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Blog Post: Green Watering Alternatives: Added by Flour Sack Mama at 10:06pm on March 29, 2011

Topic: Terrarium 101: servational pleasure; they’re gorgeous; and they can thrive in spots as unlikely as the top of your bedroom dresser. They also make fantastic gifts. (Hint, hint.) Literally a “place of earth,” terrariums are part of a larger family of vivariums, or enclosed areas for raising plants, animals, reptiles, insects, birds, or fish. So, what is a terrarium? Housed in a glass structure—such as a jar or, yep, even a light bulb—for easy viewing, a terrarium typically contains habitat-specific plants, as well as a mixture of pebbles, leaf litter, and/or soil. What goes into your terrarium should be determined by factors including moisture, lighting, heating, and ventilation. THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN PLANNING YOUR TERRARIUM If you’re looking for a relatively hands-off option, open-air terrariums, like glass dishes or fish bowls (see right), are often easier to maintain than sealed versions, such as those in a bottle or a jar. Closed environments generally need more upkeep since the air can get polluted, moisture condensates more quickly, and plants might not get enough light. Also on the low-maintenance front, desert or dry-land habitats like the one at right don’t require as detailed a substrate, or growing medium, as jungle and forests ecosystems do. (Cacti and succulents don't need intricate drainage systems.) For desert terrariums, a layer of sterile sand atop potting soil will work just fine. For other habitats, a more complex substrate is vital; more on that below. Let’s get started! HOW TO MAKE A TERRARIUM IN 10 EASY STEPS: WHAT YOU’LL NEED » Glass container, preferably with a wide mouth for easy construction » Gravel, sand, or pebbles » Activated (horticultural) charcoal » Moss » Sterile potting mix » Tiny plants » Ornaments WHAT TO DO 1. Thoroughly clean your container. 2. Choose your plants. For ideas, check out this list of terrarium-friendly flora, with tips on growing conditions. Be sure to choose plants that have similar growing requirements, as they all have to get along and grow together in one tiny ecosystem. NOTE: Steps 3 through 6 apply to jungle and forest plants. If you opt for a desert environment, you only need a layer of potting soil covered by a layer of sterile sand; install those, then skip to step 7. 3. Place at least 2 inches of gravel, sand, or pebbles—a.k.a. the drainage layer—at the bottom of your container. 4. Add ¼ inch to ½ inch of activated charcoal. This layer filters the air and keeps the environment clean (you can skip this step in open-top terrariums). 5. Next comes a blanket of sphagnum moss, which allows water to filter through to the pebble layer while keeping your soil in place. 6. Up next is a layer of sterile potting soil. You want fresh soil here, rather than reusing soil from old plants. 7. Remove your terrarium plants from their pots, gently tease the root bindings apart, and, if you wish to delay growth (a good idea for tiny environments with limited to no room to expand), prune the roots carefully. Gently add your plants to your terrarium. 8. For a finishing touch, decorate as desired with trinkets, seashells, rocks, or other ornaments. Stylish! 9. Water your plants as recommended; often a light misting from a spray bottle will do the trick. 10. Care for your terrarium as you would other houseplants: Prune damaged leaves, add water when the soil is dry, air out a closed terrarium once a month, and never add fertilizer, which encourages growth. In a terrarium, size is everything—and smaller is better! SEE IT IN ACTION More of a visual learner? The video below from Etsy.com’s How-Tuesday series walks you through the steps of creating a terrarium inside a light bulb. FURTHER RESOURCES FROM HOMEGROWN AND BEYOND • HOMEGROWN member Christine expounds on her love for terrariums in a recent blog post, and Cornelia shares links to funky mushrooms and more terrarium mossarium pandemonium. • Speaking of, get the scoop on mossariums. • For more on terrarium trends—unique containers, exotic plants, interesting ornamentation—check out Twig and The Hipster Home. • Design Sponge offers a fun tutorial on sewing a terrarium. • You might also consult The Fern and Mossery’s simple terrarium instructions. • For more eye candy, there’s always Apartment Therapy. • And from two ladies who know a thing or two about odes to the outdoors (“The terrariums are aliveeeee . . . !”): Watch Martha Stewart and Julie Andrews make a fairytale terrarium; Martha also demos how to make a woodland terrarium. • Many of the photos in this 101 came from Joshleo's Terrarium set on Flickr—a gorgeous album worth a lengthy gander. (Warning: Hours of procrastination ahead.) SPEAK UP! Got a terrarium conundrum—or a plant species to recommend? Post your comment below and keep the conversation rolling. For creating a covered environment on a much larger scale, you might be interested in the HOMEGROWN 101 on building a $30 hoop house; you can find more on hoop houses here. You might consider joining the Growing Indoors group, and you can always find more things to make, craft, plant, grow, cook, preserve, and pot in the HOMEGROWN 101 library. PHOTOS: (GLOBE TERRARIUM) CHRISTINE; (ALL OTHERS) JOSHLEO, COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS ON FLICKR…; Added by HOMEGROWN.org at 10:53am on July 15, 2011

Blog Post: Growing Organic Spinach: In this spotlight we'll cover:…; Added by High Mowing Organic Seeds at 3:25pm on April 7, 2011

