DC Urban Gardeners

Help Write our Rain Barrel Round-Up

Update:  We've incorporated all your comments, as well as many more from across the U.S. and even England, into this much longer article on our site:  "Rain Barrel Round-up."

Why all the interest in rain barrels?

• They save on our water bills.  One test showed that one barrel saves about 1,300 gallons every summer.
• They reduce or eliminate runoff of stormwater into our watershed, which means less downstream pollution and sedimentation.
• They reduce the load on our municipal water supply.
• They collect naturally soft, chlorine-free rainwater for use on our plants, which often results in improved plant health.

WHICH TO BUY?
Here's what I've learned from my Web research and advice offered by local gardeners on the DC Urban Gardener Yahoo group:

Size Matters
The bigger the better, and whatever you use, have an overflow system because rain barrels can fill up in as few as 5 minutes.  Surprised?  Well, a quarter-inch of rain falling on an average-size house yields slightly over 200 gallons!

 

DC resident Kate McLynn first bought 4 Deluxe size (75-gallon) barrels from Gardener's Supply, one for each corner downspout.  After several years one of them froze and cracked, but she reported finding an even better barrel. "It's produced by the RiverSides Program in Toronto, holds 132 gallons in the same footprint as the Gardeners Supply 75 gallon, AND it is designed to withstand freezing."

Cheaper by the Group
Kate continues: "If anyone is interested in purchasing one, please let me know.  We purchased ours through a group buy and saved a lot - $190 instead of $250 plus.  We’d like to get another and& know others who want one as well." 

 

More about Sizes, Sources and Prices
The University of Rhode Island site offers this guidance about prices: "Ready-made rain barrels range from $89 to $135 each depending on size, style and added features."  Well, that's not much help, is it? A little web-surfing turned up these sources (unfortunately, many sell barrels no larger 55-60 gallons).

• Spruce Creek Rain Saver.com (recommended on the site of Maryland's Dept. of Natural Resources) sells a 54-gallon barrel for $155.   Not exactly a bargain, huh?

• Gardener's Supply's 75-gallon Deluxe costs $135.

• As Kate mentioned, the RiverSides 132-gallon costs $190 as a group or $250 individually. 

• RainSaverUsa sells their 80-gallon for $300!  Another nonbargain.

BUILDING YOUR OWN

• How to build your own [pdf]

• Home and Garden Television's website on How to make your own   

• Maryland's Department of Natural Resources how to build your own

OPERATING AND MAINTAINING ONE

Yahoo group members offered these suggestions:

• Use mosquito dunks in summer.
• Set the barrel on overturned barrel halves to give sufficient height for gravity to deliver water to the garden.

And from the University of Rhode Island comes this advice, which I don't understand.  Can someone please edify?  Or just tell us how yours works.

• Fine mesh screen should be used to cover any openings in the rain barrel to prevent mosquitoes and to trap debris.
• Rain barrels can be installed upon blocks or wooden crate to provide height for gravity flow purposes.
• Rain barrels should be drained and removed for the winter months to prevent ice damage. It is recommended that you remove the existing downspout and elbow intact and store for reinstallation in the late fall. (Huh?) You can then add another downspout section that will need to be custom cut to an appropriate height above your rain barrel. Two, connected downspout elbows (forming an S shape) or hinged extension should sit about two inches above the rain barrel inlet hole. (Is this whole bullet point about what to do in the winter?)

MORE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON LINE

• Here's a US government site about water usage   

AND IN PRINT

• Water Storage by Ludwig   

Posted by Susan Harris  Photo by Goforgr33n 

 

Swiss Chard with Pomegranate Molasses

The Swiss chard is still going strong in my garden. I do love this vegetable. And for you ornamentalists here's a news flash: chard is great looking as well.

You have to understand that Swiss Chard represents something very special to the vegetable gardener. Chard grows like a champ through all kinds of weather. When other plants are wilting in the heat, chard is standing tall. When other leafy vegetables have crumped from the cold, chard is itching for some action.

Best of all, chard is a cut-and-come-again vegetable, meaning you can harvest it--cutting the whole bunch of stems and leaves close to the ground--and it just sends up more stems and leaves. After being cut once or twice, the leaves seem to remain a deep red--like poinsettias but muskier--rather than turning green. So right now after the first big chill and snowfall, we have a natural Christmas display in our kitchen garden out front with all those Swiss chard plants, right here in the District of Columbia one mile from the White House.

