Take Project Grow's Potato Pledge and Plant a Row for the Hungry

While planning this years garden - whether electronically or using pen and paper - don't forget to plant a row for the hungry. It's not difficult (what's one more row, really?) and can provide fresh food that can make a world of difference for a neighbor in the community.

And Project Grow and Downtown Home and Garden are making it even easier! Take our Potato Pledge and pick up two pounds of seed potatoes from Downtown Home and Garden on April 17th and get growing! Potatoes are easy and satisfying to grow, and are a favorite staple of food banks everywhere.

Potato Pledge

1. Find the Project Grow Potato Pledge Form at Downtown Home and Garden, the Ann Arbor Public Library - Downtown Branch, the People's Food Coop, and Whole Foods. (Take the upcoming class Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potato Slips on Saturday, April 10th and pick up the form there, too!)

2. Bring the Pledge to Downtown Home and Garden on Saturday, April 17th to "Potato Alley" behind the store (enter at Liberty Street and exit via Washington Street), and turn that paper into two pounds of beautiful seed potatoes ready for planting.

3. Plant those potatoes! Without a doubt our Project Grow heirloom devotee, Royer Held, will offer some of the best insight on growing potatoes to be found during "Potato Seeds, Seed Potatoes, and Sweet Potatoes" on Saturday, April 10th. (Well-timed for Potato Pledgers so sign-up now!)

4. Harvest in late summer or early fall. Details on collection dates, times, and places can be found at this blog, our newsletter, and via email.

Fall Bulb Planning Now or Any Excuse to Get Outside

Put those Spring blues at bay for the moment and head out the door. This terrific idea about planning now for fall bulb planting is absolutely the perfect excuse to get out into the yard and to work. No digging or uncovering or planting - all a bit risky for the chilly days still in store for us - but some excellent fun!

Winter Gardening Seminar

This time of year the post begins bringing that bevy of seed catalogs from far and near. And this time of year also brings those dreams of a garden that is often a wee bit bigger than it is in reality with plenty of room to spare for that new variety of pepper, cosmos, or basil.

Well, it's time to make this garden a reality! Join Project Grow's Marcella Trautman at Whole Foods to find out how to bring that fantasy garden to life this coming growing season.

Winter Gardening: Digging Through Seed Catalogs and Planning Your Perfect Garden

Wednesday, January 27th

6pm

Whole Foods Cranbrook

990 West Eisenhower Parkway

734-997-7500

Can't make this one? Never fear! Check out our Events and Classes to see what's happening and come on out!

Winter Gardening

With the Equinox upon us, it is surely time to be thinking of winter gardening. Not just packing up the garden for a nice winter's rest (although that's not a bad thing), but giving some thought to what can be grown in the cooler part of the year.

Whether or not a hoophouse is on the horizon, there are a fair number of vegetables and smaller structures that could make for a lovely harvest nearly into winter. Some favorites of the cool weather gardener are kale, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce, but surely beets, leeks, and an assortment of other tasty treats could be added here and there. This article is a good primer for planning and planting. This article from Mother Earth News is also quite comprehensive with nice associated links.

If a hoophouse is a bit of a scary proposition, Coldframes are usually short, small, and often easy to build and maintain. They are a nice way to gently break into the realm of winter gardening without breaking your back or your bank account. That said, Elliott Coleman pops a few into his hoophouses to grow an even greater variety of vegetables throughout the winter months.

Local garden centers may also have cool weather crop seedlings for sale, too, along with the usual offerings of garlic and spring bulbs. Treat yourself to a tour and come home with a mini feast!

More Ideas for Bringing in the Beneficials

National Gardening Association ran this nice article on attracting beneficials in a recent e-newsletter, and it is well worth sharing. The only thing to keep in mind while perusing the list is that some ornamental grasses, flowers, and herbs can be quite invasive. (Think of the mint or Bishop's Mantle marching undaunted through garden beds and yards and stopping only short of the living room door, and you'll get the idea.) 

One thought for those that could be invasive - either because of seeds literally being thrown to the wind or burrowing rhizomes or both - is to perhaps look for a native species that is similar or put that mint in a pot. Things like garlic mustard wreak havoc everywhere, and there are some good local efforts to eradicate it. If perennial plants are not an option, a good annual can do quite a bit to help out. (Alyssum is mentioned in the article, and it is well worth it as an attractor, a dense ground cover or living mulch, and a darn pretty plant, too.)

(And you're right if you seem to recall that we've mentioned this before. Like a good pile of compost, attracting and supporting beneficials - like bees - is pivotal to the success of any garden and especially to an organic one.)

