Philosphical Friday_Volunteerism_Giving a little…Getting a little more.

October 2, 2009 at 5:18 pm (Philisophical Friday, Square Foot Gardening)

I’ve been told by folks who know me best that I have a strange way of thinking about things.  Well, they might be right.  I’ll let you be the judge.  Every Friday (or most Fridays, you know how life can be) I’m going to share some of my thoughts with the blogosphere.  You decide:  Innovative Thinker…The Thinker…or, Girlfriend, you need a little help!

I know when you volunteer you’re supposed to do it as a selfless act of giving.  Well, would it be so bad to get a little something out of the deal? 

I recently volunteered to pull weeds in the garden of the person who helped my mother-in-law set up a really large garden many years ago.  I got so much pleasure from that garden, which was a whole city lot, that I jumped at the chance to work in the garden.  But would I have done it if I didn’t get something out of the deal?  I don’t honestly know.  This was a volunteer day to earn your “badge” for the Building Urban Gardens (BUGs) class I took earlier.  I was on the fence about working on the badge, but when the volunteer opportunity came up for Rowan Tree Society’s community garden I figured I’d give it a shot.   I was a little surprised to see how many other people were there.  The Excelon Group had quite a few of their employees out doing volunteer work.   (I wonder if they got something out of the deal.)

The next week I volunteered at the Great perennial Divide sponsored by Open Lands.  The call for volunteers included “free plants.”  I’m such a sucker for free plants.    The Great perennial Divide is a program that supplies free plants to community gardens (even backyard gardeners if they donate plants). 

It was an extremely well organized event.  You must pre-register in order to participate.  I was going to participate as a backyard gardener, but if I volunteered I could kill two birds with one volunteer day (free plants and one more day of volunteering for the BUGS program). 

On the morning of the event, the gardeners check in, are given a number, and promptly at 10 a.m. start driving their cars into the parking lot where the plants have been separated into individual  allotments.    My job as a volunteer was to load plants into vehicles.  Approximately 45 cars and trucks were literally stuffed with free plants.  So, what did I get out of this volunteer experience?  Free plants, of course, but I got the chance to look and handle literally hundreds of plants.  (Hmmm.  Do I hear a future post?  When does a hobby become an obsession?)

While I was loading the plants I ran into Sandra Patterson, a friend of one of the ladies from the BUGs class who also has a large area for community gardening and a club house.  She told me that their next project is installing a rain garden in the club house’s back yard and that they need volunteers.  What can I get out of the deal?  Free education on how to install a rain garden.  Yep, I’m more than happy to “volunteer.”

Volunteering

Is it selflessly giving of yourself ….

….or selfishly satisfying an internal desire?

Either way, everybody wins.

Happy Gardening!!!

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Southeast Gardeners Summer Garden Tour

September 7, 2009 at 7:20 am (Garden Tours, Square Foot Gardening)
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I’m a part of a gardening group that’s sponsored by Healthy Southeast Chicago {Dinah Ramirez and Master Gardener Gregory Bratton-featured in a write-up by Kevin Murphy} and Angelic Organics Learning Center {Thea Carlson}.  Last Sunday, we did a garden tour of some of the gardens.

(Please click on thumbnails to enlarge.)

The first stop was at the Buffalo Senior Inspirational Community Garden, one of Gregory’s gardens. 08-30-09 (14)08-30-09 (12)08-30-09 (15)08-30-09 (16)08-30-09 (13)

Pic 1:  These are the gentlemen who help take care of the garden.   Look at those huge sun flowers.

Pic 2:  This is a view from standing outside the gate. These are cabbage sprouts.  The main heads were harvested and these sprouts are the size of some of my full grown cabbage from last year.

Pic 3:  I think these are the winter collards at the bottom of this picture.  I think they said they were planted less than six weeks ago. 

Pic 4:  They did excellent with their corn.  I was up there on Saturday, and all the corn was gone.  Gregory said that the students harvested it and ate it while they were there that day.

Pic 5:  This is the lot right next to the garden.  From left to right is Gregory, a couple ladies from the Field Museum (or the Museum of Science and Industry…I’m having a senior moment), one of the garden tender-ers, Dinah, Thea and Flo who’s another member of the garden group.

