It’s easy to blame disappointing growth on any number of garden maladies—pests, poor lighting, spouses who don’t watch what they’re doing (just kidding, dear!)—but in the end, when your garden doesn’t live up to your lofty expectations, you have no one to blame but yourself soil!  This is where I found myself this past weekend, knowing that I needed to get fertilizer but putting it off.  I had been using Alaska fish emulsion for a few weeks, but at 5-1-1, it was really just encouraging a lot of leaf growth.  That’s great up until a certain point, but when it comes time to put some meat on those bones, it’s not going to cut it.  I decided to try Garden-tone, a product from a South Jersey-based company called Espoma.  I applied it along with a nice side dressing of leaf and mushroom compost.

So far, the results have been great.  The squash, eggplants, and cucumbers were ready to explode, but were waiting for that little bit of help from the 3-4-4 Garden-Tone (roughly a third to a half cup per plant) to really come to life.  I’ve been training garden beans up the chicken wire between the squashes and cukes—I’m hoping their nitrogen-fixing properties will outweigh any proximity issues, but that remains to be seen.  And fresh raspberries?  They’re practically falling off of the bush.

The hops have benefited greatly from the extra height of the extra twine I put up.  Next year, I’m making a hinged 4-pole assembly that can be raised or lowered—I’m beginning to think that balancing on top of a step ladder to tie twine above your head just to give your hops an extra few feet might not be the safest idea.  But what’s life without a little danger?  The hops were also pleased with their food, as the highest vines have all since pushed out cones that are almost full grown already (either that, or last year’s batch was just puny).

So far, I’m 4 for 6 of my tomato starters from GreensGrow.  The Black Krim, Whopper, Pineapple, and Sweet 100’s are all doing well.  The other two varieties, Cherokee Purple and Yellow Pear, are still playing ketchup…  As long as I have something to eat when I go out into the garden, I’ll be okay.  I would really appreciate some 1-pounders this year, though.  I owe a lot of people a lot of tomatoes, and I don’t want my garden to let me down.  Calcium is important for tomatoes, and realized I had a bottle of calcium supplements that I never really used.  So, one pill went into the top of each bucket.  I tried popping a few open, and they’re filled with a carrier of vegetable oil and beeswax.  We’ll see how well they melt in the sun, and whether it’s enough for the plants to use.

As an engineer at heart, how do I know if my growing conditions are optimal?  Soil tests and pH meters are great, but few people really take the time to check.  When you walk through the soil section of any garden center, all of these fertilizers and additives are marketed to make us believe our soil is missing something.  And most likely, they’re at least partially right: almost all soil can use something to grow more efficiently.  I guess it comes down to faith in your own common sense.  Your plants know how much effort you put into caring for them, and they’ll usually repay you in kind.

How grows all of your gardens so far?  Any success with other fertilizers?  Suggestions are always welcome!

2010 is off to a great start, although you wouldn’t know it from how often this gets updated.  Our area is showing itself to have a lot of people willing to work towards making it thrive, including the Water Department, businesses, developers, and even other neighborhood groups.  Our block entered the city’s Coolest Block contest, and our garden is lifting off!  We’re signed up for another season of Greensgrow’s CSA, which is losing its meat this year.  As long as I keep getting good cheese every week, I think I’ll survive.

This week, City Paper did a section on urban agriculture and the main article make some excellent points.  Urban gardens will never take off as long as gardeners are forced to compete with developers for open space, and need to at least break even and at best make money in order to survive.  I wonder how much Philly-grown hops would go for on the open market…

I hope it’s a lot, cause by summer we’ll have them!  Six planters worth of, to the best of my knowledge, Cascades are climbing the ropes for me.  Only 2 of the plants are established from last year, so they’re the only 2 exploding upwards.  The new ones are giving it their best shot, but with the returning plants already over 10’ tall, the new ones are barely brushing 3’.  Next year, I hope to trade entire tires worth of rhizomes for other varieties, but for now, I’ll see what first year plants can do.