Topic: Raised Beds 101: ’d like to ponder in public? Post a note in the comments box below, and we’ll incorporate it into the 101. Much obliged for your excellent help! We’re not talking raised beds in the princess-and-the-pea sense, with fluffy mattresses stacked a mile high. We’re talking raised beds for growing—as in gardening boxes. Usually made out of wood planks, concrete blocks, bricks, or other recycled materials, a raised bed gives you lots of control over your growing patch. HOMEGROWN member Clare says she thinks of raised beds as giant plant pots, an explanation that works pretty well, we think. (Speaking of, see the Container Gardening 101 for growing in plant pots.) For lots of backyard gardeners and home growers, raised beds are key to healthy and successful gardening. But let's back up a bit: Why would you choose to grow your tomatoes and zucchini in a raised bed rather than plant them directly in the ground? Lots of reasons, actually. Lots of city folk don’t have digable dirt to begin with. If you’re starting with, say, a concrete slab, a gravel patio, or a flat roof, you can't till into the ground, but you can build a raised bed right on top. Even if you do have dirt, it might not be something you want to grow edible veggies in. Urban dirt, in particular, can contain high amounts of lead, and dirt anywhere can be less than ideal for growing, whether that means heavy clay or an especially low pH. To take that point further, raised beds give you about as much control as you can have over growing outdoors. (Well, unless your neighbor’s cat sees your raised bed as a giant litter box. You’ll have to take that up with your neighbor.) Because you fill your bed with soil, you know exactly what’s in it, and you can adjust the mix as you see fit. Plus, since most raised beds are engineered so that you can reach all plants from the bed's exterior, without ever stepping foot in the box, the soil stays loose, easy to weed, and well draining. Fluffy, even. (OK, so there's one similarity to those princess beds, after all.) Are you sold on the virtues of raised beds? Cool. We’ll walk through the process of creating and caring for them below, with all tips gleaned from the HOMEGROWN flock. PREPARING A SPOT: PICKING A LOCATION, TO LINE OR NOT TO LINE As with any planting project, you’ll want to monitor your available growing space in order to select the best spot possible for your raised bed or beds. Keep tabs on how much light your greater planting area gets at different times during the day—and keep notes. If you plan on growing tomatoes or other crops that need full sun, look for the sunniest spot. If you’re planning to grow an herb that can tolerate some shade, make note of the dappled and partially shaded areas. For more on site design, see the Garden Planning 101 and check out HOMEGROWN Life blogger Rachel’s post on how to map your site. Once you know where you want to locate your raised bed or beds, you’ll want to prep their footprints. As with everything gardening related, there’s not so much a right way or a wrong way to do this as there are a million rights and a million wrongs, depending on whom you ask. That said, if you’re concerned about soil contamination, you’ll want to create a barrier layer between the soil in your raised bed and the ground beneath it. HOMEGROWN member Mark recommends laying down 4 to 6 inches of stone, sometimes referred to as “dense grade,” and then a few inches of stone dust. “Tamp the stone dust so it's tight and then put your loam on top of that,” he writes. “Once you’re all planted, a little salt marsh hay will keep the weeds down and the moisture in.” Other folks recommend layering newspaper or cardboard, but Rachel cautions that those materials will break down over time. She prefers putting down hardware cloth, which keeps the gophers and moles out, followed by weed fabric. If you don’t expect weeds to be an issue, “I'd go with nonwoven filter fabric, not weedcloth,” she writes. “That will keep the soils from coming into contact with each other but also allows for drainage.” If you’re not sure whether or not you should be concerned about what’s in your soil, you can conduct a test. For more details, check out Rachel’s handy Soil Testing 101. If you’re not concerned about comingling dirt, you can dig down into the ground, like HOMEGROWN member Pat, to turn up the existing soil and essentially increase the height of the raised bed (though some of that height isn’t so much “raised” as “sunken”). Or you can go the even less labor-intensive route and simply clear the area on which you’ll build your raised bed of weeds. For a longer rumination, check out this past discussion on bed lining. CONSTRUCTING YOUR RAISED BED: CHOOSING MATERIALS Remember that whole no-right-answers thing? Yep. Still goes. There are plenty of schools of thought on what material you should use when constructing raised beds—and just as many more schools on how deep those beds should be. Let’s tackle building materials first. In true HOMEGROWN fashion, finding something to recycle—and, even better, finding something free to recycle, like Will did (see photo at right)—can be great. The only caveat here is that, in the same way that you want to be aware of the dirt health and safety underneath your bed, you'll want to keep in mind that any chemicals in the materials you use for the bed frame can leach less than desirable things into your soil. Pressure-treated wood is no bueno, and wood varnishes aren’t safe, either. (Think food-grade, people!) If you’re heading to the lumber yard, Rachel recommends Douglas fir for its cost effectiveness—2x10s, to be exact. If money is no object, redwood and cedar are