and say no to
lawn drugs.
But the deeper problem with the American lawn, and the reason I believe the
White House lawn must go, is less chemical than metaphysical. The lawn is a
symbol of everything that's wrong with our relationship to the land. Lawns
require pampering because we ask them to thrive where they do not belong.
Turfgrasses are not native to America, yet we have insisted on spreading
them from the Chesapeake watershed to the deserts of California without the
slightest regard for local geography. Imposed upon the land with the help of
our technology, lawns encourage us in the dangerous belief that we can always
bend nature to our will. They may bespeak democratic sentiments toward our
neighbors, but with respect to nature the politics of lawns are totalitarian.
What we need is for the President to take the lead -- to stride out onto the
South Lawn, drive the sharp edge of his spade into that unnaturally plush sod
and toss the first chunk of White House lawn onto the compost pile. To do so
would constitute an act of environmental shock therapy.
The President's choice of a replacement for the White House lawn gives him
an unprecedented opportunity to reinvent the American front yard -- and, in the
process, promote a saner approach to the environment.
With that end in view, let me offer the President a few suggestions for the
new White House grounds:
Meadow.
By letting the lawn go and gradually allowing so-called "weed"
species to take hold, the White House lawn could be transformed into a meadow
that would require only a single annual mowing or scything. This is the
cheapest alternative.
I would recommend mowing a few paths through the tall grasses. One path
might lead to the Capitol, symbolizing a new spirit of common purpose; another
could form a spur to the Appalachian Trail, recalling us to the great beauty
and variety of the American landscape.
Wetland.
With the help of the Army Corps of Engineers, we could restore a portion of
the White House grounds to its original condition, which historians tell us was
wetland.
The political symbolism of the White House standing in the middle of what
used to be called swamp might be troubling to some, however apt. But we now
recognize wetlands as one of the richest and most crucial of habitats; a White
House wetland would express a fresh appreciation for the land's history and a
respect for the well-being of other species. One small but not insurmountable
problem would be figuring out where TV correspondents could safely tape their
nightly standups without having to don unstylish waders.
Vegetable garden.
Imagine an 18-acre victory garden on the grounds of the White House, managed
according to the highest organic principles. This garden, which need not
contain any broccoli, would stand as a paradigm of environmental
responsibility.
The White House has enough land to become self-sufficient in food -- a model
of Jeffersonian independence and thrift. Alternatively, a White House garden
could help supply food for Washington's poor. Depending which party is in
power, a few elephants or donkeys should be maintained for the purpose of
fertilization.
Orchard.
This is my preferred solution. An orchard of apple trees, underplanted with
meadow grasses, would not only make the grounds productive but also beautiful
at every season. And like the lawn it would replace, an orchard of apple trees
would celebrate our democratic spirit -- but without offending nature.
"The apple is, beyond all question, the American fruit," the
minister Henry Ward Beecher declared in 1874. "It is a genuine democrat.
It can be poor [in soil], while it loves to be rich; it can be plain, although it
prefers to be ornate . . . But, whether neglected, abused, or abandoned, it is
able to take care of itself, and to be fruitful of excellences. That is what I
call being democratic."
AS tens of thousands of people recently strolled among booths of the
nation's largest organic and natural foods show here, munching on fair-trade
chocolate and sipping organic wine, a few dozen pioneers of the industry
sneaked off to an out-of-the-way conference room.
Although unit sales of organic food have leveled off and
even declined lately, versus a year earlier, the mood among those crowded into
the conference room was upbeat as they awaited a private screening of a documentary
called "Food Inc." -- a withering critique of agribusiness and industrially
produced food.
They also gathered to relish their changing political fortunes, courtesy of
the Obama administration.
"This has never been just about business," said Gary Hirshberg, chief
executive of Stonyfield Farm, the maker of organic yogurt. "We are here to
change the world. We dreamt for decades of having this moment."
After being largely ignored for years by Washington, advocates of organic
and locally grown food have found a receptive ear in the White House, which has
vowed to encourage a more nutritious and sustainable food supply.
The most vocal booster so far has been the first lady, Michelle Obama, who has
emphasized the need for fresh, unprocessed, locally grown food and, last week,
started work on a White House vegetable garden. More surprising, perhaps, are
the pronouncements out of the Department of Agriculture, an agency with long
and close ties to agribusiness.
In mid-February, Tom Vilsack, the new secretary of
agriculture, took a jackhammer to a patch of pavement outside his headquarters
to create his own organic "people's garden." Two weeks later, the Obama
administration named Kathleen Merrigan, an assistant professor at Tufts University and a
longtime champion of sustainable agriculture and healthy food, as Mr. Vilsack's
top deputy.
Mr. Hirshberg and other sustainable-food activists are hoping that such
actions are precursors to major changes in the way the federal government
oversees the nation's food supply and farms, changes that could significantly
bolster demand for fresh, local and organic products. Already, they have
offered plenty of ambitious ideas.
For instance, the celebrity chef Alice Waters recommends that the
federal government triple its budget for school lunches to provide youngsters
with healthier food. And the author Michael Pollan has called on President Obama to pursue a
"reform of the entire food system" by focusing on a Pollan priority: diversified,
regional food networks.
Still, some activists worry that their dreams of a less-processed American diet
may soon collide with the realities of Washington and the financial gloom over
much of the country. Even the Bush administration, reviled by many food
activists, came to Washington intent on reforming farm subsidies, only to be
slapped down by Congress.
Mr. Pollan, who contributes to The New York Times Magazine, likens
sustainable-food activists to the environmental movement in the 1970s. Though
encouraged by the Obama administration's positions, he worries that food
activists may lack political savvy.
"The movement is not ready for prime time," he says. "It's not like we have
an infrastructure with legislation ready to go."
Even so, many activists say they are packing their bags and heading to
Washington. They are bringing along a copy of "Food Inc.," which includes
attacks on the corn lobby and Monsanto, and intend to provide
a private screening for Mr. Vilsack and Ms. Merrigan.
"We are so used to being outside the door," says Walter Robb, co-president
and chief operating officer of Whole Foods Market,
the grocery chain that played a crucial role in making organic and natural food
more mainstream. "We are in the door now."
AT the heart of the sustainable-food movement is a belief that America has
become efficient at producing cheap, abundant food that profits corporations
and agribusiness, but is unhealthy and bad for the environment.
The federal government is culpable, the activists say, because it pays
farmers billions in subsidies each year for growing grains and soybeans. A
result is an abundance of corn and soybeans that provide cheap feed for
livestock and inexpensive food ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup.
They argue that farm policy -- and federal dollars -- should instead encourage
farmers to grow more diverse crops, reward conservation practices and promote local food networks that rely less
on fossil fuels for such things as fertilizer and transportation.
Last year, mandatory spending on farm subsidies was $7.5 billion, compared
with $15 million for programs for organic and local foods, according to the
House Appropriations Committee.
But advocates of conventional agriculture argue that organic farming simply
can't provide enough food because the yields tend to be lower than those for
crops grown with chemical fertilizer.
"We think there's a place for organic, but don't think we can feed ourselves
and the world with organic," says Rick Tolman, chief executive of the National
Corn Growers Association. "It's not as productive, more labor-intensive and
tends to be more expensive."
