Buying The Farm

Terrific little article on beekeeping in NYC, with some fun quotes:

The citys urban bee mavens inhabit their own entomological universe, sharing useful information about mite cures or re-queening protocols that is, replacing a jaded queen bee. As might be expected, they are also given to apiary humor. There are puns about the, well, plight of the bumblebee and requests to lend me your comb; and, yes, there are questions about whether to bee or not to bee. Mr. Solomon, a graduate of the Harvard Business School, has been known to tell hive masters that he has a degree from the Harvard bee school.

On a recent afternoon on her rooftop, Ms. Goodman unhinged the hive cover and she and Mr. Graves began examining the individual wooden bee frames, wedging out big pieces of honeycomb. Being from New York, it boasts a bouquet that is more floral — sweeter — and has a lighter taste, said Mr. Graves. He noted that the bees forage in Central Park, at rooftop planters, outside florists shops and in community gardens, rather than at upstate clover fields or deep-South orange groves.

But it isnt the easiest thing in the world to sweet-talk skeptical New Yorkers into buying urban honey for $5 a pound. You would think that New York honey might have a rather strong flavor, said Judith Cramer, a computer-science teacher who had stopped by Mr. Gravess cart at the Union Square Greenmarket specifically to buy New York honey as a gift for a friend who lives in England.

Actually, its rather sweet, Mr. Graves said.

No, you’d think that New York honey would be quite aggressive as far as honeys go, Ms. Cramer said with a laugh. You know, its the honey that says, Whats it to you? …

I loved this closer:

Back on the roof, Mr. Bukiet sighed as he surveyed the spectacle of his wife and children poking into their two big-city beehives.You raise your children in Manhattan, you think theyll be the ultimate urbanites, and instead you get a bunch of naturalists, he said, deadpan. Where did I go wrong?

via Beekeeping in New York City.

I’m into the exciting phase of my first garden: Seeds are starting (or, in the case of the edamame, ready for high school already!) and the weather’s been beautiful. We’re getting closer to the actual planting!

The bag gardening method I’m adopting, while faddish, hasn’t developed as deep a literature for things like plant spacing. My research has involved a lot of bouncing between sites. Luckily, though, one result was this website.

The concept is to plant at least one container of vegetables, and they’ve very helpfully prepared short, illustrated cheat sheets for some commonly-grown plants. Not everything is on here, but for amateurs like myself, it’s an excellent primer.

http://www.onepotpledge.org/getgrowing.html

The home I’m considering buying has a concrete backyard, so the idea of container gardening is suddenly very appealing. I was trying to search for crops that would work well in a sub irrigated planter, and it occurred to me that EarthBox would probably be a great source for this info. I have no intention of spending the kind of coin they ask for their planters, but it’s a good guide on what kind of crops will grow.

http://www.earthbox.com/resources/what-to-grow/

This site offered some interesting point form notes on what worked and what didn’t with an urban gardening experience.

6. Parsley does best if you plant it in stages. Start one set of seeds, then start another 3 weeks later, then another 3 weeks after that. That way, when you’ve depleted your first set of parsley, you’ll have plenty more on the way.

http://urban-green.livejournal.com/7735.html#cutid6

“No power tools needed” always gets my attention, and I love the simplicity of these vertical supports.

http://www.insideurbangreen.org/2009/11/garden-update.html

This is a use for shipping containers that I hadn’t considered: As a home for closed-loop hydroponics systems. Got me thinking that it might have a use for aquaponics up here, as shelter for fish during winter.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/is-this-the-future-of-farming/247391/#slide1

There are all sorts of variations on this theme, but I love being delighted by new ideas: One of the videos linked to here shows a garden made out of kitty litter bins. They’d be the ideal height and width for square foot gardening (at least when supported by self-watering) and are readily available. “Farming asphalt” is really brought to life.

http://www.insideurbangreen.org/diy-sub-irrigation/

Torontoist gives a tutorial on cold frames and cloches for winter edibles.