ideal. Erik likes red cedar for its aesthetic value and its natural resistance to rot. Pine is OK, too, Rebekah says, as long as it’s not treated. Not used to surveying lumber? Glean some inspiration from Mud Pies to Sticky Buns’ empowering post on going to the hardware store and getting it done! One note on wood: Since you don’t want to seal or otherwise chemically weatherproof the wood, it will degrade over time, meaning your beds will have a finite lifespan. But if you’re anything like most HOMEGROWN folks, you learn by doing, and in five years or so, you may be antsy to build new beds, incorporating what you learned from your first attempt. Other folks skip wood altogether. HOMEGROWN member Lynda used cinder blocks to build raised beds in the community garden she manages (see photo at right). “They work so well, I pulled out my lumber raised beds at home and [now] use the blocks,” she writes. Plus, you can plant in those holes in the blocks, “adding another 30 percent of planting area to the bed,” Lynda writes. “And the blocks are wide enough that you can sit on the edge and plant seeds or pull the few weeds that come up.” As if that’s not enough, “The blocks heat up very early in the season and retain the heat, so our harvests are coming in three to five weeks earlier than before.” Still other folks like brick for its natural clay makeup, including HOMEGROWN member Deb, who stacks her beds two bricks high. “So far, not too many problems with weeds,” she writes. For a longer conversation, revisit this HOMEGROWN discussion on raised-bed building materials. CONSTRUCTING YOUR RAISED BED: DETERMINING HEIGHT/DEPTH The general shape of your bed or beds depends on your available space and what you plan to plant inside them, although sticking to a width of 4 feet or narrower ensures that you’ll be able to reach into the bed's center from either side. (Remember all of those benefits of uncompacted soil? No walking!) But how tall—or how deep, depending on how you look at it—should your raised bed be? You guessed it: It depends. If you’ll be growing root vegetables, Rachel cautions against anything less than 8 inches and prefers more like 12 to 16. “Carrots, unless you are growing the short, stubby ones, must have deep soil, as do other root veggies, including beets, since root systems can go as far as 2 feet down,” she writes. Other edibles don’t need as much depth. You can transplant tomato seedlings, for example, by stripping off the lowest leaves and laying the roots and the bottom part of the plant laterally in the bed before covering them with soil. “Practically all the vegetable crops you could grow in a raised bed will only set roots down to 6 inches or so, anyway,” with the notable exception of corn, writes HOMEGROWN member Trell. “Rule of thumb: If the plant will not blow over if planted directly in the ground, it will not blow over in a raised bed, either.” For more on the depth question, read through this past discussion. Raised beds certainly aren’t one size fits all, but for one clear example, we like Erik’s blueprint. “Earlier this spring I installed a new 4' x 8' x 11" raised bed," he writes. “I used two courses of 2" x 6" x 8' smooth-finished red cedar lumber. I cut lap joints in the corners, which is a strong joint for this application. I reinforced the rails against bowing using 12" galvanized spikes drilled 16" OC, the heads of which serve as the basis for affixing PVC tubing to form a frame. “I think 11 inches will satisfy all of my growing needs, and I prefer the added depth over what I might get using a single course of 2" x 8" or 2" x 10" lumber. I learned a lot building my bed and would make one minor modification were I to do it again, namely, to drill and spike the lap joints themselves.” Those are two of Erik’s beds, pictured above right. “These two raised beds now grace a suburban front yard," he writes. "Each bed holds approximately 1 cubic yard of soil, and both were planted and growing the day they were installed.” PLANS TO STEAL • For a great set of instructions, check out these step-by-step plans, courtesy of HOMEGROWN member Powered by Tofu. • Help! We want more blueprints! Got a raised bed design you're willing to share? Post it in the comments section below, and we'll add a link. Thanks! FILLING YOUR RAISED BED: SOIL MIX AND MAINTENANCE After you’ve spent time and effort building your bed, you’ll want to fill it will an equally well-considered and well-balanced soil mix. If you’re buying soil, be sure to look for organic labeling and supplement it as you would otherwise with compost or compost tea. As with planting directly in the ground, you can use season extenders—such as row covers, low tunnels, cold frames (no HOMEGROWN 101 yet, but Mother Earth News shares these free plans), and hoop houses (including this $30 model)—to lengthen your grow time. Whether or not you eek extra weeks out of the growing season, for best results come spring, you will want to cover your beds once you’re done growing for the year. A blanket of organic matter will protect your precious soil from the elements during those chilly winter months. After watching the soil in her friends’, neighbors’, and her own raised beds compact and degrade over the years, HOMEGROWN member Charlyn came up with a solution: Set a chicken coop on top of her raised bed during the winter and let the fallout soiled straw—and its blend of nitrogen and organic matter—infuse the dirt below. “It was transformative,” Charlyn writes. “Sunflowers grew 8 feet high. No more yellow plants! Fewer slugs and pill bugs!” Even better? Soiled straw and raked leaves. “Over the winter, they slowly rotted