gardening

Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It: The D.I.Y. Guide to the Good Life

mandy — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It is packed full of just about as much information as the title suggests. The book is generally a fun and easy read, with crafting suggestions and healthy recipes. It is not, however, the bible I’d hoped it would be. While there are many recipes for making your own toilet bowl cleaner, there’s little helpful advice on things like how to garden. Rather, the focus is simply on the benefits of gardening.

One of the great things about Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It is that Billee Sharp is adept at making things most people would scoff at seem perfectly reasonable. For example, Sharp makes dumpster diving seem as viable an option as buying a chair off Craigslist—and not just for furniture. In the chapter entitled “Freeconomics,” Sharp gives suggestions for dumpster diving for food, organizing community programs that will help neighbors share their unwanted items in lieu of sending them to the dump, and twists on the tried and true clothing swap (which she has renamed “Naked Lady Parties”).

There is one line in the book that tainted the rest of the read for me. In chapter four, “Homely Habits,” Sharp makes it clear that she’s not the best at wielding a wrench, which is fine. But then she writes that when her husband is out of town she keeps a roll of duct tape on hand because, “Even if I can’t fix stuff, I can hold it together with duct tape.” This is one of the least empowering things I’ve ever read, and coming from a book that claims to put power back into my hands, I found it to be pretty jarring.

In addition to a little feminist boost, Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It desperately needs an index. There is so much information about baking, fixing, and growing in order to save money in the chapter about finances, but one may never find some gem they hoped to reference without spending cash on post-its to mark the pages.

If you’re a novice thrifter or a newbie to reducing, reusing, and recycling, Fix It, Make It, Grow It, Bake It will have more helpful hints than you'll know what to do with. But if you’ve fixed a chair or composted recently, there may not be a lot of new information here for you.

Written by: Tatiana Ryckman, September 21st 2010

Unbounded Practice: Women and Landscape Architecture in the Early Twentieth Century

admin — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:02:00 +0000

By Thaisa Way

University of Virginia Press

Female hands are all over America's landscape; you just need to know where to look for them. In Unbounded Practice, author Thaisa Way can direct your eye.

Look to the Memorial Quadrangle at Yale, the grounds of Princeton, or a number of botanical gardens and astronomical observatories to see the legacy of Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959). Recall a youthful American pilgrimage to Disneyland—if you are among the number who has made one—to know the work of Ruth Shellhorn (1909-2005). Stroll past any working or middle-class apartment complex designed with a central, neatly-gardened courtyard to see the lasting influence of Marjorie Sewell Cautley (1891-1954), who designed such courtyards with the needs of family members—particularly mothers—in mind; not only can natural beauty be observed from every dwelling, but so can children at play.

Way's concern in Unbounded Practice is not just that significant contributions to landscape architecture have been made by women, but that these contributions have been largely forgotten by current practitioners and require a restorative historical account. An irony that emerges in Way's recounting of women's contribution to the formation of the discipline—critical in its early stages—is that the public conceptions of womanhood were both an inlet for women to practice the discipline and an impetus for them to be disassociated from it. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, pursuits associated with horticulture, such as gardening and botany, were considered appropriate for the sex viewed as intrinsically closer to the earth than its masculine counterpart. This allowed women to enter the discipline with minimal, or no public rebuke, pursuing architectural approaches to design as well as employing acquired botanical knowledge often superior to that of their male peers. As landscape architecture moved towards an alignment with architecture at the expense of being associated with the "craft" of gardening, women were marginalized in the discipline.

Way's history is both a history of women and a history of the formation of a discipline—the key of the book's strength—and her passion as a scholar is evident in the pains she takes in detailing both. A lay reader, or perhaps even a beginning student, may benefit from reading Way's conclusion before embarking on the book proper. There, Way's passion is evident in tone as well as content, and the relatively brief reflection on a hefty scholarly endeavor reads as an accessible orientation to the modern challenges the discipline has faced.

Ten color plates are featured in the book, as well as a wealth of illuminating photographs of work by women pioneering practitioners, slides from lectures delivered by women, period advertisements, and—thrillingly—meticulous plans and client sketches drafted by the women Way profiles. While Unbounded Practice could easily be sourced for perspective on American history, women's history, class structure, ecology, urban studies, fine arts, architecture, and education, one can't help but imagine Way writing this book thinking of the reader who would crack the spine at one such architectural-botanical plan, magnifying glass in hand, connecting back to one of the women who would draft herself a practice.

