The Green in Vogue

Perennial Vegetables by Eric Toensmeier

In preparing for a Fashion in the Garden posting I have been reading the spring issue of Vogue magazine. Strictly business you understand. Besides, Tina Fey was on the cover.

Although I wasn’t looking for it, there was a little feature on page 370, The Green List, with John Patrick’s (whoever he may be) five latest (fashion everywhere) faves.  There is seedlibrary.org for heirloom seeds; Emiliano Godoy, an industrial designer who focuses on sustainability; Magnus Larsson, a Swedish architect working to stop the spread of the Sahara!; Ecocradle for shipping materials made of mycelium, —  remember you heard it here first; and Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke with Eric Toensmeier.  Well, Dave Jacke is headquartered  right in our own green county. I hope to catch up with him this spring.  I met Eric Toensmeier when he spoke at the local Master Gardener’s Spring Symposium a couple of years ago and bought his book.  I am going to plant perennial Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus- henricus) in my Henry garden.

Who knows who I’ll meet at this year’s Spring Symposium. Check out the full schedule and info.

My Flowery Mead

My Flowery Mead

Now you know why I chose the name commonweeder. I love common weeds. Otherwise known as wild flowers. In some circles.  I call this wildflower garden my flowery mead. Others may call it my lawn.

Lawns have become controversial because they can take a toll on the environment.  Herbicides and pesticides can runoff into streams and other waterways causing pollution and killing wildlife. Many people water their lawns when the weather is hot and dry, using that precious resource, water.  Many people (like me, or more specifically my husband) use power mowers that use gas and pollute the air.

There are various ways to cut down on this environmental toll. We never use chemical fertilizer. My husband thinks the grass grows quite fast enough, thank you very much.  I do lime the lawn periodically. That make nutrients available to all the plants in the lawn. I want to encourage the microbial and animal life in my lawn, not kill it.

We never water the lawn. Should it go dormant and brown, it will green up again when the rains come.

We mow as infrequently as possible. My husband and I do have different opinions about that.

We are trying to eliminate lawn. Some lawn has been turned into The Lawn Beds. The Daylily Bank, The Rose Bank and The Early Garden are in process. I’m also removing the grass from a wide strip next to the road and planting hydrangeas and barren strawberry ground cover.

This is planning season. There are many ways to create a sustainable lawn and many resources to help you do this. Paul Tukey has written The Organic Lawn Care Manual, available and bookstores and libraries. You can also log in to is SafeLawns website.

The Lawn Reform website also has advice and resources. You’ll see some of the best and most influential gardeners have joined this movement. Your lawn can be beautiful – and healthy for you and the environment.

Paul Tukey and Me

Paul Tukey and me

Last week I attended a Garden Writers workshop in Boston to learn about new trends in the garden, and in the blogs. Paul Tukey of Safe Lawns fame was on hand, too.  Although we had never met I did interview him last spring when I was doing a radio show in Beverley. Phone interview are a necessity in this world we we are all so spread out, but nothing beats talking to someone in the flesh.

Paul is the author of the Organic Lawn Care Manual which gives us information about caring for our lawns so that they are a healthful playground, and all the reasons why this is so important to our own health and the health of the planet.

Recently he learned that Health Canada (like our EPA) plans to ban all Weed and Feed lawn products. This has already been done on local levels, but this regulation will go into effect nationwide at the end of 2012. We might have something to learn here.

I’ve never fertilized our lawn. My husband says it grows quite fast enough. Nor have I used herbicide. I’m perfectly happy with my ‘flowery mead,’ but I am adding more goundcovers.

The Art Garden

The Art Garden in Shelburne Falls

There are all kinds of gardens, perennial gardens, cutting gardens, and vegetable gardens, but right now the only garden that is giving me special pleasure is Jane Wegscheider’s Art Garden in Shelburne Falls.

