Dirt + Seed Dispensing Gumball Machines = Garden

Everyone knows about the transformative power of seeds, but here's a new twist on the idea - old gumball machines turned into a seed dispenser. Created by Greenaid, these contraptions make gardening easier than ever!

While you're thinking about seeds, check out Dirt! The Movie to see what's under your feet and why it matters so much. Screened at Sundance and Environmental Film Festival in Washington D.C. this year, the film will also air on PBS the week of April 20th. Garden adventures await!

Get ready to get your hands in that dirt, too, with these upcoming classes!

Heirloom Tomatoes and Peppers

Saturday, April 17

10am - 11:30am

Leslie House

Leslie Science and Nature Center

1831 Traver Road, Ann Arbor

Instructors: Royer Held and Tom Scheper

Learn how to select, start, and grow tomatoes and hot peppers using organic cultivation methods.

Introduction to Composting

Saturday, April 24

10am - 12pm

Leslie House

Leslie Science and Nature Center

1831 Traver Road, Ann Arbor

Instructor: Geoffrey Kroepel

Explore composting basics perfect for any gardener as well as alternative methods and creative bins.

(Image courtesy of Greenaid.)

Garden Tally

We all garden for a number of different reasons, but most likely one of the really big ones is having that favorite vegetable fresh for the dinner plate. Or for canning up a tasty tomato sauce recipe. Or just the satisfaction of growing the food that graces the table for some portion of the year. Or maybe this is the year you're looking for a few good reasons to start gardening!

Ever wonder just how much food is produced from that little plot? Well, Emily over at Eat Close to Home shared her formula for figuring out how much food comes pouring out of her gardens each year.

The bounty one space can produce is really impressive, and while calculating the savings reaped might be tedious it's well worth the effort, too. So, consider turning that lawn into a garden like Fritz Haeg suggests and be part of a burgeoning green economy!

Never fear! Garden gifts if the garden is all closed up

Now, before you say to yourself, "I've already done the end-of-the-year chores, AND it's snowing!" there are some options if you can't get gifts from your own garden this year.

Head over to the Farmer's Market to check out the selection of herbs still on hand. These may already be dried and prettily packaged to boot! Without a doubt, lots of other terrific gift items will be available for perusal, too.

According to the Farmer's Marketer (check out What's at the Market This Week on the left), it looks like apples galore can still be found. Why not whip up a batch or two of applesauce, can or freeze it and give it away? Talk about a refreshing taste of sunshine when the temperatures drop!

Create a tea blend from the great selection of herbs at a bulk grocery store section like the one at the People's Food Coop or Arbor Farms.

Make a super top secret hot cocoa mix for friends and family. Just think of how much fun you'll have "testing" the different recipes! (This could also be done while catching up on garden reading...and ok, you can't grow cocoa ingredients in your garden, but it's still homemade and still yummy.)

Amaryllis make a great gift for everyone from the non-gardener to the novice gardener to the botanist on your list. The thrill of watching the leaves emerge and the final trumpets of color move even the most curmudgeonly.

Give a selection of herbs for the windowsill. Fresh herbs are even better than dried ones, and the cheerful green leaves will be a welcome sight in anyone's home. Tailor the herb selection (seeds or seedlings) to the person in question, along with a cute pot or two. How much fun is that?

Review of New Gardening Books

Just in time as a follow-up to a recent post on gardening books comes this review from the New York Times. Reviewed are a total of 10 new books covering a range of topics - landscape gardening in Japan, historic gardens in England and America, parks and urban landscaping, bulbs, and good old fashioned garden reference - to match the whims and interests of any gardener.

And for those wanting a list of more recent vegetable-focused books, check out this terrific compilation/review from Spring. Reviewing and summarizing 12 books in total, this list would make a wonderful check list for building a gardening library.

And finally, for the whipper-snapper's on your list who might be shy (or even those who are not!) about gardening, The Curious Garden by Peter Brown, is sure to inspire everyone.

Gifts from the garden

As gift-giving season fast approaches, the stress of remembering who's on the list, what they like or don't like, not to mention the cost of many items can make the season more stressful than might be ideal. Here are a few ideas for this year (or to keep in mind for next year!) to ease the situation.

Dried herbs.

Dried herbs make fantastic presents! Whether it's a sprig of rosemary, a sweet little jar of oregano, dried mint and lemon balm for tea, or lavender sachets for a drawer or for a plunge in the bath, these are sure to delight. Drying herbs is easy as hanging them up to dry in the house or popping them in a low, low oven spread out on a cookie sheet.