Written by: Kaja Katamay, July 9th 2010

The Girl's Guide to Growing Your Own: How to Grow Fruit and Vegetables Without Getting Your Hands Too Dirty

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Alex Mitchell

New Holland

I’ve been keeping a full, vibrant, productive garden in my head for about two years. In my mind there are rows of beets, shoots of garlic, bushes of raspberries, clusters of strawberries, and vines of beans. Every plant flourishes year-round and is never plagued by weeds, bad soil, the first freeze (or any of the ones that follow), and definitely never suffers like I do from the hot, hot August Texas sun. Nonetheless, the food would probably taste better if it were real.

While titles that start with phrases like “The Girl’s Guide to...” make me move forward with trepidation, chary of each frilly, gender-specific tip that is sure to be found inside, The Girl’s Guide to Growing Your Own seemed safe. I mean, it’s about gardening. Alex Mitchell, the saucy British journalist-turned-gardener who wrote the book, does an excellent job of presenting practical information and keeping the girly kitsch to a very tolerable level. I even giggled periodically. Really, giggled.

Squashing the usual excuses for not getting a garden started, Mitchell starts her book off telling the reader how simple growing really is. She describes soil types in easy to understand detail and outlines just how little equipment (and space) you actually need to get going. One of my favorite suggestions was to use the wine shipping crates that are often discarded by liquor stores. They’re a good size, portable (if you want to bring plants in for the winter), and deep enough for most roots. Mitchell also points out that their “imprinted logos give them a certain élan.” And if you can pick up your planters with your booze, you might just save yourself a trip to a garden center.

The Girl’s Guide to Growing Your Own stands apart from other growing manuals for a number of reasons. First, it’s readable. This book is not for a seasoned grower who is trying to find out why her lemon trees are looking peeked or those who can pour through dry textbook pages full of words most of us don’t understand. The Girl’s Guide to Growing Your Own caters to the novice, and does it well. Because it’s divided by seasons, you can use a free ten minutes to browse your seasonally-appropriate section and get ready to grow. The book introduces new gardeners to valuable gardening lingo, where to buy manure, and—here’s the kitsch—a plethora of cute growing containers available to the growing girl.

Freely poking fun at her own obsessive nature—from the aesthetics of her planters to the trees she dotes on and the many short breaks she takes from work to ogle flora and fauna online—Mitchell takes the bulk of the work out of getting started. She even gives plants ratings of one to four hand trowels, which indicates whether “you couldn’t kill it if you tried” or it’s “fussy but fabulous.” Pages of soil and seed concoctions are broken up with recipes for your new produce (including alcoholic beverages), and the book finishes up with a quick guide to diagnosing common edible garden enemies.

From this experience I have learned girly books can be useful, and also that because spring is (nearly) in the air, I should start planting my tomato seeds. Now I am hopeful.

Written by: Tatiana Ryckman, February 15th 2010

Garden Anywhere: How to Grow Gorgeous Container Gardens, Herb Gardens, and More—Without Spending a Fortune

admin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:05:00 +0000

By Alys Fowler

Chronicle Books

Gardens are a form of autobiography. - Sydney Eddison

Alys Fowler is British. Her book, The Thrifty Gardener, has been a hit in England. Garden Anywhere, the re-titled North American version, deserves the same success in Canada and the U.S. as it has across the pond.

Fowler started gardening as a teenager. Now roughly 30, she goes against the grain of British gardening—or so it seems. Her sartorial look—given to shades, plimsolls without socks, and a print shift that a First Nations artist might have designed—is somewhat neo-hippie. A shot or two of her dumpster diving for salvage to fashion into, say, a cold frame—a handiwork at which she demonstrates her grace and mastery of the power drill—captures her method and manner. This is very distant from Better Homes and Gardens.

As unorthodox as Fowler might seem, she’s no Sunday putterer. Trained at the Royal Horticultural Society, The New York Botanical Gardens, and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, she’s earned her gardening rep. Currently, she’s head gardener for the BBC’s TV programme Gardener’s World. That’s a cornucopia of gardening bona fides.