Hops need something to grow up, and I was able to make excellent use of a variety of structural bamboo my dad has perfected over 15 years.  With lengths of bamboo anchored into the tires (as well as sure footing and a sturdy ladder), I’ve been able to string up enough wire and twine to hold up the Walt Whitman bridge.  So far, they’ve shot up it, growing as much as 8” a day.

What has led to this kind of explosive growth?  The soil mix I’ve been using so far is:

• 10 parts Frey Brothers 500 Planting Mix
• 2 parts peat moss
• 2 parts zeolite / pearlite
• 2 part mushroom compost
• 1 part sand

Everything else seems to like this mix as well, although to varying degrees.  I may have to start doing soil samples and some pH balancing if I want to see real results this year, and once I have some veggies from the tires, I’ll be sending them off to get tested (just in case).

More news of tomatoes, eggplants, and roses to come, as well as a recipe for squirrel just as soon as I catch the bastard that’s been digging up my beds.  Tell me what you’ve got growing, and maybe I’ll trade you for some hops.

I know I’m not the only one noticing this trend towards bringing the outside in.  I’m surrounded by philodendrons growing out of old soda bottles at work, moss, vines, and herbs at home, and even a little back-window plant chilling in the car (once it gets a little warmer out).  But what I make up for in quantity I seem to lack in creativity.  Luckily, there are people out there filling in my design-gap.

Grass Mirror by h2o Architects

Thanks to design milk for catching this (as they’ve done for countless awesome things over the year I’ve been reading their blog).  I can’t tell from the website (since I don’t read French all that well), but my guess is that water from each lengthwise segment flows into the one below it.  At least, that makes sense to me.  If they’re going to call it a mirror, though, maybe they could release one that actually functions as one?

Moss on Walls

I’ve heard of spray-on moss graffiti, and I’ve heard of indoor moss gardens, but combining the two?  The house in the picture is in Japan, where the design firm used dried moss to create the aesthetic.  Is that cheating?  Probably.  But it’s still a good looking idea.

Hanging Plants

Another cool idea whose time has come.  I’ve grown hanging tomatoes, but the Boskke Sky Planter (right) claims to not spill any water—something my hanging buckets can’t claim.  I think their photos are staged though, as anyone who has grown plants upside-down knows that the plants grow towards the light.  Unless they’re beaming a grow light up from the floor, I think they grew them right-side up and then flipped them for the photo shoot.

Candle Sticks

This one is my idea for keeping my vines alive.  I can usually find them at thrift shops for $1 a piece, and the narrow openings at the top reduce water loss through evaporation.  I am more fascinated with the story the roots tell than I am with the one we’re used to hearing from the leaves. 

Tree Becomes Book Becomes Tree

I know it’s not technically alive, but I could hang some mean vines on this bookshelf… 

How do you surround yourself with living things?

Bruce Schimmel, City Paper’s ‘Loose Canon’, wrote a fantastic article titled Who Grows? about the unwillingness of city officials to choose a consistent stance regarding city gardens.  They claim to want them, but then won’t give any sort of guarantee that the garden won’t be taken away next week, month, or year.  I was talking to Mary over at Greensgrow just a few days before this article appeared about our ordeal to get the city to let us buy (at full price!) the lot next to us.  You’d think a cash-strapped city in the midst of a down economy would be willing to sell a few parcels, especially when they’re being designated for usages that they want to promote.

The RDA, for instance, is charged with turning vacant land into tax-paying businesses; the Health Department wants to put healthy food into people's mouths; and at the Water Department, farms are needed to filter stormwater.

Our Bouvier Community Garden, which has thrived under the nurturing guidance of Laura and Leslianna, is one of the success stories of land reclamation.  Our neighborhood group, Newbold Neighbors, worked closely with the Neighborhood Gardens Association (NGA) and the city to get plots swapped around so we could build, landscape, and grow with the confidence that Domenic Vitiello, president of the Philly Orchard Project, (through Mr. Schimmel’s article) points out is missing for many other gardens and gardeners.

In our sideyard garden, I have been very wary of building any sort of permanent structures.  The idea of watching a bulldozer run roughshod over months of work is too much to bear, as it is for many people who would love to invest the time to build something then can enjoy.

Oh, and if you didn’t read Who Grows? to the end, you missed out on one of many of Mary’s gems: “Just give up the goddamn land, and get it over with.”  How is she not mayor yet?

