JSOnline: “Long-dormant greenhouses again bloom life into cemetery”

As Will Allen, the creator of Milwaukee’s aquaculture urban ag renaissance, said in an article in today’s Journal Sentinel, “Urban agriculture is about finding places where people wouldn’t think of to grow food.” Witness the brilliant reuse of inactive greenhouses. Under Will Allen’s guidance, the greenhouses will grow both fish and vegetables through the aquaculture system that Allen is accredited with making well-known and more widely used.

I’m glad that JS food writer Karen Herzog noted that the Forest Home Cemetery had been used for growing food in the past. According to Milwaukee historian John Gurda, Native Americans grew corn in this area in the 1700s, and more recently, “The cemetery planted a Victory Garden to supply employees with vegetables during World War II, Gurda wrote in ‘Silent City: A History of Forest Home Cemetery.’”

It’s worth noting that the contemporary revival of Victory Garden movement has been realized in our back yard, in our front yard, and at the White House in Washington, D.C.

Urban re-usual at work

Through a long story involving a foreclosed home, a few barrows worth of compost, and a tangential reference to the French Revolution, our yard-farm took on a new layer of functionality through the addition of a compost bin.

And the Brewers beat the Reds 3-2, which made me happy.

Two stories in the Compass about gardens in Bay View

The current issue of the fine local newspaper The Bay View Compass (which I write for) has two three stories about gardening in Bay View. The feature is about the rooftop garden at Future Green, which features a solar-powered automatic watering system. They also used some of my photos from the May 23 garden installation at our house, and mention that a rain garden will be installed at Humboldt Park Elementary School. You’d think that I would have paid more attention to that, as I told my editor that I noticed they’d torn out a lot of the pavement surrounding that school. Having moved and written a senior thesis and then done a huge amount of other stuff in the same short time frame, you’ll forgive me if I miss a bit, Jay.….

It must be noted that after the five raised beds were built that day (the 23rd), Stacie took it upon herself to build another raised bed and a circular herb garden in the front yard, all of which are in pictures elsewhere on this blog.

I have the nicest friends.

It’s really good to come home and find that a small pile of composted horse manure has been delivered to your garden. Thanks, Ken!

Bay View Plant Sale is this coming Saturday May 30

The upcoming Bay View Garden And Yard Society‘s annual Plant Sale is a great event at which you can buy quality plants for your home, garden, or urban farm. While there’s a particular interest in food crops this year, the plant sale will have everything from tropical plants to indoor plants and all varieties in between.

The sale is on Saturday May 30 from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM at South Shore Park, 2900 S Shore Drive in Bay View. Here’s a map in case you need it.

Here are the posters, all neatly lined up together as WordPress just apparently would not do:

And here’s a PDF version of the tomato poster in case you need it.

All credit for these awesome designs goes to Bob Solem of BV GAYS. Thanks, bOB!

Three more planting beds!

As described here, Stacie made two more beds and planted in those plus another one that had been prepared by a Blitz volunteer this past Saturday. First is our front yard herb garden.

Front yard herb garden

Bearing oregano, sage, thyme, and parsley, but no rosemary…

Next is our strawberry bed, which is between the front yard and the rear garden area. We have before and after pictures. Stacie made the bed frame, and then we laid down newspaper inside of it. It was a windy day, so we had laid the house hose on top of the newspapers to keep them from blowing away while I took the picture.

The built strawberry bed

The strawberry bed, filled with dirt and plants.

The third new bed, which currently contains asparagus shoots, is right behind the evergreen tree in the above picture. It now has a bed liner, and I’ll probably add some more seedlings or sow seeds in it. (Complimentary planting is good.) You can see the back corner of one of the five planting beds in the upper left corner of the picture.

The asparagus patch

Finally, we were delighted to move in and find that raspberries were already growing here.

Raspberries

Given the total of eight planting beds we now have, I am hoping for many wonderful harvests throughout the year. I’ll measure the three new beds and have a rough estimate of total planting space up soon.

Garden-building continues unchecked!

So, it appears Stacie thought having five big 4x8x1 foot planting beds wasn’t enough. (And really, it’s not.) Today, she used the remaining scrap lumber from Saturday’s Gartenblitz to build a 4x8x0.5 foot bed that now contains an abundance of strawberry plants. After that, Stacie used a few wheelbarrows worth of soil to build a circular bed in the front yard and planted a bunch of herbs in it. And following that, she planted the asparagus shoots that we bought the other day in a little triangular bed that a Blitz volunteer had made for us. (Thank you Ellen!)

We must also credit my 6.5-year-old daughter Hari for planting the strawberry plants, and thank our neighbor Ken for his contribution of another such plant. My only involvement was hauling the soil and providing some assistance on building the strawberry bed. Stacie deserves full credit for taking the initiative on all this latest flurry of building and planting. It is addictive in the best possible way!