Garden Anywhere therefore contains ace gardening knowledge, such as “Knowing your light conditions is half the battle,” and “The single key to a stylish garden is love—it’s that simple.” Other information and advice abound, from dealing with pests (organically!) to hand and power tools to building a worm box to surviving the garden centre (“never spend money where it’s not needed”) to pruning and composting. One of my favourite tips, because of its sheer joie de vivre, is to “avoid dull municipal planting” and instead “plant bedding annuals in great masses and allow them to run riot”. Her advice on sowing drifts of bulbs shares the same spirit.

However unconventional she may seem on first glance, this spirit places Fowler in the tradition of British horticulture, with its roots in early-modern Romantic thought, and in American practice of the period, which strongly influenced British gardeners. The result is tend the garden, sure, but let it grow thither and yon, too, as its vegetal imagination shapes it. This view is contrary to the controlled French outlook, monumentalized at Versailles, wherein reason and order are the objects of verdant desire. I confess to a general Francophilia (movies, paintings, street demonstrations). Yet when it comes to gardens, the British way, which encourages the surprising and unpredictable, is, IMO, the superior path.

Fowler’s persona, prose style, and content are all a serious delight. Plus the book is au courant _in its contribution to the slow food movement. This makes _Garden Anywhere of great use and pleasure and puts its author right up there with such British heroines as Jane Austen and Vanessa Redgrave. In addition, the book is creatively designed by Carl Hodson. Its pages are variously intermingled pastel colours: olive green, pink, lavender, blue—just like a garden. The illustrations by Aaron Blecher are friendly. The many photographs by Simon Wheeler serve to illustrate the text while often being artistic, notably a helicopter shot of Fowler hard at work and nearly lost in her garden.

Is there a shortfall to this book? If you live in dry conditions and need to xeriscape, that genre isn’t covered. Fowler’s British, after all, and has gardened there and in New York. Other than this desert lacuna, Garden Anywhere is as chockablock as anyone could expect. If you need one gardening reference, or if you have many, this excellent book belongs on your shelf—or rather, in your soil-encrusted hands while you ponder whether to plant bush beans or pole beans in that wedge of dirt over in the corner near the forget-me-nots beside the wild rose behind the chard.

Written by: Neil Flowers, September 26th 2009

Victory Garden Supplies

admin — Sat, 23 May 2009 09:11:00 +0000

By Enviroglas, VAST composite pavers, Seeds of Change

The Victory Garden project continues. While there have been temporary setbacks, a portion of the lot is overturned, sod torn up to reveal a formidable substratum of solid clay, and it occurs to me that the garden might need a path once April showers subside and leave May mud. Neighbors have been kind enough to show me their backyards, and this appears to be a common phenomenon. The gardener can turn to any one of a variety of containers to use as seed starters—the plastic box that held the strawberries that I sliced this morning provides a perfect example—and empty bottles and jars can be buried, upended, to border beds as decorative elements. However, that leaves stepping stones.

I have managed to scrounge a heap of scrap granite, broken corners of stone sheets that were supposed to become kitchen islands in condominiums, a nice variety of shades, silver and charcoal gray or a tigerish ocher to mottled maroon, but those with more resources or who favor a more uniform look could find themselves concerned with the environmental soundness of their materials. There are companies that provide pavers from recycled goods. Enviroglas is indeed made of old bottles, and is available in shades ranging from refined earth tones to a vivid red. They also offer Enviroscape—a mulch made of polished glass bits. (The bright blue might make me feel like I was living in an aquarium.)

If the feminist gardener prefers a brick-like veranda, VAST composite pavers are made from old tires and plastic bottles. One permaculturalist acquaintance uses tires liberated from roadsides as potato planters, but with the appropriate processing, old tires can be reborn as attractive and sturdy squares to step on. Also, these are much lighter than concrete, and seeing that I'm going to be doing any installation myself, that's another advantage. I'll put the path between the kale and the tomatoes.

There is a linguistic phenomenon known as the "garden path" sentence: "The horse raced past the barn fell." Another example is "Someone ate every tomato." Syntactic ambiguity: did one individual eat all the tomatoes, or did more than one person eat each individual variety? These distractions can be fun, but time may better spent trying to cultivate Fox cherry tomatoes, or perhaps Brandywine. Wish me luck.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 23rd 2009

Thursday Night Supper Club and Urban Sustainable Living (3/26/2009)

admin — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:11:00 +0000

Backstory Cafe

Chicago, Illinois

If you are concerned with economy, food security, and health, a vegetable garden makes perfect sense. The first family's organic plot is underway, and instead of being daunted by some potential setbacks (the condition of urban soil, limited space, a non-existent budget), I have decided to be inspired by their example and undertake an attempt to grow my own produce. Therefore, I was delighted when the Backstory Cafe offered a presentation on urban gardening. This young Hyde Park establishment hosts not only regular jazz nights (Wednesdays), boardgame nights (Fridays), a morning playgroup (Mondays), and occasional movie screenings, but also holds a monthly Thursday night supper club. Topics covered have included social activism in the tradition of Jane Addams, collaboration between American, European and Palestinian woman artists, natural childbirth, and most recently, gardening.