Garden preserves.

If you've got a nice bundle of goodies canned, dried, or frozen consider dolling up the packaging a bit and giving them as gifts. Dried tomatoes (or tomato chips!) make a fantastic present that could probably be given multiple years in a row without any complaints, not too mention some of that pesto in the freezer!

Garden crafts.

How about a wreath from the wild grapevine growing along the back fence? Or a bouquet of dried flowers? How about some seeds saved from a garden favorite? Here's a good list of ideas and how to do them, or check out this upcoming movie about handmade gifts and crafts to release that crafty gene just lurking in your veins!

More Ideas?

Send along some of your favorite garden gift ideas. We'd love to hear how you share the bounty of the garden during the holidays.

Tucking away the garden

Fall is, at least in Michigan, when the garden gets tucked away for the season. Unless a hoophouse or other structure for a little winter gardening is underway here's a small list of things to do at the end of the season.

Jot it down.

Before doing a single one of the following things head out to the garden with pen and paper in hand (or camera!) and make some quick notes on what was where, how it worked, how it tasted, what to remember to do again, and what to remember to never do again. The ideal is a garden journal, but even a quick map is great to avoid planting members of the same family in the same space next year or to help remember where that new rhubarb plant went.

Plant garlic.

Ok, so it's time to tuck the garden away, but it is such a pleasure to plant bulbs for that dash of spring color so why not plant some garlic for a dash of flavor? It's not too late to tuck some in, and add the site of those little tasty green shoots to your winter daydreams. Some good, basic information on growing garlic is helpful whether this is the first time you've planted them or the hundreth as is a list of varieties available. Never done it before? Never fear! With garlic, there is nothing to lose. The scapes (flowerheads that need to be snipped) are tasty, and the bulbs...is there really a question?

Compost everything.

A bittersweet but satisfying task for the fall is cleaning up the beds. Frost bitten basil, tomatoes, and other plants need to be moved out, cages brought in, and plant tags found. Unless your garden was struck with tomato blight or some other disease plan to pop everything in the compost bin. Add a those last grass clippings and leaves, and savor the thought of the fantastic growing material that will soon be created.

Feeling really motivated about composting? Check out this great little article on deep composting. Reminiscent of lasagna gardening deep composting makes use of the woody debris that can accumulate in fall while creating a new growing space that can be put to use almost immediately.

Build up soil.

Fall is a great time to give the garden soil a boost of healthy snacks for recharging the soil as well as continuing to build a solid soil foundation for future growing. Mix in shredded leaves (just run them over with the lawnmower), although it is important to consider what kind of leaves get thrown on the garden or into the compost bin. Walnut leaves are less than ideal, and maple leaves need to be well-shredded. Maple leaves tend to be nitrogen-fixing (holding onto the nitrogen while they break down rather than giving it out to the plants growing in the garden) although eventually they contribute.

A nice recipe for building up soil (literally and figuratively) can be found here (again reminiscent of lasagna gardening) is feasible for old and new beds alike.

Tomato Blight Update

Tomato blight, as mentioned previously here, is troublesome to say the least, and devastating for farmers and home gardeners, to say the most. Royer Held, a.k.a. Project Grow's Heirloom Enthusiast, sent along the following helpful links about tomato blight and how to contend with it.

NPR's Science Friday recently aired an interview with Chad Nusbaum, a scientist who mapped the genome. Along with some genetic science, Nusbaum offers insight into how the disease spreads and what gardeners should do if they discover it. (The transcript of the interview is also quite helpful.)

Additionally, Science Friday's Flora Lichtbaum visited a farm afflicted with late blight, and created a video vividly portraying the plight caused by the disease as well as illustrating its effect on the plant.

What to do with infected plants?

If a plant is suspect, remove it immediately including any fallen leaves. DO NOT COMPOST IT. Bag it up and put it our with the trash. Other options are detailed in this document, along with more links to properly identify late blight and how to monitor for it.

Affordable Organic Eats

The organic food movement is sweeping the nation, but sometimes it feels like it might be sweeping out wallets, too. Some good advice on how to eat organic and inexpensively came from Seattle chef Maria Hines, this year's winner of the James Beard Award. 

"I would definitely say cook food from scratch, using whole, organic foods; that will be cheaper than going out and purchasing it. And grow an organic garden," said Hines in an interview with Grist. 