down, adding to the organic matter.” Below is her step-by-step plan for soil maintenance, starting in early October, when she puts her beds to, well, bed: Pile leaves on every bed. Place the chicken tractor on the first empty bed. Toss down straw and poop every week. Move the coop about every three weeks. Turn the bed lightly after the coop has been moved. Add ash from the fireplace whenever possible. Plant in the bed, usually under a cold frame, in the spring. Toss a handful of Bio-fish in with every plant. Mulch with straw or more leaves in the summer, after the plants are planted. For more, check out Charlyn’s full post on raised-bed soil maintenance. And for another natural soil amendment, two words: rabbit poop. Some HOMEGROWN members have taken simpler routes. Janine covered her beds with three inches of wood chips (see photo at right), which she salvaged from her town’s compost facility. Other folks opt for other types of mulch or even just leaf litter raked up from the yard. Read more about mulching—or growing garlic, yet another wintertime option—in the Garden Winterizing 101. Before you know it, spring will be back again, and you’ll start the whole wonderful cycle over, from selecting seeds to starting seedlings to—well, keep reading. WHAT TO PLANT IN YOUR BED AND HOW TO CARE FOR IT You’ve got beds. You’ve got soil. Now, what can you grow? Here’s the fun part: Pretty much any and every veggie or herb is suitable for a raised bed, as well as many berries, flowers, and more. Hooray! In fact, in most aspects, planting and tending veggies in a raised bed isn't that different from planting directly in the ground. As with in-ground planting, you can succession plant in raised beds. Scratch that: You should succession plant in raised beds. Also as with planting in ground, you should rotate what you plant in a given bed from year to year; that is, don't overtax your soil by planting tomatoes in the same spot for three years running. Raised beds are especially friendly to many methods of intensive gardening, from French intensive to square foot gardening. For more on how to grow specific crops, check out HOMEGROWN 101s on growing lettuce, broccoli, peas, radishes, collards, and garlic. If you’re planning a school or community garden, don’t miss the Edible Gardens for Kids 101, featuring a list of the top five to plant with pint-size growers to get them pumped about good food. As for watering, sure, you can do it by hand, but there are some handy tricks out there for self-watering raised beds, including homemade ollas. And if you’re feeling especially frisky, you can make like Rachel and install your own drip irrigation system. Got another idea? We can't wait to hear what you dream up next. SPEAK UP! Got a question about raised beds you'd like to put to your fellow HOMEGROWN sistren and brethren? Or a technique you’d like to share? Or a correction to make? Post it below and keep the conversation growing. (We’ll make sure to incorporate any key tips into the 101.) And just a quick recap of the other 101s mentioned above: Container Gardening 101 | Garden Planning 101 | Landscape Site Design | Soil Testing 101 | Composting 101 | Compost Tea 101 | Raising Rabbits 101 | Growing Lettuce 101 | Growing Broccoli 101 | Growing Peas 101 | Growing Radishes 101 | Growing Collards 101 | Growing Garlic 101 | Edible Gardens for Kids 101 | Homemade Ollas 101 | Drip Irrigation System | Hoop Houses 101 | Even Cheaper Hoop Houses 101 | Garden Winterizing 101 | Selecting Seeds 101 | Starting Seeds 101 You can always find more things to plant, grow, make, craft, cook, and preserve in the HOMEGROWN 101 library. Happy gardening, everyone! PHOTOS: (CHARD IN BED) CORNELIA; (BEDS ON GRAVEL) JENNIFER; (MULTIPLE BEDS) MEAGHAN; (BEDS LAID OUT) LYNDA; (EMPTY FRAMES) MUDPIESTOSTICKYBUNS; (RECYCLED BED) WILL; (CINDER BLOCKS) LYNDA; (TWO BEDS NEAR HOUSE) ERIK; (DEEP BED) STACEY; (HOOP HOUSE) MICHAEL; (COLD FRAME) LEONARD; (WOOD CHIPS) JANINE; (WATERING) CITY BLOSSOMS; (BLOOMING BEDS) LORI …; Added by HOMEGROWN.org at 2:42pm on October 21, 2010

Blog Post: Repost of Chickens Vs Blizzard: Pastured Chickens and Snow

We recently got 18 laying…; Added by Lucy Goodman at 10:54am on January 2, 2013

Blog Post: Baltimore Area Women Farmers

Last night there was a potluck for Baltimore-area women…

Added by Aliza Ess at 5:20pm on November 18, 2011

Topic: Cold Frame 101: r cold frame know-how with HOMEGROWN and please keep hammering out the good ideas! Cold frames. They are the workhorses of my garden. Every year I pull them into service, both in the early spring and then again in the fall. They alone allow me to extend my growing season from late February into at least mid-December. That’s pretty darn good for living in USDA hardiness zone 5, where we typically would be cleaning out our garden beds in September or October, depending on when we get our first freeze. If you are new to gardening, a cold frame is a transparent roofed structure that protects young plants from cold weather. Ideally, a cold frame should be situated in a sunny location with good southern exposure. The structure keeps tender plants safe from harsh winds while providing exposure to sunlight through the transparent roof. It also helps retain radiant heat, similar to a greenhouse but on a much smaller scale. Besides extending the growing season, one of the benefits of a cold frame is that you can readily build your own, using either new materials or items you might have on hand from previous home projects. All you need are some basic carpentry skills and a short list of materials. WHAT YOU’LL NEED: MATERIALS » old window frame or sky light