Project Grow Classes - Click Here To Register!! Rain Gardens - June 16th 10am-12pm - The Leslie House @ The Leslie Science Center - 1831 Traver Rd Ann Arbor, MI with Susan Bryan of The Washtenaw County Water Resources Office You've vaguely heard that rain gardens are a good thing. You've also heard that you will get a break on your water bill if you installed a rain garden at your home. But what are they? how do they work? how should they be designed and where should I locate them? how do I even start? Susan Bryan, Rain Garden Coordinator of the Washtenaw County Water Resources Office, will cover these and other topics pertaining to rain gardens, so that you will feel confident about installing one yourself. Free, but donations are appreciated.
Getting Started with Keeping Bees - Date TBA - The Leslie House @ The Leslie Science Center - 1831 Traver Rd Ann Arbor, MI with Meghan Milbrath of Sand Hill Apiaries Interested in seeing what it would take to get started as a beekeeper? If you are considering having a backyard hive, a small apiary, would like a pollination boost for your garden, or are simply concerned about the plight of the bees, this class will help you determine a level of beekeeping involvement that is manageable and fun. This class will provide background to help make decisions and plans for many levels of beekeeping: - Benefits of different types of hives, and basic equipment
- What makes a good site for bees.
- Where to acquire bees/ what breed is best.
- How much time is required throughout the year.
- Relevant regulations and further information.
- How to help your local pollinators
Time will be available for questions answer and to examine the Leslie hives. This class is free but donations are appreciated!
|
The Discovery Garden Project Goes Permaculture!
Project Grow is making a huge effort to revitalize our Discovery Gardens at The Leslie Science and Nature Center. Many dedicated volunteers and board members have been meeting regularly to discuss, design, and implement these new gardens. This space is a great outreach and education opportunity for Project Grow, help us make it a success!
Volunteers are learning plant identification, garden design, and organic gardening methods. One of our newest regular volunteers even received a scholarship to a Chiwara Permaculture Retreat this weekend! We strive to empower and educate our volunteers in exchange for their hard work, fill out the form below and see how you can grow with us!
 | |
Nathan Ayers of Chiwara Permaculture examining the soil in the Apple Orchard @ LSNC.
|
|
Ask the Expert
By Ellen Rusten and Inge Ferguson, Master Gardener
Send us your questions, and we'll do our best to answer them in this column.
Question: Do you have any suggestions on how to best care for my tomatoes this summer? Sure! I've found that feeding tomatoes eggshells is helpful. Some people rinse their eggshells out,
but I don't bother. I just lay them in an old pie plate on top of the fridge,
let them dry out a few days, then put them in a baggie and smash them. I sprinkle the crumbs on the ground around my tomatoes. The benefits are at least twofold: the calcium prevents blossom end rot in the tomatoes and the sharp edges of the eggshell (even if they're powdered) break up the slime coat on slugs and other pests, killing them.
|
Project Grow Policy Questions From Gardeners
by Kirk Jones
I have had a few people ask me about Grow's policies on these things so I wanted to put them in the newsletter.
Organic Project Grow gardens are as organic as we can make a community garden. If someone is caught using non-organic materials, we give them a warning and suggest organic alternatives. If they persist, they are asked to stop gardening with us. This is obviously an honor system. Many people know their neighbor is using non-organic methods but short of actually seeing them doing it, there is not much anyone can do. We offer free classes in organic gardening and support organic methods in as many ways as we can but there is only so much we can do. If you have other ideas for how we can promote organic methods in a cost efficient way, please let me know!
Invasive Plants A couple people have asked whether they can grow things like arugula, dill, or ornamental morning glories because they re-seed. These plants do reseed, but are annuals which do not come back from the root, so Project Grow is not really concerned about them. They are not difficult to pull out and a single season of removing the seedlings and the problem is gone. Project Grow is mainly concerned with perennial invasive plants like mint and comfrey which come back from the root. If the roots are torn up with a tiller, they just come back in more places. In addition, the plants and roots are difficult to remove. Of course, the most common plant that behaves like this is the one all gardeners are familiar with - grass.
|
|
Sharing Project Grow's Plant Sale
While the major goal of the plant sale is to raise funds for Project Grow, it also affords us the opportunity to support and aid other gardening organizations in the area by sharing our plants with them. This year, several local non-profits requested and received plants. The Ann Arbor branch of the Women's National Farm and Garden Association received several sets of tomato plants for their silent auction at their annual luncheon in April. The Dexter Garden Club was given 150 plants, comprised of a mixture of heirloom tomatoes, peppers and basils, which they sold at their annual plant sale in June. The Center for Independent Living were given several flats of tomatoes, peppers and basils, which will be grown by their clients in the center's raised beds. Slow Food Huron Valley, for the second year, asked us to grow out locally developed tomato and pepper plants. Project Grow's new "Giving Garden" at Cobblestone Farm, is growing out one of each tomato variety sown this year. Produce from these plants will be donated to needy families, as well as support our Tomato Tasting events later in the year. Additionally, James Lee, who taught the Square Foot Garden class in April, received five flats of plants which he shared with gardeners in a community garden in Romulus. And finally, several hundred tomato and pepper plants were given away to Project Grow gardeners, who cleared them out within 8 hours! Despite giving away hundreds of plants, Project Grow still had the most successful plant sale ever. So thank you, members!
|
Board Member Profile - Nicole Premo
by Katie Jowiak
Originally from Northville, Michigan, Nicole grew up with a passion for ballet. Attending the Interlochen Academy in her teenage years, she eventually came to the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship and ultimately went on to graduate with Majors in English, French and Spanish and a minor in Program in the Environment. Currently, she works at the Google AdWords office in Ann Arbor, working to help her clients improve their online advertising.