Couldn't have said it better ourselves! We've got some great ideas about starting an organic garden, and you can find some of our seeds over at People's Food Coop, too. (It's not too late to start seeds of some of your favorites. Check out these seed starting tips and start the adventure.) We still have a few garden spaces available this year, so we'd be glad to hear from you and help as we can!

Food Through the Roof

Uncommon Ground, an innovative restaurant in Chicago, took their innovation with food to a new level - the roof. The nation's first organically certified rooftop farm it offers vegetables, beehives, and solar panels. Throw in an educational outreach component to a local school and the community at large, and you want to climb up on your own roof to see what the possibilities might be.

For more information on how they did it - from materials to contractors - check out the Uncommon Ground Green Fact Sheet. You can also follow the progress of things at the farm at their blog - Eat This, Grow That - and get loads of other tips and ideas for your own urban farm or garden.

Rooftop gardens, whether for growing vegetables or simply having a green roof, offer numerous benefits. Lower temperatures, better air quality, and sometimes the roof is the best place to grow those sun-loving varieties that otherwise might not be an option. It is also a great place to create green space when surrounded by city.

Urban Gardening Can Be Done!

This recent article on new urban gardeners in Chicago offers some excellent insight and advice on starting that first garden.

Don't hesitate to contact us about a garden plot, either! We do have a few plots left and a waiting list underway, so don't give up hope.

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.

The Flavor of the Garden

The seed catalog is well-thumbed and a diagram is done of what will be growing this season in the garden patch. The next question is how will it taste? Everyone from Michelle Obama to Slow Food says that organically grown and heirloom varieties are the tastiest things going, and super good for you, too. But what does that really mean? What if it's a rainy summer? What if a friend shares a bumper load of composted sheep manure with you? Does it matter if you do lasagne gardening and your neighbor doesn't? What happens if those fruits and veggies get canned or frozen? Does that postively or negatively impact their flavor?

To answer all of these questions (and possibly more!) comes Mark Baerwolf, manager of Cornman Farms. Over at Cornman, Mark raises some of the vegetables (many from the Ark of Taste) used at Zingerman's Roadhouse by Chef Alex and crew to create some superb local dishes. The first seedlings went into the ground in the Spring of 2007, and the farm has been going strong ever since. 

Join us this Saturday to glean from Mark's experience to enhance the flavor of your own garden!

Cultivating Flavor

Saturday, March 28th

10am - 11am

Leslie Science and Nature Center

1831 Traver Road

734-996-3169

Not Just a Rose Garden Any More

The White House is preparing to put in an organic garden to supply vegetables, herbs, and berries for use in their meals. According to the New York Times article, Michelle Obama decided to move forward with the garden when her pediatrician expressed concern over her daughter's eating habits.

“A real delicious heirloom tomato is one of the sweetest things that you’ll ever eat,” she said. “And my children know the difference, and that’s how I’ve been able to get them to try different things.

“I wanted to be able to bring what I learned to a broader base of people. And what better way to do it than to plant a vegetable garden in the South Lawn of the White House?”

For urban dwellers who have no backyards, the country’s one million community gardens can also play an important role, Mrs. Obama said.

Feel inspired to transform your own house lawn into a garden? Check out some of our upcoming classes and don't forget you can find a selection of amazing seeds from our heirloom collection for sale at People's Food Coop. 

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. 

Seed Starting for a Head Start

Organic Gardening published this great little seed starting chart that should help you figure out how to get a head start on this year's garden. They also have some useful tips on seed starting basics, and lots of information to help you get through the season.

For real life versus virtual help and advice, don't forget about these great Project Grow classes and events, too!

2009 Heirloom Seed Swap

Saturday, March 21st

10am - 12pm

Leslie Science Center

Enjoying and Preserving Heirloom Vegetable Varieties in Your Garden

Saturday, March 7th

10am

Leslie Science Center

Potato Seeds and Sweet Potato Slips

Saturday, March 21st

10am - 11am

Leslie Science Center

Tomatoes and Pepper from Seed to Shinging Seed

Saturday, April 4th

10am - 11am

Leslie Science Center

USDA Imitates Project Grow

Thankfully, the USDA, like Project Grow, is creating garden space where none existed before. On the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birthday, Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture "broke pavement" on the first of many community gardens at  USDA sites around the country. 

The People's Garden honors Lincoln and his creation of the Department of Agriculture, which he called The People's Department in his last address to Congress. 