window, with glass intact » recycled cedar, cypress, or redwood, or other untreated lumber » wood posts (optional) » door hinges (at least two per cold frame) » screws WHAT YOU’LL NEED: TOOLS » screwdriver » saw Urban Overalls' cold frame, with the roof open and veggies planted inside. The same cold frame, with the roof closed and covered in snow. Hooray for cold frames! Underneath all that snow, the greens are warm and thriving. WHAT TO DO Remember to stay away from pressure-treated wood and railroad ties. These typically contain chemicals, such as pentachlorophenol or creosote, that release vapors toxic to plants. In building your cold frame, you want to keep the size manageable. Your window (or whatever transparent material you’re using for the roof) will determine the width and length of your frame. For example, if your window is 2’ x 4’, the cold frame box will be 2’ wide and 4’ long. As for the height, build the back of the cold frame 6” higher than the front. This will created a sloped roof, allowing water—and, in northern climes, snow and ice—to run off your cold frame. So, if you make the front of the cold frame 12” high, the back should be 18” high. Remember that you do not need to build a very tall structure. You want to be able to comfortably reach inside the cold frame when planting and harvesting your cool-season produce. On to building! First cut two posts to 12” and two to 18”. These will be the corners of your cold frame. Next, cut your lumber to 2’ and to 4’ lengths. Screw the wood to the posts to form a 2’ x 4’ rectangle. NOTE: if your lumber is sturdy and not warped, you can skip the posts and simply screw the lumber together to form a rectangle. Cut the 2’ sides at an angle with a saw so that one end is 18” and the other end is 12”. Once you’ve got your frame screwed together, lay the window on top. Place the hinges on the back of the cold frame and the window frame and screw into place on the high side first (the 18" side rather than the 12" side). By placing the hinges on the high side, you will be able to open the structure and reach comfortably inside. Congratulations! You are now ready to set your cold frame over a garden bed—or to plant a new bed inside. For maximum season extension, place your cold frame in a location that receives at least 6 hours of sunlight per day and fill it with cool-season crops, such as spinach, lettuce, and radishes. These will perform much better in fall and late winter/early spring weather than warm-season crops, and you’ll enjoy the fruits and veg of your labor for even more of the year! SPEAK UP! Got a question for Urban Overalls? Or a cold frame tip of your own to share? Post it below and keep the conversation rolling. You might also be interested in the Raised Beds 101 and Anne’s Self-Watering Container 101. If you’re looking for more on season extension, check out the Fall Planting 101, Winter Planting 101, and Hoop Houses 101. When (or if) you do pack it in for the year, be sure to give the Garden Winterizing 101 an ogle. For year-round gardening tips, check out the Selecting Seeds 101, the Garden Planning 101, and Karin’s Companion Planting 101. And don't miss Urban Overalls' Green Tomato Wine 101. You can always find more things to plant, grow, cook, preserve, make, craft, and saw in the HOMEGROWN 101 library. PHOTOS: (TOP AND BOTTOM) LEONARD VASSALLO; (MIDDLE THREE) URBAN OVERALLS …; Added by HOMEGROWN.org at 2:34pm on January 15, 2014

Topic: How to Start a CSA (Even if You Don't Have a Farm) 101: l for getting good food into her own and her community’s hands, enlisting unused backyards and any spare inch of growing space she could find. Read her story below. You just might get inspired to start your own CSA or to collaborate with a family farmer, or a co-op of family farmers, to do so. The options are endless—and exciting—and the principles Anita describes can be applied to many different types of CSA models. Bravo, Anita, and thanks so much for sharing your hard-earned know-how. WHAT'S A CSA, AGAIN? The community supported agriculture model, or CSA, is a way for eaters to connect directly with the farmers who produce their food. Like a subscription to a magazine, members pay their money up front. Producers then use those subscription fees as seed capital to cover production costs. Members receive weekly baskets of fresh local produce—as in the case of my CSA—or produce, meat, dairy, or a mix thereof. They also share the inherent risks of food production with the farmer, thereby ensuring the survival of small diversified farms. By supporting small, you support our food sovereignty. HOW AN EATER BECAME A FARMER: ANITA'S STORY My own journey down the CSA path began at the Edmonton Public Library, with a book called Gardening for the Future of the Earth, by Howard-Yana Shapiro. It is a book that woke me up to what is happening to, and on, our planet. I have always loved growing food but not so much preparing or preserving it. When I stumbled upon another book at the library called Sharing the Harvest: A Citizen's Guide to Community Supported Agriculture, by Elizabeth Henderson, I knew I had found my next adventure—and a solution to my problem. My community and I would grow the food together, and then my neighbors could take the food home and deal with it themselves! I live in a typical urban home. Bungalow, small yard, garage. When I moved in, it was all grass and spruce trees. By the time I experienced my “insert light bulb here” moment, the yard was an all-in-one garden, with perennials and annuals, veggies and flowers, small fruit and herbs, rain barrels and compost. I knew I needed more land to accomplish my