Salad greens thrive in an environment of about 15°C with six hours of sunlight per day, actually developing more flavour and crispness when their thin leaves aren’t exhausted by full days of sun. Parsnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, broccoli, and cabbage are also able to withstand some frost. But when snow blankets the city and these greens aren’t protected, they bail. A gardener can manipulate the season and make the most of their locale with a greenhouse. While a rooftop garden misses out on the heat from the ground, a greenhouse helps grab warmth from the sun and the building below it. But you don’t need to build a greenhouse to create your own microclimate. There are a few DIY devices that work by collecting heat from surrounding sources—a crucial part of low-impact winterizing.

http://torontoist.com/2011/11/freshness-in-frosty-times/

The onset of nice weather always encourages us Torontonians, groundhog-like, to crawl out of our holes and stand, blinking and wary, in the sunshine. The wariness comes, of course, from the fact that April weather is usually a fickle temptress: I was lured out for a walk last week in a tshirt, and wound up hot-footing (and cold-arming) it home when the temperature dropped 10°C in little more than a half-hour.

Properly equipped with a good jacket and a stowable umbrella, it is possible to get out and take advantage of the amenities our big city has to offer. The other week, I noticed an event listing at a library which, while not close by, was at least on my bus route, and was more than worth the distance traveled and fickle-weathered walk to and from the venue.

Ken Brown is a jovial speaker, and a backyard gardener par excellence. His talk that night was titled “Vertical Vegetables”, and that alone was enough to pique the interest of ones, like me, who have more garden space up than they have garden space out. Ken showed pictures of his garden that chronicle his failures and successes (there were far more of the latter) at getting things to grow.

Ken’s a practical type, and his eagerness to see what will work is inspiring, if initially surprising. A jerry-built “trellis” composed of an upright beam crowned with a circle of copper, from which trailed jute twine for plant support was aesthetically questionable in the early spring photo, but there was no debating its beauty in full summer, when his circle of pea plants and morning glories was in full, thick, lush bloom.

His story of a 10″ pot for fingerlings that put out 15KG of gourmet potatoes in the fall got me wondering if I could pull off such a feat in my tiny window garden. I’m chitting some supermarket fingerlings now to see if I can replicate Ken’s idea.

His website, Gardening Enjoyed isn’t quite as user-friendly as his talk, but like the 10″ pot, it is chock full of goodness for those willing to dig into its digital loam.

I’ve put aside readings and musings for doings of late: The weather has turned, so a-gardening I will go. The one huge benefit of living in an enclosed condo is the heat that builds up over the course of the day. Warm soil is what gives seeds a kick-start, and mine have demonstrated just how hot it can get in here: From planting to sprouts in 3 days!

I’m limited in space, so have restricted myself this year to planting things I think will bear fruit (in both the literal and figurative senses). I had great success last year with tomatoes – particularly the small varieties – so have started Sungolds, Matt’s Wilds, Dr. Carolyns, and Tiny Tims. Tomatillo seeds, scavenged from a single small fruit bought at the local market, are proving quite as robust as the tomatoes were, but if they’re anything like the ground cherries they so much resemble, I may have a repeat of last year’s bushy-but-barren plant upon which I lavished so much unrequited attention. My Serrano peppers have sprouted well, but it remains to be seen if I can get any to fruit – last year was similarly unsuccessful.

I’m growing chard and beetroot as greens (I don’t know if it was the heat or the confining pots, but all my previous attempts at beets and radishes have produced awful-tasting roots) and am crossing my fingers that I can get the mâche I love so much to grow continuously, rather than have it peter out quickly as it did last year.

Mustard greens, in the form of mizuna and a mix of yellow and brown mustards should grow fine, and even if they don’t I have a secret weapon for cheap sprouts. Digging through my seed packets, I found one from my first growing season from a local, expensive nursery that charged me $1.50 for a pittance of brown mustard seeds. Last year, for 27¢, I got ten times as many seeds from the bulk food store, and they proved just as viable as the foil-sealed packet!

My biggest experiment this year will be the Sugar Snap peas, already nearly six inches high and probing for a trellis. I’ve planted them in self-watering containers, so hopefully they’ll get as much water as they want, and have thrown some jute string around the curtain rod. If I can get even one edible pod off them, it’ll be worth the strange looks passersby are sure to give a 17th floor window filled with foliage.