Traveling library

I’m going on vacation for a week, so you won’t hear from me for a little while.  I just hope I have enough books to read while I’m on vacay!

 

 

 

 

 

If not, I’ve heard of an outstanding book store in the area that I’ll make sure to check out!

Garden pics

The garden is finally in a state where I’m not completely embarrassed to show it to the world.  It’s still not perfect, but whose garden is right?  😉

The pic below is looking out from about the middle of the garden.  Directly in front of you is my cold frame bed.  It’s extra deep and I place two windows across the top in February to get the lettuce in early.  The lettuce has been dying because of the heat (and we’re eating it) so I’ve been sowing carrots in there as the lettuce comes out.  Directly to the right of that is a large batch of broccoli, cabbage and zukes/summer squash.  Straight across on the left are green beans.

 

 

 

 

The pic below shows the beans again but also the mixed bed.  That bed had lettuce and spinach in it.  It hasn’t been replaced much yet but also has carrots, some lettuce and cabbage left.  You can also see some kind of grass growing in there that I’m having a hard time getting rid of.  Behind that is the bed of peas, which I think I’m done growing.  They are a pain in the butt to harvest.  I think I’m done growing them.  On the right is more broccoli and carrots.  On the far left back is a bed of peas, potatoes and brussell sprouts, along with two onion plants that were left from last year I guess.  As you can tell I really need to get some wood chips down, but I’m behind the game so far.

 

 

 

 

Here I’m standing next to the bed of cabbage, squash and broccoli.  There are 3 beds of potatoes (I like to grow potatoes on new beds the first year so all the grass and leaves can decompose in place while they cover the taters).  Behind the black wheelbarrow I have some beans, onions, canteloupe and watermelon.  Also a bed with sweet potatoes and cukes.  Right in front of you here I have winter squash.  Only one has come up.  I think I’ll need to replant.  This area is all new this year and still being built out, but it’s still growing food.

 

 

 

 

My comfrey plants.  I finally got some after all these years of wanting some.  I ended up planting about 20 plants so I should have a ton of biomass here before too long.  The weedy patch right behind them is the sandbox which I’m going to fill in with compost and plant to carrots this month.

 

 

 

 

 

This year I’m doing something very different with the garden as I’m trying to grow a lot of things to store for the winter and focusing on the things we really eat, both fresh and preserved.

Even with all this stuff planted I still have about two beds that aren’t fully planted yet (we eat a lot more cool weather crops than hot weather crops) so I have to wait for July so I can sow more broccoli, cabbage and carrots for the fall.  I love working with small spaces and seeing each bed rotate over as one item is spent and replaced with another.  I don’t think you would get the same thrill from seeing that when you have a really large garden space.

Not pictures above is a bed with garlic and herbs in it as well as another bed of potatoes.  They are closer to the house but will move when they are harvested shortly.

It’s strawberry season too.  Last night I put up 20 jars of jam and last Friday it was 6 quarts of strawberries.  I have another 6 or so to do tonight and tomorrow and then we’ll probably be set for the winter.  My blackberry bushes have so many berries on them I’ll need to make plans to make jam from them too!

Suburbs are a Ponzi scheme

This article on Grist has an amazing photo that you have to see.

That photo is just disgusting.  It’s an interesting article too.

Farm update-Week 3

I’m a little tardy this week sending out your weekly e-mail.  I’m sorry about that. Things are still a little light coming out of the farm space.  This week I expect you’ll have some lettuce, radishes and potatoes.  The potatoes will be very fresh and will surprise you if you haven’t had a garden fresh potato before.  My favorite fresh potato recipe is below.  If you are conscious of your heart you might want to take a pass.  But if you like butter read on:

Gently boil the potatoes until they are cooked but still firm.  Place them into a large bowl with a good helping of butter and salt.  Add some dried parsley (fresh would be OK too) and swirl the potatoes around until they are completely coated.  Serve while still warm.

With farm fresh produce simple preparation is the key so you can enjoy the fresh taste.

Starting tomorrow we will be having a lot of youth involved at the farm space helping us weed, plant and tend plants, as well as do some building.  We are planning to add some nice outdoor spaces to the farm location.  Perhaps later this summer we can have a get together there and enjoy it!  In early July we will also have kids from the Matthew 25 summer meals program begin work, as well as summer daycare kids from St James United Methodist Church.  This is all part of the mission that you support with your involvement.  Not only do you get produce but you help us train the next generation of farmers and gardeners, as well as teaching them how they can provide for their own families.

