Back in the Game!

I am BACK for the 2014 growing season!   WOO HOO!  Last year the garden sat completely empty due to a mixture of factors, but the beds are still in place, and our composters are full of rich black goodness as we speak.   I have many goals this season, but here are a few in the interest of accountability:

1)  Let's get Crazy! 
I have a bunch of ideas for things that might just be complete failures, but I'll never know until I try.  This year I'm going to test them out and hopefully a few will be winners.  The first idea up is to make a mini-greenhouse using a tall raised bed and heated ground coil against the South-East facing part of my bricked front porch.  The area is where I've grown climbing veggies in the past, but it's really the only reasonable location for setting up a winter bed.  I hope to have it planted by early February.  That's only 2 weeks before pea-planting day here in Pittsburgh.

2)  EFFICIENCY!
I really don't have a whole lot of space, so it's time to stop screwing around with things that just don't produce for me, or that are reasonably yummy and cheap from local farms and stores.  Onions, celery, brussel sprouts, cabbage, lettuce, and most winter squash are not going in this year.  Instead that space will be used for more peas, more bush beans, chard, kale, basil and other things that I do well with and that I always wish I had more of.

3)  More Tutorials!
Over the last year I've gotten several messages asking for more posts like Growing Carrots in Containers - A Tutorial.  Happily, the kids loved making that one and are excited to work on a few more.

4)  Long-term Fruit Planning!
We currently grow no fruit on our property, other than apples from our huge old tree.  We need to seriously examine the property and figure out where we want to be in 5 years.

5)  Water Collection and Access Planning!
There are two areas in the back of the house where we have no access to hose water.  We need to fix gutters and set up water collection systems in those areas to make it easier to keep up with those sections of the garden.

6)  Preservation!
I really do prefer frozen veggies over canned for most things, so this year I just need to actually freeze stuff regularly enough that we can make it through the winter.  I also need to expand the types of foods and dishes I preserve.

Here's to an amazing garden and an amazing year!

Burgh Bees: The awesome community apiary soon to be in my community!

Without bees, there would be no garden, and if that weren't enough reason for me to love the little critters, they also produce liquid sugar in the form of honey.  How awesome is that?

I bring this up because Burgh Bees is currently waiting for permit approval to build their second community apiary right here in my neighborhood.  I've always wanted to learn more about bee keeping in case I was able to get a hive of my very own in my yard many years down the road...a community apiary would make that goal far more tangible.

A friend of mine has a hive in the first urban community apiary here in Pittsburgh, and when she posted asking if anyone wanted to come see her hive during a volunteer workday I took her up on it.  It was so much cooler than I though it would be!

The sign outside the Burgh Bees community Apiary in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

There are two (that I saw) water tubs inside the apiary so the bees have access to water.  Floating corks act as tiny little bee platforms.

My friend about to open her hive.  I actually got butterflies here...I think I've only seen a bee hive up close on Mr. Rogers.

There were many capped cells, but most on this frame were still uncapped.

A bee on my arm (I got to wear one of the weird-looking bee suits!)

Little bee faces sticking out of the hive.

Down on the ground you can see a pile of bee corpses from the winter drone ejection.

Many people painted or otherwise decorated their hives.  

This person painted a neat city-scape!

I was told that these are ancient symbols of bee-keeping.   How cool.

I wonder if this guy is a saint of bee-keeping?

Planning an Accessible Garden

I had been planning on updating this over the weekend, but we ended up dealing with some unexpected issues that have delayed things a bit.  Even now I haven't really been out in the garden today, so I'm throwing myself into planning one of the really exciting gardening projects I've been offered this season!

My husband works with a non-profit that helps disabled individuals live their lives.  The house he works in has a beautiful yard and the gentlemen in the house tend to eat less-healthily than they otherwise could due to the tight food budget.  I offered to stop over once a week with the kids and maintain a small food garden at the house.  All the current workers would have to do was water it and harvest things that are obviously ripe.  The gentlemen in the house would benefit from the interaction with the kids, the time outside, and the fresh food they grew themselves.