Most often when you see recipes for cooking chard they call for cutting the leaves off the stems, cooking the leaves and discarding the stems. This is something I cannot fathom. The stems are the best part. The stems are succulent and flavorful. They are screaming with flavor like big juicy beets--and guess why? Because they are related to beets. So expect that kind of flavor when you cook the stems. When I prepare chard, I just chop everything--stems and leaves--into 1-inch pieces.

Now, for this quick recipe. I had never timed the braising of the chard before. The idea is to cook it, covered, in a heavy skilled until the stems are tender, then mix in some pomegranate molasses (readily available at Whole Foods and Middle Eastern markets here in the States) at the end for the added flavor.

To speed things up a little, I heated the skillet (my largest iron skillet) on the stove top over high heat and added about 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. I let that get smoking hot while I first cut half a red onion into thin slices. I placed those in the skillet, then chopped a whole bunch of Swiss Chard (wash it first, of course). Put the chopped chard into the skillet with the onion, then add about 1/3 cup red wine (the alcohol will cook off) and a splash or two of red wine vinegar. Season everything with coarse salt and cover tightly. (You might have quite a pile of greens if your skillet isn't as large as mine. They will cook down, of course. But if things don't look right to you, try doing this in a big, heavy pot or Dutch oven.)

When you hear the liquid boiling, reduce heat and continue cooking at a brisk pace. After five minutes, lift the cover and stir the vegetables. Cook another seven or eight minutes, covered, or until the chard stems are tender. If the skillet should run dry in the meantime, add a splash of wine or water. After everything has cooked enough, stir in about 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses. (The molasses can be heated in the microwave if it's slow coming out of the bottle.)

I found the total cooking time to be about 13 minutes. There will still be a little toothsomeness to the chard stems and the onion. The color will remain a deep, unctuous magenta. Serve this with a roasted chicken and a brown rice pilaf of some sort, maybe with caramelized mushrooms and toasted walnuts. Don't tell anyone how easy it was, just bask in the praise.

Microfarming and Sustainable Villages with Rob and Mia

Gloria at Pollinators-Welcome wrote to urge me to see what EcoMama and One Straw Revolution are all about, and I'm so glad she did.  Those are the blogs of Mia and Rob, a young couple with two small kids who couldn't afford a "farmette," so bought a spec home (above) in a new development in exurban Wisconsin. But they didn't abandon their dreams of sustainable farming.  They challenged themselves to grow a ton of food (literally) in their .1-acre garden and yielded 500 pounds in their second year - including enough greens to sell their surplus to the local coffee shop.  Another goal is to "bioneer" a system that's replicable in suburban homes across the U.S. 

PERMACULTURE IS WHAT, EXACTLY?
As a proponent of permaculture, Rob is forever having to define it to the uninitiated, like myself.  "Beyond sustainable" and certainly "beyond organic", it's also a design theory that includes capturing waste and the use of "guilds" of plant groups. (That's where he loses me - sorry, Rob!)  But because the term is copywrited, it's best to use "sustainable agriculture" instead, and not hear from the lawyers. 

By whatever name, Rob recommends this outstanding site on the subject.

But enough terminology.  What do they DO? 

• Use cheap raised beds and deep mulch gardening, and cover crops.
• Grow not just vegetables but also peaches, apples, hardy kiwi, and mushrooms.
• Make and sell rain barrels, recycling waste products from Wisconsin's brewers.
• Use a no-mow alternative to traditional lawn, as described in this post. Getting their prairie established required spraying with an herbicide, which brought on a "deep depression".  We all identify with that one.
• To teaching their suburban model to the masses, they give tours and write those blogs.
• Because so many people have the money and the inclination but not the time, they established Someday Gardens to design and install "ecological gardens".
• And coming in 2008,they'll use a quarter-acre of land at a nearby farm, enough space for 200 beds (though they'll start with just five in the first year).  No money will change hands, though - it's a barter deal, land for food and help with chores.
  

COMMUNITY-BUILDING
But here's my favorite part.  Rob and Mia are active in Natural Step, a model for sustainable villages that started in Sweden.  In their local area upwards of 300 people have already joined the movement by working in study groups to learn how to make communities run better, and nearby Johnson Creek is already established as an eco-community, with Madison not far behind.  Even progressive Wisconsin has a way to go to catch up with Sweden, where the king and his whole damn kingdom are using this model and they're on track to kick the imported oil habit by 2020.

Acting locally, Rob's helped create Sustain Jefferson, an energy-development/local-food club, and Mia runs the local chapter of Faith in Action. (Speaking of faith, I loved this post, in which Rob rants against a left-wing fundamentalist minister - "Hate is hate.")