new goal. So I placed an ad in the local community newsletter: “Do you have a garden and no time? I have time and no garden!” Within days, I had two gardens to play in. (Two of the gardens Anita manages are pictured at right and below.) Using every conceivable free publicity method I could think of, I threw the news that I was starting a CSA into the universe. And then I jumped in with both feet, a garden fork, and my two first CSA members. Year 2 saw nine members; year 3 brought 20. I capped things there to make sure my plan would work as well as I had imagined. In the next two years, I experienced every type of growing disaster except a tornado. It was good that the people who joined did so understanding they were on a journey with me. I decided to make education the base of my CSA: I was there to grow gardeners, the food was a bonus. (I do have word from a reliable source that with only my ten small yards in the city, my members are receiving as much in their baskets as from some farms.) TOP 10 TIPS FOR STARTING YOUR OWN CSA They're already exploding, but I believe that CSAs and local foods, especially organic local foods, are only going to get bigger. Want to start your own CSA along the lines of my model? Below are the key tips I've learned in my few years as a CSA farmer. 1. Make sure you know what you’re doing in the growing department. Nothing turns people off a CSA like someone selling them a $500 share and then delivering five bunches of kale. 2. Start small. If you’re a farmer or grower who’s already selling at a farmers market, keep tabs on how much you’re selling per week, and how many shares you’d need to sell—and at what price per share—in order to make the same amount. Does that number seem reasonable? Stay within your means. 3. Stress the health value of leafy green vegetables, and using season extenders such as cold frames and hoop houses, get those shares full early with a variety of greens. Teach your clients about the benefits of green smoothies. (Google it if you aren’t already hooked.) 4. Make sure the baskets have lots of variety and are neither too empty nor too full in any given week. I think just as many people quit CSAs due to too much produce as those who quit for too little. There is no one ideal. You’ll win some and lose some members over amounts, regardless of what you deliver. My strategy has been to grow as much as I can in the gardens I have and then divide that harvest evenly among my members. 5. If you have a volunteer requirement for members, find an easily accessible Internet calendar where you can organize pickup and work hours. If all of your members have access to the calendar, you can use it to help with car-pooling arrangements, to let members sign up for shifts, and to let folks know what they can expect in a given week’s basket. Anyone can access the calendar to input his or her own hours, and everyone else can see what’s happening. 6. Even if you have a volunteer requirement, be prepared to do it all yourself. Another of the biggest reasons CSAs fail is that some producers plant a certain amount expecting so many hours of volunteer work time, and when the members fall short of their commitments, not everything can get done. (I require a minimum commitment of four volunteer hours per month for every member.) You should only take on what you can handle alone. 7. Get listed in a database of CSAs for your region. If one doesn’t exist, create one. Because there wasn’t already a good resource for my neck of the woods, I started csaalberta.com, which now lists all of the CSAs in the province of Alberta. Hosting sites like weebly.com and godaddy.com provide free templates to help you build your website, as well as a domain name for about $12 a year. I believe that by promoting the concept of CSAs instead of promoting only your farm (or, if you’re like me, your network of urban gardens), you will be a food-protection activist, and karma will bring the business back to you. Check out HOMEGROWN’s Find Good Food page for a list of national and regional directories where you can list your CSA. 8. Take advantage of social media. It is the number one way we let people know about us. 9. Study lots of other CSAs’ websites to see what their philosophies are and how they operate their pickups and work days—not to mention pricing structures. This year, I’ll have two pickups on different days, to make things easier on folks who live farther away. One will be at my house, the other at one of our growing locations. As for pricing, I took the two longest-standing CSA farms nearby and priced myself halfway between them. I factored in that a local master gardeners program is the same as what I charge, so members get the education and the veggies are a bonus. 10. Do some kind of evaluation at the end of the season—either requesting verbal feedback at your final pickup or emailing a survey to your members. That way, you can learn what to tweak the following year. I email a survey to members and typically get about a 50 percent response rate. Just a note that although I tell people I want the negative as well as the positive, I seldom get the negatives back. Members typically would rather not respond than tell me what I could fix. Most importantly, have fun. And if it isn’t fun, find ways to make it fun. Happy growing! SPEAK UP! Got a question for Anita, another suggestion for how eaters can mobilize, or more tips for starting a CSA? Post your comments below and keep the conversation rolling. To locate existing CSAs near you, visit HOMEGROWN's Find Good Food page. For more ways to connect with folks over food, check out the Community Building 101 and Edible Gardens for Kids 101. You can always find more things to make, craft, plant, grow, cook, preserve, and nurture in the HOMEGROWN 101 library. ALL PHOTOS: ANITA GREGOIRE…; Added by HOMEGROWN.org at 12:31pm on April 1, 2013