Ben and Courtney of Backyard Bounty (their local and organic sustainable agriculture consulting service) and others served a delightful five course meal of locally produced foodstuffs for a splendidly crisis-conscious fifteen dollars, and offered much useful information between the courses, so much so that the diners petitioned for a global e-mail of relevant sites and information. Apparently a 20' x 20' garden can provide produce for a family of four, and a 10' x 10', ample for an individual. Container gardening on a small porch theoretically can yield all the herbs, teas, and select vegetables that an individual or couple requires. Options such as edible flowers or loofahs provide a change from the standard tomatoes and greens, and the truly dedicated may eventually consider an apiary or chicken coop. Check your local ordinances: in Chicago, you can raise chickens for eggs, not slaughter.

For those without local resources, the Internet provides a wealth of gardening knowledge. “Garden Girl” Patti Moreno demonstrates her extensive horticultural knowledge on an impressive compound of several raised beds built in a garage originally constructed in 1917. While some of her projects may be a bit esoteric and ambitious for the beginner (i.e., an aquaponic garden that pumps aquarium water to fertilize sprouting Swiss chard, or shaving a white German Angora rabbit the size of a Thanksgiving turkey in order to make homespun yarn), she does offer more accessible options and some practical suggestions. Plant seed potatoes in chunks that have two eyes apiece. Use bread bag twist ties to strap stems to lattices. The heirloom “Tiffin Mennonite” tomato weighs in at a pound apiece, and the hostess does have the charm to dedicate a chapter to her “almost record” tomato, conveniently measured at the corner store's deli counter. The massive glossy red fruit was inspiring. I'll break ground as soon as the threat of sleet has passed. Any day now.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, May 4th 2009

The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City

admin — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:57:00 +0000

By Kelly Coyne, Erik Knutzen

Process Media

Subtitled "Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City," this volume in the Process Self-Reliance Series bills itself as "a project and resource book, complete with step-by-step illustrations and instructions to get you started homesteading right now." It really delivers, both to absolute beginners and to folks who have already ventured into the world of urban homesteading.

The authors start with growing food. Chapter One offers guidance on the four general strategies for growing food in an urban setting, followed by directions for making seed balls. This chapter gives basic yet useful information about permaculture, then goes into helpful detail about the seven guiding principles of successful urban farming.

Chapter Two gives step-by-step instructions for five projects the authors deem essential for growing food, including starting a compost pile, composting with worms, mulching, building a raised bed, and building self-watering containers. The second half of the chapter includes guidelines for a variety of undertakings, including staring seeds, transplanting, making fertilizer tea, container gardening, installing drip irrigation, controlling insect and animal pests, and rotating crops. The directions are comprehensive; it is not assumed that the reader already has a lot of gardening knowledge and experience, which is beneficial to both novices and folks needing a refresher course.

Urban foraging is the topic of chapter three, and everything from eating acorns to dumpster diving is covered. Six things to know about eating wild are explained in the feral edibles section, along with a list of "some of the most liked, most widespread edible weeds in the continental U.S." There are also sections on invasive edibles, fruit foraging, and reviving day old bread.

Chapter Four focuses on keeping livestock in the city. It includes ample advice about chickens, including where to get them, what to feed them, and how to house them. Other livestock considered include ducks, rabbits, pigeons, quail, and bees.

"Revolutionary Home Economics" is an extensive chapter dealing with the "indoor arts." The first part of the chapter is about food. There are instructions about preserving food through canning, pickling, and drying, as well as by other means. There are also directions for making yogurt, ricotta cheese, and butter. The second half of the chapter is all about cleaning and includes formulas for making DIY cleaning supplies using baking soda, distilled white vinegar, and liquid castile soap. There’s also a short section on dealing with household pests. The chapter ends with valuable tips on what to look for and what choices to make if choosing a new urban homestead.

