Getting things growing!

As the local food craze has gotten rolling, more companies are popping up to help people grow food in their own backyards. For many busy folks the idea of getting a vegetable garden started might seem overwhelming. Now you can pay someone else to farm your backyard for you. Your Backyard Farmer serves Portland, Milwaukie and Lake Oswego. Check out this cute video describing their services.

A similar company is now getting started in the San Francisco Bay Area. MyFarm provides vegetable gardens to residents in San Francisco and the East Bay. They were recently featured in the SF Chronicle.

While I think these companies are providing a great service for those who really aren’t interested in learning to garden for themselves, I think it’s too bad that more people can’t make the time to learn some gardening basics. I realize that there are lots of folks out there with more money than time, but growing your own food can be a great pleasure and isn’t as difficult as people make it out to be. It wasn’t that long ago that most families in this country were farm families and grew the majority of their food themselves. All it takes is slowing down and taking the time each day to observe your garden, noticing changes and taking action. I love to watch my garden grow. Taking the time to notice changes in your plants slows down your persective and tunes you in to the wider world, the weather, the cycles of the moon, and what insects are flying or crawling around your little plot of land. Having a garden is so much more than simply getting fresh organic produce, although some fresh, sweet strawberries might be the catalyst that gets your butt into gear.

The Portland Tribune reports that Bark dust prices bite gardeners.

“Bark dust — the landscaper’s finish coat — is now selling for roughly $232 per unit (which is 7.4 yards, or about two and a half pickup loads), up 62 percent from last spring.

Bark, a byproduct of lumber milling, is in short supply because of the dramatic housing slump. Reduced demand for lumber translates to idle mills and less bark.”

Luckily there are lots of cheap alternative to buying bark. In Sacramento SMUD, the local power company collects all the trimmings from their work keeping power lines safe and supplies gardeners with free wood chips.

Even if your city doesn’t produce anything similar you can call local tree trimmers and ask them if they have an extra load wood chips they would like to get rid of. Often it cost them to get rid of the stuff so you are doing them a favor. You might think you don’t need an entire truck load of wood chips, but a thick layer of mulch is the best thing you can do for your garden. It keeps your soil cool and moist during these long Western summers.

Compost, either homemade or municipal is another great alternative. Davis, my home town offers free compost, made from local green waste twice a year. Residents have to shovel and transport the stuff back to their own gardens, but with a little planning local gardeners are able to get a few large bags or a trunk full each April and October.

If you live in San Francisco, then you can participate in their groundbreaking municipal composting program. Residents and restaurants compost food and yard waste and it all gets processed in a huge facility near Vacaville. The resulting compost can only be bought from Jepson Prairie Organics if you are a wholesaler. Technorati Tags: gardening, gardens, composting, compost

Kelly at Planet Green writes about her adventure buying Amaranth greens at her local farmers market in
Try a New Vegetable: Amaranth. It’s true that calling it “pig weed” doesn’t make it sound very appetizing, but those pigs are onto something. Amaranth is tasty and easy to grow. Some varieties are grown for their nutritious greens while others have been bred to produce high yields seeds, which are tasty eaten as porridge or like rice. Still other species of Amaranth are grown for their exotic looking flower heads, particularly the old fashioned variety also known as “love-lies-bleeding.”

Amaranth is an easy to grow summer annual. In fact, in many parts of the country members of the genus grow as weeds as the name “pig weed” indicates. I wouldn’t recommend trying to grow it to harvest the seeds unless you have an exceptionally large garden, but the greens and flowers could both be pleasant additions to the home garden.

I subscribed to Scientific American’s feed using bloglines. I haven’t read it in a while, so I thought I would catch up. Interesting stuff. Does animal assisted therapy produce lasting effects? Why do mentos cause cola to go explosive? How can we save amphibians from extinction? The problem is when I click on an article and go to their website many annoying things happen.
First, there is an add for some Nova program in the header and any time my mouse goes near the upper right hand part of my screen a video/commercial pops up. I like Nova, but I don’t want to have to hear the add over and over. Every time I try to click on it to close it I accidentally end up opening a new tab that load the Nova homepage. I’m just trying to read the damn article!

Second, I would like to comment on this article about buying a “green” lawnmower. While electric lawn mowers are better than gas, the writer could have offered some other options. Maybe if you aren’t fit enough to push a reel mower it’s time to find a neighborhood teen who needs some extra cash. If your yard has so much grass that you need a huge mower you might think about whether you really need all that lawn. Lawn is very resource intensive. There are many other options available that use less water, fertilizer, and time. Reel mowers, if kept sharp can be surprisingly easy to use. Many of us just assume that a gas or electric mower would be easier, but we have never tried a reel mower or don’t know how to maintain one. Unfortunately I didn’t get to say any of that because I have to create a login in order to comment. I understand they don’t want a ton of spam, but there has to be a better way. If they want to spam me with adds about Scientific American ask for my email, but I’m not going to create a new password and log in for every website I visit.

Ever since my Permaculture training, I have been interested in growing mushrooms at home. Amy provides a nice set of pictures that show how to get started:Heavy Petal: Growing shiitake mushrooms. You can also grow mushrooms inside. The best techniques depend on your situation and the type of mushrooms you want to grow. The ultimate place to go for all things fungal is Fungi Perfecti. Growing mushrooms at home isn’t difficult, but it requires some precision and some patience, like brewing.

Amy Stewart, of Dirt, interviews her friend Genevieve on garden coaching, what it is and why anyone needs one. The Garden Coach, Part One