And as a very smart "defensive measure", Rob got himself elected president of their homeowners association.  As one of the earliest homeowners in their new development, they seized the opportunity to write progressive HOA rules.  It pays to have a tolerance for meetings, something that Rob clearly possesses.

SOMEBODY PUT THIS GUY ON TV!
Now this young couple is awfully modest on their blogs and no photo of them was to be found, so I asked for one and here's what arrived.  Hey - shouldn't he be put to work selling sustainable living to the world on television?  Why hire vapid spokesmodels when real gardeners look like this - and have so much to say?

Below the jump are "Mentors and Inspirations," and the comments are Rob's.

Posted by Susan Harris.  All photos courtesy of Mia and Rob.

Gloria at Pollinators-Welcome wrote to urge me to see what EcoMama and One Straw Revolution are all about, and I'm so glad she did.  Those are the blogs of Mia and Rob, a young couple with two small kids who couldn't afford a "farmette," so bought a spec home (above) in a new development in exurban Wisconsin. But they didn't abandon their dreams of sustainable farming.  They challenged themselves to grow a ton of food (literally) in their .1-acre garden and yielded 500 pounds in their second year - including enough greens to sell their surplus to the local coffee shop.  Another goal is to "bioneer" a system that's replicable in suburban homes across the U.S. 

PERMACULTURE IS WHAT, EXACTLY?
As a proponent of permaculture, Rob is forever having to define it to the uninitiated, like myself.  "Beyond sustainable" and certainly "beyond organic", it's also a design theory that includes capturing waste and the use of "guilds" of plant groups. (That's where he loses me - sorry, Rob!)  But because the term is copywrited, it's best to use "sustainable agriculture" instead, and not hear from the lawyers. 

By whatever name, Rob recommends this outstanding site on the subject.

But enough terminology.  What do they DO? 

• Use cheap raised beds and deep mulch gardening, and cover crops.
• Grow not just vegetables but also peaches, apples, hardy kiwi, and mushrooms.
• Make and sell rain barrels, recycling waste products from Wisconsin's brewers.
• Use a no-mow alternative to traditional lawn, as described in this post. Getting their prairie established required spraying with an herbicide, which brought on a "deep depression".  We all identify with that one.
• To teaching their suburban model to the masses, they give tours and write those blogs.
• Because so many people have the money and the inclination but not the time, they established Someday Gardens to design and install "ecological gardens".
• And coming in 2008,they'll use a quarter-acre of land at a nearby farm, enough space for 200 beds (though they'll start with just five in the first year).  No money will change hands, though - it's a barter deal, land for food and help with chores.
  

COMMUNITY-BUILDING
But here's my favorite part.  Rob and Mia are active in Natural Step, a model for sustainable villages that started in Sweden.  In their local area upwards of 300 people have already joined the movement by working in study groups to learn how to make communities run better, and nearby Johnson Creek is already established as an eco-community, with Madison not far behind.  Even progressive Wisconsin has a way to go to catch up with Sweden, where the king and his whole damn kingdom are using this model and they're on track to kick the imported oil habit by 2020.

Acting locally, Rob's helped create Sustain Jefferson, an energy-development/local-food club, and Mia runs the local chapter of Faith in Action. (Speaking of faith, I loved this post, in which Rob rants against a left-wing fundamentalist minister - "Hate is hate.")

And as a very smart "defensive measure", Rob got himself elected president of their homeowners association.  As one of the earliest homeowners in their new development, they seized the opportunity to write progressive HOA rules.  It pays to have a tolerance for meetings, something that Rob clearly possesses.

SOMEBODY PUT THIS GUY ON TV!
Now this young couple is awfully modest on their blogs and no photo of them was to be found, so I asked for one and here's what arrived.  Hey - shouldn't he be put to work selling sustainable living to the world on television?  Why hire vapid spokesmodels when real gardeners look like this - and have so much to say?

Below the jump are "Mentors and Inspirations," and the comments are Rob's.

Posted by Susan Harris.  All photos courtesy of Mia and Rob.

Patti Moreno, Cheerleader for Sustainable Urban Living

Readers, meet Patti Moreno.  You can visit her site for videos about urban sustainable living, with titles like "How to Create a Sustainable Urban Garden" and "How to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas" and lots more coming soon.  Okay, now heeeere's Patti!