The ideas are hardly new. The farmland philosopher and author Wendell Berry
has been making many of the same points for decades. What is new is that the
sustainable-food movement has gained both commercial heft, with the rapid
success of organic and natural foods in the last decade, and celebrity cachet,
with a growing cast of chefs, authors and even celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow who champion
the cause.
It has also been aided by more awareness of the obesity
epidemic, particularly among children, and by concerns about food safety amid seemingly
continual outbreaks of tainted supplies.
While their arguments haven't gained much traction in Washington,
sustainable-food activists and entrepreneurs have convinced more Americans to
watch what they eat.
They have encouraged the growth of farmers' markets and created such a
demand for organic, natural and local products that they are now sold at many
major grocers, including Wal-Mart.
"Increasingly, companies are looking to reduce the amount of additives,"
says Ted Smyth, who retired earlier this year as senior vice president at H. J. Heinz, the food giant.
"Consumers are looking for more authentic foods. This trend absolutely has
percolated through into mainstream foods."
While the idea of sustainable food is creeping into the mainstream, the
epicenter of the movement remains the liberal stronghold of Berkeley, Calif.
It was there in 1971 that Ms. Waters started a restaurant, Chez Panisse,
that used fresh, organic and locally grown products, a novelty at the time that
has been widely copied by other chefs. In the years since, she has become a
food celebrity, the "mother of slow food," as a "60 Minutes" profile called
her.
Mr. Pollan teaches journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and
is among a group of authors who have tapped into a wide audience for books that
encourage local or organic foods while detailing what they view as health and
environmental risks of processed foods and large-scale agriculture.
His book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" has remained on best-seller lists since it
was published in 2006. Another activist, Eric Schlosser, wrote "Fast
Food Nation," a critical look at industrialized fast food that was published in
2001 and is now required reading at some colleges. And Marion Nestle, a
nutrition professor at New York University, has
become a ubiquitous and widely quoted critic of commercial food manufacturers.
Beyond authors, academics and chefs, the sustainable-food movement also owes
much of its current success to pioneers in the organic and natural foods
industry. Many started their businesses for idealistic reasons and have since
turned their start-ups into multimillion-dollar, even billion-dollar,
corporations.
Manufacturers improved their organic and natural products, long confined to
musty natural-food stores, so they could compete with conventional foods on
packaging and taste. Whole Foods Market also lured more mainstream customers by
redefining what a grocery store should look like, creating lush displays of
produce and fish that have influenced more traditional grocers.
Nancy M. Childs, a professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University,
said sustainable food activists forced the broader public to focus on the
quality and sourcing of food, which in turn has prompted demand for farmers'
markets and local produce. She says that "continual attention in the news" also
gave the movement legs.
But Ms. Childs worries that some of the activists' recommendations for
buying fresh, local or organic food cannot be adopted by many Americans because
those foods may be too expensive. "By singling out certain lifestyles and
foods, it's diminishing very good quality nutrition sources," she says. "Frozen
goods, canned goods, they are not bad things. What's important is that people
eat well, within their means."
"We'd all love to live on a farm in Vermont, right?" she adds.
Even Jeffrey Hollender, the president of the green cleaning-products company
Seventh Generation, worries that some of his movement's messages are a tough
sell when consumers are stretched thin.
Although some people argue that there are hidden costs to cheap food, from
environmental damage caused by factory farms and fertilizer runoff to the
health costs associated with eating highly processed, calorie-laden food, the
fact remains that commercially produced food is relatively inexpensive.
"The idea of the true cost of food?" Mr. Hollender asks. "That's the last
thing consumers want to hear right now."
The sustainable-food crowd isn't alone in its love fest with the Obama
administration and Mr. Vilsack. Food-safety activists have praised Mr.
Vilsack's remarks about creating a single food-safety agency, and nutrition
advocates are enthused about his comments on school lunches and health care reform.
"There are tremendous opportunities with health care reform," says Michael
F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center
for Science in the Public Interest. "Cutting sodium consumption in half
should save over 100,000 lives a year."
A native of Pittsburgh, he became a small-town mayor and lawyer in Iowa,
where he represented struggling farmers during the farm crisis in the 1980s. As
a state senator and later as governor of Iowa, Mr. Vilsack promoted ethanol
production and agricultural biotech, leading one consumer group to label him a
"shill" for Monsanto.
When a coalition of food activists and farmers, Food Democracy Now,
circulated a petition urging President Obama to pick an agriculture secretary
committed to sustainability, Mr. Vilsack was not one of its recommended
candidates.
Mr. Vilsack said that he was a chubby child and maintains a deep affection
for cookies. But something has changed in
Mr. Vilsack, an avid runner, including his eating habits. "I'm much more
inclined to eat fresh fruits and vegetables," he says. "I had organic yogurt
for breakfast. Trust me, I would have not have had that two years ago, or four
years ago."
He was motivated to eat healthier because he is expecting his first
grandchild and regrets that his parents did not live to meet his own children.
Mr. Vilsack's brief tenure at the agriculture department has unnerved the
food lobby and cheered sustainable-food activists, who are in agreement with
many of his stated priorities.
He has said he hopes to devote more resources to child nutrition to improve
the quality of school breakfasts and lunches. He also wants to make sure that
only healthy choices are available in school vending machines.
Noting that the department's recently released Census of Agriculture
included more than 100,000 new small farmers, he said he wanted his agency to
help them develop regional distribution networks. The small farms' produce
could be sold to institutional buyers like schools.
Ultimately, he said, agriculture and food policy should fit into the Obama
administration's planned overhaul of health care, by encouraging nutrition to
prevent disease. It should also be part of the effort to combat climate change, by
encouraging renewable energy and conservation on farms, he said.
Of course, Mr. Vilsack will need the approval of Congress for any major
changes in farm policy, and therein lies his greatest challenge. Congress passed
a farm bill last year that
details farm policy for the next five years, and farm-state legislators say
they are not interested in starting over.
When the Obama administration recently proposed a budget that would cut
subsidies to the nation's largest farmers and bolster child nutrition payments,
it was greeted with hostility in Congress, even by some Democrats.
It didn't help that Mr. Vilsack framed the budget as a choice between
helping 90,000 farmers or 30 million children, a statement that he later
characterized as inartful.
Representative Frank D. Lucas, Republican of Oklahoma and the ranking
minority member of the House Agriculture Committee, said in a statement that
"this proposal is ill-timed, ill-conceived and completely out of touch with the
realities of agriculture production."
FOR all the enthusiasm that sustainable-food activists and celebrities have
for the Obama administration, their sudden interest in Washington has already
ruffled feathers.
Ms. Waters wrote a letter to the Obamas in January suggesting that she
convene a "kitchen cabinet" to pick a suitable chef for the White House, "a
person with integrity and devotion to the ideals of environmentalism, health
and conservation." Her letter touched off withering criticism in the
blogosphere, with one food pundit blasting what he called Ms. Waters's
"inflexible brand of gastronomical correctness."
The Obamas stuck with the existing chef, who it turns out was already an
ardent -- though quiet -- proponent of locally grown food.
In addition, some sustainable-farm advocates who have worked on these issues
for decades in Washington are chafing at the idea of celebrity activists
swooping into town.
Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, says
that during the Carter administration he fought to get $5 million in federal
money to promote farmers' markets (about the same as allocated last year).