Topic: Garden Winterizing 101: k from the constant care and monitoring. But gardening doesn’t come to an end when the plants come out of the ground. There are a few simple things you can do to protect your soil over the winter and set yourself in good stead for the next growing season. To get the dirt on garden winterizing, we talked to Jacob Keszey of High Mowing Organic Seeds, a farm-based seed company dedicated to sustainable agriculture in Wolcott, Vermont, and an active member of the HOMEGROWN community. (In his spare time, Jacob runs Humble Rain Farm, a commercial vegetable operation in nearby Waterville, so he knows his stuff.) The following information is geared toward beginner gardeners rather than experienced growers and farmers, but the principles are the same. And, of course, there’s always another option besides winterizing: to keep right on growing. More on all-season gardening below, too. STEP ONE: REMOVAL “One really important thing we stress is complete and thorough cultivation and residue removal,” Jacob says. In other words, when packing up the garden for winter, take out everything that’s dead and dying. Yep, we know: You're pooped, even tired old roots can be tough to exhume, and decaying plants can make for a nasty, rotting mess. But it needs to go. “Some people will till in plant matter, but in today’s world of tomato blight, if you’ve had any hint of blight, or maybe even think you’ve had blight, take everything out, including the root mass,” Jacob says. In short, when in doubt, yank it up. Any plant material left in the soil can act as a cozy wintertime host for pests and diseases—not just blight, but cucumber beetles and all sorts of unfriendly critters and freaky bacteria. Get rid of it. The one possible exception? Nitrogen-fixing legumes and greens. If you’re leaving any of that behind, till it into the soil with gusto, Jacob says. And then blanket it with a cover crop. (More on that in step three). STEP TWO: COMPOSTING Anything you pull out of the garden should be safe to compost—unless you have known instances of disease. “If you’ve got blight or another funky mold, don’t put it into your compost pile,” Jacob says. “Burn it or throw it away.” Everything else? Toss it in. This is a great chance to build up your pile. In addition to adding plant material to your compost pile, now is a fine time to add some compost to your soil. Officially, the jury’s still out on this one: By adding compost to your soil before winter, you’ll lose some nutrition due to rain and snow. But compost is excellent food for your cover crops (see step three) and it’s a good way to make use of that summer-rich compost while it’s ripe. “The debate goes back and forth, but I recommend adding compost in fall and spring,” Jacob says. This way, you’re a step ahead come springtime—one less task you’ll need to devote quite so much time to when you’ve got bigger fish to fry. Er, make that lots of seeds to start. For more on composting, check out this HOMEGROWN 101. STEP THREE, OPTION A: COVER CROPS The idea here is to plant a layer of something that will hold in and protect your soil—essentially, a living blanket. You can buy cover crop seeds in small amounts, small enough, even, for backyard raised beds. But they will require some work, and different cover crops do different things, so it's important, Jacob says, to figure out what your priorities are when choosing a crop. For example, some crops specialize in nitrogen fixation, or taking nitrogen out of the air and putting it into the soil. Others help with things like erosion control, adding organic matter to the soil to improve its tilth or fluff, reducing soil compaction, weed suppression, and water retention. And some overachieving cover crops perform a combination of the tasks above. Nitrogen fixation, though, stands a bit apart from the rest. “For this, only leguminous crops will do,” Jacob says. “In our world, that means clover, hairy vetch, and field peas. Otherwise, if you want really excellent erosion control, go with clover; it’s got a really dense root mass. If you want to impart more organic matter, certain blends of oat and rye are best.” Choosing a cover crop isn’t always a one-or-the-other situation; High Mowing, for example, carries a seed blend that’s 75 percent winter rye and 25 percent hairy vetch, a hardy mix popular with customers in New England. Like pretty much every other decision in gardening, what cover crops you choose and when you plant them depends on where you live. Gardeners in some parts of the country can’t grow buckwheat in the fall, while others can grow field peas year-round. For when to plant, the general rule is to put your cover crops down as soon as you’ve got everything else out of the ground. Otherwise, you’re leaving your soil bare and vulnerable to nutrient leeching and water runoff. For help in determining specifically when and what types of cover crops to plant in your area, Jacob recommends Cornell University’s Cover Crop Decision Tool. Timing doesn’t only come into play in terms of when to plant your cover crops. You’ll also want to think about how long you’ll need to leave them in the ground come spring. While some cover crops go into rest periods over the winter (hey, don’t we all), many essentially die off, or winter kill, before coming back up in the spring. Once they have revived, you want to let your crops come to maturation before mowing them down, and