Then we headed of to Scott’s garden.  Can you imagine your garden being an abandoned green house?  I think that’s the coolest thing ever.08-30-09 (18)08-30-09 (19)08-30-09 (20)

 

 

 

Pic 1:  In the forefront is kale, but they’ve got a little bit of everything in here.

Pic 2:  A lot of the glass is missing, so Gregory is attempting to find funding to help restore the greenhouse.

Pic 3:  He’s got lots of garden art sprinkled throughout.  I love this wagon.

Next we were off to Chico’s garden.  He’s got access to a vacant lot next to his residence and has got it looking really nice.08-30-09 (27)08-30-09 (22)

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Pic 1:  That’s Chico, the gardener.  The young lady with the camera is Sarah Carlson.  She’s filming for a documentary she’s doing on the “growing movement of people reconnecting to their food.”  If you’re talking about growing food, you just might find Sarah and her camera.

Pic 2:  Here’s an overview of his garden.

Pic 3:  Huge cabbage (glasses for perspective)

Pic 4:  This pepper puts my little midget peppers to shame.  He was nice enough to give this pepper to Flo, who was nice enough to give me a couple babies from her garden (more on that tomorrow).

After  Chico’s place we headed over to my garden.08-30-09 (48)

This is basically how the yard looked when they got there.  I was a little too busy being nervous about peoples opinions to take good pictures.  I’ll do better next time.

 

 

 

 

Next we headed over to what Flo affectionately calls her “Jungle.”08-30-09 (37)08-30-09 (33)08-30-09 (34)

 

 

 

Pic 1:  Flo with her favorite shovel.  I think she said it’s called the Excalibur.    She likes it so much so got Gregory one.

Pic 2:  She does a lot of container gardening, and she’s got water lillies growing in glass jars.  She asked if anybody wanted one, and you know me and free plants.  I was only expecting to get the plant, but she gave me the pretty blue glass jar the plant was in too.    She also gave me a piece of one of the most unusual conifers I’ve seen. 

Pic 3:  Everybody has some kind of garden art going on.  I thought these guys were cool, they just need a place of honor in the yard.

And our last stop was at Loraine’s garden.08-30-09 (42)08-30-09 (43)08-30-09 (44)08-30-09 (47)08-30-09 (45) - Deck

 

 

 

Pic 1:  Loraine’s got a little bit of everything packed in her yard:  Fruit trees, fruit bushes, strawberries as ground cover, plants to feed the birds, bird houses, a nice sized water feature, a deck, a swing, a bunch of container plants.   She even brought some of her tomatoes and seedless cucumbers to share.

You see that red cup she’s holding?  That’s a lemon balm plant that Thea brought to share.  I’ve got mine and it’s doing great (more on that tomorrow). 

Pic 2:  This is kind of an overview.  I’m not sure what all the plants are, but I can see a tomato, the bird feeder, the sunflower, the hanging plant to attract pollinators. 

Pic 3:  This is a container fig.  The first thing I did without even thinking was to check out how it was planted to see whether or not she had enough to divide it just a little bit.  I refrained from asking for a piece because my neighbor’s in-ground plant is much bigger.  I just have to find time to get back over there to try layering a couple of the branches.  But, I digress.  Back to the tour.

Pic 4:  I thought the gourd birdhouses were so cute.  She’s got a number of these in the different trees. 

Pic 5:  Here’s the porch swing and the deck.  I like the deck, and I’ve got some Free Cycle composite lumber waiting for me to figure out where to build a little deck area in my yard. 

Thanks, everybody.  I really enjoyed the tour.  Special thanks to Thea and Flo for sharing your garden greenery.

Happy Gardening!!

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Your garden is the tip of the iceberg in the food world.

March 4, 2009 at 11:45 am (Green Living)
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Last week, I was invited to sit in on what I understood to be a meeting about gardening. It turned out to be so much more than that. The handout was titled “Food Systems Plan for Northeastern Illinois.” The meeting was the last in a series of meetings that were held to address the logistics of implementing a plan wherein Illinois produces its own food instead of importing. Not only does growing locally address the green issue of cutting out the cost of transportation and the negative impact on the environment, but it addresses the bigger issue of helping our own economy here in Illinois. $48 billion is spent annually by Illinois consumers on food, and the majority of that money is not retained by the state.

