Beetle bags, good, bad or don't matter?

Another video blog (this time easy to hear!) about Japanese Beetle Bags. Watch, and then comment. Link to YouTube video blog to see it in full screen.

Well, what do you think? Please comment below on if these help, hurt or don't matter.

Thanks for watching!

Video blog - gardening missions

In my first video blog, I describe the many different gardening "missions" to consider when planning a garden. Perhaps a bit late for this year, but good to mull over for next.

This video is much more than my silly talking head (need more movement next time) - about a minute into the video I start showing some photos to demonstrate what I'm talking about. 

You can play the embedded video below or use this link to see the video on YouTube. (I was able to but a much larger format video on YouTube, where the photos look a lot better.) http://youtu.be/gm7OeCmWuc8

p.s. sorry it's so quiet, I have to adjust levels but don't know how with this video. So turn your speakers up!

A SLUG worth knowing

I spent four days at a conference at the Lawrence University campus in Appleton, Wisconsin. We spent a lot of time in the student commons, and every time I walked to lunch, I had a great view of what was clearly a community garden across the road and down the hill. On the last day of the conference, I had an hour of free time and spotted people working in the garden, so I walked down and introduced myself.

Young squash plants, much later than most Wisconsin gardener

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Rachel Graber, a  LU student and student teacher for the next academic year, told me about the project. The garden is called SLUGs, Sustainable Lawrence University Gardens, and it was established in 2005.  The students have expanded beyond the quarter acre garden since, and now have a nearby fifth acre orchard with 15 trees and an herb garden

The Sustainable Lawrence University Gardens, as seen from the student commons.

There are a number of things that make SLUGs a unique student group at LU. Many of the students who work on the garden live in a house where they cook together, often food from the garden.  The gardens provide an educational program for LU student who want to learn about urban gardening and local food production. The gardens are also part of an experiment in students teaching themselves. And a recent grant now allows LU students to involve local high school via a summer work program. Finally, the university doesn’t have a formal academic agricultural program, and the garden fills that niche nicely.

Rachel Graber, LU grad student (left), another LU student (foreground) and two local high school students in the back.

Another thing that makes the SLUGs student group unique is that it is the only LU student organization that physically changes the campus landscape. Since starting with the quarter-acre plot, the students designed and built a hoop greenhouse, improved the soil, build raised beds and started massive compost bins. “We get deliveries of food waste from the university food service several times a week,” says Rachel.

There is also a large and handsome garden shed in one corner of the plot. “Our first shed wasn’t this nice,” says Rachel. “The university built a large fire ring next to the garden that required demolishing the original SLUGs shed. They replaced it with this; we have great support from the university administration. Our president is an avid gardener and we have great relations with the university, the grounds crew and the cafeteria.”

The cafeteria?

Yes, the cafeteria. If you’ve read previous blog posts, I’m very interested in the idea of people working their gardens with a specific mission in mind. In addition to being a facility to teach and involve students in growing local food that the gardeners consume themselves, the SLUGs also sells produce to the university food service and the Appleton farmers market. Since the university food service is shut down during the summer months, SLUGs has a unique growing season to contend with. They don’t want to produce much of anything until school starts in early September.

This means that the garden currently has a huge bed of basil that was just transplanted into the soil, each plant a mere three inches tall. The winter squash plants have just two or three “true leaves,” and the tomatoes are way behind what most Wisconsin gardeners expect in mid-July.

With the plants at this stage, Rachel expects they’ll have plenty to consume themselves, sell to the university food service once it opens for the school year and sell at the local market. The food will just come in a lot later than for most Wisconsin gardeners.

One more thing makes this a very cool project. The group wanted to raise bees, but discovered that hives are considered livestock in Appleton. So, the group got political and one of the SLUGs members worked with the city to change a local ordinance to allow beekeeping in the city limits. “We found there is a huge interest beyond SLUGs to keep bees,” says Rachel. We successfully changed the ordinance to allow beekeeping in Appleton.” This spring, SLUGs established five beehives that are going to be used for educational and independent study. And, Rachel concludes, “Who doesn’t like honey?”