The biggest problem with this plan, is the start-up cost associated with a garden.  The house operates on a pretty tight budget, and garden tools and soil for raised beds aren't exactly things that provide a quantifiable benefit as quickly as most other household expenditures.   I can spare some seeds, and barring that each of the men in the house has a food stamp allotment due to their disability that can be used for plants and seeds, but we're still going to have to get creative with everything else.

I have a much larger post about barriers to gardening that I'll be posting soon as a result of this process.  Tomorrow we have a trip to a local farm with the younger kids so that should be fun.  

Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden: Who knew?

Today we took a largely unplanned trip to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum and I had the pleasure of being able to photograph a really cool little educational veggie garden set up in front of the Museum!  Here's a quick photo tour that highlights some really neat ideas that I just might need to steal next year.

The garden is mostly raised beds and containers made from clay drainage pipes (or something like them).  It is situated in a little outdoor nook between the registration lobby and the gift shop.

I'm not big on fruitless flowers, but these are really pretty.  They were probably planted among the veggies to attract pollinators.

Is this purple broccoli in the front?  Or something else...I just don't know.

This faux (or real) log was planted with several herbs.  The vertical clay pipes were also planted with herbs and small veggies, and surrounded a long raised bed.  Such a cool idea!  

Brussel Sprouts

An Asian eggplant of some type.

Another beautiful and healthy eggplant...much healthier than my own at least.

Rain barrels!  They had a rotating composter too but I think I only snapped it in the background once or twice.  

More clay pipes were used as planters along the wall further in.  There are also some amazing  rough hewn wooden benches to sit on.

I just can't get over what a great idea those pipes are.  I have probably seen a ton of them laying around and never thought twice about using them in the garden.  Being square makes them quite a bit more useful than the round pots as they can be used as a border or lined up against each other for more stability.

A view from the end of one of those wooden benches.  The raised beds were quite high off the ground.  You can see a tiny bit of the city skyline in the background.

This is the best shot I could get of the long bed created with a border of clay pipe containers.  

A beautiful heirloom that I didn't see a tag for.

Tomatoes on the same plant but less ripe.  I MUST grow some like this next year.

Chard  :)

This photo is on the way home.  You can tell how many kids probably feed these squirrels.  This fat little guy didn't even blink when my son walked 2 feet from him.

This one just sat a few feet above us quietly observing.

A view of the beautiful day we had here from the car ride home.  I shot that through my windshield (while my husband drove) if you can believe it.

The Pittsburgh Children's Museum Garden itself actually has a blog, which you can find here if you'd like to take a look.  They host several educational workshops for kids and schools, though I've never been to one since we just discovered this garden today.  I love finding new gardens around town :)  

I really have no idea what I am doing.

Really.  This is sorta the third year we've had a garden here, but only the second where we'll actually get a harvest since that first year we lost our whopping 8 plants to late blight.

So far the missteps haven't been as profound as last year, and we seem to be on the verge of getting a good amount of food out of our front yard, but I love seeing people around town who are doing it better.  Last year I found a few random people with really neat urban gardens scattered around Pittsburgh.  This year I want to actively seek them out because they let me know that what I'm trying to do is possible (and also because they are just so cool).

Today I managed to get out to Wilkinsburg to FINALLY try to get new eggplant seedlings from Garden Dreams.  They did NOT have any Turkish Orange left (damn) but I found several other varieties of eggplant as well as seedlings for ground cherries, green tomatillos, purple tomatillos, and a bunch of cherry tomatoes.  I also picked up some variety of white tomato...not because I need another tomato, but because I've never grown a white one and I couldn't resist.

They occupy two city lots and the whole garden is just amazingly landscaped.  There are several areas full of potted seedlings for sale which make up the bulk of their business currently, but later in the season they will also be selling their naturally grown produce to the public.  There were so many different colors and types of pepper, tomato and eggplant seedlings available that I can only imagine the rainbow that will be their harvest.

But enough words!  Here are some pictures I took there earlier today...if you're ever in Pittsburgh, they are definitely worth a visit (even on a gloomy day such as today):

(A haunted house.  Or a non-haunted house doing a really great impression of a haunted house.)

I can't wait to go back in a few months when the veggies start to ripen!  Next time I'm bringing the kids.