First plantings are in for 2009

We have begun growing food at the Pennsylvania Avenue Yard-Farm! After a trip to locally-owned Tiger Lily (formerly Sweet Earth) on Forest Home Ave., we came with about $250 worth of plants. We have a whole tray of cold crops, which are mainly plants from the cabbage family, such as brussels sprouts and kale, as well as cucumbers, and zucchini. [I had previous described cucumbers and zucchini as being part of the cabbage family, which is not correct. Cucumber is in the gourd family, while zucchini is in the squash and pumpkin (or cucurbita) family of vegetables.]

The half-dozen strawberry plants will nicely compliment the raspberry plants that we found coming up around the garden perimeter. (Thanks to our friend and neighbor Ken for the gracious gift of a seventh strawberry plant!) Another tray was filled with several types of sweet and hot peppers, and many herbs. Considering that we’re still going through the oregano and basil that we grew in relatively small quantity last year, we should be eating very well for the next two years. [Read this post to find out what we did with these plants.]

(And already, we need more beds…)

Still to come is a wave of seeds and tomato plants. We had tremendous results from tomato seedlings last year, and look forward to having our home yard-farm filled with tomato plants. Four of the five beds were placed up against the fence, which provides a free trellis for climbing plants such as peas and some kinds of beans.

Oh, and catnip! I picked out a very tall catnip plant and put it next to the western-most bed. Suffice to say, my 15-year-old cat Miranda had a serious “NOM NOM NOM” moment after discovering it.

My community gardeners can rest assured that that there is still plenty of room to plant tomatoes and other such crops in, as two of the beds are still largely unused. Even in the other three, the cold crops will take months to grow, so we can fit lots of lettuces, radishes, and other faster-growing plants.

Pictures shall come tomorrow!

We have raised beds!

Thanks to the great work of many volunteers brought together by the Victory Garden Initiative, we now have five 8×4 foot raised planting beds in our back yard! Here’s a quick photo tour.

1) “Before” — the garden area was covered with weeds before work began today. Not pictured: the ten square yards of dirt we had brought in!

2) Planning. We figured out where the beds would be built and accordingly laid out the boards. A big pile of leaves is in the foreground.

3) People came from all over the Milwaukee area to volunteer: Bay View, Riverwest, Tosa, and South Milwaukee. Thanks to every one of you!

4) One bed done, four to go. The tall guy facing right on the right side is Zach of Blogging Blue.

5) Three beds are finished! People loaded soil into the beds. A layer of newspaper is on the bottom, with a second layer in the middle, and dirt is on top of that.

6) The beds are finished! Thank you to everyone who worked on them!!

I’ll have more written up on this in the next day or so. Huge thanks to everyone who helped — especially those whom I’ve never met before!

Big props to Stacie for making wonderful bread, dips, and sweet tea for the workers that day!

Victory Garden Initiative comes to Bay View on Saturday May 23

The Victory Garden Blitz is coming! It will be happening all throughout the county, in Shorewood, Riverwest, Tosa, and the northwest and west sides of Milwaukee, as well as our little south side enclave.

So what is it?

On Memorial Weekend, the Victory Garden Initiative and its many partners will be installing “victory gardens” throughout our great city. In the end, we should have literally dozens of gardens built up, each prepared for growing nutritious, delicious foods.

There are many ways to get involved. It starts in Bay View at Katy Kujala-Korpela’s apartment building on S. Austin Street. Folks will be meeting there at 9am, and will help get a garden set up in a neighbor’s yard, who has graciously volunteered the use of their yard as a garden for the apartment dwellers.

There are further stops at 11AM and 1PM, one of which is our place, which I’ve dubbed the Pennsylvania Avenue Yard-Farm. Please call 750-3818 and talk to Mark to find out where you cna go to help.

At my place, we will need folks who can help build raised beds (which involves lifting wooden boards) and moving a lot of soil into the newly built beds. If you’re up to it, please come; we need you!

We will be using plants bought at the Bay View Garden And Yard Society plant sale, which is happening next weekend (the 30th) at South Shore Park, as well as a few local growers and merchants.

Here’s where to find info:

http://thevictorygardeninitiative.com/

http://thevictorygardeninitiative.com/2009/05/18/how-to-volunteer-for-the-blitz/ ["How to Volunteer for the Blitz"]

Thanks!

Also: Coverage from Journal Sentinel, Shepherd Express, and WUWM. And, Mayor Barrett declared this weekend to be a Victory Garden weekend. Thanks Mr. Mayor!

And… see how our new raised beds look over here!