The Art Garden is a welcoming and well stocked studio space that is available to the public, including children, to express and develop their creativity. And we don’t have to do it alone. Jane is on  hand to teach and demonstrate and inspire – as she has been doing in local schools for years. Now she is sharing her skill and her passion with the whole community.

Jane Wegscheider

Last week I attended Jane’s workshop on book making. I am not ready to make books like this leather bound treasure, but I came away with a simple book, an accordion book and materials for a Japanese stab binding book. I can tell you I will never look at National Geographic photographs in the same way ever again. Jane is always using recycled and repurposed materials in her art; that’s another lesson to find beauty and utility in ‘trash’.

Jane had lots of samples to show us some of  the possibilities. Some were made with children, so it wasn’t intimidating to people like me who aren’t good with measuring or straight lines.

I returned last night to make a Valentine.  Three hours later and I’m not quite finished. Simplicity doesn’t seem to be my forte. I couldn’t show it to you yet, anyway.

Check out The Art Garden’s Open Studio hours and workshop schedule.

Mycotecture

Mycotecture is a term created to describe buildings made of mushrooms, or more specifically, made of bricks made of mushroom roots known as mycelium.

“Mycelium doesn’t taste very good, but once it’s dried, it has some remarkable properties. It’s nontoxic, fireproof and mold- and water-resistant, and it traps more heat than fiberglass insulation. It’s also stronger, pound for pound, than concrete. In December, Ross completed what is believed to be the first structure made entirely of mushroom.  . . .The 500 bricks he grew at Far West Fungi were so sturdy that he destroyed many a metal file and saw blade in shaping the ’shrooms into an archway 6 ft. (1.8 m) high and 6 ft. wide. Dubbed Mycotectural Alpha, it is currently on display at a gallery in Germany.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1957474,00.html#ixzz0exE930rS

A Time Magazine article gives more information  about Philip Ross and Far West Fungi farm in Monterey, California where this amazing crop is grown and processed. Talk about green and sustainable!

It doesn’t appear that any energy efficient houses have been built yet, but Ecovative Design in Green Island, NY is making Greensulate rigid board insulation and Ecocradle packaging material using the same technology. I do love weird and wonderful news stories.

Phil Korman and CISA

Philip Korman of CISA

CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) is familiar to many of us because of the bright yellow Local Hero signs at farmstands, farmer’s markets,  supermarkets and car bumpers. We have recognized the benefits of buying food from our local farmers: keeping our money in the local economy; preserving local farms that produce the rural atmosphere we all treasure as well as a variety of crops; and cutting down on oil-dependent food transportation.

As consumers we see some of the work done by CISA, but much of its work, and workers, are visible only to the over 200 local farmers who are CISA members.

Philip Korman joined CISA in 2008 as its Executive Director. A graduate of Cornell University he has spent his professional life working for the community and common good through organizations like the National Priorities Project in Northampton and the Franklin County Council of Governments.

Once, as a young man, he spent a couple of summer months on a farm in Norway, just three hours south of the artic circle. “They raised dairy cows, and pigs, but no vegetables. All produce was imported. A lot of rhubarb soup,” Korman said.

Nowadays he contents himself with a home garden and enjoys living in a rural area, where there are lots of vegetables and fruits, and  working for CISA, a community organization that has a wide reach, from farmers to consumers, to other organizations and businesses who have an interest in food. And that is almost all of us, when you think about it.

“We are here to help the bottom line of farmers,” Korman said. They do this through a variety of workshops in business, finance and marketing. “Farmers already know what they are doing in the fields, but we can help them with those other aspects of farming. We also have a new Women in Agriculture initiative, in acknowledgment of the growing number of women who are farming.”

As any person starting a business knows, there is more to success than making a product. For farmers this means they also need an agricultural infrastructure to allow farmers to process their crops, and gain that value for themselves.

