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Adventures in Organic Gardening

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A Garden That Is Changing The World

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One thing I learned working at the farm is that I am glad I bought a wheelbarrow that has two wheels.  Those one wheeled ones are too hard to manage!

Dallas Texas is a city normally associated with BIG. Big buildings, big hair, big personalities, big money. Everything is bigger in Dallas.

There is, however, a small forgotten corner of Dallas southeast of downtown. It’s called “Bonton”. Associated with high crime, sickness, with only difficult access to healthy food, this neighborhood has been the very definition of hopeless. Bonton is filled people impacted by generational poverty.

Recognized as a “food desert” by the USDA, people who live there can either spend all day on public transportation only to buy as much food as they can carry, or they can can buy whatever is available at “Big Daddy’s” or one of the other three small beer markets in the neighborhood.

As a result, people experience dire health consequences. They have more than double the rate of cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes and child obesity. Men in Bonton live 11 years less than average men in Dallas County. All of this as a result of a lack of access to healthy food.

Through a crazy series of events that you can read about in this article, Daron Babcock decided to plant a garden and change the world. Or at least change the world for Bonton.

Bonton Farms is an urban farm. Y’all, it is my idea of heaven. I got to volunteer there last Saturday and it for sure will not be the last time. I’m already signed up to go back in February. Through Bonton Farms, local residents have access to healthy food and much more. I think these words painted on the wall say it well:

If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering how you can help support the amazing work going on there. You can certainly sign up for a “Service Saturday” and come get your hands dirty. Bonton Farms also has a program called “Friends of the Farm” where you commit to a small monthly amount with which to support them. I just signed up. (Insert obligatory comment about how many Starbucks runs equate to the amount of money in question.)

You can also support the farm by eating at the cafe or shopping in the market.  You can also visit their booth at the Dallas Farmers Market.  At the very least, go follow them on social media.  Facebook  Instagram

Why Mess With Seed Starting (and How to Get Started)

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This time of year in Texas, it’s time for cole crops. 

I bought some broccoli and califlower starts in the fall and put them in the garden. Easy peasy. A few weeks later, I was harvesting. The thing is, the difference between the cost I paid for the starts, and the cost I would pay for broccoli at the grocery store isn’t very big.

Last year at Mother Earth News Fair, I took a class from Lisa Ziegler from The Gardener’s Workshop. She teaches about soil blocking for seed starting. Last summer I tried my hand at starting some flower seeds and had success. So, I decided to start some broccoli seeds and some brussels sprouts seeds. The pack of seeds was probably $5.00 and I can end up with several dozen plants. Obviously from an economy standpoint, seed starting is a winner.

When you go buy starts, you get to choose what the local garden store has chosen to carry. When you start seeds, you can order any sort of seeds and grow whatever variety you choose. The world is basically your oyster when you start seeds.

Soil blocking couldn’t be easier. Once you spend a few dollars on the soil blockers, it is almost free. The plants do really well. Here are the ones I bought:

Here is the bigger of the two soil blockers.
Here is the smaller of the two. 
This is the one you will use mostly.

I highly suggest you try your hand at soil blocking. Come back and let me know in the comments how it goes.  Here are photos of the broccoli and brussels sprouts I have going right now:

Gardening In A Closed Loop

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Sometimes when people start gardening they have the foolhardy idea that they will save money on food. If they stick it out a couple of years they quickly realize the error of that idea.

Nonetheless, both for economy’s sake as well as that of sustainability, I do try to make use of things that are readily available at home as much as possible in the garden.

Here are some of the things available to me that I use in the garden.

Grass Clippings: I don’t use chemical fertilizers or weed killers in the back yard. I have my yard man save all of the grass clippings that come from my backyard. They build up in a pile in my garden. I use them for mulching, composting or at the very least they don’t end up in the landfill.

Leaves: I live in a new subdivision so we don’t have any large trees. My yard man brings me as many bags of leaves that I can use. This year I made wire cages so that I can fill them with leaves and make leaf mold. I also use the newly shredded leaves for mulch.

Egg Shells: I save and dry the shells from the eggs I eat. I crush them up and add them into the worm bin as well as the garden beds when I turn them over in between seasons.