While he acknowledges that it has been an uphill fight, Mr. Hoefner said the
activists had made major strides in recent years, winning more federal dollars
for organic research and to help farmers convert to organic methods and add
value to their operations by, for example, converting to grass-fed beef. As
part of the economic stimulus plan, the
Agriculture Department also plans to award $250 million in loan guarantees,
spread over the next two years, for local and regional food networks, he said.
Mr. Hoefner said he was impressed by the number of people who rallied for a
White House garden. "We just want to make sure that interest in that symbolic
action can be channeled into some of the more difficult policy challenges," he
said.
Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and
chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, welcomes newcomers to the cause
but cautions that farm policy "does not have sharp turns."
Mr. Harkin has spent years trying to increase federal dollars for child
nutrition and for conservation programs that reward farmers for protecting the
environment, relatively small programs that he says can expand under the Obama
administration.
"We bend the track a little bit and get the train going in a little bit
different direction," he says. "We're hoping we can bend it a little bit more.
Consumers are demanding it."
There are already signs that the sustainable-agriculture track is bending
farther than before. The conservative pundit George F. Will wrote a column
endorsing many of Mr. Pollan's ideas, and a prominent food industry lobbyist
who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to reporters said
he was amazed at how many members of Congress were carrying copies of "The Omnivore's
Dilemma."
"I'm not sure how much it's penetrating the mom shopping at Food Lion," he
says. "I've had so many members mention Michael's name to me, it's staggering."
Back in Anaheim, Mr. Hirshberg, the head of Stonyfield Farm, said he, too,
is optimistic that change is at hand. But he reminded the small crowd that the
organic industry remains a "rounding error," roughly 3 percent, of the overall
food and beverage business.
"We're at the starting line," he says. "This is our job, our government. We've
got to take it back."
In the six-and-one-half years since the federal government began certifying
food as "organic," Americans have taken to the idea with considerable
enthusiasm. Sales have at least doubled, and three-quarters of the nation's
grocery stores now carry at least some organic food. A Harris poll in
October 2007 found that about 30 percent of Americans buy organic food at least
on occasion, and most think it is safer, better for the environment and
healthier.
"People believe it must be better for you if it's organic," says Phil
Howard, an assistant professor of community, food and agriculture at Michigan State University.
So I discovered on a recent book tour around the United States and Canada.
No matter how carefully I avoided using the word "organic" when I spoke to
groups of food enthusiasts about how to eat better, someone in the audience
would inevitably ask, "What if I can't afford to buy organic food?" It seems to
have become the magic cure-all, synonymous with eating well, healthfully,
sanely, even ethically.
But eating "organic" offers no guarantee of any of that. And the truth is
that most Americans eat so badly -- we get 7 percent of our calories
from soft drinks, more than we do from vegetables; the top food group by
caloric intake is "sweets"; and one-third of nation's adults are now obese --
that the organic question is a secondary one. It's not unimportant, but it's
not the primary issue in the way Americans eat.
To eat well, says Michael Pollan, the author of "In Defense of
Food," means avoiding "edible food-like substances" and sticking to real
ingredients, increasingly from the plant kingdom. (Americans each consume an
average of nearly two pounds a day of animal products.) There's plenty of
evidence that both a person's health -- as well as the environment's -- will
improve with a simple shift in eating habits away from animal products and
highly processed foods to plant products and what might be called "real food."
(With all due respect to people in the "food movement," the food need not be
"slow," either.)
From these changes, Americans would reduce the amount of land, water and
chemicals used to produce the food we eat, as well as the incidence of
lifestyle diseases linked to unhealthy diets, and greenhouse gases from
industrial meat production. All without legislation.
And the food would not necessarily have to be organic, which, under the United States
Department of Agriculture's definition, means it is generally free of
synthetic substances; contains no antibiotics and
hormones; has not been irradiated
or fertilized with sewage sludge; was raised without the use of most
conventional pesticides;
and contains no genetically modified ingredients.
Those requirements, which must be met in order for food to be labeled
"U.S.D.A. Organic," are fine, of course. But they still fall short of the lofty
dreams of early organic farmers and consumers who gave the word "organic" its
allure -- of returning natural nutrients and substance to the soil in the same
proportion used by the growing process (there is no requirement that this be done);
of raising animals humanely in accordance with nature (animals must be given
access to the outdoors, but for how long and under what conditions is not
spelled out); and of producing the most nutritious food possible (the evidence
is mixed on whether organic food is more nutritious) in the most ecologically
conscious way.
The government's organic program, says Joan Shaffer, a spokeswoman for the
Agriculture Department, "is a marketing program that sets standards for what
can be certified as organic. Neither the enabling legislation nor the
regulations address food safety or nutrition."
People don't understand that, nor do they realize "organic" doesn't mean
"local." "It doesn't matter if it's from the farm down the road or from Chile,"
Ms. Shaffer said. "As long as it meets the standards it's organic."
Hence, the organic status of salmon flown in from Chile, or of frozen
vegetables grown in China and sold in the United States -- no matter the size of
the carbon footprint left behind by getting from there to here.
Today, most farmers who practice truly sustainable farming, or what you
might call "organic in spirit," operate on small scale, some so small they can't
afford the requirements to be certified organic by the government. Others say
that certification isn't meaningful enough to bother. These farmers argue that,
"When you buy organic you don't just buy a product, you buy a way of life that
is committed to not exploiting the planet," says Ed Maltby, executive director
of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance.
But the organic food business is now big business, and getting bigger.
Professor Howard estimates that major corporations now are responsible for at
least 25 percent of all organic manufacturing and marketing (40 percent if you
count only processed organic foods). Much of the nation's organic food is as
much a part of industrial food production as midwinter grapes, and becoming
more so. In 2006, sales of organic foods and beverages totaled about $16.7
billion, according to the most recent figures from Organic Trade Association.
Still, those sales amounted to slightly less than 3 percent of overall food
and beverage sales. For all the hoo-ha, organic food is not making much of an
impact on the way Americans eat, though, as Mark Kastel, co-founder of The
Cornucopia Institute, puts it: "There are generic benefits from doing organics.
It protects the land from the ravages of conventional agriculture," and
safeguards farm workers from being exposed to pesticides.
But the questions remain over how we eat in general. It may feel better to
eat an organic Oreo than a conventional Oreo, but, says Marion Nestle, a
professor at New York University's
department of nutrition, food studies and public health, "Organic junk food is
still junk food."
Last week, Michelle Obama began digging up
a patch of the South Lawn of the White House to plant an organic vegetable
garden to provide food for the first family and, more important, to educate
children about healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables at a time when obesity and diabetes have
become national concerns.
But Mrs. Obama also emphasized that there were many changes Americans can
make if they don't have the time or space for an organic garden.
"You can begin in your own cupboard," she said, "by eliminating processed
food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more
fruits and vegetables."
Popularizing such choices may not be as marketable as creating a logo that
says "organic." But when Americans have had their fill of "value-added" and
overprocessed food, perhaps they can begin producing and consuming more food
that treats animals and the land as if they mattered. Some of that food will be
organic, and hooray for that. Meanwhile, they should remember that the word
itself is not synonymous with "safe," "healthy," "fair" or even necessarily
"good."
Mark Bittman writes the Minimalist column for the Dining
section of The Times and is the author, most recently, of "Food Matters: A
Guide to Conscious Eating."