There was great controversy recently about a slaughterhouse in the area, and it is clear that such an operation will need to be sited carefully. However, meat farmers would benefit immensely from having a local slaughterhouse, and even those of us who like, or would like to raise backyard chickens, or pigs, would benefit. I believe that a well planned and managed small local slaughterhouse would avoid all the environmental problems that we associate with industrial sized slaughterhouses where there is cruelty and dangerous waste.

Korman said there is interest in building a local dairy processing operations. Gary Schaefer of Bart’s Ice Cream already uses local blueberries and peaches in their ice cream and are interested in using local milk as well.

In addition, CISA is investigating the possibility of establishing a flash freezing operation, that could either be brought to farms, or where farmers could bring their produce for freezing. This would be another was to increase farm income, and add jobs.

Those who attended the Northampton Winterfare farmers market scooped up all the fresh greens that Red Fire Farm had, showing that there is a market for fresh vegetables early and late in the season. Currently there is the possibility of funding to help farmers build hoop houses, to make this market available to more farmers.

During my talk with Korman I realized that how many people and organizations are generating ideas, and then working in concrete ways to make it more and more possible for us all to eat more healthfully and locally, and for more small farms to be more successful. This is a very exciting time for farmers in our area when there is organizational support and resources, as well as the desire from consumers to buy their products.

Since our local farms are small, we don’t realize what an economic impact they have on the area. Yet, local farms had more than $9 million dollars in sales last year; 35 Local Hero restaurants spent more than $1 million on local produce; and schools, and hospitals are buying more local produce. Of all the produce used at  UMass dining halls and cafes, more than 20% now comes  from local farms.

According to the 2008 CISA Annual Report “. . .we want more local foods and agricultural good available, more of the time, to more of the people.” When that report came out, a state funded Senior Farm Share program provided 350 low income seniors with 10-12 weeks of fresh produce from their local CSA.   The state cut half the funding for the current fiscal year, and for the upcoming fiscal year there is no state funding at all.

Because of their commitment to providing healthy fresh food to low income seniors CISA has been fundraising, hoping to raise $25,000 to keep this program alive until the economy and our state recover from this serious downturn. There is still time for people to make a donation to that program. Call Pamela Barnes at (413) 665-7100., or logon to www.buylocalfood.org for full information.

Nowadays you don’t have to be a farmer to be a supportive CISA member. Community memberships are available at a variety of levels. I’ve joined. Will you?

Don’t forget Greenfield’s Winterfare farmers market on Saturday, February 6 from 10 am to 2 pm at Greenfield High School. Beautiful produce, a Barter Fair, and workshops. I’ll be talking about that most local crop, sprouts. For full info logon to www.winterfare.org.  ###

Between the Rows July 31, 2010

Fish and Flowers

Barton Cove Ice Fishing

The sky was blue and the ice was thick. I did not see any fish being harvested, but the fisher folk looked pretty happy and relaxed.  I peeked at them on my way to the Greenfield Garden Club Annual Meeting, this year at the French King Restaurant.

There was a good crowd. The room buzzed with the happy chatter of frustrated gardeners. The food was good and the conversation even better. The Greenfield Garden Club is a terrific organization of gardeners who put their enthusiasm for plants at the service of the community. Their fundraising events like the Plant Sale Extravaganza in May and the Garden Tour in July fund grants for area schools including a pizza garden at Frontier Regional, school gardens at Holy Trinity, Whately,  Greenfield Center School, and Erving Elementary, and a mushroom garden at Buckland Shelburne Elementary. That’s just for starters. The sponsor the Barrel Contest to encourage the beautification of the town, maintain the Trap Plain garden at the corner of Silver and Federal Streets, and prepare a beautiful exhibit for the Franklin County Fair.