Becky and I went to a Zoning Code Commission public forum last night to hear about the planned changes to Philly’s zoning codes.  It was a full house, which made our end seats all the more valuable when we decided to duck out early due to the fact that, with the main projector broken, the slideshow that described most of the presentation was visible to maybe 10 people in the crowd.  They’ve promised to put it on their website tomorrow, and there are community meetings occurring throughout the month that will recap last night’s discussion with the added benefit of more public input.  I’ll be at one on Tuesday, Oct. 27th from 6-8pm at the High School for Creative and Performing Arts.

The most desirable feature I’d like to see in the new code is zoning for urban farms and green space, which was addressed as a concern last night, as was transit-oriented development and smart growth.  The commission’s member list is impressive, and includes years of zoning experience here in Philly and in cities spanning the globe.  Don Elliott of Clarion Associates enumerated the goals the Commission has been tasked with, and his enthusiasm and unencumbered speaking style made Mayor Nutter’s opening remarks sound like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  No offence, Mayor—we love ya!

By the way, did you ever hear the one about the drunken councilman in the City Council Chambers?  Well, now you have.  Read the whole PDF—it’s worth it.  This, from the period that gave us our first taste of sideburns.

Not much to report by way of the garden.  The tomatoes have trickled off, the peppers have been picked, and our Cascade-enhanced pale ale is bottled (and delicious).  I just have to keep it clean until the Newbold 2009 Beer Tour, of which we are the last stop.  It’s been sold out since day 3—if you got a ticket, good call.  Any suggestions for our house’s food items?  We get $50 to feed people with…

Well, Penn Horticultural Society finally sent out the results to the contestants in the City Gardens Contest, and our lovely side garden garnered… *drum roll* Honorable Mention.  I was hoping for more, but at least it gets us free entry to the 2010 Flower Show next year for the award ceremony.  Next time around, we may even own the lots our garden sits on!

Last night, I attended the Urban Sustainability Forum’s discussion on vacant land re-use along with Becky and our friend Kevin.  It’s a sad day when we find ourselves taking advice from Flint, Michigan on how to deal with our problems.  Of course, I kid—we don’t have a monopoly on good ideas (in fact, we seem to have more than our fair share of asinine ones…) and as long as we intelligently scale the ideas up (Flint has less than 1/10 our population), it’s worth looking at.  The main pieces of the Flint plan were: make the foreclosure process predictable and easier for cities to initiate, create a public entity to do the redevelopment, putting profits from the sale of high-value vacant land into keeping the lower-value properties maintained (instead of speculators’ pockets), and planning redevelopment projects where they have the most impact on the surrounding property values.

I did get up to ask whether Philly would be looking to create any programs to deal with vacant land under the GreenWorks program—it seems like we could benefit from bringing back some variation on the old NTI sidelot program aimed towards getting lots back into the hands of people who have a vested interest in maintaining them.  I was disappointed to hear that, as of right now, the city doesn’t see how this could be beneficial.  I really need to get clarification from the RDA, because her answer—that vacant land in the hands of private owners doesn’t benefit the community—didn’t make much sense.  Given that Dan Kildee, the guy from Michigan, had just gotten done telling us that having vacant land maintained and blight-free is probably the best thing that cities can hope for.  Given that most of these lots, if not fenced up, fill up with trash, provide cover for drug sales and petty crime, and bring down property values of the entire neighborhood.  Given that the city desperately needs money right now and would benefit from unloading some of these plots of land, even at slightly less than market value.

Makes sense to me, I guess…

Saturday was the final judging of our garden for the PHS City Gardens contest.  I had envisioned judges trooping in with tape measures and magnifying glasses, ready to quiz me on plants’ Latin names and fertilizer formulae.  The three judges that eventually showed up at my gate had only notebooks and smiles, and were amazed to see a huge garden randomly springing up amid so many broken-teeth facades and criminally overgrown vacant lots.  They couldn’t figure out how I kept my roses so free of powdery mildew and black spot (I pointed them towards neem oil) and were quite impressed with the bat house (still vacant—know any bats in need of a home?!).  I figured that, this being the first year I entered the garden, there's no way we could take first.  But after checking the contest winner list, I noticed that multiple people can place first.  Although this seems unnecessarily generous (you're all winners!), it has raised my expectations.  Keep checking that link.