Patti's big news recently is about being chosen as the new host of Farmer's Almanac TV, a 30-minute show on 90 percent of PBS stations nationwide (but sadly, not in DC or Baltimore).  Her episodes will start to appear next April (and maybe someday on their website?) but I already know that hiring Patti is a smart move by the folks at Farmer's Almanac because the name screams old-fashioned and everything about Patti is young and hip.  So she's just what they need, and a far better choice than the spokesmodel types favored by HGTV.  There's more about Patti on their site, though for the really interesting stuff about her, keep reading right here.

The road to stardom
Patti kindly submitted to a phone interview for this profile, probably assuming I wanted to talk about urban sustainability and any number of serious subjects.  Nope, I wanted to know how she got to be TV Garden Girl.  So I pried and learned that she left NYC to study broadcasting and film at Boston University, which led (somehow) to establishing FilmShack, a "mom and pop film production company," with her husband Robert Patton-Spruill.  Company offices are in the renovated former home of filmmaker Henry Hampton, which is right on the grounds of their Roxbury (downtown Boston) home.  How cool is that?

Oh, but it gets cooler.  One of their recent productions, Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome, was previewed recently at the American Film Institute and won a rave review from Variety.  Googling their names unearthed more envy-inducing mentions than I really cared to read.

Next I honed in on the question: How did she get that gig with Farmer's Almanac?  Answer: She made a 5-minute demo tape, circulated it among her contacts, and the folks at Farmer's Almanac stumbled upon it in their search for a new host.  (Not surprisingly, since that demo's now been viewed 58,000 times, but how the heck did that happen?  I bet only insiders know the answer to that one.) 

What she's passionate about
When I wasn't cross-examining Patti about her career she kept returning to what she really wanted to talk about - her apple orchard, her raised veggie beds, the joys of raising livestock (like the goat shown here), her heroes Elliot Coleman and Andy Lee (author of Chicken Tractor), and assuring me that she's NOT preaching eco-perfection.  Oh, and she's no fan of lawns and has a video coming out soon about replacing them with edible landscapes, which we'll be sure to post right here because it's one of my favorite topics, too.

Posted by Susan Harris

Readers, meet Patti Moreno.  You can visit her site for videos about urban sustainable living, with titles like "How to Create a Sustainable Urban Garden" and "How to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas" and lots more coming soon.  Okay, now heeeere's Patti!

Patti's big news recently is about being chosen as the new host of Farmer's Almanac TV, a 30-minute show on 90 percent of PBS stations nationwide (but sadly, not in DC or Baltimore).  Her episodes will start to appear next April (and maybe someday on their website?) but I already know that hiring Patti is a smart move by the folks at Farmer's Almanac because the name screams old-fashioned and everything about Patti is young and hip.  So she's just what they need, and a far better choice than the spokesmodel types favored by HGTV.  There's more about Patti on their site, though for the really interesting stuff about her, keep reading right here.

The road to stardom
Patti kindly submitted to a phone interview for this profile, probably assuming I wanted to talk about urban sustainability and any number of serious subjects.  Nope, I wanted to know how she got to be TV Garden Girl.  So I pried and learned that she left NYC to study broadcasting and film at Boston University, which led (somehow) to establishing FilmShack, a "mom and pop film production company," with her husband Robert Patton-Spruill.  Company offices are in the renovated former home of filmmaker Henry Hampton, which is right on the grounds of their Roxbury (downtown Boston) home.  How cool is that?

Oh, but it gets cooler.  One of their recent productions, Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome, was previewed recently at the American Film Institute and won a rave review from Variety.  Googling their names unearthed more envy-inducing mentions than I really cared to read.

Next I honed in on the question: How did she get that gig with Farmer's Almanac?  Answer: She made a 5-minute demo tape, circulated it among her contacts, and the folks at Farmer's Almanac stumbled upon it in their search for a new host.  (Not surprisingly, since that demo's now been viewed 58,000 times, but how the heck did that happen?  I bet only insiders know the answer to that one.) 

What she's passionate about
When I wasn't cross-examining Patti about her career she kept returning to what she really wanted to talk about - her apple orchard, her raised veggie beds, the joys of raising livestock (like the goat shown here), her heroes Elliot Coleman and Andy Lee (author of Chicken Tractor), and assuring me that she's NOT preaching eco-perfection.  Oh, and she's no fan of lawns and has a video coming out soon about replacing them with edible landscapes, which we'll be sure to post right here because it's one of my favorite topics, too.

Posted by Susan Harris

Readers, meet Patti Moreno.  You can visit her site for videos about urban sustainable living, with titles like "How to Create a Sustainable Urban Garden" and "How to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas" and lots more coming soon.  Okay, now heeeere's Patti!