Marie Stella of Kirin Farm Enterprises

Marie Stella, a landscape historian and designer, was our featured speaker. Her topic was Responsible Gardening for the 21st Century: The Sustainable Landscape. It was clear to me that as much as I already do along these lines, there is always room for improvement. It is easy to manage one’s one property responsibly, but it takes a little extra gumption to tell a nursery that if he doesn’t stop selling burning bush, or any other invasive plant you see on his plant list, you will not shop there – and you’ll tell all your friends not to shop there either. Still, it is something we can and should do. Businesses are more likely to respond to economic incentives than altruism.

For more information about the Greenfield Garden Club click here. You could have fun like this too. And maybe you’d win a flower arrangement like this at the next Annual Meeting.  That John LaSalle!  He is a Master of Flowers – and he supports the Garden Club – and other plant loving organizations.

Laughing Dog Farm

Daniel and Divya Botkin at Laughing Dog Farm

December is not usually a good time to visit a small farm in action, but when I visited Daniel Botkin and his wife, Divya, at Laughing Dog Farm in Gill I got a tour of a thriving garden in the big hoop house (or long tunnel) and a lunch of delicious vegetable soup with bread and goat cheese made that very morning. This is local food at its finest.

I had specifically gone to Laughing Dog Farm to learn about making garden structures out of black locust.  I already knew black locust is a rot resistant wood. I’m still using fence posts I was given 25 years ago – and I don’t think they were newly cut then.  I did not know that black locust is considered a weed tree and grows quite fast. You would think this would make it easily available, but not so. It does not make good lumber because it doesn’t grow straight and is not harvested in the same way as maple, oak and other timber trees.

Still, if you can find a supplier of black locust, take advantage of the opportunity. Daniel Botkin has built numerous arbors, trellises and low hoop houses out of black locust. Sometimes he uses the poles, but he also makes use of  slabs and flexible thin slats. These sturdy structures, made of crooked logs and rough slabs, show a slightly manic sense of humor as well as engineering skill. They are not what you will find in an elegant flower garden, but they will last for years, and make use of that extra dimension in the garden.

In the summer Botkin’s  three plus acres of market garden rise up towards the sun. We are all familiar with bean poles and pea fences, but cucumbers also love to be grown on trellises. Melons can be placed in net bags like those onions come in, and supported on a trellis.

Botkin is a proponent of permaculture and no till techniques.  His  land is a steep hillside which he has terraced using black locust slabs and ‘poopy hay’, the bedding from his goat barn. The advantage to goat manure is that it can be used immediately in the garden, unlike cow manure or my chicken manure which need to be composted to be safe for plants.

December veggies in the hoop house

In mid-December parsley, leeks and kale were still growing in the heavily mulched beds outdoors, but  I was really stunned by the variety of vegetables growing in the hoop house, all manner of greens and a few sunny calendulas. This long structure, made of ‘hoops’ and special heavy plastic is not heated, but it is warm enough to provide cold hardy greens until spring.  When I visited I even got to eat a few Sungold cherry tomatoes.

Low tunnels made of black locust slats

Botkin had just finished building a new low tunnel with flexible slats of milled black locust that will retain their shape as they dry. Low tunnels can be used in a hundred ways, Botkin said. They can be covered with plastic in very early spring to start spinach and other greens. An extra advantage is that you will foil the insects that plague brassicas.       During the summer the plastic sides can be rolled up and the ends left open making that area very warm for crops like peppers and tomatoes that like and need extra heat.  Or the plastic can be removed entirely for the summer and the skeleton can be used for vining crops like cucumbers.

In late summer or fall, with the plastic in place, a late planting of hardy greens can go in. Botkin said, “I don’t operate with a plan. I look at the space and decide what will give me the highest value. Or I might throw down what seeds I happen to have in my apron.”

Laughing Dog Farm is small, but there is a lot of work to be done to bring vegetables, f.ruits, berries, herbs and flowers to local farmer’s markets. I was reminded that for 20 years Botkin was a teacher and counselor before he devoted himself to full time farming in 2000. He has not stopped teaching. In the summer he has apprentices who live at the farm and give a certain amount of labor for room and board while they learn the pleasures and challenges of growing food.