"The garden will showcase conservation practices that all Americans can implement in their own backyards and green spaces. As a component of the garden, pollinator-friendly plantings will not only provide important habitat for bees and butterflies, but can serve as an educational opportunity to help people understand the vital role pollinators play in our food, forage and all agriculture."

To find a garden space near you, check out the assortment of Project Grow Gardens around town and put your own signature on a pollinator friendly space!

And we've got some great upcoming classes to keep the momentum going!

Introduction to Organic Gardening

Thursday, February 26th

6:30pm

Washtenaw Community College

(Part of the Organic Gardening Certification Course. You can take classes singly, if you like.)

Container Gardening and Raised Beds - From Vegetables to Flowers

Saturday, February 28th

10 am 

Leslie Science Center

(Just in case you don't have quite as much room as the USDA does.)

Go! Garden

Editors Note: Jacqueline Venner Senske is the coordinator for Project Grow’s Go! Gardening program. Jacqueline has a B.S. in Horticulture from Iowa State University and a M.S. in Public Horticulture through the Longwood Graduate Program at the University of Delaware. Her experience with Project Grow is diverse, having served in the Newsletter Committee, assisting Executive Director Melissa Kesterson as the Community Garden Supervisor, and working with Go! Gardening for the last two years. Born and raised on an Iowa farm, Jacqueline is passionate about providing opportunities for everyone to learn about growing food and connecting with the planet, as well as each other, through gardening.)

For the past few years, Project Grow has worked with Mitchell Elementary, part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools system, to create Go! Gardening. Go! operates at the Project Grow community garden at Mitchell Elementary in conjunction with a Title One summer school program. During the six-week long session, students spend 30 to 60 minutes in the garden each week, participating in activities like planting seeds, pulling weeds, pruning and staking tomato plants, fertilizing the soil, and best of all, harvesting and tasting the produce.

Integrating gardening into the classroom provided new opportunities for learning and having fun. To connect the garden to other summer school activities, the Mitchell teachers did a great job of integrating garden themes with their lesson plans. The garden contributed much to the classroom, not only for science and math, but also reading, writing, history, and other areas of study. Last summer, one class combined their reading, writing, and drawing skills with what they learned in the garden to write a book about gardening. Garden activities, like writing plant labels and measuring sunflower height, reinforced classroom lessons. The garden became an engaging learning environment with the added benefit of physical activity through caring for the space-- a great outlet for kids restless after several hours at their seats. To balance the “work,” the kids also sang songs and made craft projects.

Perhaps best of all, spending time in Project Grow’s Go! Garden exposes students to a side of food that is often new to them: its source. When they first come into the garden, many kids don’t know that many ingredients for their favorite foods –everything from salad to pizza and tacos-- grow in a garden. Sometimes foods from the garden are new or unfamiliar, which might otherwise scare off the kids. However, after planting, growing, and caring for the plants, the new little gardeners are eager to taste the food and often want to take it home to their families.

The program’s growth over the last year has made for better garden experiences for both students and teachers. Now, we’re ready to take it a step further.

I am already meeting with teachers from Mitchell Elementary to plan this year’s program. We are laying the foundation for a garden that will eventually integrate into every classroom at the school, engaging even more students and teachers, plus parents, other school staffers, neighbors in the community, and other community gardeners.

We would love to engage even more Project Grow supporters. If you want to join the team, or just want to chat about our Go! Garden vision over a cup of coffee sometime, contact me through go.gardening@yahoo.com or by calling the Project Grow office.

Hoophouse Growing

Editor's Note: Richard and Joan Bailey presented Growing in a Hoophouse at Project Grow on Saturday, February 7th. Avid amateur gardeners, Joan and Richard shared their first experience with a hooophouse growing vegetables.

We are working on getting the documents up from Saturday's class, Growing in a Hoophouse. (We're experiencing some technical difficulties, but they will hopefully be remedied shortly.) Drop us a note at Project Grow and we'll find a way to get you the information you want.

The Resource List offers links to various websites, recommended reading, and a short list of blogs. Suggested additions to this Resource List would be more than welcome. One great idea from an attendee on Saturday for those who don't wish to fool around with creating their own was, I believe, Greenhouse Mega Store.

The actual presentation offers mostly pointers, guidelines, and some lessons learned. Questions on Saturday centered mostly around ventilating - how long and at what temperature; building materials - pvc or no pvc; site selection and ordinances on building such a structure.