Patti's big news recently is about being chosen as the new host of Farmer's Almanac TV, a 30-minute show on 90 percent of PBS stations nationwide (but sadly, not in DC or Baltimore).  Her episodes will start to appear next April (and maybe someday on their website?) but I already know that hiring Patti is a smart move by the folks at Farmer's Almanac because the name screams old-fashioned and everything about Patti is young and hip.  So she's just what they need, and a far better choice than the spokesmodel types favored by HGTV.  There's more about Patti on their site, though for the really interesting stuff about her, keep reading right here.

The road to stardom
Patti kindly submitted to a phone interview for this profile, probably assuming I wanted to talk about urban sustainability and any number of serious subjects.  Nope, I wanted to know how she got to be TV Garden Girl.  So I pried and learned that she left NYC to study broadcasting and film at Boston University, which led (somehow) to establishing FilmShack, a "mom and pop film production company," with her husband Robert Patton-Spruill.  Company offices are in the renovated former home of filmmaker Henry Hampton, which is right on the grounds of their Roxbury (downtown Boston) home.  How cool is that?

Oh, but it gets cooler.  One of their recent productions, Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome, was previewed recently at the American Film Institute and won a rave review from Variety.  Googling their names unearthed more envy-inducing mentions than I really cared to read.

Next I honed in on the question: How did she get that gig with Farmer's Almanac?  Answer: She made a 5-minute demo tape, circulated it among her contacts, and the folks at Farmer's Almanac stumbled upon it in their search for a new host.  (Not surprisingly, since that demo's now been viewed 58,000 times, but how the heck did that happen?  I bet only insiders know the answer to that one.) 

What she's passionate about
When I wasn't cross-examining Patti about her career she kept returning to what she really wanted to talk about - her apple orchard, her raised veggie beds, the joys of raising livestock (like the goat shown here), her heroes Elliot Coleman and Andy Lee (author of Chicken Tractor), and assuring me that she's NOT preaching eco-perfection.  Oh, and she's no fan of lawns and has a video coming out soon about replacing them with edible landscapes, which we'll be sure to post right here because it's one of my favorite topics, too.

Posted by Susan Harris

Another man's Trash...

Neighbors might have thought it strange, a man wheeling bags of leaves and grass clippings up the sidewalk. But in my travels recently, I noticed a landscaping crew cleaning the area around a huge apartment complex down the street.

There were at least six workers busy mowing grass and blowing leaves and the sight of it I stopped me in my tracks: compost.

I suppose the workers thought I was crazy, pointing, waving my arms, jabbering away in fractured Spanish--indicating however I could that I wanted their big bags of lawn refuse. They looked at me like I was daft, then looked at each other as if to say, What is this guy talking about? But we soon had an arrangement: they would continue bagging the grass and leaves while I ran up the street and fetched my hand truck. In fact, the captain of the crew spoke enough English that we could compare notes on composting. He agreed that I had a good mix of materials and that by next year (or maybe the year after, he seemed to think) I'd have some great soil amendment. "All organic," he said, nodding.

The trees here still haven't shed all their leaves and we have great colors despite months of drought. Normally I would be driving around the neighborhood in the coming weeks, snatching the leaves people gather and bag from their lawns and place at the curb for pickup by city crews. Brown leaves, a great supply of carbon for the compost pile, are difficult to come by in the spring and summer if you haven't saved a stash. The grass clippings, or green material, contain the nitrogen that stokes the composting process.

All of this is essential to the food we eat. Trees draw nutrients from the ground, which find their way into the leaves, which then fall back to the earth. Nitrogen is essential food for vegetable plants. Compost feeds the soil with organic matter, supporting an entire ecosystem of small creatures who transport nutrients to my carrots and beets and lettuces and tomatoes and make the soil a living, hospitable environment for things to grow. In the end, those very same nutrients find their way into our bellies as well.

I made several trips back and forth with my bags of loot. The landscaping crew, once they understood what I was doing, pitched in to help. Normally they use a big vacuum to blow the leaves into the back of their truck. But this time they gathered the leaves and stuffed them into more bags so I could wheel them home.

Every bit of compost I make myself means compost I don't have to buy, compost that doesn't have to be trucked into the city from somewhere else. It also means leaves and grass clippings that don't have to be trucked out of the city in the back of a landscaper's truck and dumped who-knows-where. We love the idea of nature recycling itself right here in the neighborhood and feeding us in the process.

--Posted by Ed Bruske