Industrial Agriculture is sooo 20th century. As America moves forward with a
new agenda of change, our food system is getting a green, healthy makeover that
promises to leave thousands of food and farm advocates with nothing to do.
For decades, foodies, animal welfare advocates, labor and environmentalists
have joined together in an effort to educate their peers and affect policy
change with the broad goal of improving the way our food is grown, processed,
distributed and eaten. They've snuck into animal factories with hidden cameras,
staged protests in Washington and boycotted fast food establishments. They've
shopped at farmers markets and planted seeds in community gardens. They've
formed a massive and remarkably powerful food and farm movement, and in
general, they've kept quite busy reaching for a goal that until recently seemed
completely futile and utterly out of reach.
But soon these dedicated food fighters may find themselves with little to do
but sit down and eat.
First, it was just announced that the Obama's are putting in their very own
vegetable garden on the White House lawn. This is something that the food
movement has been dreaming of since day one, and not one but two separate
organizations -- Eat the View and the White House Organic Farm Project -- have
been tirelessly promoting for years. Since this week's announcement that the
garden is actually in the works, it's hard to imagine what these groups are
going to do to keep busy -- maybe they could work on getting Jimmy Carter's
solar panels back on the White House roof.
In other exciting news, on March 14th something kind of crazy happened: the
USDA banned the slaughter of downer cows. For years, the downer cow has been a
compelling symbol of the extreme cruelty and unbridled mechanization that
characterizes modern animal farms and slaughterhouses. The web is strewn with
videos of nearly-dead, non-ambulatory cattle being dragged, forklifted and
shoved through the gates of muddy abattoirs to be slaughtered, butchered and
injected into the food supply.
The heart-wrenching and stomach-turning images of downer cows have been an
effective tool in converting ignorantly blissful burger addicts into soldiers
for PETA, Sierra Club and Slow Food, and eliminating these sad creatures from
our food system is a fairly small but truly meaningful step forward.
So the USDA up and banned them. (Wait, they can do that? If the USDA could
do that all along, why didn't this pass decades ago?)
Environmentalists, who for years have fought tooth and nail against an EPA
and USDA whose powers were seemingly limited to pandering to corporate
evil-doers, are now pleasantly surprised and perhaps even a little shocked to
see that these institutions can actually fulfill their mandates of promoting
public health and environmental sustainability.
Eco-leaders like NRDC President Francis Beinecke are publishing lists of all
the advances that the new administration has already made with regards to
environmental policy, and noting how good it feels to have people in Washington
who are actually on their side.
And although most within the food movement growled in frustration when Obama
appointed former Iowa Governor and biotech industry insider Tom Vilsack to head
the USDA, many are starting to warm up to him. Vilsack has adopted the rhetoric
of the new administration with unhesitating fluency, and in his speeches has
talked about things like child nutrition, fruits and vegetables, local and
regional food distribution and small farms.
Revolutionary? No. But you would have had to be on psychedelics to hear
those kinds of things come forth from the mouths of any of G. W. Bush's three
USDA chiefs. Perhaps the best move that Obama's USDA has made to earn the trust
of the food movement was appointing Kathleen Merrigan as his deputy.
Merrigan has been a prominent and reputable expert in the food, agriculture
and nutrition world and is a champion for the food movement. When her
appointment was announced back in February, the online environmental community
let out a collective cheer, and it is rumored that agribusiness leaders shared
a disappointed sigh as they met in their secret bunker located sixteen stories
below a large Atrazine factory somewhere in the Midwest (although we'll never
know for sure).
The USDA has recently sent out press releases promoting child nutrition,
their "People's Garden," (which is really just a plot of grass
outside their office building but promises to be a veggie garden at some
point), and an overview of the 2007 agriculture census emphasizing and
celebrating the growth of small farms.
The Department has also committed to research that will help farmers reduce
their dependency on fossil fuels, and just instituted a "COOL"
labeling law that requires that all unprocessed foods be labeled with the name
of their country of origin -- a first step towards more comprehensive food
labels and a better informed population of eaters.
And it doesn't stop with the USDA -- even the EPA has been caught doing its
job recently. In Maryland, the Agency has just begun enforcing a six year-old
law requiring Chicken CAFOs ("CAFO" refers to very large livestock
operations) to get manure permits as part of its effort to protect the
notoriously polluted Chesapeake Bay watershed. Manure from massive animal
factories has only just become a priority for the EPA, even though scientists,
environmentalists and rural communities have been reporting on the adverse
ecological and health effects of this waste for decades.
This month the EPA announced it will sever agreements with dairy and beef
CAFOs that have kept the agency from regulating how they deal with their waste,
and the Agency also plans to begin requiring large animal farms to monitor and
report on the greenhouse gases emitted from their manure ponds.
Even the FDA is getting geared up for the overhaul that advocates have been
requesting for far too long, and food advocates expect great things from the
Agency's new head, Margaret Hamburg, who has a reputation for putting science
and human health before politics. As a whole, the Federal Government is taking
on food and agriculture as a central component of our failing health system.
Obama's 2010 federal budget reflect this, and sets aside a $1 billion annual
increase for improving child nutrition in order to meet the President's goal of
ending childhood hunger by 2015. Notably, the budget also includes language
that -- according to the Administration -- "reflects the President's
commitment to supporting independent producers... and investing in the full
diversity of agricultural production, including organic farming and local food
systems."
The budget also increases funding for the National Organic Program, and
removes direct payment subsidies for farms that pull in over $500,000 in
revenue per year. This reduction in subsidies represents an important shift
away from a commodities-based agriculture system where certain crops (namely
corn and soy) permeate our food supply and serve as the primary ingredient in
everything we eat, from processed snack foods to meat and cheese.
As the Administration cuts back on these subsidies and promotes fruits and
vegetables (which have thus far been referred to as "specialty
crops"), the country is positioned to inherit the kind of healthy food
supply that has been out of reach since the Second World War.
Now, as promising as all this news is, our food system still has a long way
to go and the era of the factory farm has certainly not come to its
much-anticipated end. Our country is still getting 75 percent of its food from
a mere five percent of farms, and organic and local foods continue to represent
a relatively minute portion of the average American diet.
Obesity is rampant, herbicides and fertilizers continue to poison streams
and rivers throughout the nation, and even though downer cows are no longer
legal, most of the animals we eat live and die under appallingly inhumane
conditions. Right now the food movement is teetering on the cusp between an era
of powerlessness and rage and a future of health, justice and balance. When the
day comes that our food is properly produced, regulated and distributed, food
fighters will have to find something new to do. Perhaps they'll pick a new
cause to fight for, or maybe they'll all just become chefs and farmers. In any
case they should start brainstorming, because for the first time in a
generation, it actually feels like that day might come.
Gwen Schantz is a freelance writer and environmental consultant based in
Brooklyn, New York. Her background is in sustainable food and agriculture,
water conservation and international sustainable development, and she has lived
and worked in West Africa and Southeast Asia. Gwen has a Bachelors Degree in
International Studies from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.
Fresh Food for
Urban Deserts
Michelle Obama's
recent pitch for fresh vegetables and her avowed interest in community gardens
have given new life to those who are trying to replace cheap, fast foods with
healthier fare. She could go one step further and greatly improve the health of
the urban poor by adding her powerful voice to local efforts aimed at bringing
fresh groceries into poorer neighborhoods.