Botkin explained that there are networks that include the World Wide Opportunties on Organic Farms (www.wwoof.org) and the Northeast Organic Farming Association (www.nofa.org)  that help pair young people who are interested in learning with small farmers who need extra seasonal labor.

Beyond teaching interns and apprentices, Botkin holds occasional workshops at Laughing Dog Farm and has put up a website www.laughingdogfarm.com that explains his philosophy and gives enormous amounts of information about gardening. It includes a series of very short videos on designing hoop houses, growing greens in a hoop house, planting intensively and working with goats. Some teachers just cannot give up teaching, no matter what else they are doing.

Botkin is also an enthusiastic seed saver. In the olden days gardeners and farmers routinely saved seed from their own plants, but now seed is easy to buy. Aside from the issues of hybrized seeds that won’t come true, and genetically modified (GMO) seeds that have many people concerned, Botkin says that saving seed gives the gardener control over his produce, and over his own food security.

A vegetable garden does provide a measure of security, of good health, and pleasure. Those are good things as we go forward into a new year.  ###

Between the Rows   January 2, 2010

Know Your Farmers

It was 10 degrees, but sunny, when I left Heath for the Valley yesterday, joining the crowds who attended Northampton’s First Annual Winterfare Farmer’s Market to get to know their farmers. CISA was one of the sponsors.

Tom Clark of Clarkdale Fruit Farm

Clarkdale in Deerfield had a table right near the entrance, so Winterfarers were greeted by the smiling faces of Tom, and his son Ben.  I think Ben makes the fifth generation of growing premium fruit on their magnificent farm. I always buy a bag of the Clarkdale apple pie mix. My friend and expert pie baker says the secret of a really good apple pie is a mixture of apples, and Clarkdale has put it all together for me.

Apex Orchards was on the other side of the room where the sun dazzled shoppers. I bought a bag of Thomas Jefferson’s favorite Spitzenberg apple. Apex also sells apple cider vinegar from their own apples, and honey from their own hives.

Warm Colors Apiary of Deerfield was offering test testing of the different flavors. I chose a darker fuller bodied wildflower honey. I’m going to be talking to Don Conlon in a few weeks to find out the latest challenges for bee keepers and how that will affect all of us honey lovers.

Paul and Amy of Sidehill Farm

Paul and Amy of Sidehill Farm brought lots of yogurt in various flavors for all of us yogurt lovers, and fortunately they had a little left by the time I made it to their table.  In season, they also sell gorgeous vegetables.

At the Barberic Farm booth you could buy frozen lamb, fleece, yarn, pickles – and book Eric Goodchild for a bagpiping gig. I settled for pickles this time.

Red Fire Farm greens

There was a long line at the Red Fire Farm operation. People were eager for the opportunity to buy fresh local greens (of many types) in January!

Ryan Voiland, the genius behind Red Fire Farm, was busy, along with staff members, keeping the bins stocked and the customers happy.  Ryan is in the process of moving the farm from Granby to Montague where he grew up. Closer to us!

Root Cellaring workshop

In addition to buying opportunities, there were learning opportunities with a range of workshops like this one about how to store garden crops through the winter – with demonstrations of what can go wrong.

Corn grinder

Some Winterfarers found more active learning opportunities like this boy who spent some time grinding corn into cornmeal.

Northampton’s First Winterfare was fun, delicious and a great success – a success that will be repeated at the Third Annual Winterfare in Greenfield on Saturday, Feb. 6 from 10 -2 pm at Greenfield High School. Hope to see you there.

What Will I Do?

The 'Mowing' near Heath Fair Grounds

My view to the northwest is of an unblemished snowfield. The snow is clean and bright, the sky a brilliant blue. The landscape is as untouched as the new year.. What will I do with 2010? How will I approach my landscape?

