The Compost is here (and so is our first work day--this Saturay, 8:30am)

So we got our load of compost today, about 3 yards of it.  It'd be nice to be able to use even more, but because the soil is so close to the level of the sidewalk, there really isn't room for more than about 2 inches of additional material.

Now that it's here, we're going to need help spreading it all out.  So if you're in Brookline, please come help out at our first work day of 2010.  We'll meet at the garden, 99 Kent Street, this Saturday (March 20), from 8:30am-10:30am.  (Rain date is Sunday at 8:30 am).  If you have a shovel and/or wheelbarrow, please bring them along.  Our goal will be to spread the compost along the entire garden and dig it in.  If we have enough hands, the work will go fast.

lists, lists, lists

Planning a garden, especially a big one like the 200 Foot Garden, take a lot of planning.  Lots of lists and spreadsheets, so we know what to buy, what to plant, when, where, etc.  Tracy spent a couple hours on the spreadsheet last night (for all four of our family's garden projects) and I've spent a couple more today, trying to piece everything together.

I think I've got a pretty good list put together for the garden now, enough to make a shopping list for seed starting materials and seeds.  Right now it looks like we'll have at least 32 different varieties of plants at the 200 Foot Garden this year (not counting the extension blocks--I haven't done the planning for those yet).  We'll be putting in about 600 plants total, with most of them starting by seed, in the greenhouse.  We've definitely got some big work days ahead of us.

Now I'm off to order the seeds that we're still missing--I need to order two kinds of chard, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, peppers, new kinds of squash, and more pole bean seeds.  (I'll be ordering from Seeds of Change, Johnny's, and High Mowing, at the very least.)

Our load of compost is set to arrive on Wednesday.  Lots to do, but it won't be long until we've got green stuff growing, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Greenhouse intro

Allison (our new volunteer coordinator and partner in this project) and I had a good meeting Wednesday morning at the site with the property manager, Donna, and the resident services coordinator, Iris, and three residents (including one who is a serious gardener and botanist).  We'll have a lot more involvement this year from the folks in the apartment complex right next to the 200 Foot Garden, as well as additional support from the management.

And we'll get to use the greenhouse.

Yep, there's a greenhouse up on the third floor, attached to the community room.  You can see it from the park where I sometimes bring my dog and where my daughter plays soccer.  Well, now I've actually been inside.  It hasn't been used for a long time, which I  already knew, so the condition was about what I expected.  The good news is that there is water and lots of light and the heater works.  The bad news is that a few of the windows are broken and the top louver system and thermostat is all in disrepair and not fully functional.

The tricky part about greenhouses is temperature control.  Ideally, you want a system that will automatically open the top vents so the hot air can escape when the day is warm.  Otherwise you just cook the plants.  When we opened up the greenhouse, it was over 90 degrees inside (it was about 50 outside).  We turned off the heater and opened some windows, which helped a lot.

At first, I thought it meant we can't use the greenhouse this season, but I think we can make it work, with help from the residents.  We'll need to have someone check the temp a couple times a day, while we're starting seeds.  The good news is that there's tons of sun, which puts us way ahead of where we were last year, trying to start everything in our basement under a couple of grow lights.

Now that I have a sense of what's up there, I can put together a shopping list of trays, covers, seed starter mix, etc.  I already have a bunch of seeds, but we'll need to order more.

Last year was great fun, but I'm even more excited for this year and our chance to get an early start.

If I had more time on my hands, I'd take on the full restoration of the greenhouse as a project (but I don't).  It'll take many many hours (and potentially quite a few dollars, though it's hard to know), to get the greenhouse back to its original glory.  But we'll just get started with baby steps for now.

Okay, off to make that shopping list.

2010 Getting Started

Even though it's still cold and a tiny bit snowy out (the blizzard fizzled earlier this week), we're getting started on the 200 Foot Garden already.  Last week, Tracy and I ordered seeds (for the 200 Foot Garden, plus our other garden projects) from the High Mowing Seed Company.  They're already here. 

We won't start everything from seed, we might end up buying some seedlings or get some plants donated.  This year we're expanding what we're growing--doubling the number of plants, actually--by adding a row of vegetables between the sidewalk and the fence.  These will be shorter, obvious pick-me kinds of vegetables, like peppers, eggplant, cherry tomatoes, and some herbs.

I also had a terrific meeting with a friend this afternoon.  She's interested in working on the project as a whole, and especially in serving as outreach/volunteer coordinator.  I'll announce more details on this as the situation develops, but it should help a lot as we try to get more people involved from the neighboring apartment building and the rest of the neighborhood.  Plus we're talking about some ideas I have for possibly expanding farther down the fence, and maybe to other sites within Brookline.  Lots and lots to think about.  Luckily, we have time before it's time to start planting.

I don't mind winter, but the thought of getting started growing makes me especially eager for spring.  And I know it'll be here soon.

New Ways of Looking

The garden is done for the season. Last week, I stopped by to look at the few scraggly bean plants on the fence and spied a few bean pods still hanging on. Surprisingly, they were still green. A woman from the nearby apartment complex came up the sidewalk as I was picking, and said, "How do you see those? I walk right by and see the plants, but I don't see anything to pick."

And that's the fun thing about having a garden. You learn to look at the world in new ways. Experience with plants and growing things makes a gardener look at a big mass of green leafy vines entirely differently from someone who isn't a grower. And I still consider my self a beginner-intermediate gardener. I like going into gardens with the real experts. Their eyes are fully trained to spot problems and opportunities, where I still see almost nothing.

One thing I like about the 200 Foot Garden is that it's a way to impact a whole lot of people who are walking past the garden, who before might not have looked twice at plants growing on a fence, but over the course of this year, and our future years, they'll learn to see in entirely new ways. They'll learn to spot the beans and cucumbers, they'll know when the garden needs rain, they'll pay attention to the seedlings starting to climb up the fence. And their relationship to the world and the earth will change, ever so slightly.

Still Blooming

The growing season is really pretty much over. Today it's cold and gloomy outside. I walked past the garden on the way to the T, and the few bean plants left on the fence, though still green, look forlorn. Still, on one Scarlett Runner plant a few orange blossoms waved in the breeze, a wispy denial of the oncoming winter.

Very soon, it will be time to start getting serious about planning for next year. (And we need to add compost and mulch to the garden in the next few weeks.)

Urban Homesteaders League Meetup

Tracy and I attended a Meetup of the Urban Homesteader's League today in Cambridge, organized by Lisa Gross. We met a lot of very interesting people (including folks with real farm experience and lots of garden experience), and also had a chance to learn about Lasagna Mulch, helped build some raised beds (which housed said mulch), and also helped build a tiny hoop-house for a 4x6 raised bed. (Tracy wrote about the projects in more detail at Beyond Dinner.)

I'm sure some of these techniques will come in handy in the future in several of our garden projects, including the 200 Foot Garden. I'm hoping that we'll have a Urban Homesteaders Meetup in the spring at the 200 Foot Garden to show off our project and share some of what we've been learning about vertical and commuter gardens.