DC Urban Gardeners

Planting Praties

They say planting potatoes in our corner of the universe should take place around St. Patrick's day. I was one day off, but very pleased to have potatoes in the ground. Potatoes are easy to grow and being able to gather them outside your door is one of the greatest benefits of gardening. We were still digging up potatoes through most of the winter. They stored in the ground.

Root crops thrive in a loose soil and potatoes are heavy feeders, so I'm giving them the best I've got, a strip of vegetable bed that was filled in with great soil behind a retaining wall. I tried something a little different this year to spur growth: I spread my potato sets in seed trays and left them out in the sun for several days. The potatoes began to shrivel, but soon enough new shoots began to emerge from the "eyes."

Potatoes don't plant from seed but rather from other potatoes. Our farmer friend Mike Klein recently delivered four varieties. Look for a "set" with at least three "eyes." The larger spuds can usually be cut in half or into pieces, which just means more potato plants.

My method for planting is to make a small hole with a trowel and place the set with the cut side down, to a depth of about two inches below the surface. I space the sets 15 inches apart, planting them in offset rows in a diamond pattern.

Potatoes aren't really roots but a form of stem growth. They will grow up along the plant stem if the plant is covered. Once these plants are tall enough, I will mound soil around them to encourage the growth of additional spuds. Another fascinating way to grow potatoes is inside an automobile tire, stacking the tires higher and higher as the plants grow and adding more soil as the stack gets taller. As you cover most of the plant with soil, it simply grows taller, producing more leaves. You can even start a system like this over bare concrete.

A stack of used tires painted bright colors and producing lots of potatoes is a great idea for a school garden. In other words, there is no excuse for not growing your own praties.

Overwintered Salad

Something inspirational is happening in the garden. The many greens I like to put in my salads have shaken off their winter stupor and our bounding back into a new season. As they revive, we begin picking again, putting a healthy assortment of greens on the dinner table.

Mustard greens are great for cooking. But if the leaves are picked while still young and tender, they make a great addition to a salad. I particularly like this red mustard for the rich color it adds to the salad bowl.

You may be getting the idea that I like sharp flavors in my salad. In fact, I love sharp peppery greens even as just an accent in an otherwise mild salad. Mizuna is one of my favorites. Its frilly foliage looks great in the garden as well.

I never seem to have enough arugula seed on hand. I don't ever want to be without arugula. It has a robust, spicy flavor and a great chew. Sometimes I just dress it with a little lemon and extra-virgin olive oil and eat it all on its own.

We even have some lettuces making a comeback. This "Red Summer Crisp," one of about 15 different lettuce varieties I planted last year, seems to be particularly determined to carry on. Before long, though, it's bound to go to seed.

Sorrel is a perennial. It loves these cool, early spring days. Its citrusy flavor is great in a sauce for fish, blended into a pesto or just torn up for a salad. Kids love to pick it right out of the garden.

Cilantro doesn't last long in the heat here in the District of Columbia. This plant came through the winter in grand shape. The flavor is the best I've ever tasted. I'm beginning to think overwintering cilantro should be a permanent part of our garden plan.

Parsley is a biennial, meaning it goes to seed in the second year. Already it is taking on a woolly appearance. It won't matter how furiously you harvest it--this parsley is determined to replicate. It's almost better just to dig it up and plant some new seed.

Rainy Day Reading for Urban Gardeners

Mandie Yanasak has compiled your responses to her request for book recommendations, and here they are!  She's also created a cool Amazon "wish list" of them to make it easy to buy.

Books We'd Recommend

From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden by Amy Stewart

The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable achievements of Earthworms By Amy Stewart

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, by Toby Hemenway

Edible Forest Gardens: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture, by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier

How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons

Small Space Gardening -- How to Successfully Grow Flowers and Fruits in Containers and Pots by Peter Loewer.  The Lyons Press, Connecticut, 2003.

The Bountiful Container by McGee and Stuckey's, Workman Publishing, NY, 20002.

The Edible Container Garden -- Growing Fresh Food in Small Spaces by Michael Guerra Fireside Books (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2000.

Square Foot Gardener by Mel Bartholomew

The New Victory Garden by Bob Thomson

Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Applehoff

Life in the Soil, A Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners by James Nardi of the University of Illinois

One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

The Good Life, by Helen and Scott Nearing

The Forager's Harvest, by Samuel Thayer

Teaming with Microbes, a Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels

Websites to peruse:

http://www.edibleforestgardens.com

http://www.growbiointensive.org

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

http://www.seedsavers.org

http://www.richters.com

http://www.horizonherbs.com

http://www.ediblelandscaping.com

Planting Favas

I'm usually at least a month behind in my planting. It doesn't matter much. The District of Columbia has a long growing season. But I'm feeling especially spry this year, having finally organized my seed collection into something recognizable. I also worked up a planting list. At a glance, I can see that I could have been planting my spinach a month ago and that carrot seeds could have gone in the ground two weeks back.