There are
communities across America where it's almost impossible to find a fresh apple
or an unfried potato. These neighborhoods are known as "food deserts."
Full-service grocery stores are often many blocks away and hard to reach, and
what's left are mostly fast-food outlets or chain drug stores selling products
that, while cheap today, can extract huge health costs in obesity and diabetes
later on.
Some cities are
trying to bring back the corner grocery in these underserved areas. In
Pennsylvania, the Fresh Food Financing Initiative has been particularly
successful and has begun encouraging similar programs throughout the country.
In New York
City, where perhaps 750,000 people inhabit food deserts, officials are just
beginning to find ways to help. The city has expanded its licenses for carts
selling fruits and vegetables, provided $2 bonuses for people using food stamps
at greenmarkets and encouraged bodegas to offer healthier items like low-fat
milk.
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg and Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker, among others, are
looking at promising ideas like zoning and tax incentives for grocers willing
to take a chance on poorer neighborhoods. The Manhattan borough president,
Scott Stringer, points out that the city offers tax abatements "if you sell Big
Macs but not if you just sell the lettuce and tomato."
The urban poor
face many difficulties, but too much fast food and not enough fresh produce
only add to their troubles. Bringing fruit and peas and farm eggs to the
cities' food deserts sounds like the right campaign for a strong first lady
trying to make a healthy difference.
March 21, 2009
Ground Is Broken
for White House 'Kitchen Garden'
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:09 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes,
pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground on
the first day of spring for a produce and herb garden on the White House
grounds.
Crops to be planted in the coming weeks on the 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped
patch near the fountain on the South Lawn include spinach, broccoli, various lettuces,
kale and collard greens, assorted herbs and blueberries, blackberries and
raspberries.
There will also be a beehive.
''We're going to try to make our own honey here as well,'' Mrs. Obama told
the fifth-graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington before they got
to work on Friday. The school has its own community garden.
The students will be brought back to the White House next month to help with
the planting, and after that to help harvest and cook some of the produce in
the mansion's kitchen. The first harvest is expected by late April.
Mrs. Obama said her family has talked about planting such a garden since
they moved to the White House in January.
After she spoke, the students were paired off and handed a gardening tool.
The first lady joined -- first with a shovel, then a rake -- and together they
began pulling up the grass, dumping it into wheelbarrows and depositing the
contents in a central location.
''Are we done yet?'' Mrs. Obama jokingly said at one point. ''I want to
plant. Let's harvest something.''
When finished, the students sat at three picnic tables for treats of apples,
apple cider and cookies baked in the shape of a shovel.
Some of the produce from the garden will be served in the White House,
including to the First Family and at official functions. Some crops also will
be donated to Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen near the White House where Mrs.
Obama recently helped serve lunch.
Assistant chef Sam Kass said the garden will exist year round, and the crops
will change with the seasons.
He gave no estimate on how much produce the garden would yield, but said,
''It should be quite a bit, if we're lucky.''
Mrs. Obama, who has spoken about healthy eating, said the garden's purpose
is to make sure her family, White House staff and guests can eat fresh fruits
and vegetables. She said she has found that her 10- and 7-year-old daughters
like vegetables more if they taste good.
''Especially if they were involved in planting it and picking it, they were
much more curious about giving it a try,'' she said.
Such a White House garden has been a dream of noted California chef Alice Waters, considered a leader
in the movement to encourage consumption of locally grown and organic food. She has lobbied the
White House to plant such a garden for more than a decade.
''Fresh, wholesome food is the right of every American,'' Waters said.
''This garden symbolizes the Obamas' commitment to that belief.''
WASHINGTON -- Michelle Obama will begin
digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the
first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt's victory
garden in World War II. There will be no beets -- the president does not like
them -- but arugula will make the cut.
While the organic garden will provide food for the first family's meals and
formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate
children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at a time when
obesity and diabetes have become a national concern.
"My hope," the first lady said in an interview in her East Wing office, "is
that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will,
in turn, begin to educate our communities."
Twenty-three fifth graders from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington
will help her dig up the soil for the 1,100-square-foot plot, in a spot visible
to passers-by on E Street. (It is just below the Obama girls' swing set.)
Students from the school, which has had a garden since 2001, will also help
plant, harvest and cook the vegetables, berries and herbs. Virtually the entire
Obama family, including the president, will pull weeds, "whether they like it
or not," Mrs. Obama said with a laugh. "Now Grandma, my mom, I don't know." Her
mother, she said, will probably sit back and say: "Isn't that lovely. You
missed a spot."
Whether there would be a White House garden had become more than a matter of
landscaping. The question had taken on political and environmental symbolism,
with the Obamas lobbied for months by advocates who believe that growing more
food locally, and organically, can lead to more healthful eating and reduce
reliance on huge industrial farms that use more oil for transportation and
chemicals for fertilizer.
Then, too, promoting healthful eating has become an important part of Mrs.
Obama's own agenda.
The first lady, who said that she had never had a vegetable garden, recalled
that the idea for this one came from her experiences as a working mother trying
to feed her daughters, Malia and Sasha, a good diet. Eating out
three times a week, ordering a pizza, having a sandwich for dinner all took
their toll in added weight on the girls, whose pediatrician told Mrs. Obama
that she needed to be thinking about nutrition.
"He raised a flag for us," she said, and within months the girls had lost
weight.
Dan Barber, an owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, an organic restaurant in
Pocantico Hills, N.Y., that grows many of its own ingredients, said: "The power
of Michelle Obama and the garden can create a very powerful message about
eating healthy and more delicious food. I don't think it's a stretch to say it
could translate into real change."
While the Clintons grew some vegetables in pots on the White House roof, the
Obamas' garden will far transcend that, with 55 varieties of vegetables -- from
a wish list of the kitchen staff -- grown from organic seedlings started at the
Executive Mansion's greenhouses.
The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos
and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead,
red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale.
For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some
more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil. A White House
carpenter, Charlie Brandts, who is a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey.
The total cost of seeds, mulch and so forth is $200, said Sam Kass, an
assistant White House chef, who prepared healthful meals for the Obama family
in Chicago and is an advocate of local food. Mr. Kass will oversee
the garden.
The plots will be in raised beds fertilized with White House compost, crab
meal from the Chesapeake Bay, lime and green sand. Ladybugs and praying mantises
will help control harmful bugs.
Cristeta Comerford, the White House's executive chef, said she was eager to
plan menus around the garden, and Bill Yosses, the pastry chef, said he was
looking forward to berry season.
The White House grounds crew and the kitchen staff will do most of the work,
but other White House staff members have volunteered.
So have the fifth graders from Bancroft. "There's nothing really cooler,"
Mrs. Obama said, "than coming to the White House and harvesting some of the
vegetables and being in the kitchen with Cris and Sam and Bill, and cutting and
cooking and actually experiencing the joys of your work."
For children, she said, food is all about taste, and fresh and local food
tastes better.
"A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things that you'll
ever eat," she said. "And my children know the difference, and that's how I've
been able to get them to try different things.
"I wanted to be able to bring what I learned to a broader base of people.
And what better way to do it than to plant a vegetable garden in the South Lawn
of the White House?"
