Obvious, Yet Genius.

The Edible Graden in Asheville, NC

Where our feet can soak in the dirt and our skin can play in the sun, where sunny valleys and rolling hills covered in green pastures dot the land—this is where we think our food comes from. But how many of us actually live there in Hidden Valley Ranch, where of course our ranch dressing grows in bountiful goodness? Most of us live where concrete and asphalt cover rolling highways and pastures of parking lots dot the block.

Where Edible Garden Meets City Skyline

Think about a garden. When you take away the fact that everyone knows that lettuce is grown in the ground, your left with the phenomenon that lettuce grows from the ground! Don’t think about the obvious—discover the genius in the obvious. There is a seed. The seed gets put into dirt. Food comes forth from the ground. It’s amazing how genius it all is. This is the disconnect between how most of us live and where we think our food comes from; we so rarely get the chance to uncover the genius in the obvious.

I recently visited a city project that solves this problem. It’s called an edible forest ecosystem in the city. A plot of city land was set aside and made into an edible garden free to the public. Anyone can stroll about the path and enjoy the apple, pear, fig, and persimmon trees. Anyone can snack on the blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. I saw someone just stick their hand into the dirt and pull out five potatoes. Squash, tomatoes, and corn entice people of all ages and backgrounds to swarm in and out of the rows like honeybees.

Squash Free For the Taking

I ate two kinds of fruit I’d never seen before and still wouldn’t know what to call them if you’d ask. I just pulled them off a tree and popped them in my mouth, like we all loved to do when we were kids. There’s something magnificent about being able to do that—something playful and serendipitous about eating the fruit directly from a tree. Even veggies tasted better having pulled them from the ground, still speckled in dirt.

All this is waiting for people while the chestnut trees share the skyline with the tall buildings of the city. There is something beautiful about seeing the towering crane from the construction site through the grape vine that climbs the fence. To me it’s just as beautiful as a sunny valley or rolling hill covered in green pastures … and ever more genius.

Raised Beds: The French Intensive

Over the last week we have begun work on our raised beds. Following the advice of a fellow gardener, Karen Watkins, we decided to use the French intensive double digging method on our beds. We decided upon this method for several reasons: First this method gives us very nice, loose soil to work with, and according to many accounts has more of the original microbial soil structure than using a rototiller. Secondly, this method is very labor intensive, and at the time we began we had very little lumber to work with, not nearly enough to build all of our raised beds, and therefore we had enough time to begin work double digging without delaying the rest of our garden. Our third reason for using the french intensive method is based on the amount of amendments for our soil we have access to. If we went with simple raised beds on top of the lawn, we would need far more manure and compost than we have access to. With this method, the soil gets fluffed up enough so that we have nearly 6 inches of usable soil, and need to mix in a much smaller amount of amendments.

The french intensive method may be hard to describe in text, but I will try my best. For each bed, we start by digging a trench in one end, about two feet wide, four feet long (equal to the width of our bed), and one foot deep. The soil that is removed from this trench should be put in a wheelbarrow, or just off to the side, to be used for later.

Laura digging the final section of this bed

Next you should take a manure fork and proceed to loosen the soil another foot down. This should be done by first placing the fork in at one end of your trench, driving it as far down as possible, wiggling it to loosen the soil, and then removing it. Repeat this after rotating the fork 90 degrees and moving it to one side or the other of the trench, so the you are now loosening the same soil from the side. Repeat this on the other side of the trench, and then move on to the next section (about one forks width further down the trench). Repeat the entire process until you have loosened down the entire length of the trench.

Loosen on each side, and then repeat going down the trench.

Now you have completed one section of the bed! Next you should dig out the adjacent two feet, which would double the width of your trench, however instead of putting the dirt aside this time, you put it back on top of the area you just loosened with your manure fork. If you dig down the same depth each time, you should end up with several inches of nice loose soil on top. You now proceed to repeat the whole process, until you reach the end of your bed. This time, after loosening the final section of ground, you will have no new section to dig up. Remember that soil we put aside from the first section? Yup, you guessed it, take the soil from the first trench and put it in the last one. Hopefully, if you dug all of the sections the same size, making this the perfect amount of soil to finish off the bed.

While this method may be very time consuming, I think it will be worth our effort. At this point we have dug out two full beds, and about half of two more, when we ran into a setback or two, but I will save that for a later post…

The Uprising: Part 1

I now present to you the ladies of the City Secret Garden in the sequence of the pecking order: Laughing Warrior, Raven, Sitting Bull, and Chief.

At least this was the case when we put them into their nighttime cage the evening of August 20^th. The next day we introduced three more chickens to the group, and it was then that Laughing warrior and Raven took advantage of the confusion and break in routine to lead what would be a short lived revolution. It started about 8:00am when we usually place them in the larger coop for the day. Raven took the first move and pecked Chief, who having been comfortable in her spot relatively high on the “it-list” didn’t know exactly how to react. Laughing Warrior sought to make a powerful message by going after Sitting Bull (who is a whole two pecks above her!). By 8:15am it had begun.