mowing—with a lawnmower, or with a weed whacker or a scythe if you're working in a raised bed—is key to avoiding more back-breaking labor than necessary. Whichever tool you choose, you want to let it do the lion's share of legwork in cutting back the cover crops. After mowing, you’ll want to wait a few days to allow those mown crops to decompose a bit before tilling. That decomp period will make the plant matter easier to till—and for backyard gardeners without a Rototiller, tilling can require some elbow grease. A shovel or a wheel hoe or even a hand spade will work, but you've got to really get in there and turn the soil. Once you’ve tilled the soil, you’ll want to wait another week or two to let that newly fertilized soil get comfy. Then, and only then, do you want to plant your food-producing crops. In other words, there’s a fair amount of waiting built into the process. But just think what dark, rich, delicious soil you’ll be building. And just think of all the work that’s still to come. Suddenly mandatory rest periods don’t sound so bad. Before we move on, just a note that, in general, cover crops are meant to be protection for your soil—not food for you. While you can plant oats, buckwheat, and rye as cover crops, you want to till them in before they go to seed. Otherwise—dum dum dum—you can expect weeds later. So, don’t think of cover crops as food. Think of them as a blanket. You don’t eat your blanket, do you? For more on cover crops, check out this handy 101, and for more specifics on how to plant them, give this blog post by High Mowing a gander. STEP THREE, OPTION B: MULCHING Instead of planting cover crops, some gardeners, especially home gardeners working a small patch of ground, choose to mulch. The idea here is roughly the same as cover cropping: You’re laying a blanket over your soil. But instead of planting a crop, you’re simply spreading material—be it commercial bark chips or straw or leaf litter. Con: You're not reinvesting nutrients into your soil. Pro: You don't have to mow—or to till with quite as much muscle. The size of your garden may be the chief determining factor. Choose wisely. “There are lots of benefits to mulching on a small scale,” Jacob says. “It conserves moisture, inhibits weeds, and moderates soil temperature, so that you don’t get those really hard freezes and really high heat spikes. And, because of that temperature moderation, you can often get into the soil a bit earlier in the spring.” Score! STEP THREE, OPTION C: GARLIC This one’s for all you production-oriented types who just can’t stand to see soil with no food in it. Jacob likes it, too: “I’m a big garlic grower, a big garlic fan,” he says. To be clear, garlic doesn't add amendments the way cover cropping can, so you're continuing to work the soil more than you're letting it rest. But you can always give your garlic bed a nice break when you pull up your mature bulbs in midsummer. And you can always mix and match options A, B, and C if you've got multiple raised beds. For details, check out the Growing Garlic 101. But the basic process is simple: Break mature garlic bulbs into cloves and plant those 2 to 4 inches down, 8 inches apart, then cover your soil with 3 to 5 inches of mulch—straw, leaf litter, whatever you’ve got. Aim to plant your garlic 2 to 4 weeks before the first hard freeze; in Vermont, that’s mid-October, but timing changes dramatically from zone to zone. Garlic needs about nine months to mature, so you can’t plant it in a spot you’re saving for tomatoes. But otherwise, it’s pretty much a win-win. “You can keep your own seed,” Jacob says. “And it’s so hardy, it’s hard to screw up. It’s idiot proof.” Now that’s right up our alley. PLAN B: YEAR-ROUND GARDENING Or you can keep on trucking and garden all winter long. This is advanced territory and, in much of North America, requires a hoop house or some other type of protection from the elements. But—HOMEGROWN to the rescue!—what do you know? You can find help on those topics here. • In this 101, HOMEGROWN member Matt shares plans and resources for winter planting. • And in this sequel, he reports on building a low tunnel. • Ready to take the plunge, feet first? This 101 covers how to build a hoop house. • And, of course, there’s the guru of year-round growing, Eliot Coleman of Maine's Four Season Farm. Coleman’s books include The Winter Harvest Handbook and Four-Season Harvest. If you’re not quite ready to dip a toe into winter gardening this year, curling up with a Coleman book sounds like a fine cold-weather activity. SPEAK UP! Got a question for your fellow gardeners? A winter-ready tip to share? Post it below and keep the conversation rolling. In addition to the links above, you might check out the HOMEGROWN group devoted to Growing Indoors, and you can always find more things to plant, grow, make, craft, cook, preserve, and shovel in the HOMEGROWN 101 library. PHOTOS: (BED WITH STRAW) ANOTHERKINDOFDREW, COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS ON FLICKR; (COMPOST) CHRISTA NELSON; (COVER CROP FIELD) HIGH MOWING ORGANIC SEEDS; (MUSTARD CLOSEUP) CHIOT’S RUN, COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS ON FLICKR; (SPRINGTIME WINTER RYE) CHEESES, COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS ON FLICKR; (GARLIC) MELANIE BALTZER; (LOW TUNNEL) KNOX GARDNER …; Added by HOMEGROWN.org at 1:07pm on October 31, 2012

Blog Post: The Gazette Covers Our Farm: Hey folks. Cafe Nola was covered in the Gazette again, this time they ran a full length article about what we're up to on the farm. It's a great article that you can check out…; Added by Farm Frederick at 11:53am on May 9, 2010