Judging or no judging, this weekend was also time to feed my leafy green denizens.  I’m redressing most of the containers with a mix of top soil, lots of mushroom compost, and vermiculite (thanks Gene & Laura!).  Some of the fertilizers I had put down earlier in the season had bound to the mulch and caked up, so this was a good time to get everything remixed and retopped.  Add to that a weekend of rain and I think I’m going to see a lot of growth this week.  It’s never too late in the season for more growing!

The tomato yield has been sparse so far, but what has come off of the plants has been delicious.  So far, the green zebras and lemon boys have been the perfect size for grilling—the skin just begins to get that brown crisp while the insides have turned to a soupy green goo that has no earthly substitute.  Cherry peppers were also good grilled, although their heat makes them more of a novelty than a real food item.  Next year, I need to grow some stick-to-the-ribs plants, like squash or eggplants or pork-on-a-vine.  C'mon science—where are my genetically modified bacon-flavored tomatoes?

One of our neighborhood’s incredibly effective clean & green leaders, Leslianna, has been dealing with the PA TreeVitalize paperwork for a few plantings now, rounding up volunteers and donations to make sure our tree plantings are successful.  I’m 100% on board with the vision to create tree-lined streets that increase our blocks’ abilities to filter and retain water while keeping houses (and tempers) cooler in the summer.  True, there are still complaints floating around about how trees damage the pavement, need to be tended and pruned, and generally get in the way, but a great reason that programs like TreeVitalize exist is to determine what kinds of trees work best for our cramped blocks.  I’ve put together a map of the tree planting locations that will get another fresh layer of trees twice a year.  I give it three more years before the map disappears under the weight of all that green.

Another map that I think represents our area in a much more aesthetic manner is over at the Point Breeze Pioneers.  Aside from having a great minor-league basketball team name, our neighbors to the west have been busy cleaning up lots and gardens in Point Breeze and really putting the space to good use.  Which reminds me—time to get the broom and dustpan out and give my block a sweep.  Good to see there are some positive things going on in PB.

The last frost is well past, and all of those fragile seedlings are now ready to go into the ground, or in my case, the air.  On a run around the hood, I was lucky to pull enough four-by-fours and a decent 12’ plank in people’s offerings to the trash gods—why do people throw away perfectly good wood!?  A few cuts with the circular saw and a handful of beefy 4” screws, Becky and I were able to put together an amazingly stable frame for all of the hanging plants.

When all was said and done, 6 tomato plants were hoisted into the air.  Black Krim, Sweet 100, Green Zebra, Lemon Boy…  I wish I had more room for the huge selection that Greensgrow had, but alas—plants need their space and mine is finite.  The first green tomatoes have finally revealed themselves after a month of watering, and it already looks like it’s going to be a bumper crop.  Can’t wait to see what comes off!

I’m a brick farmer.  Considering my garden space sits on top of two infilled homes, bricks are really the only thing my soil is fit to grow.  And boy does it grow them.  So far, I’m picking at least a crate full a day.  Whole bricks are a rare find—mostly it’s just oddly shaped halves and quarters.  This debricking process has already leveled off the ground a great deal, letting me put down some grass seed that’s beginning to take.  A good dousing with water from my rain barrel every other morning seems to be doing the trick.

Aside from bricks and grass, the hops are sprouting!  I was talking to another beer enthusiast last night who reminded me that hops need to have all but the strongest vines cut back to encourage growth.  I tried pulling one out of the soil only to find that it brought some roots out as well.  I carefully did the same to a few of the other crowns (the vine parts of the hops plant), and quickly potted the extracted vine + root.  If they take, I’ll have 5 more Cascade plants to give away.  Who wants some hops?

Other than that, planting has been slow.  Some basil from Greensgrow, cilantro, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme have filled a few planters.  It’s almost time to head back to buy my tomato plants, which will be hanging upside down as soon as I can built the supports.  Anybody else making this work for them?