For urban dwellers who have no backyards, the country's one million
community gardens can also play an important role, Mrs. Obama said.
But the first lady emphasized that she did not want people to feel guilty if
they did not have the time for a garden: there are still many changes they can
make.
"You can begin in your own cupboard," she said, "by eliminating processed
food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more
fruits and vegetables."
60 Minutes did a piece on Alice
Waters, the Slow Food movement and the Edible Schoolyard at MLK Middle School
in Berkeley. It is about 10 minutes long and well worth watching:
Looking back at 1965, the year I entered college, I hardly recognize myself!
At 18 I was headed -- like everyone I knew -- for life in the professional world.
My dad was providing for our family by working for Chevron as a district
manager of central Florida. For me, class valedictorian at Tampa's Jesuit High
School, the die had been cast to make my living by wearing a white collar.
Working at manual labor was never a possibility, never even imagined.
Getting married in 1970 brought new responsibilities and a sense of urgency
regarding the need to consider the long-term future -- for years I felt
inadequate in handling all of life's daily requirements, let alone emergencies.
I admired people who were able to build or fix things and longed to be as
rugged as those who started from scratch by settling new lands.
Intoxicated with the changes of the '60s and '70s, some of my generation
found peace in the back-to-the-land movement. Others went further, making an
exodus from the nation. The convergence of these happenings signaled that it
was time; I knew I had to go away. I wanted to live as simply as possible, in
harmony with nature, in touch with my basic needs for food, water and shelter.
In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, I was looking for "old world" stability and
a place where family values were still unchanged.
It was 1973 when my wife and I immigrated to a land less traveled. New
Zealand was to become for me a new birthplace. I arrived there ready to begin
living off the land, taking with me a briefcase packed with the first 13 issues
of Mother Earth News magazine.
The isolated ruggedness of an abandoned gold town (population one, the
addition of my wife and me tripling it to three) became the setting of a daily
struggle to learn to live a new way. Embarrassed, I felt like a child, having
to go through -- at 26 -- the ordeals of growing up. But, I soon learned about
vegetable gardening, raising farm animals, drinking iron-oxide rainwater,
cooking on a woodstove and using a bucket toilet -- among other backwoods scholarship
-- and ultimately,  this "funny" American successfully homesteaded.
By taking one small step after another, I overcame the paralysis of my
city-boy-lost-in-the-woods state of mind. In a sweet stroke of fortune, a kind
old-timer passed along his beekeeping know-how and handmade equipment to me.
Running a one-man bush-honey operation was a lowly genesis; but it was the
first time that I had ever felt productive with my hands. I was loving it!
Homesteading In the
City
The next 15 years saw a whirlwind of changes: a return to Florida following
the birth of our first child, to be closer to our extended families; living on
10 acres; a new business of lawn maintenance; the rearing of home-schooled
children; a move to Pasadena, Calif.; the purchase of a fixer-upper house; the
loss of a job; a divorce. Because my plans had failed, I was yearning to go
"home" to the land again.
While I was dreaming of moving back to the country somewhere, reality
intervened. In the early '90s, Southern California experienced a drought so
severe that water rates were increased for higher usage. Not wanting to pay
extra for the green illusion that was my front lawn, I smothered it with a
six-inch layer of mulch. The water-guzzling grass was replaced with wildflowers
and herbs and -- as I got smarter -- with edible, Dervaes-style landscaping. This
drastic step, driven by frugality, became a major factor in turning my ordinary
home into an extraordinary homestead.
Then, in the fall of 2000, I reacted angrily upon hearing that U.S. biotech
corporations were bent on introducing GMOs into the food supply. Believing I
had to do whatever it took to protect my family from this mad experiment, I
determined to get food security the old-fashioned way -- by growing my own food.
My three young-adult children, Anaïs, Justin and Jordanne, all enlisted in the
challenge. My yard, as I saw it, had now become our Alamo. Resolving to plant
my way to independence, I had the anger and the stubbornness. However, there
was one thing I thought I did not have: the land.
How much food could be grown on a lot 66-feet-by-132-feet? That was
one-fifth of an acre. Was it possible to farm in the middle of Pasadena?
Excluding the space required for our residence, cultivatable "acreage" was
about one-tenth of an acre. Could that sliver of land produce enough for my
family to eat well? The plan of setting up an urban homestead meant living the
farm life without the farm land. At the start, I could not help but think this
was crazy; but I knew we could do something -- plant, plant and plant some more.
It came as a complete shock when the harvest tally for the first year of
gardening for a livelihood was 2,300 pounds. Yet, I knew we could do more; for
we had only scratched the surface of our anemic, worm-challenged soil. On a
budget, I looked for cheap ways to enrich the beige-colored dirt, getting free
straw, tree trimmings and horse manure. In time, our pet "composters"
(chickens, ducks, rabbits and goats) kicked in, turning our waste greens into
instant fertilizer -- well, almost. With the completion of this natural cycle,
our homestead was officially off and running.
Urban
Sustainability
My gardening methods -- an eclectic mix developed over decades -- stemmed from
my father's old-fashioned practice of letting nature have its way. He was a
caretaker, nurturing his yard to create a lush, semi-tropical jungle, without
any pesticide, herbicide or commercial fertilizer. His scheme was to never
discard any organic matter whatsoever. What I learned from my dad was that
there was no such thing as "yard waste." Before I ever heard the term, I
automatically knew composting was integral to the growing cycle.
One basic practice used in the slow transformation from sterile property to
fertile oasis was experimentation. I couldn't find the answers I was looking
for in books or on the Web. This project was new territory, and came down to
classic trial and error. Redos became an annual ritual, giving me the chance to
get back on my horse -- and I did, sore and frustrated but unbowed.
Since expansion on the ground level wasn't possible, I reached skyward,
constructing trellises to go up and arbors to go over. In all sorts of
containers and, mostly, in backyard raised beds, I serially planted, taking
advantage of our year-round growing season. It became an obsession not to waste
the tiniest of spaces, so seeds were sown closer together. We blended tall
plants with low-growing species. By fanatically planting every square inch,
high and low, the harvests increased yearly, reaching an annual yield of over
6,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables on just one-tenth of an acre of
land.
With my son Justin's passion for growing heirloom tomatoes and other
uncommon plant varieties, our homestead was overflowing with fresh, organic,
premium produce. Our urban setting was crowded with customers seeking the same.
So, we found a profitable match in local high-end restaurants and caterers. My
dream of living off the land had come tantalizingly close to fruition, but not
in the way I had planned. Whereas smallness for a traditional farm would have
been a liability, the twist for my micro-farm was that it fit in the city, next
door to small, trendy markets. What we couldn't directly grow ourselves, we
could indirectly obtain with income from sales of our produce, achieving a
combined self-sufficiency.
Beyond the Garden
Striking a blow for greater freedom, I fought against our electricity usage
on several fronts. From the usual steps of installing CFLs and buying only
energy-efficient appliances to the more radical step of foregoing small
electrical kitchen appliances altogether, we reduced our average daily usage to
about 6 kWh. By installing a 2 kW solar power system in 2003, we could produce
about two-thirds of our needs. With the balance supplied by the city from a
wind farm, all our electricity came from green power.