Ventilation
Ventilating the hoophouse is pivotal. Built to help retain heat and protect plants inside from cold weather, temperatures inside can easily and quickly run high. Left unattended a little too long in the early days of having one, our temperatures reached into the low hundreds. The transition from hot to cold could prove a bit much for plants - cooking then freezing which would wilt me, I must confess - and needs to be mediated a bit. A good rule to follow would be that if interior temperatures run above 90 degrees it's time to ventilate. To keep some of that great heat it's best to close it up again an hour or so before sunset.

Some suggestions about heat included having barrels of water inside painted black. These would act as a heat sink during the day and slowly release their accumulated warmth through the night. They could also be used as a water source for plants. Others suggested building the hoophouse against another structure with a south-facing wall such as a garage, shed, or fence.

Building Materials
We used PVC pipes and translucent plastic, but not without some trepidation. As we learn more about how such plastic is not the best for us, some attendees asked about alternative materials such as electric conduit. Our neighbors at Frog Holler made theirs out of cedar milled from their land to create one of the prettiest hoophouses one could imagine. (Theirs also succumbed, unfortunately, to the snows this winter.) No structure is infallible, but it pays to research the design as well as the design materials to see what you think will work best for what you want.

Our criteria were that it be relatively easy (we're not handy people), inexpensive (the whole point of building this was to keep eating our own food as much as possible), and temporary (we wanted to switch it to other beds or take it completely out as desired.)

Site Selection and Ornery Ordinances
We built ours on existing garden beds with relatively established crops we wanted to keep growing and that were cold tolerant, i.e. kale, broccoli, parsley, beets, swiss chard, etc. The spot already received a fair amount of sun and would continue to do so over the coming chilly months. Remember the sun swings lower in the sky, so trees or buildings that might not cause a shade issue in the summer may as winter approaches.

We also live in the country so we have relative freedom to do what we like despite the opinions of our neighbors. Folks in the city may not have this luxury, and it might be a good idea to chat with your neighbor who shares the view of your backyard. (An offer of vegetables, soup or other meals might prove the winning ticket in this instance. Maybe even space to grow something!) You may also run up again rules of neighborhood associations or the city itself. As someone at the recent Local Food Summit suggested, a touch of green civil disobedience may be interesting and generate interesting conversation for these long winter months.

Bees Help Foil the Caterpillar Buffet

A recent study shows that honeybees not only pollinate but also help protect plants from hungry caterpillars. Caterpillars detect the bees, stop munching or simply panic and drop from the plant, which also means they stop munching on your tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, etc.

Good plants to attract pollinators abound and range from the annual alyssum to perennial natives like Bee Balm. If space in the garden is tight, try containers for natives and annuals, or create a specific bed for them.

For other ideas and to learn more about attracting pollinators and other beneficials here are a few handy resources to get you going:

Enhancing Beneficial Insects with Native Plants - An MSU study outlining a recent study using native plants for more sustainable agriculture. It includes a great list of plants and their ratings in terms of pollinator attractiveness.

Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham, Rodale Press, 2000 - An absolutely terrific book for learning and thinking about organizing your garden to attract beneficial insects. Includes lists of plants, design ideas, and terrific diagrams.

Introduction to Beekeeping - An upcoming Project Grow class on Saturday, March 14th that offers the full scoop on housing those little fuzzy buzzers yourself.

Landscaping with Native Plants - Learn how to incorporate native plants into your current landscape and garden in this Project Grow class that is also part of the Organic Gardening Certification course.

Gardening and Conservation

Looking for some simple ways to be green while saving some "green"? These ten steps offer some great suggestions that result in conservation of all kinds. Steps Nine and Four - Plant a Vegetable garden and Reduce Waste (with a compost bin!) - were a couple of our favorites along with the rain barrel, and alternative lawn covers. And, with all that great garden produce you can invite your friends to eat out at your place!

And don't feel shy about getting started. Upcoming Project Grow classes will get you to your greenest summer yet!

Building Your Own Hoophouse and Winter Seed Sowing - Two classes that offer some good basic information on ways to get an early start on the season as well as extending it a bit longer. Both offered on Saturday, February 7th for a day of gardening excitement in the heart of winter!

Introduction to Organic Gardening - Cheaper than using artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides this class on Saturday, February 21st will further green your green thumb and show you all the fun there is to be had with organic gardening.

Container Gardening and Raised Beds - From Vegetables to Flowers - Even if you don't have loads of room - maybe only a small patio, balcony, or yard - you can still grow some of your favorite vegetables and flowers in a tight space. Great for low-vision or mobility-impaired gardeners, too, join us on Saturday, February 28th to learn some tricks of the trade.