This is a sweet garden indeed.

If you’d like to contact SLUGs yourself, send an email to garden@lawrence.edu

Gardening with a mission – the anti-rabbit garden

I’ve been thinking more about the idea of gardening with a specific purpose (ok, besides the obvious to grow food)). Thanks to those who commented on the blog post about this idea, there were some great ideas and passionate words about why people put hands and seeds in the dirt.

Besides growing food, here's an idea of a way to organize what, to grow.

Rabbits. Most of us are working our cotton tails off to keep rabbits out of our gardens. In the American Family community garden, I’ve seen many different fencing options go up over the last few weeks. There are decorative picket fences, two-foot fences with chicken wire, three-foot fences of a very light-weight plastic mesh, and a few people are intent to keep even the most persistent deer out with six-foot nearly solid plastic mesh.

Jay and I started with a dense perimeter of marigolds, hearing they are supposed to keep rabbits out and if not, at least they are beautiful. However, when I spotted what looked to be rabbit damage on some newly-planted bean plants (thanks Diane!) I quickly erected a 1-foot fence of leftover hardware cloth around just the bean plants.

It then occurred to me, what if were to plant things that rabbits won’t eat. An Internet search on my phone from right there in the garden revealed that rabbits generally don’t eat any nightshades because they make them sick. This was great news, three quarters of our veggies qualify; eggplant, tomatoes and peppers. They also don’t eat anything from the onion family, which includes onions, leeks and garlic. Sweet! planted a row of leeks! So in our garden, all that rabbits are likely to eat are the newly fenced bean plants.

I don't think fencing is very inviting or attractive. Ok, picket fences are attractive but aren’t great rabbit defense. I’d rather not install any fencing. It's unattractive, messy (it always sags), and in our case, a fence would restrict access from the main path, a key factor in the keyhole raised bed design.

The only rabbit welcome in my garden.

So what if next year (groan, yes, I’m already thinking about next year) what if I plant with rabbits in mind, and don’t plant anything they’d want to eat? It would be much of the same vegetables that we’ve got in the community garden now plus garlic, and if I wanted to raise rabbit edibles, I would plan to only fence off that particular part of the garden. I also want to research what else rabbits won’t eat. Will let you know what I learn.

Why I'm so committed to this community garden

I used to own a house on Madison's East side. I owned it for about three years, where I dabbled in vegetable gardening, planting basil and tomatoes and starting a compost bin. 

And then I sold the house in October 2008.

All that work building beds and soil was left behind. In fact, the woman who bought my house marveled at the late-season basil and eggplant she harvest from the garden. In 2009-10 we put Jay's house up for sale, and we did minimal gardening, just enough to keep the yard presentable during showings.

Last summer, following 18 months, 76 showings and one offer that fell through, we took the house off the market. Then this spring I got the gardening bug. I rebuilt and enlarged the herb garden, made a raised bed along the garage and started seedlings in the basement. And we started to talk about selling the house again, and my enthusiasm to garden took a nose dive. And then I got an e-mail that changed everything, my employer announced the start of a community garden right where I worked.

Jay and I talked about getting one of the plots, I made plans, and we built a 10x10 raised garden bed (see previous post for a description and video).  Even though we are still thinking about selling the house, things will be different. This time, no matter when we sell, we will still be able to harvest from our five eggplant, six tomato, six pepper, eight brussel sprout and dozen leek plants. All of this work is ours to keep as long as I’m employed at American Family.

Which is how I explain to myself a recent and very urgent need to finish what Jay and I started. When we built the garden bed at the end of May, we reinforced the interior “keyhole” access with 2x6 oak planks my dad gave us, and let the soil slope down toward our neighbors on the edges.

The raised bed with reinforced walls on the interior, but soil sloping down toward the outside edges.

Last weekend my dad gave me four more 10-foot planks and this week before work, I measured, cut and installed the exterior reinforcing. The raised bed garden is done, I’m very happy with it, and no matter what happens to our house this summer, the veggies are coming with us.

The exterior is now reinforced with 2x6 oak planks, defining the 10x10 plot, keeping our fertile compost in the garden and keeping neighboring weeds out.