I addressed the transportation problem by owning only one used car (1988
diesel Suburban) for a family of four adults, cutting back on the number of
trips made (under 4,000 miles annually), and homebrewing our own biodiesel fuel
from waste vegetable oil. Regarding alternative fuel, I always believed that
this was a Band-Aid solution for the short term. Our walking or biking to
places locally was really the way to secure a sustainable future.
What was (and always will be) our greatest challenge was the availability of
water in a semi-arid region. We hand watered and practiced other water
conservation methods, including mulching, forest (or jungle) plantings and
using self-watering containers. We utilized some graywater, with plans to
reclaim more. Harvesting rainwater wasn't a priority; we have an average annual
rainfall of only 19 inches, almost all occurring within a four-month period in
winter. Praying for rain was the best solution.
A One-trowel Revolution
In 2001, when I began this 21st century fight for independence, my family
also started an impromptu journal online to document our successes and
failures, in hopes of encouraging others to start their own journeys. What
began as a few entries and pictures each week quickly mushroomed: Path
to Freedom is the original and most comprehensive urban homestead Web
site, getting thousands of visitors each month from around the world.
To earn the extra income needed to support this rapidly growing worldwide
outreach, in 2006 I launched an online store, Peddler's
Wagon, to sell the green products we use on our homestead. Our e-wagon
carries select practical goods and useful tools for eco-pioneers seeking to
build a sustainable future.
Throughout my homesteading endeavors, I realized the need for the interdependence
developed in community. Because today's friends and neighbors increasingly
engage online, I (at my daughters' urging) began Freedom
Gardens. This social networking site, run by Anaïs and Jordanne, connects
gardeners from around the world, enabling them to share tips about plant
selection, soil and pest problems, as well as climate issues.
Eight years ago, Path to Freedom was a family project I began right in my back
yard in a struggle to live free. With this vision, I set out on a solitary
journey. With a mission to develop the intellect, ability and fortitude
necessary to take care of my family, I made one small step. Using the Path to
Freedom homestead to show what can be done with one's hands, I invited others
along via the Internet. In these anxious times, people are discovering that, to
survive, they must become free. At its inception a mere spark, Path to Freedom
has lit a sweeping, homegrown revolution.
Today, at 61, I am a diehard homesteader turned urban revolutionary. The
world today -- and, tragically, my children's inheritance -- offers more violence
while bearing graver threats. Each day, living selfishly beyond our means, we
walk dangerously along the precipice of cataclysmic global warming. Why not
take a different path? The way to survival is through working in our earth, and
the tool of salvation is a trowel. I brandish it now in the cause of a
one-trowel revolution.
REMINDER: We had to replace the lock at the front gate on Friday
as the old lock went missing. When opening the gate, please lock the cable
to the gate so that everything will be there to lock up at the end of the
day. Also, if the gate is open at the end of the school day, please be
sure to lock it up.
Tasks for the Garden this week:.
1)Check your bed for
ripe veggies: radishes, carrots and greens may be ready for harvest; garlic
will be ready closer to summer.
2)Plant seeds in the
greenhouse for spring plantings: tomatoes, squash, beans, basil, peppers and
salad greens.
3)Add top soil (from
the pile on the outside of the fence near the big play structure) or compost
(dig it out from beneath the pile) to your bed to prepare for the spring
planting cycle.
4) Water the
greenhouse seedlings if they appear dry (mark the clipboard to keep track of
when the seedlings were watered). Teachers and garden parents should
determine whether the seedlings are dry before allowing children to water as it
appears that the seedlings have been getting overwatered. Please be
careful as there has been some overwatering going on.
5)Water the new plants
along the fence and in the berry patch if the soil dries out
6)Check the worm bins
to make sure they have enough dry/brown material; if it seems damp or if fruit
flies are present, shred newspaper and add it to the bin. Always make
sure to cover the food and newspaper with the cardboard which will also help
keep the flies away.
7)Pull weeds in and
around the vegetable beds
8)Load up a
wheelbarrow of woodchips from outside the fence behind the compost area and
distribute them on any exposed dirt pathways and throughout the orchard area
(this will keep the pathways from getting to muddy and will act as a natural
soil builder as the wood decomposes)
9)Pick up and dispose
of any trash
10)Make sure the bird
baths have water
11)Clean and return
tools to the shed
12)Return wheelbarrows to
compost area or behind shed
13)Hang up gloves in
the tool shed
14)Rake leaves from the
pathways and deposit in compost pile or use as mulch around vegetables in beds
or around the roses
15)Fill the bird
feeders with seed (in toolshed in metal garbage cans)
Garden Curriculum:
If you ever are left wondering how to use the garden to tie into
the lessons that the children are currently studying, there are grade level
appropriate garden binders available in the Teacher's Lounge and Life Lab
lesson books that may give you some ideas. Also, Mari Allen (allenmari@hotmail.com) is our parent
volunteer garden-curriculum advisor. Contact her if you have any
questions after reviewing the garden binders.
Garden Record Keeping:
We would like to start keeping an online Garden Journal that
everyone will have access to on the garden blog (http://ednamaguire.org/garden/) so that other garden
parents can compare notes or to allow parents to see what is happening in their
child's class. Linda Dunne has created a journal spot on the garden blog
so we are ready to start recording weekly notes. Please email me once a
week to let me know what you did with your class that week (any tasks, planting
or other activities) and I will post it.
Composting Alert:
Composting is a great way to
reduce the amount of garbage that gets sent to the landfill while also
producing a valuable fertilizer to feed our garden (this weekend we used many
wheelbarrows of our compost to amend the pumpkin patch and reading area).
Edna does a great job of diverting a lot of food waste from the garbage and
into the compost. In the garden, we have two parts to our composting
program: worm bins in the tool shed and a compost pile in the back of the
garden. Please remember to only put food waste into the worm bins and not
on the compost pile. Food can attract wildlife and rodents so it should
only be added to the worm bins which are sealed. We now have three wooden
worm bins (behind the tool shed) as well as the plastic can o' worm bins.
Thanks for keeping Edna green!
Spring Fest (Sunday, May 31, 2009):
Jen Sheets (Jmsheetz@hotmail.com) and Barbara Bleckman (barbaracrampton@comcast.net)
have volunteered to coordinate the Spring Fest. They are seeking volunteers
to assist with the Spring Fest, including (but not limited to), Bake Sale
Coordinator (Lisa Joss? Please?), Cool Beverage Coordinator (lemonade, iced
tea, water), Crafts Coordinator-Teacher Liaison and volunteers to work the event.
If you are interested, please contact them to sign up. This is one of the
garden's biggest fundraisers.
Garden Club:
Please let your students know that the Garden Club meets
informally every Thursday at lunch in the garden. Carrie Morgan
supervises the garden club and Rebecca from Next Generation is there every
other Thursday to help with garden projects. All grade levels
welcome.
Garden blog:
Check out the garden blog on the school website for garden news,
pictures and garden recipes (http://www.ednamaguire.org/garden/).
Please send me your nutritious garden recipes for posting.
REMINDER: At the end of the
school day, please lock up the garden if it is unlocked. The garden is
usually unlocked during the school day and I am not always around at pick up
time so please take a moment to make sure it gets locked up. Also, hang
up your gloves and put away your tools. Barbara Bleckman and Luz Castro
cleaned and organized the garden shed. The gloves are now cleaned,
organized and hanging above the worm bin. Please make sure they are returned
to their place when you are done using them.