Recently a friend of mine said he was gearing himself up to buy a tiller for his tractor, usually used for work in the woods and plowing snow. His wife chimed in that he was tired of the rackety rack of his rototiller. I suggested he give up tilling altogether.

There was a momentary silence, but he allowed that this next door neighbors who had beautiful gardens just did a little hand digging.

I went on to talk about the ‘lasagna’ method I used to enlarge my vegetable garden. This did take work, but no tilling, to set up. I mowed the area as low as possible, then spread at least four inches of chicken manure and compost and watered it all. Ideally this layer could have been deeper. Next came sheets of cardboard, making sure that there were generous overlaps. I watered this as well.

The final layer was soil, not-very-wonderful-loam I had delivered. I planted pole beans, squash and tomatoes in this 10 by 10 foot extension and it produced abundantly. No tilling. And hardly any weeding. The squash vines went everywhere, covering the ground, forbidding the arrival of many weeds.

Growth was exuberant  because the plant roots reached through the rotting wet cardboard and into the rich compost and soil. Worms also loved this cardboard covered environment, increasing in population, aerating the soil and enriching it further with their castings. So lush was the growth I could hardly move around in this section to harvest. I needed more space.

So this past spring I mowed down another section, I didn’t have much of my own  compost but I did have a load of wonderful compost from Bear Path Farm. This time, I put down the little unfinished compost from my own pile, watered it, laid down cardboard, and topped it with Bear Path compost instead of soil.  This 10 by 12 foot extension gave me a little more room so I could have more generous paths. The paths were created using cardboard and wood chips.

Now the mystery. I don’t know why this is. I had always heard that you could mulch with compost, but didn’t understand why compost on top of the soil deterred weeds, when beautiful compost in the soil grew such beautiful vegetables and flowers. I still don’t understand it, but I can attest to this truth.

I was enjoying my new paths, and nearly weed-free garden so much I spent the summer mowing, spreading a layer of chicken manure and unfinished compost, and laying down lots more cardboard topped with free woodchips, an unexpected benefit of last year’s historic ice storm. My plan is to plant a row of black raspberries and another squash patch in this section in the spring.  All it will take is pushing aside some of the wood chips, spreading some compost and then planting. No tilling.

No till techniques, whether called lasagna gardening, sheet composting, or composting in place, have several benefits. When working with nature and natural processes erosion is prevented, moisture in the soil is conserved, and the soil is enriched. You will be constructing new rich soil every season, instead of disrupting the system.

To maintain this type of garden more compost needs to be added every year. Add another layer of newspapers or cardboard, water it, and add another thick layer of compost for planting.

You can see the need for compost  never decreases. We can never have too much compost. Fortunately materials for compost are everywhere beginning in the kitchen with fruit and vegetable scraps, and moving out to newspapers, lawn clippings, autumn leaves, weeds, old garden vines and spent plants, as well as straw, and rotted hay. Those who are lucky may have access to animal manures. Never use pet manure!

Laughing Dog Farm

Some worry that hay will introduce weed seeds. I saw that Daniel Botkin of Laughing Dog Farm in Gill had lots of hay bales in his productive market garden. He says he uses them to help create micro-climates, and when they are well and truly rotted and all the weed seeds have sprouted and died, he uses it as mulch and compost.

As my friend and I continued our conversation he asked if I was suggesting that he spend $100 on rotted hay instead of buying new equipment or repairing the rototiller. I replied that it was certainly an option. I do know that he has a big compost pile and chicken manure so he is already well set up.

I pointed out that he would be working with nature, saving energy (no fuel for engines) and possibly his own energy. At least over the long haul, and that’s the way to think – long term benefits for our own health and the health of our gardens, and hence the health of our planet.

I look at my snow covered fields and the new year before me. I think of the poet Marie Ponsot’s new book Easy and the poem, Simples.  “what do I want/ well I want to/ get better.”

Happy New Year.   Happy Gardening.

Between the Rows  December 26, 2009