Nicole Premo, the newest and, at the age of 24, the youngest board member is also relatively new to Project Grow. She was inspired to join after a walk through Grow's County Farm site in the summer of 2008. During that visit, Nicole and her now-husband Josh found themselves jumping down a rabbit hole that led to a heightened interest in the environment and good quality food.
Nicole had no prior experience with gardening before Project Grow, unless you count the time she spent weeding and planting flowers with her mother when she was very young. Now, however, she and Josh actively can, freeze and dehydrate food, compost at home, and make a routine stop at the farmer's market every weekend.
The first year at County Farm was disappointing, admitted Nicole. She and her husband dedicated themselves to an entire plot but only realized success with pole beans and tomatoes -and just a couple of pounds of each at that. Upon graduation in 2010, Nicole and Josh relocated their plot to Greenview community gardens (nearer to their new home) and have been planting and pruning there ever since.
With a few years under her garden belt, here are Nicole's tips to gardeners:
For newbies: Be patient, do your research, talk to more experienced gardeners, and know that even after all of that prep work, you aren't going to get everything right on your first try. The key is to remember that even if absolutely nothing grows during your first year, you shouldn't consider yourself a failure. Nicole, for example, stills finds that she is wholly unable to grow squash, cucumbers or anything of that sort, no matter how prolific other gardeners say those veggies are. She can't help but wonder if there isn't just some sort of squash-attacking fungus ingrained forever in the dirt of her plot...
To experienced gardeners she says: Though research confirmed that she should stage each tomato plant 2-3 feet apart, using a distance of 3-3.5 feet between plants not only made pruning a heck of a lot easier, it actually helped her to significantly reduce the chances of finding blight on her tomato plants.
Perhaps, however, the most interesting perspective Nicole has to lend to new and experienced gardeners alike is her very positive view of community gardening. To explain this, Nicole contrasted the hopefulness of community gardening and environmental stewardship to the more stressful and less-rewarding types of social activism that she had been involved in prior to PG: "I did a lot of work with prisoners with a Prison State of Art project and it just turned me into an angry social activist....Human rights abuse is rampant and you see it first hand; you feel like there is no hope for change because prison is not a sexy issue. It's still an important topic to me, but it's hard to engage in it deeply because it's very depressing and unhopeful--there's not a lot of silver lining."
Project Grow, on the other hand, has helped her to become a positive social activist. "Gardening with PG has allowed me to engage with a number of people who are all doing good things and who all have awesome outlooks on things even beyond Ann Arbor."
Nicole joined the Board of Project Grow this past October and, though she doesn't have a working title yet, she has focused mostly on marketing and communications. She refurbished and continues maintains Grow's website, for one.
Her reason for volunteering at the board level was simple: She had directly reaped the benefits of having garden space through PG and she wanted to ensure that the same opportunities were available to an ever increasing number of people over the long run. As a way to make that goal a reality, Nicole advocates the intersection of community outreach and technology. QR (quick response) codes on community garden signs and the development of a mobile site are two things you can look forward to her spending a good deal of time on this year. "Everyone should be able to walk past a garden, be inspired and right then and there be able to learn everything related to the simple concept of having community gardens. Community gardens can lend a whole new perspective to someone on their own community and on environmentalism in general."
Another thing she looks forward to is becoming more involved in community outreach. She learns a lot from Lucas DiGia, Grow's new vice president: "He has awesome people skills, . . . and he carries momentum in an administrative way," Nicole said. "We're changing demographics and the way we interact with the community. It's going to be exciting to see how it works out."
When asked what her favorite sweet treat was as a child, Nicole remarked that ketchup has been one of her favorite foods since she was a kid. To this day she gets ketchup cravings and will eat it on nearly anything. In case you're wondering, Heinz was her ketchup of choice until she recently found that it contained high fructose corn cyrup. Meijer brand does not, and now is top on her list for store-bought ketchup; it remains her one processed-food weakness.
|
Compost, Manure and Mulch Sources
Kevin Ernst
Kevin delivers marsh hay and compost.
734- 845-0368
kernst@a2gov.org
Julie Martin
Julie delivers hay and compost.
734-272-0796
julie@nettam.com
Judy Seling
Judy has a horse farm in Dexter and has manure to offer gardeners for free. Front end loader available at some times if you've got a pickup.
734-426-5371,
selingdesign@chartermi.net
|
|
