August 28, 2005 link
If you’re a reader of this site who lives in Chicago, here’s an event you might be interested in.
Family farms and food come into focus as Farm Aid opens its 20th Anniversary Celebration week in Chicago with an evening of cutting edge films and shorts at the Chicago Cultural Center on Monday, September 12th.
Films to be shown are The Impact of Fresh, Healthy Food on Learning and Behavior, a short film that documents the successes of a healthy school food program in Appleton, Wisconsin; The Meatrix, an animated short that created a world-wide buzz about the negative impacts of factory farms after its internet release in 2003; and The Real Dirt on Farmer John, an 11-time award winning documentary, that tells the gripping and emotional story of farmer John Peterson and his successful fight to save his family farm by founding Angelic Organics near Rockford, Illinois.
Creative teams from each film will meet and talk with moviegoers about their work and the critical role family farmers play in producing fresh, local and healthful food.
A reception featuring food made with local family farm raised products will open the event. Partners and presenters will talk about building the growing good food movement in Illinois and around the country.
Tickets can be purchased at the Farm Aid web site. If you’re going, let me know. I would really enjoy meeting readers of this site.
August 26, 2005 link
I updated the 2005 expenses page, for those who are interested in such matters.
August 24, 2005 link
More photo updates. Tomatoes, beans, peas, flowers, compost.
August 21, 2005 link
Squashed, again. Every time I try to grow squashes, I get foiled. Within the past two days, my zucchini plants have wilted. Upon inspection, I discovered they have been attacked by squash-borer grubs. These little buggers eat through the stem base and deprive the plant of nutrients by chopping it down like a beaver.
I’m not too disappointed, because I didn’t expect the zukes to bear fruit anyway. I have a suspicion that all my plants were female, and that they would spend the summer producing big orange flowers that never get pollinated. Poor old maids. Even if they’re barren, it’s still sad to see them go. Now I have big empty spaces in the middle of the garden.
Last year, I tried to grow zukes, as well as pumpkins. Both grew nice long vines before succumbing to dusty mildew. Dusty got ‘em the year before too. No sign of dusty mildew at all this year…the perfect opportunity for the squash borers to make their appearance.
Every gardening book ever talks about how zucchini are unstoppable, and how you’ll have a refrigerator overflowing with squash in August. Unless you’re me…the squash-killer.
August 18, 2005 link
What to do now? Maybe it’s just because of the late-summer doldrums, but recently I’ve begun to question the direction in which my life is heading. I always assumed I would have discovered the proper direction by the time I was 30, but I guess that isn’t the case. Then again, maybe my angst is typical of those on the threshold of thirty.
The more time I spend gardening, learning about agriculture, observing urban life and studying ecology & history, the more I become convinced that my true calling is somehow wrapped together in these notions. I have no idea how. I feel like my current experiments in gardening and blogging—while a good first steps—are not enough to answer the call.
In my delusions of grandeur, I see myself becoming an advocate for urban agriculture, as I have discussed many times on this web site. I feel like I have some interesting, innovative and practical ideas for greater integration of agriculture into the urban fabric, and I yearn for the opportunity to help put these ideas into practice.
This is not exactly an easy task. It would involve working with city governments, planners, developers, engineers and landscapers—not to mention a great deal of fundraising and education. Even while writing these words, I wonder if I am a lunatic for believing this is possible.
But when I write entries brainstorming ideas for neighborhood gardens, sheep pastures on flat city roofs, food-growing lessons for school children, neigborhood composting stations or creating monuments and museums dedicated to the Midwest’s rural heritage, people send me notes saying “What a great idea!” People understand the practical, ecological, economic, aesthetic and spiritual benefits of these ideas. With all the talk (even in the most conservative, mainstream media) about green building, climate change, peak oil and alternative energy, there is strong public support—at least intellectually, if not in actual dollars, yet—for innovative, environmentally-conscious ideas.
Somebody needs to put these ideas together in a coherent package and find ways to test their implementation. I certainly couldn’t accomplish huge things on my own. Like I said, I have no idea how I fit into the plan. Right now, I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness—constantly talking about the possibilities of “21st Century Agrarianism”, but in the end it’s just talk. And aside from those cheerleaders, saying “What a great idea!”, it’s a mostly one-way conversation. I talk; you read. Nobody picks up the plowshare.
On the other hand, I am truly blessed to have a career that I enjoy and excel at. Helping small business with their web sites is a very satisfying way to support local economies. I work from home, which is superb. And I am developing an exciting business plan, which has the potential to bring me financial security and material wealth, if I am dedicated to its execution.
For the time being, for economic reasons, I have no choice but to pursue my web career while keeping the urban agriculture stuff as a hobby. This entry is not going to reach a satisfying conclusion, because I really don’t know what else to say. I just had to get a few things off my chest. If anybody has advice or pointers, I would appreciate it.
August 16, 2005 link
Today I planted some more lettuce, radishes and arugula. All three of these grow very quickly, so I think they’ll come close to maturity before October 1st, when I might have to move to a new apartment.
I also planted some peas, which probably won’t mature in time. If, by some miracle, I’m able to stay here, I’ll have some peas this Fall.