Chapter Six is about water and power for the homestead and includes information about conserving and harvesting rainwater. There are several projects pertaining to greywater, including running a greywater source directly outside and making a greywater wetland. Topics in the energy section include using insulation and solar heat to increase energy efficiency, alternatives to gas-heated showers, solar cookers, and wind and solar power.

The last chapter, "Transportation," is rather short. It touches on walking but basically emphasizes cycling. The book ends with a comprehensive resource list, including websites, books, and magazines. Disappointingly, there is no index. The Urban Homestead is a fantastic introduction to living off the land, even when there’s not much land available. It's not meant to be read once, cover to cover. It’s meant to be kept on hand as a resource, a book to refer to again and again in the garden, in the kitchen, in the workroom. There’s a lifetime of information packed in to these 308 pages, and the time to start using that information is now.

Written by: Chantel C. Guidry, March 5th 2009

Swap n' Stores: We Must Cultivate

admin — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:23:00 +0000

Swap n' Stores

A 'swap n' store' is an opportunity for dedicated gardeners to exchange from their seedstock, providing not only for their lots and pantries, but also for the genetic strength and proliferation of the plants. My interest in gardening has been piqued not only by health and global fiscal conflagration, but also because I finally got around to reading Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. Informative and well-crafted, the entire work could be justified by a single observation: “Monoculture is where the logic of nature collides with the logic of economics; which will always prevail can never be in doubt.” Nature's answer to monoculture is the Irish Potato Famine. Pollan's book—an examination of the role of plants in human myth and practice, pleasure and necessity—is structured around the stories of four desirable species: apples, tulips, marijuana and spuds.

If I were to write a book around the possibility of a 'Recovery Garden,' the sections would be preparation, sowing, growing, and harvest. And in preparation, even a neophyte knows a garden needs four things: earth, sun, water, and seeds. Earth, I've been cultivating, maintaining a compost heap composed of dried leaves, grass clippings, coffeegrounds collected from Starbucks, and kitchen waste. (Those without access to dirt can find splendid tutorials on sub-irrigated planters and other knowledge helpful to urban gardeners at Greenroof Growers—one of their contributors gave a presentation at the swap n' store.) Sun and water, I've got covered. That leaves seeds.

I consulted with the seed archive organizer, permaculturalist Nance Klehm. My question: “What, say, seven species would you recommend for the inexperienced urban gardener? Keep in mind that I have two black thumbs. I have killed cacti. I make silk roses wilt...”

“Brassicas!” Nance exclaimed. “That's kale, chard, radishes, and choys."

I nodded and took note. Dozens of seed-swappers milled around us, eating the unprocessed native popcorn from a wooden bowl; it was prepared simply with hot oil in a metal kettle. I had nothing to exchange but mundanely hallucinogenic heavenly blue morning glories, and some heirloom varieties with deep burgundy trumpets, their seeds little black ball bearings. A variety of heirloom strains, including flowers and Dakota Black or Japanese Hullless popcorn, are available through Seeds of Change. They also offer sets and seedlings ideal for the urban gardener: a selection of culinary herbs, an edible patio garden, and a range of rare tomato seedlings, such as Constaluto Genovese, Pineapple, Red Calabash, Tigerella and Zapotec Pleated tomatoes. Something to plant in the rooftop constructions of industrial white plastic buckets and used plastic pop bottles that we were told about.

“Garlic. Then there's lettuce—but why plant lettuce when there's lamb quarters, chickweed, dandelion, and dock available for soups and salads?” Foraging is also consistent with the ethos of sustainable resources. Nance continued: “For squash, patty-pan, not bush squash; it takes up less space. Same with cherry tomatoes—and they'll grow all season. And plant bush beans or peas; you can dry them if you don't eat them fresh.” I scuttle to one of the swap tables and begin to label the little manila envelopes provided, take far too many seeds, leave my morning glory seeds, and go. Another visitor's contribution—a slick white packet of wildflower mix—drops from my pocket as I trudge through sleet. Until my garden flourishes, I enjoy cleaning out the cook-'em-now markdowns produce bin at my local (small, independent) grocers and then scouring the greens cookbook for possible preparation. Time to put on Another Green World and figure out what is to be done with twenty-five poblanos, perhaps a green chile stock to keep things warm in the chilly white.

Swap n' Stores are held four times a year.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, February 28th 2009