Raised Bed Materials Raise Questions

Building a raised bed or rebuilding a raised bed? This little post from Umbra over at Grist offers insight into which materials to consider.

Natural materials are the best bet, although they might be a little more expensive and perhaps a little harder to find. Reusing has obvious benefits as well, but is not without some cons. Be sure you know which materials are safe and what the reused materials are made from. Pressure treated lumber for vegetables may be a bit controversial.

A good basic plan for building the raised bed can also make all the difference, too. This video offers some interesting ideas and techniques, plus his dogs are pretty entertaining. Garden Girl offers a good video on building a raised bed and a ton of information on urban sustainable living. Inspiring stuff!

Garden Games

A new video game called Gardening Mama brings the garden to electronic life. Unlike the electronic garden planners, this one lets you just putter away attempting to grow a variety of flowers, vegetables, and fruits.

If you decide you eventually want to really get outside to try your hand at 3D gardening, consider coming along to our upcoming plant sales:

Friday, May 8th through Sunday, May 10th at Matthaei Botanical Gardens

Saturday, May 16th in front of the People's Food Coop

Kitchen Garden Tips

Starting a garden can feel like quite a daunting task - where to put it, how to build it, what to grow, and how much work it might be - that even the thought of all those great vegetables can pale in comparison. To help alleviate some of that concern, we've put together a list of helpful tools and resources that will get you through the process and on the way to those great fresh vegetables and herbs for your summer table.

• Start with this nice little article from Regional Gardening News about planning a kitchen garden. The piece helps define kitchen gardens, and offers some good tips to organize your thoughts about the garden - everything from locating it to what to grow - in preparation for the upcoming season.

• Give some serious thought to lasagne gardening. Lasagne gardening uses layers of organic materials that let you take advantage of the soil structure already in your yard. It's also an excellent way to build raised beds without having to do lots of digging. It is ideal to install your lasagne garden in the fall so the materials break down over the course of the winter to some of the most beautiful soil ever come Spring; however, you can plant seedlings directly if you decide to go for it now.

• Make a list of things you like to eat - tomatoes, greens, radishes, beets, sweet peppers, hot peppers, basil, cilantro, potatoes, sweet corn, popcorn, peas, beans - and see what of that is feasible to grow in your space. You can use some handy electronic garden mapping tools to see how the garden might shape up and be organized, or you also consider succession planting. This allows you to put something else in the space recently vacated by the radishes you just pulled, washed, and ate for lunch. Or for the peas that died back once the weather got too warm.

• Remember the garden can (and probably should) contain some flowers. Flowers, like cosmos and zinnias, make not only terrific bouquets all summer long, but also attract pollinators and house predators that will help control unwanted critters. And flowers like violas (a.k.a. Johnny-Jump-Ups), nasturtiums, and calendula are edible, too. Toss them in with your assortment of homegrown lettuces and arugula, and you've got one of the prettiest dishes going.

• Companion planting can be part of your kitchen garden, too. Many flowers and herbs, as mentioned above, attract pollinators as well as house predators, but they also can repel some bad guys. Marigolds help defer some unwanted vistors by their strong smell, as do onions and garlic. A great book to help you start thinking about this concept is Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember as you begin thinking about your garden is to enjoy it. Grow things you like to eat in a space you feel is manageable for a first time and for your schedule. Then, at the end of the season, you can join the legions of gardeners plotting ever larger and larger spaces with a greater variety of plants for the next season! You'll love it.

Electronic Garden Planning Tools

As spring wends its way the time to start garden planning is upon us! (Especially with that seed swap coming up on Saturday!)

Two sites offer some good electronic tools for planning a garden that let you play around with the arrangement of your flowers and vegetables and figure out when to start seeds, and when you should be able to harvest. 

The first is a tool offered at Eat Close to Home  - a good blog offering information on gardening, cooking, and other fun stuff. There you can drag and drop an assortment of vegetables into place. While the selection of things to grow is a bit limited, perhaps the best feature of this tool is the ability to click on a month and see how things will look at that time. This allows you to see how things expand or disappear (assuming you've harvested it to eat yourself versus a rabbit coming in to harvest for you) over the course of a season. 

The second tool is a Kitchen Garden Planner offered by Gardener's Supply. This planner has options for pre-planned gardens with titles like Cook's Choice and Salsa and Tomato Sauce as well as a design your own feature. You choose the plants from a limited list and plunk them in place. A nice feature here is that the plants are listed below with seed-starting information and instructions for general care. You can also email it to yourself to keep track of different ideas.