My constant worry right now is the amount of produce that we’re producing.  Right now we are quite low (lower than I expected even) but I’m confident that later this summer we’ll make up for it.  My counting this week shows better than 15 cucumber plants.  (If you know cukes you know how much even one can produce)  We have in excess of 40 summer squash plants, over 20 pepper plants and rows and rows of green beans, not to mention the 70 or so broccoli plants that are in the ground and the 200+ onions.  I know the produce is coming, but it’s all later season items.  We’ll keep on top of them and keep all the spaces full and planted and I can make a promise to you that we will keep cranking out the produce until October comes.

We have some garden and food related events planned in July.  On July 9th the Tool Library is hosting a worm composting class so you can learn how to compost at home using worms, and you can even see our worm composter in action!  On July 30th the ISU extension office will host a preservation 101 class at Groundswell.  This class will cover basics and focus more on freezing items than canning.  Stay tuned for more information about them and let us know if you have any questions.  We would be happy to answer them.

Thanks,
Matt

Subsidy garden

Roger Doiron has done it again with another great graphic displaying the agriculture situation in America, when compared to the White House garden.

Check it out here.

It’s a really great example of how what people need to eat, and should eat for their health, is not respected as such by the government and where they put their dollars.  Very little of what is subsidized is actual food grown for human consumption, which the graphic shows is great detail.

Future plans for Cedar Rapids

In case you aren’t hooked up with me on Facebook I thought I would share a story that ran in the paper last week of some work we’re doing here in Cedar Rapids.

Click here for the story.  If you are on Facebook and you’re seeing this again, sorry.

Farm Update

I thought it would be interesting to post my weekly CSA e-mails each week.   The farm is on week 2 so you missed week #1, but no big deal.

I’ve been accused lately of becoming a “real” farmer.  Apparently I’m complaining about the weather and I’m not happy if it’s too hot or too cold.  Looking back at my e-mails, that appears to be true.  I guess I’m a bit like Goldilocks in that regard.  I like the weather just right!

On to this week’s produce.  I’m confident that we’ll have lettuce, radishes and more herbs for you this week.  Make sure not to get any lettuce at the store (or any of our fine farmer’s markets) because you’ll probably get a few heads, and they are larger than last week.  On top of that we should have cilantro, oregano and chives again.  It appears that we will also have garlic scapes and lovage.  We’ll have a write up in the newsletter about lovage, but it’s a bushy herb that gives your food a celery like flavor and best of all, it doesn’t require any attention after you plant it.  It grows year after year after year!  (News story about lovage from Mother Earth News)

There is an outside chance that there will be some small onions and beets ready.  While we wait patiently for our crops to come in I try to remember how difficult it must have been 100 years ago to make it through this period.  You’ve made it through a rough cold winter and planted your seeds.  Now you have to wait while they grow while you eat whatever you still have from the previous year.  If my little house on the prairie reading is to be believed, at this time of the year you are only eating flour and what your father hunts or traps.  In Native American culture they called this the starving time because your stores have run low but nothing is growing yet..  In many ways it can be the most difficult time of the year as the world all around you turns green, yet there may not necessarily be anything to eat.  At least in this time of plenty we can go to the store or live off food we stored from the previous summer’s bounty, not something that they could do in the past.  Right now is the time I think to the late summer when all the tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, cucumbers and squash we’ve planted will pay off.  In a world like ours, where everything is available to us instantly, Mother Nature still does her thing at her own pace.  Those of us who have a hard time with it, just need to accept that (myself included), though I’ll complain about it plenty along the way.

We’ll see you on Wednesday.  We’ll be set up in the tool library again.

Comment on Urban Farm post

Groovy Green elicited a comment on my Urban Farm post that I thought I would share here as I found it interesting.  The comment below was from Joseph:

It’s a nice idea. I would love to see some real, actual effort put into how this could work, because there are a lot of unanswered questions, like: How are unemployed people who can’t even pay their bills, like me, supposed to purchase land? Unless you’re assuming a city government that can’t even pay its backlogged bills is supposed to purchase the land, and in that case, where would that money come from — taxpayers, most likely? Or is this only city-owned, vacant land? Who will clear all of the zoning laws, and pay for all of the permits and property taxes? How will we know what to grow? And if we somehow knew what to grow, how are unemployed people who have no farming background supposed to know what to do? And who is going to find, market to and sell to these mysterious customers, such as restaurants or produce wholesalers? Are municipalities supposed to purchase and convert the acreage, and then hire the unemployed to farm it? And if so, what’s that going to pay beyond minimum wage? And most of all, why would you suggest farming as a possible solution, given that farming is one of the riskiest endeavors in the world — highly dependent on weather/nature and environmental events? It’s good to have your head in the clouds, as long as you have two feet on the ground. Right now, you’re floating.