Spring is around the corner and the garden is responding.
The plants are growing rapidly and many vegetables are available for
harvest. It is also time to start planning the spring/summer
plantings. Now is the time to get beds planted with seeds: tomatoes,
peppers, squash, basil, beans, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, parsley, etc.
There are lots of seeds in the toolshed. If there is something you want
to plant that you do not see in the shed, let me know and we will get it.
Also, if you have fava beans in your bed, you may want to cut them all (or most
of them) at soil level (leaving the roots to compost in the soil) to make room
for the new plantings. If you want to harvest some fava beans, I
recommend leaving just a few plants.
Tasks for the Garden this week:.
1)Check your bed for
ripe veggies: radishes, carrots and greens may be ready for harvest; garlic
will be ready closer to summer.
2)Plant seeds in the
greenhouse for spring plantings: tomatoes, squash, beans, basil, peppers and
salad greens.
3)Add top soil (from
the pile on the outside of the fence near the big play structure) or compost
(dig it out from beneath the pile) to your bed to prepare for the spring
planting cycle.
4) Water the
greenhouse seedlings if they appear dry (mark the clipboard to keep track of
when the seedlings were watered). Teachers and garden parents should
determine whether the seedlings are dry before allowing children to water as it
appears that the seedlings have been getting overwatered.
5)Check the worm bins
to make sure they have enough dry/brown material; if it seems damp or if fruit
flies are present, shred newspaper and add it to the bin. Always make
sure to cover the food and newspaper with the cardboard which will also help
keep the flies away.
6)Pull weeds in and
around the vegetable beds
7)Load up a
wheelbarrow of woodchips from outside the fence behind the compost area and
distribute them on any exposed dirt pathways and throughout the orchard area
(this will keep the pathways from getting to muddy and will act as a natural
soil builder as the wood decomposes)
8)Pick up and dispose
of any trash
9)Make sure the bird
baths have water
10)Clean and return
tools to the shed
11)Return wheelbarrows
to compost area or behind shed
12)Hang up gloves in
the tool shed
13)Rake leaves from the
pathways and deposit in compost pile or use as mulch around vegetables in beds
or around the roses
14)Fill the bird
feeders with seed (in toolshed in metal garbage cans)
Garden Curriculum:
If you ever are left wondering how to use the garden to tie into
the lessons that the children are currently studying, there are grade level
appropriate garden binders available in the Teacher's Lounge and Life Lab
lesson books that may give you some ideas. Also, Mari Allen (allenmari@hotmail.com) is our parent
volunteer garden-curriculum advisor. Contact her if you have any
questions after reviewing the garden binders.
Garden Record Keeping:
We would like to start keeping an online Garden Journal that
everyone will have access to on the garden blog (http://ednamaguire.org/garden/) so that other
garden parents can compare notes or to allow parents to see what is happening
in their child's class. Linda Dunne has created a journal spot on the
garden blog so we are ready to start recording weekly notes. Please email
me once a week to let me know what you did with your class that week (any
tasks, planting or other activities) and I will post it.
Composting Alert:
Composting is a great way to
reduce the amount of garbage that gets sent to the landfill while also
producing a valuable fertilizer to feed our garden (this weekend we used many
wheelbarrows of our compost to amend the pumpkin patch and reading area).
Edna does a great job of diverting a lot of food waste from the garbage and
into the compost. In the garden, we have two parts to our composting
program: worm bins in the tool shed and a compost pile in the back of the
garden. Please remember to only put food waste into the worm bins and not
on the compost pile. Food can attract wildlife and rodents so it should
only be added to the worm bins which are sealed. We now have three wooden
worm bins (behind the tool shed) as well as the plastic can o' worm bins.
Thanks for keeping Edna green!
Spring Fest (Sunday, May 31, 2009):
Jen Sheets (Jmsheetz@hotmail.com) and Barbara Bleckman (barbaracrampton@comcast.net)
have volunteered to coordinate the Spring Fest. They are seeking volunteers
to assist with the Spring Fest, including (but not limited to), Bake Sale
Coordinator (Lisa Joss? Please?), Cool Beverage Coordinator (lemonade, iced
tea, water), Crafts Coordinator-Teacher Liaison and volunteers to work the event.
If you are interested, please contact them to sign up. This is one of the
garden's biggest fundraisers.
Garden Club:
Please let your students know that the Garden Club meets
informally every Thursday at lunch in the garden. Carrie Morgan supervises
the garden club and Rebecca from Next Generation is there every other Thursday
to help with garden projects. All grade levels welcome.
Garden blog:
Check out the garden blog on the school website for garden news,
pictures and garden recipes (http://www.ednamaguire.org/garden/).
Please send me your nutritious garden recipes for posting.
REMINDER: At the end of the
school day, please lock up the garden if it is unlocked. The garden is
usually unlocked during the school day and I am not always around at pick up
time so please take a moment to make sure it gets locked up. Also, hang
up your gloves and put away your tools. Barbara Bleckman and Luz Castro
cleaned and organized the garden shed. The gloves are now cleaned,
organized and hanging above the worm bin. Please make sure they are
returned to their place when you are done using them.
This weekend's Garden Workday, sponsored by the entire Edna
Maguire Second Grade, was a huge success. There were plenty of second
graders and parents there to tackle our task list and the weather was
beautiful. Next month's garden workday (Saturday, March 28 from 9 a.m. to
noon) will be sponsored by the entire Third Grade.
The following garden tasks were completed this weekend: the
last of the fruit trees were pruned; the blackberries along the back fence were
removed; the vegetable beds and pumpkin patch were amended with compost and new
soil; the worm bins were painted (white to reflect the sun's heat - - worms
don't like too much heat - and protect them from the elements); the greenhouse
windows were secured; the orchard and back fence were mulched with wood chips;
drains were dug for the rain runoff; more gravel was added to the shed floor;
and clay was gathered for the earth sculpture that Mr. Sanchez' class will be
creating near the back parking lot.
Thanks to everyone who came out and helped. Thanks
also to Whole Foods for continuing to sponsor our garden workdays with tasty
refreshments and snacks. With your help the garden continues to grow.
Located in Mill Valley, California, at Edna Maguire Public Elementary School, the Mill Valley Children's Garden is a 1/3 acre outdoor classroom laboratory. The garden is a hands-on treasure for both curriculum-based teaching and exploratory creative experimentation - it is a "textbook come to life." Through the Children's Garden, children learn botany, ecology, math, science, language arts, creative arts, stewardship of the land, community service, and much more.
The Children's Garden is a grassroots, volunteer effort by the parents, faculty and community of Mill Valley. The garden operates through private funds and donations and is supported by the Edna Maguire PTA - a 501 3 (c).
Are you a parent of an Edna Maguire student interested in volunteering to help with the Mill Valley Children's Garden? Click here for more information, or contact Saor Stetler. Green thumbs are not required - all that is needed is a desire to have fun with the children in the garden while observing the cycles of nature.
Gardeners traditionally dig, or turn over
the top layer of soil before planting to get rid of weeds, and make it easier
to use fertilizers and to plant crops. This also speeds up the decomposition of
crop residue, weeds and other organic matter. Tilling the soil is often the
most strenuous of a gardener's tasks.