AmFam community garden grand opening

With a garden shears and garland of ivy, gardeners, executives and a few curious employees officially opened the American Family community garden, located at the company's national headquarters on Madison's far east side. It was an overcast day, but dry and comfortable, a great day to see what the gardeners have been up to since the first day we could get in on June 3.

The community garden is an easy walk from the main buildings, so many people ambled over for the lunch hour ceremony. Angela Freedman and Leanne Glover, who are the main brains behind the project, explained that the garden is both part of the company's commitment to sustainability as well as each of their capstone project for an Edgewood College sustainability certificate.

Mary Schmoeger, a company executive, shared her commitment to the project, and together with two other vice presidents, cut a ceremonial ivy, and people wandered throughout the beautiful and unique 10x10 plots.

Thinking not only of bounty, but of beauty, many gardeners planted flowers among veggies.

A few of the fruit trees on the west side of the community garden. In a few years, gardeners will be able to harvest from the small orchard.

The garden on Monday morning, the background shrouded in fog. A very peaceful place at 6 a.m.

In the sustainability cycle, reuse comes before recycle, these hockey sticks make great stakes.

Angela Freedman (left) and Leanne Glover (center) talk about the community garden both as part of American Family's commitment to sustainability and the capstone for their sustainability certificate program.

Mary Schmoeger, second from left, Annette Knapstein (in white) and Dan Kelly, right, are American Family executives who sponsored the community garden project.

Ivy cutting with a garden shears.

Gnomeo waiting behind a picket fence for Juliette.

A garden with a mission, these folks planted with one thing in mind; salsa! Pictured are tomatoes, peppers, onions and cilantro. 

 See my blog post on gardening with a mission

Cookies and lemonade under the community shelter. Some folks have their lunch at the picnic table.

Community tools.

My plot, tomatoes now have tar paper shelters and the brussel sprouts (left corner) really jumped up in the last few days.

Gardening with a mission

In order to plan, organize and care for a garden and its output, I think a garden needs to have a purpose. Or, as I learned during a class given by the good folk from Troy Gardens, a vegetable garden needs to have a mission. There are several possibilities, to name a few:

• to supplement grocery store vegetables from the garden. This type of garden could easily be accomplished in containers or a small plot of sunny dirt and include a few of the gardener's favorite vegetables; perhaps a Topsy Turvey tomato plant or patio cherry tomatoes, maybe a small herb garden in a planter.
• small space gardening. If you have limited space, this will dictate what you can grow. Many vegetables grow well in containers, while others require dirt but are ok in small spaces. The one thing to remember here is that spreading plants such as squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers (unless you train them to climb) won't do well in small spaces.
• to be the major vegetable source over the summer. This garden would not necessarily require huge volume but greater variety than a supplemental garden. It would most likely need to be in the dirt versus container gardening, and would require some planning and good timing so that food could be harvested in the spring, thoroughout the summer and into early fall. This kind of garden could include early, mid-summer and late-summer/autumn bearing vegetables, and could also include herbs such as basil, dill, chives, oregano, and other favorites, many of which will winter over if properly prepared in the autumn.
• for preservation such as canning or freezing. This type of garden has production in mind, and will likely have lots of a few vegetables. Favorite canning vegetables are tomatoes (stewed, or as soups and sauces); pickled beans, candied beets, pickles. Good freezing candidates are broccoli, spinach, corn (if you are lucky enough to have the space), brussel sprouts, etc. There are books and online references for all of these preserving methods.
• for long-term winter storage. Some vegetables do not need to be consumed or preserved immediately. These tend to be the later-arriving vegetables such as onions, garlic, potatoes and hard squashes. One woman from Troy Gardens told us that her goal is to grow so much garlic and onions so she has enough until the next season's crop is harvested. For her family of two, that meant several hundred garlic plants, and another several hundred onion plants. This is a great idea if you have lots of garden space, and somewhere to store the vegetables.

What's the mission of your garden? Please leave a comment, we'd all like to know what inspires you to get into your garden.