The three new chickens generally kept their noses out of the conflict. They obviously needn’t concern themselves with such strife when two of the three had size on their side. Socrates and Nietzsche—the two Buff Orpingtons—took it upon themselves to protect Lao-Tzu (the smallest of the new chickens) from the peck-crazy other four.

When we came back out to check on them, Chief was trying to squash the rebellion by restricting food supply to Laughing Warrior. The food bowl—which of course never stays right-side up because why would that ever make sense not to knock it over the second it get’s placed in the coop?—was upside down in the corner with Chief standing on top with an air of non-tolerance. The pile of feed was scattered behind her, a misfortune for Laughing Warrior who could not penetrate Chief’s forces. But it was going to take more than that to break her spirits. At this point Raven seemed bored by the uprising and was scratching around in the corner.

However, when 7:00pm came around the corner, the coop was silent. As I approached the door, no chicken could be in sight. Had they pecked each other to mere piles of feathers? Had they somehow smuggled a spoon from the kitchen and dug a tunnel to freedom in the garden among the little seedlings to feast upon? As it turns out, rebellions are tiresome and even chickens need a rest. All seven chickens were piled in the corner getting some sleep. For now it appears a truce has been reached.

How did this start? Why were the pecking order politics thrust aside suddenly when generations have abided by this type of chicken caste system? One thing is certain, we have a colorful bunch of chickens here at City Secret Garden and they are not afraid to bend the rules to go after what they believe in.

That night when we placed them back in their nighttime cage, I noticed the newspaper we had placed on the cage floor for nighttime reading material. It had a headline reading “Rebels in Libya Rise Up, Taking Matters Into The Hands of the People”. I guess we should be more careful what articles we’re letting the chickens read. Then again….what has a little reading done to hurt anyone?

Gardening With Company

The Taj Ma-Chicken

 City Secret Garden’s Chicken Tractor

No garden is complete without chickens. What they can bring to the garden is more beneficial than just fresh eggs as a scrumptious morning re-fueling—got to get that protein somehow. We use something called a chicken tractor to yield the greatest variables of MCP  (Maximized Chicken Potential). Just as it sounds, this is a process that is remarkably complicated and not for the faint of heart. It consists of an extremely portable chicken coop that can be periodically moved about the garden space, allowing the chickens to eat harmful bugs and weeds, cut the grass, fertilize the soil with their poop, and aerate the ground with their scratching.  Did I say complicated and for the faint of heart? I meant simple as toast and for those loving souls who love having friendly company in the garden. That was my mistake in a poor choice of words….

I’ve noticed that chickens are much more enjoyable than people tend to give them credit for (myself included). Each chicken has a personality that makes integrating it into our garden a blast and very entertaining. We’ve been able to follow the dramatic unfoldings of Chicken Politics as time has gone on. We’ve already had one rebellion and a Coop-d’état (pun intended) of the original government. Two new chickens have seized standings at the top of the pecking order.

So many designs and room for creativity!

Being able to spend time in the garden with a battalion of chickens running around behind me gives chance for some comical relief and company. And keeping them happy is so much simpler than keeping a human happy! Some food, water, shelter, and care are all they require…which is all much simpler (and cheaper) than some of the things I supposedly need to keep me happy. Not only do they bring so many benefits to the breakfast plate and garden, but now their convincing me to sit back and enjoy how simple being satisfied can be.

The bottom line is chickens, not mediation, are the key to self-enrichment in yourself and the garden.

The Theory of Layers

Slowly a garden rises from the ground.

It is a known fact that lasagna in Greek literally translates to layers of delicious goodness. While this may not actually be true, I’m sure many would agree that this should have been the case when instead the Romans borrowed the Greek word “lasanon”, using it to refer to the cooking pot in which lasgana was made. But the revolutionary theory of the delicious goodness of layers can be applied to more than this Italian pasta dish. The garden is just as good a place as anywhere to apply this theory—so with a few buckets of manure, a dash of newspaper, and sprinkling of mulch you can consider the theory applied.

Lasgana beds are perfect for gardeners who prefer not to use power-tools and may not be able to spare huge amounts of time weeding, rototilling, or digging. The layer of newspaper (or cardboard if preferred) works as a weed block. Because of the layer technique, rototilling would ruin the layers we worked so hard to create—and lasagna is only as good as it’s layers—so naturally rototilling is not needed. This technique is also perfect if time is an issue. We needed a bed quickly and were able to transplant some chard, broccoli and lettuce in about a week. To create our lasgana bed, we loosened up the ground where our bed was to go. First we spread out a thin layer of newspaper; on top of that went manure (of the chicken and goat variety); then a good layer of mulch—which were old grass clippings and straw. We let this cook for about seven days before we transplanted our seedlings. As manure can get pretty hot out in the sun, we had to make sure a good spreading of mulch was on the top layer after transplanting in order to protect the stems from getting burned.