It's also time to be planting peas and fava beans. The fava seeds look just like the dried fava beans you see at the Middle Eastern grocery. Did you know that most beans--even the ones that sound French or Italian--have their origins in the New World? Fava, or broad bean, is the original Old World bean. We love favas in a light braise with peas, or spread over bruschetta with Pecorino cheese.

First step is to read the seed packet and perhaps the seed catalogue for specific planting information about favas. These indicate that favas need about 75 days to fully mature and really hate heat. Planting them now should mean we'll be harvesting favas around the middle of May, just about the time the weather is heating up.

Seeds normally are planted to a depth of three times the width of the seed. That means a hole about 1 1/2 inches deep for these large fava seeds. There's a name for the tool used to make the hole. It's called a dibble. I don't own a formal dibble. I use the handle of a screw driver. It's not quite as elegant, and compacts the soil at the bottom of the hole more than I probably should . But it seems to work.

The fava seeds should be planted four inches to six inches apart, according to my seed packet. That gives the individual plants enough room to grow. I don't plant in rows, but in squares. And I plant seeds closer together rather than farther apart. My hope is that the plants will be self-mulching. In other words, the foliage will be so dense it will suppress weeds and help retain moisture in the soil, eliminating the need to spread straw or leaves or some other mulching material. That's the hope, anyway.

Before I begin planting, I go around the area with my forked spade, plunging it deep into the soil and rocking gently back and forth to loosen the sub-soil. I then dust the area with a thin layer of compost (we make lots of compost around here) and work that into the soil with my stirrup hoe. The final step before putting seeds in the ground is to get down on all fours and break up any clods with my hands. This is my favorite part of planting, actually running the soil through my hands, smelling it, seeing how applications of compost over the years have worked their magic, injecting life into my garden beds. While I'm down there, I also remove any weeds and stones I find.

To remember exactly where I have planted my favas, I mark the area with these wooden stakes. That would be on the left, where I planted 50 seeds in all, or the entire contents of my seed packet. The area on the right still needs to be planted. I'll come back later with onion sets or carrots or something else that will appreciate this rich, loose soil.

Posted by Ed Bruske

Partnering with the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. - Great News!

Out of the blue came a call from Dottie Green, the very can-do event coordinator of the Historical Society, asking: Could the DC Urban Gardeners create programs to teach gardening to the public, which they would host and publicize?  Oh, and they'd pay an honorarium, of course.  How fast can we say "You bet!"  (And a BIG thank-you to the U.S. Botanic Garden for suggesting they contact us.)

THE PEOPLE
Honestly, I didn't know anything about the HSDC that's newly constituted and focussed (after the closure of the DC Museum) on using their amazing building - the old Carnegie Library right on Mt. Vernon Square - as a community resource.  So I asked a few local historic preservationist types I happen to know and heard nothing but good reports.  Like one report that they're hosting events highlighting DC's cultural history - think churches and the Civil Rights movement - and even "bridging the racial divide" like no other history group has ever done here.  And the very fact that they contacted us to teach subjects like gardening and composting tells us their current vision reaches far beyond history to the very practical concerns of the present and confirms our excitement about this new opportunity.  Even the resume of Dottie Green herself is encouraging to us - with 14 years as an event coordinator for the Smithsonian, she's a pro, and these folks are serious.  Oh, and they seem to be well funded, too, something the DC Urban Gardeners most definitely are NOT.

THE PLACE
If you haven't seen the inside of the fabulous Beaux-Arts Carnegie Library, we hope to change that.  You'll see that despite the age of the building, the facilities are state-of-the-art, with all the spaces video-ready and WiFi-wired.  There's even a fabulous 145-seat stadium-style movie theater.

OUR FIRST EVENTS (And they're all FREE)
Saturday, April 26, 10:00 a.m. 
Spring Menus from an Urban Kitchen Garden, by Ed Bruske
City gardeners have one of the world's best-kept secrets: the wonderful food they bring to the table from their home and community gardens.  Gardens provide a vital connection to the soil for urbanites.  In spring, the earth comes alive again, providing the basis for tantalizing dishes: asparagus frittata, grilled bruschetta with peas and fava beans, rhubarb and sabayonne parfait, classic strawberry shortcake.  Here's proof that the world's finest ingredients can be just a few steps from your door, even in the heart of the city.

Saturday, May 17 at 10:00 a.m. 
Creating and Maintaining a Beautiful AND Sustainable Garden, by Susan Harris
Working WITH nature, not against it, is the easiest way to have a beautiful garden, and this talk will show you how it's done. Slides and commentary will cover design that mimics but improves on nature, the easiest, healthiest plants for our climate, and the earth-friendly, gardener-friendly way to take care of it.

WHAT ELSE?
We hope these two events are just the start of a series of monthly events throughout the year, covering gardening - both ornamental and edible - and a slew of other subjects.  Maybe organic lawn care, composting, water management, tree care, pruning - I could go on but why don't you tell us? We're thinking of not just talks but also hands-on workshops and even movies - let's fill that gorgeous theater of theirs.  Leave your suggestions for topics and/or speakers right here in a comment, or via email.

Posted by Susan Harris