Wasatch Community Gardens: Sharing Backyards

Today we have a guest post from Elizabeth Watson of Wasatch Community Gardens

Urban gardening can be challenging. Lack of space or time can prevent people from having the garden they want and the healthy home grown produce they need.  I live in an apartment with no yard space, if I wanted to garden I was limited to what I could grow in containers on my small balcony.  My sister in law Rachel had an opposite problem; she has a large yard but didn’t have time to maintain a garden alone. We decided to garden together, splitting the cost for seeds, taking turns working in the garden and sharing the produce. Definitely a win-win situation! For people who don’t know someone with garden space to share a project called Sharing Backyards can help you out!

Sharing Backyards is a joint project of Wasatch Community Gardens and Urban Village Cooperative. Hopeful gardeners that are looking for land can pair up with those who have unused land with space for a garden and are looking for someone to share it with. Once people find someone they are interested in sharing with they send them an email and go from there. It’s like Craigslist for urban gardeners! The online map-based project has listings all over the Wasatch Front and Back though listings can be posted from anywhere in Utah.

http://wasatchgardens.org/garden/sharing-backyards

Thank you Elizabeth

What a wonderful way to connect with our community. Wasatch Community Gardens, through the Sharing Backyards program, offers the opportunity for those of us with some extra gardening space to share with those who simply don’t have the yard to grow in. So, if you can spare the space in your backyard, or even in the front yard, please consider participating and you just may make a few friends in the process.

Sharing the workload and reaping the rewards is what community is all about.

Wasatch Community Gardens is a community-based nonprofit that has served the Salt Lake County community for over 20 years. A national leader in the urban gardening movement, Wasatch Community Gardens provides the education, tools, and space for people to grow their own fresh food, and cultivate stronger, healthier communities along the Wasatch Front.

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Annuals and Perennials to start indoors

For most gardeners, Spring is way too slow in getting here. That wait to get back to the soil can be almost tortuous, but there are ways to get ‘dirty’ indoors too. In fact, one of the most important and rewarding aspects of gardening is starting plants from seed.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of seeds I started on my back deck, right out in the cold snowy weather. This seed-starting procedure is called ‘Winter Sowing’; the concept mimics nature somewhat in that the seeds are allowed to start outside much the way nature intended. In a natural setting the seeds would be protected from the elements by fallen leaves or other debris until the soil warms enough to allow sprouting. We provide that same protection by sowing the seeds in containers that would have otherwise been set out for recycling. Placing the containers outside allows them to be ‘awakened’ naturally by the sun as the weather warms thereby eliminating the hardening off process.

The other seed-starting procedure is the time honored method of starting our garden seeds indoors which requires us to provide the necessary ‘elements’ to allow the seeds to sprout. Elements such as light, moisture, and heat. Some general tips for starting indoors:

• When planting seeds, plant the largest seeds in the package to get the best germination rate.
• Cover containers with plastic. Prick holes with a toothpick for ventilation. Water as directed.
• Find a place in the kitchen where there is natural bottom heat—on top of the refrigerator or near the oven. (Move the tray if the oven is on, as it may become too hot.)
• Seeds sprout best at temperatures of 65 to 75°F (18 to 24°C).
• When seedlings appear, remove the plastic and move containers into bright light.
• When the seedlings get their second pair of leaves, prepare individual pots filled with a potting mix with plenty of compost. Move the seedlings carefully to the new pots and water well. Keep pots out of direct sun for a few days.

NOTE: I don’t always have compost available so I lightly feed new sprouts with half-strength liquid fish emulsion.

Starting plants from seeds affords us a much greater variety of plant than the local nursery can provide and here is a very short list of plants that anyone can start indoors or start by winter sowing:

Annuals

• Balloon vine
• Bloodflower
• Browallia
• Coleus
• Impatiens
• Petunia
• Sage
• Sweet William
• Wishbone flower
• Zinnia

Perennials

• Balloon flower
• Baptisia
• Columbine
• Coreopsis
• Delphinium
• Hibiscus
• Lobelia
• Lupine
• Purple coneflower
• Statice
• Windflower

General seed-starting tips:

• Team up with a neighbor for starting seeds, since a packet often yields much more than you will need.
• I use the Old Farmers Almanac Best Planting Dates for Seeds chart which is based on your frost dates and by the Moon.
• You may have to soak, scratch, or chill seeds before planting, as directed on packet.
• Use clean containers. Most seed catalogs offer seedling flats, peat pots, and other growing containers, but egg carton compartments make good containers, too. Be sure to poke holes in the sides near the bottom of the containers you use.
• Label your containers now! There's nothing more frustrating than forgetting what you planted.
• Use soilless peat moss and mix in equal parts vermiculite and perlite to hold enough water and allow oxygen to flow. Don't use potting soil.
• Pour soilless mix into a large bucket and moisten with warm water. Fill your containers to just below the rim.
• Plant your seeds according to your seed packet. Most seeds can simply be gently pressed into the mixture; you can use the eraser end of a pencil to push in seeds.

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Organic Weed Control: How Effective Is It?

Many gardeners prefer to get rid of weeds without using manmade chemicals.

Anything that makes getting rid of weeds is a good thing, but using something that is natural, easier and safer to use is better. And if it does not leave a poisonous residue that hangs around for years, well, that’s just a bonus.

W. Thomas Lanini, weed ecologist for the California Cooperative Extension Service, recently investigated the effectiveness of a group of organic herbicides that are all contact herbicides with no residual activity. The active ingredient in these products was either acetic acid (vinegar) or various plant oils that work by stripping away the waxy cuticle on the leaves, causing them to wilt and dry up. They included WeedPharm (20% acetic acid); GreenMatch (55% d-limonene, which is the major component of the oil extracted from citrus rinds); GreenMatch Ex (50% lemongrass oil); Maratec (50% clove oil); and WeedZap (45% clove oil and 45% cinnamon oil).

Lanini found that these products gave reasonably effective control of broadleaf weeds such as pigweed if weeds were treated when they were still young. Treatments to plants that were 12 days old gave a much higher chance of effective control than to weeds emerging later.

He also found that good spray coverage was essential and that adding organic surfactants or spreaders to the herbicides improved control. Most of the organic herbicides also worked best at temperatures above 75 degrees.

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Winter Sowing 2011

72 empty containers for winter sowing 2011

 Finally got around to setting up the first wave of seedlings. It seems to take me forever to get things done these days. Anyway, I set up nine containers for a total of 72 plants.

72 filled containers for winter sowing 2011

 This has been hanging over my head for several months. The collection of paper towel inserts and toilet paper inserts and plastic gallon milk jugs have all been piling up along the kitchen wall, above the stairway, and on the kitchen table. It's a good thing my wife is understanding of the way I do things. I eventually get them done, after the initial light bulb moment fades away and the flurry of getting supplies together, things are still sitting around while I’m off onto other projects.

I started tomato, eggplant and pepper - typically hot weather plants - just to see how they will do in the frigid temps. If they make it I’ll set them in the kitchen until time to set out.

All of the containers are sitting on my back deck in an area that gets sun for most of the day.

Here’s a list of what I have started so far:

• Tomato Cherokee Purple
• Pumpkin Rouge D’etampes
• Tomato Mama Leone
• Pepper Corno Di Toro Giallo
• Sweety Pea Mammoth Mix
• Beet Five color Silverbeet
• Broccoli Coronado crown
• Eggplant Rosa Bianca
• Lettuce lolla rosa
• Marjoram sweet
• Pepper sweet Italian pepperoncini
• Squash Patissons Panache Jaune Et Vert Scallop

This list represents only what I currently have on hand. Others will be started later as I make room for them. I’m not usre I have room for all of these yet but it’s always good to get a little push to find room when faced with a punch of ‘extra’ plants. I’m sure it will all work out.

Next on the agenda is to start seeds in the basement on heat mats and under lights.

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This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. For questions about this blog, please contact  utahvalleygardens@gmail.com.

This blog does not accept any form of compensation for any reviews or comments made concerning any product or service mentioned.

The owner of this blog is not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites or any various other topics. I will always strive to give my honest assessment and opinion on every post. All findings, beliefs, experiences on topics posted here are mine alone and are not influenced by any other person unless otherwise noted in the post.

The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers’ own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

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