My response is below:

Hi Joseph-

Thanks for the comment!  There are certainly unanswered questions, but not any that I think are insurmountable.  The reason I think this is possible is because I’m doing it.  Right now.  This summer, in a city, on a small plot of about 1/2 an acre.  Is it hard?  Hell yes it is!  But it’s challenging and fun like any other endeavor.  And I didn’t know anything about farming but I asked around, found some mentors, read some books and started doing it.

Re: farming being a tough business.  You are right.  I think a lot of the problems are mitigated though by practicing it on a small scale.  Weather and nature become easier to overcome when you have an acre to manage instead of 100.  Its easier to water something that size, keep weeds at bay, etc when it’s smaller.

How do you get the land?  Be creative.  I’m borrowing land from a church and a local organization that has abandoned the building after a devastating flood ruined it.  What do I offer them?  I take care of the property so it’s kept up and I teach the kids who go to the church’s daycare about farming/gardening and share some food with them so they can taste fresh food.   The key is to not find ways you CAN’T do it but find ways that you CAN.

For example, in my city we are working on acquiring more land to expand our farm.  How did we do that?  We analyzed the situation to figure out how to solve multiple problems for people around us.  Our city has plenty of devastated properties so we have offered to take over the care of them so they won’t be eye sores (lots where houses have been torn down), put them back on the tax rolls for the city (because we will own them we will pay taxes on them again vs. the city owning them), create a job creation engine in the local economy (small farms require labor) and do it with no more support from the local government than them giving us the land to use, which it can’t be built on because it’s in a flood plain anyway.  It’s a win for us, a win for the city and a win for the neighbors on these properties.  Heck, it’s even a win for our customers because we are in the city, thus easier for them to get to and also a win because we are offering half priced shares for low income people who need the help.

What other options might someone have?

If there is a vacant lot around you find the owner.  Offer to take care of it for them in exchange for free use.  If they don’t like that offer to rent it for a small fee.  If they want to0 much move on.  Maybe you can find a local corporate office that has a huge swath of land.  You could offer to farm part of it in exchange for taking care of it for them for free (ie, mowing it for them)  Thus you would trade your time for their land.  They save the cost of upkeep on the whole thing and you get part of it to grow food on.  Not to mention the ready group of customers you have at your doorstep as they leave the office on Fridays and you have a tent set up to sell them produce.  I treat a lot of this like a normal business transaction.  If you can make it a win-win for all parties you’ll usually get the job done.

Some of this is covered in a book I wrote about how to start an Urban Farm.

How to start an urban farm book

You should check it out.  The big key is your attitude and your desire to do something.  All the things you mention can be overcome and, in fact have been by many people already operating urban farms.  You just have to want to do it and then move forward not letting people throw up roadblocks.

Do any of you readers have any thoughts you would like to add?  Add them here or bounce over to the GG site and comment on the article there.

Perhaps a slight understatement?

This is from Zach’s ITBS interpretation:

…Zachary earned a Core Total grade equivalent of 8.2 on the Level 10 test.  This means that his test performance was approximately the same as that of a typical student in the eighth grade at the end of the 2nd month.  Zachary’s Core Total national percentile rank of 96 means that he scored higher than 96% of 4th grade students nationally.  His overall achievement appears to be high for 4th grade.

Appears to be high?  You think?  That’s the understatement of the century if you ask me!

🙂

In other news, Ethan’s math score was 99% and his core score was 94.  He was dragged down by his spelling and vocab, which makes some sense because he is in 1st grade in the mornings and 2nd grade in the afternoons.  I would guess that some things will get missed in that transition.

I have to be honest and say it’s really hard to deal with this situation where we are always having to be on the ball challenging them.  It’s a good problem to have, I guess, but for me at least, it’s a constant state of worry.  All the time we tell ourselves we just have to get them through to middle school and then hopefully there will be a chance to separate out some and get them into some classes at school that will focus their energies in a few directions.  Given the love of math it seems perhaps Engineering of some sort might be in their future?  Who knows.  It is kind of an exciting challenge though!  Even if it is stressful.