The task force was charged with getting feedback from different sectors of the food production community to see how to start instituting that plan. Things like what’s available to you today and what you would like to see in the future.

The food production community includes everyone from the backyard gardener growing a salad garden all the way up to the grocery store that sells you the washed and chopped bagged salad at the store:

  • the farmer
  • the picker
  • the trucker
  • the restaurants that buy from the farmer
  • the person who sells the seeds to the farmer or the gardener
  • the school that buys from the company that prepares the school meals with produce bought from the farmer.

The list goes on and on, and at every level there is the potential for employment.

Sitting in on the meeting was an eye opening experience for me. Healthy Southeast is the organization that is sponsoring my attendance at the BUGs meetings, but I had no idea there were so many gardening and gardening related organizations in Chicago.

I stopped in on a meeting yesterday that was given by Angelic Organics Learning Center. It was held at one of the Chicago Public Libraries and the hours were from 12:00 to 2:00. I didn’t quite understand why they had middle of the day hours where working folks couldn’t attend, but when I got there I totally understood.

The subject was starting seeds indoors and outside. The room was filled to capacity, and the majority of the participants were seniors. They were served a nice healthy buffet style lunch, everybody had something to say, and the presenter was one of the BUGs participants. The presenter did a very good job of conveying the information to the group, and they even had parting gifts of packages of seeds.

As a result of the series of meetings that were held on the Food Systems Plan for Northeastern Illinois, a 48-page report was generated and put before the Illinois Senate General Assembly. Dinah Ramirez of Healthy Southeast is in Washington now to attend meetings on the subject. She’s a registered nurse, and she’ll be speaking on the health benefits surrounding community gardens. And Gregory Bratton, the gardens coordinator for Healthy Southeast, has been invited to Springfield to sit in on Senate hearings on the subject. His philosphy is, “One answer to the food problem is in our own back yards.” Gregory has started a number of community gardens on the city’s southeast side, and the produce is used to feed many residents of the community.

At the end of the day, I think we all can be instrumental in helping our local economy and the global economy, and it can start as small as opening up a package of seeds.

Happy Gardening!!!!

Ooops…Corrections

Gregory Bratton was invited to recruit State Representatives to sponsor Bill 3990 which is Local Food, Farms and Jobs Act. 

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Harvest Monday_July 5, 2010

July 5, 2010 at 9:24 am (Harvestg Monday)
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Today is Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne at Daphne’s Dandelions, a prime opportunity to post pics of produce you didn’t have to purchase and to see the pics of other people’s pickings. 

Here’s what I’ve plucked from my planted plots.

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Here’s the updated 2010 Harvest as of 07-05-10:   917.7 oz. which converts to 57.35 lbs.

Sprinkled into the slide show are a few pics from one of my Master Garden friend’s (Gregory Bratton) community gardens, the Roseland Community Peace Garden.  (I still haven’t figured out how to separate the pictures into two different slide shows).  They harvested lots of collard greens, cabbage, onions, carrots, string beans, mint and beets, and probably a few things I left out.  He’s pictured holding two ginormous zucchini plants that they harvested that day.  (Thanks for the produce, it went into the mix for my roasted veggies for the holiday.)

I think community gardens are great.  I even signed up for a plot in one because I wanted a little more community in my gardening, but the place that I signed up for you had to walk two blocks to get to it, and whenever I went by there most of the times I didn’t see anyone gardening in it.   So, I kind of gave up that idea.  I’ll still attend my meetings and volunteer whenever I can, but I gave up that idea.  But…to scratch that itch, I installed another bed in my back yard.  (See next post).

There’s not a lot going on in my little yard these days.  All but a few of the raspberries are gone.  I pulled the snow peas.  Since it heated up they were making so few flowers I figured it wasn’t worth taking up the space.  Just about all the lettuce has bolted and most of it has been pulled already. 

I had pulled some of the mustard greens, and the ones that are left are growing a little better.  The swiss chard I decided to let the leaves grow a little larger before I pick them.   The Armenian cucumber has finally set at least one cucumber, and the yard long beans have started producing.  Gotta say, though, I like the regular bush beans better.  These are really skinny and not real flavorful.

That’s it for today,

Happy Gardening!!!

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