Table Scraps: Non citrus uncooked fruit and vegetable scraps are added into my worm bin. If you haven’t looked into vermicomposting, you should. Worms work hard to make fantastic organic fertilizer.

Fire Pit Ash: Wood ash adds potassium to the garden soil.

Cardboard Boxes: Several layers of cardboard underneath a new garden bed will both keep grass from growing through and attract earthworms into the raised bed soil. (Finally, a justification for more Amazon orders!)

Shredded Paper: That shredder at the office can be a goldmine for you! If you have a worm bin, that shredded paper can be soaked in water and used along with those table scraps to make beautiful fertilizer.

Rainwater: If you don’t have a rain barrel or two, you’re missing out. Captured rainwater doesn’t have chloramine like your municipal water probably does. Chloramine isn’t friendly to microorganisms, so the more you can water with untreated water, the healthier your soil is likely to be.

Garden Waste: For instance, this was the first year I grew califlower. I pulled the plants after I harvested the califlower. I pulled the plant out of the ground and fed it to the chickens. (And, I’ve learned, after the chickens eat the leaves down to the stalk, if I bring it back to the house my dogs will enjoy the stalk!)

As much as possible I try to keep a closed loop between my house and my garden. Use what I already have to make my garden better and more productive.

Garden Planning

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I have been feeling for a while that the next frontiers in gardening for me are record keeping and planning. I feel like better planning will allow me to make better use of the space I have to grow. Better record keeping will help me make better improvements year over year as I will more easily recognize wins and losses in the garden. What varieties worked well? How did things go when I plant earlier or later? Sure, over the years I remember as much as I can, but records will remind me of things that I would never remember.

The basic thing that has kept me from keeping good records in the past has been time. I haven’t had a good quick system for keeping track of what I did and when and how it did. Same thing about planning. I have played with various apps and websites, but haven’t been really happy with any of them.

I know myself well enough to know that if anything is too time consuming, I won’t do it. If I have time to dedicate to my garden, I want to actually be working my garden, not doing bookwork.

All difficulties aside, planning and record keeping are clearly the next frontier in my gardening adventure. So, I have to figure it out. Toward that end, I started thinking about what information I need out of a record keeping/planning system. I think basically I need to be able to look up either a specific crop or a given period of time to see what has happened in the past so that I can make decisions about what to do in the future.

So, I started with the best thing I could think of. A spreadsheet. I am a big fan of Google Drive because I want to be able to access information from anywhere.

On the first tab of the spreadsheet I made a plant list. I listed every crop I’ve grown or that I would like to grow. Then, based on the frost dates in my area, I’ve indicated the dates to sow indoors, or outdoors, and the how long it takes from planting to harvest.

Then on another tab, I’ve made a column of each planting area I have available to me. Then across the top, the first row indicates a date range. I made two week chunks. Column 1 is Jan 1, column 2 is Jan 15 and so forth. Then, informed by the dates on the first tab, I made an initial plan for the garden for the year. This chart tells me what plants will “live” in which areas of the garden throughout the year.

One of the rows is called “Seed Starting”. This row will tell me when different seeds need to be started.

Here is a link to my garden planning spreadsheet.

I’m thinking as the year goes on I’ll start a third tab where I will list which crop, variety, when it went in, how it did and when I pulled the plant.

I would love to hear how you do your record keeping!

Girl Scout Locavore Badge

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A Girl Scout Leader I know asked me if I would be interested in helping her troop of senior Girl Scouts earn their Locavore Badge. Of course I said yes! I love the mission of the Girl Scouts, and I am all in for talking about Local Food and everything associated with it.

Of course I know nothing about Girl Scout badge requirements, so I started with this handy document. 

Here’s what we did:

First we did a tour of the gardens which are at my house. We just generally talked about gardening and I showed them all of the different things that I’ve done. Then, we loaded up in cars and drove the 5 minutes to the pasture where my chickens and bees are. We talked about the challenges of pursuing these endeavors in our world of HOAs and unfriendly city ordinances.

Next, we came back to the house and the girls prepared a recipe for an egg frittata that featured eggs laid by my hens and harvested bell peppers from my garden as well as raw milk from a local dairy along with cheese from the same dairy. They did a great job and it actually turned out really well.

While the frittata was in the oven, we talked about local food, the challenges and the how and why.

It was a great day and I was so happy to have been able to do it.