The tomatoes are in full production. The squirrels have kept their distance ever since I doused them with hot pepper a few years ago. Not a single blemish on this year’s tomatoes.
I think I have a bunch of female zucchini plants, but no males. They keep blooming, but no fruit is forming.
The collards are huge, and it looks like I might actually get some broccoli this year. And any day now, I should be overwhelmed with green beans.
I ate a few okra pods last night from my “Baby Bubba” dwarf okra plants. You’d have to grow a heck of a lot of dwarf okra in order to get a decent amount of pods. I guess the whole dwarf thing is just for fun.
Life is good.
August 14, 2005 link
Earlier this summer, I finally got myself a kitchen compost container. It’s nothing special—just
a tall plastic container with a fitted lid. Before this, I tossed most of my kitchen scraps in the trash can, or in special cases, carried them directly to the compost pile.
I’m surprised by the amount of vegetable matter a single person discards. I never noticed it before, but each day’s meals generate a pile of carrot peelings, onion skins, celery ends, grape twigs, apple cores, etc. The compost container fills up pretty quickly.
Last week, I forgot—or procrastinated—on emptying the container, even though it was full. It didn’t smell bad, and I just kept pressing it down and adding new stuff on top. When I finally took it outside to empty onto the pile, I got an olfactory surprise. Oh, man. The junk at the bottom of the container stunk to high heaven. It had been sitting there for about 10 days.
It smelled very similar to the odor emitted by a Christmas tree a few years ago which started rotting from the bottom after sitting in a pot of water. Except the Christmas tree released a dull funk, while the kitchen trash contained a hidden explosion of nastiness that burst directly into my nostrils when it became exposed to the air.
From now on, I am going to empty the container on a regular basis.
August 9, 2005 link
Photo Time. See the garden on the verge of peak midsummer production.
August 6, 2005 link
“I wish I had a cultural heritage”, she said.
“What do you mean?”, I asked.
“You know,” she explained. “I wish I had some interesting cultural traditions, like if I was Mexican, or Indian or Italian.”
“If you go back far enough, everybody comes from somewhere. We all have roots.”
“I know…but you and I are just white people. We don’t have an interesting culture. We’re just Americans.”
“Well, you once told me about your family history”, I offered. “They were farmers and ranchers on the Great Plains. Just like mine were. That’s a pretty interesting story.”
“That’s boring.”
“Your great-grandparents must be rolling in their graves, to hear you say that.”
“They didn’t have any cool traditions…like pinatas or The Day of the Dead.”
“They had plenty of cool traditions”, I countered. “Ever hear of Thanksgiving?”
“Yeah, but they lived in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wheat fields.”
“So did mine. And I’m proud of them.”
August 4, 2005 link
GGE World Tour: Earlier this week, I visited the Xochiquetzal Peace Garden in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. Connected to a grade school, this charming and productive garden is operated by students, parents and community members.
The garden, which sits on a full-size city lot, is filled with 60% vegetables and 40% ornamental flowers. I should have taken some photos, but I didn’t. They are successfully growing cucumbers, cantaloupe, hot peppers, strawberries, raspberries, eggplant, herbs, lettuce and sunflowers. They also have some miscellaneous corn, which doesn’t look like it will produce ears, possibly because of our drought.
The most stunning feature is their tomatoes. They have about a hundred plants. Every student in the school planted a tomato seed. These were later transplanted in the garden. Over 50% of the space taken by vegetables is for tomatoes of all shapes and sizes.
The garden has some great structural features. All the beds are raised and terraced. There is a tool storage shed, a large compost bin, and several picnic tables in a shady corner. The tables are regularly used for community educational and social events, bringing non-gardeners into the garden.
Brainstorms on Chicago community gardens: I was quite impressed by everything I saw. The whole experience got me thinking about the possibility that every Chicago neighborhood could have a community garden like this one. It’s certainly within the realm of possibility, especially given Mayor Daley’s affinity for greening the city. What if some of the money spent every year on hanging planters and median strips was transferred toward subsidizing small land purchases? These don’t need to be large purchases, like those usually required for a park or playground. This is just a matter of finding small parcels of vacant land in each neighborhood.
Once the land was procured, I think the manpower would provide itself. I honestly feel that many city people are strongly pulled toward gardening, if only they had some space and a group of people to share the workload. People in each community would donate their time to plant, water and weed the gardens. Perhaps there could be a series of area managers that supervise 10-15 gardens and make sure that the land is being put to good use. These would all be volunteer positions.
Rather than purchasing seeds each year, the city could help organize a simple seed saving/trading program. Community gardeners would save a certain percentage of seeds each year, which could be traded among other community gardens. All the gardens would be encouraged to produce and use compost. If the gardens are correctly designed as closed-loop systems, the material costs are minimal.
So, whaddya say, Mayor Daley? Give me a call.
August 1, 2005 link
In my latest post, I missed one of the most basic reasons why people garden: survival. This will be a
foreign concept to anybody reading this site, for which gardening is a luxury or a lifestyle choice. I imagine that you might find a few pessimists in the sustenance gardeners. At the same time,
I’m sure many of them would find common ground with the values of discovery, tradition, satisfaction and love.