It has been almost a week since the theory of the delicious goodness of layers has been applied in our garden and so far it is a success! The lettuce and broccoli have doubled in size and the chard has begun to flaunt broad new leaves.  Our lasgana bed is looking as delicious as the Italians originally intended layers to look.

 

 

Veggielution

Veggielution… if every non-profit had such a name perhaps the generalization that keeping a non-profit afloat is difficult would be done away with.  All I can say is that once I saw the name I knew I had to look into it further.

What do you think when you hear urban gardening?  I tend to think downtown, small plots surrounded by infrastructure and commerce.  Veggielution is in the center of infrastructure alright, right under a freeway, and yet they have enough land to be a regular urban farm.  About 3 acres at the moment.  Veggielution is unique in that they are a community run farm, which to them means anyone who is willing to come and work can take away food in exchange for their labor.  Talk about shortening food miles and eliminating monetary transactions!  In addition to the main farm program, there is a high school youth program, in which students come and learn about a variety of

aspects of food and how to grow it during a fall or spring course.  In the summer students who have completed the academic year program can return as paid staff people working on the farm as a summer job while learning still more about the operation of a working urban agriculture project.

We had the good fortune to speak with two of the main people involved with Veggielution’s youth program, Tommy and Jessie.  One of our goals for t

he trip was to and speak with people about our project and gain ideas from them that would be applicable to City Secret, logistical, structural, and also just fun ideas to make things more interesting.  Another goal was to find curriculum and resources which we could use parts of for our workshops and educational component.   When we asked about curriculum for teaching high schoolers about agriculture, they immediately directed us towards a program based around Boston, called The Food Project, later we were able to meet and speak with people involved with The Food Project.  Sure enough, when we looked them up, it was clear that they had an amazing amount of well developed curriculum available for use by projects just such as ours.  Veggielution was the first location we visited on our bay area urban agriculture tour, definitely a great start to our trip!

Bay area urban agriculture tour!

Because none of us have ever started or run a non-profit urban agriculture project before, we decided it would be a good idea to visit some successful projects with elements similar to what we were planning to implement. What better place to start than the bay area of California? Well known for its food movements and support for local agriculture, we were amazed by the number of tiny hole in the wall–and sometimes not so small–urban agriculture projects that existed. And we were only looking at ones that had high school education components! With one day to plan the trip and only public transit systems at our service, we set out from Sacramento at 4am on a Wednesday morning. The first two days were spent in San Jose (read about Veggielution), then on Friday we did a whirlwind tour of three projects in Oakland and Berkeley (City Slicker Farms, Urban Adamah, and King Middle School’s Edible Schoolyard), completing our tour with a backyard garden visit and wonderful talk with the Tennyson High School garden teacher in San Francisco’s Mission District. Take a look at detailed accounts of our visits in the coming days.

City Slicker Farms

There is no possible way to fit a farm in your backyard—and yet City Slicker Farms did just that. The Secret Garden in West Oakland, California, is part of City Slicker Farms and is certainly one of West Oakland’s best secrets as it is tucked away in a donor’s backyard. Lettuce, carrots, and radishes pop out of the ground where a pool might have gone. Row after row of garden greens shimmy their way across the yard, transforming the place into a small farm where volunteers can enjoy gardening amidst the seemingly endless asphalt and concrete of the city.

And where does all this food go? That is perhaps the best part of the Secret Garden. City Slicker Farms is a non-profit that provides the West Oakland community with local and organically grown produce. This fresh produce is sold at a local stand where families who live in West Oakland can have access to such delicious food at any price they can afford. City Slicker Farms’ Secret Garden is tackling the enormous issue of food security all from a backyard. Imagine what can be done in your own backyard!

Meet the minds…

Inspiration

The City Secret project was inspired through two main sources. The first was recognizing the unstable nature of the agricultural system in the United States. This stems from the realization that citizens are dependent upon large independently owned farms, which in turn depend on oil, government subsidies, and poor agricultural practices. The second source of inspiration for this project comes from the growing stigma in the United States towards farming and other careers in the agricultural industry. It is rare in this day and age to find a young person who is interested in becoming a farmer instead of a fireman or astronaut.

This is where City Secret comes in. We plan to engage youth in gardening and agricultural practice by providing to them a plot in a community garden and workshops focused on giving them the education and inspiration to continue in the field of agriculture. We will give these students the opportunity to learn about the importance of agriculture, emphasizing the value of food security, sustainability, and organic farming or gardening practices.

Our goal is to give the youth who enter our program the education and recourses they need to continue with varying degrees of agricultural practice. This could range from something as simple as starting a garden in their backyards, to using the resources we provide them with to intern or be employed in agricultural business. We hope these students will be inspired to work and educate others on the benefits of sustainable agricultural practices, and return stability to the agricultural system of the United States.