Seed Starting Extravaganza!

Today is a special day, because the seedlings have started to emerge! I'm so grateful for the Heirloom Gardens members, who have already stepped in to help create our wonderful urban farm.

On Sunday Heirloom Gardens had its second seed starting meetup event. We had a great team of 5 people, and were able to start over 2,000 seeds!

Getting the seed trays ready for filling.

The whole crew - Sundari, Tom, Lee, Paula and Anne.

Tom filling the trays with our custom seed starting mixture (actually, it's the recipe from Square Foot Gardening).

Paula fills a tray while Tom does some watering.

Anne is holding down the fort in the greenhouse.

Our organizational chart set up on top of the recycling bin. The calculator came in handy --- 216 seeds need to be planted, we can do 72 seeds to a tray....

Sundari filling a tray while Lee works with the seeds.

Our photographer (my husband, Brian) peering through the greenhouse window at Anne, Tom and Lee as they work.

Sundari modeling the farm-chic wardrobe, complete with knee patches!

Some of the afternoon's work.

Happy times.



Lee takes a minute to play catch with Lucy.

Our HG members left with lots of energy, but Lucy was pooped!

Building the Greenhouse

Building a greenhouse is an essential part of our urban, multi-plot gardening plan. It allows us to give seedlings a headstart and make more efficient use of the available garden space.

Our starting supplies. We're doing our part to support Lowe's and Home Depot!

The footprint. There's a concrete RV parking space on the south side of our house - a perfect spot for the greenhouse!

The long view.

Next we built the door and window.


Our own custom (aka improvised) peak roof design. Our original plan called for a hoophouse, but we couldn't get pipe that was long enough. So, we adapted and asked for Dad's help (the high school math teacher) to try and get the angles and lengths correct. Thanks, Dad!

It was a cold day!

Wrapping everything in 6mm plastic.

My favorite part of the back is the window, which flips down. A big help when the greenhouse gets cookin' mid-day!

And now for the tables. We decided that stacking tables were our best shelving option....


...so we made a LOT of them. 4' x 2', and both 4' and 2' high versions. The shorter tables are a little less wide, so they can slide under the taller tables.

Ta-da!!!

During the day the short tables can be pulled into the aisles to get more sun. The greenhouse is 11' long and 12' deep, and it can hold 61 planting trays with the current setup.

Artie is checking it out.

How Veggies Have Changed

I came across an interesting article that details the changes in veggies over the last few decades. Not only are the store-bought vegetables that most of us consume less tasty than what our grandparents ate, but they also contain fewer nutrients. This is due to a number of factors, including the pesticides and chemicals used in industrial agriculture, breeding produce for easy shipping and large size rather than taste, and the 1,500 miles (on average) that our jet-lagged veggies travel in order to reach us.

You can click here to check out the article and read more!

What We're Growing!

Much of the fun of heirloom vegetables comes from the wonderful variety of colors and shapes from these old plants ---- tomatoes that are red, pink, orange, yellow, green, purple, white, and even striped! There are also plants with great names, and great stories. Like the Mortgage Lifter tomato, which got its name back in the 1930's when it was developed by a radiator repairman who sold the seedlings for $1 each and managed to pay off his $6,000 mortgage in just 6 years!

I've posted a list of the seeds we'll be starting in 2009 on my website. You can check it out by going to:

http://www.eatwhereUlive.com/whatwegrow.htm

Meet the Parents!

Today Brian and I paid a visit to Crowley Manor in Conifer (about 40 minutes from Denver). We met with Pat, who breeds beautiful Nigerian Dwarf goats. We're hoping to buy a couple of doelings for our own yard!

The goat pen.



The four lovely ladies.



Posing with Sundance (Sunny), the mama of my soon-to-be babies!



Sunny is checking us out.



Tsunami Joe, the handsome papa.



Coco and Lilly Blue hamming it up for the camera.

We have a full slideshow of pictures from our visit, including some shots of the goat barn/setup. Click here for more lovely goat pics: http://www.eatwhereulive.com/Goats/Photos/Goats-1-25-09.html Many thanks to Pat for giving us time with her goats and sharing so much info with us!

Eat Here Now - Growing Food in Denver

I've recently connected with the folks from Transition Denver and Grow Local, and I'm very excited about the projects they have planned. I will be at this event on Tuesday night. I hope you can join us!

“Eat Here Now–Growing Food in Denver”
A Panel on the Growth of Urban Agriculture

Come join a few “movers and shakers” in the local food movement, and explore answers to some of the following questions: What is Community Supported Agriculture, and how is it playing out within the city limits? How can we grow more healthy food locally and get it distributed in effective ways? How can we use gardening techniques that are affordable, sustainable and use less resources? And much, much more……..

Panelists include:
Andy Nowak – Slow Food Denver
Ellen Rosenthal – Living Earth Center
Lisa Rogers and Tom Sorenson – Feed Denver
Faatma Mahremanesh – Solarlivity
James Hale – Produce Denver
Debbie Dalrymple - Sense of Colorado
Jim Sincock – Rocky Mountain Grower’s Directory

WHEN: Tuesday, January 13 from 7-9 p.m.
WHERE: At the Mercury Café
2199 California St., Denver
COST: There is a $5 suggested donation.

Sponsored by:REBUILDING COMMUNITY AND SELF-RELIANCE
Transition Denver is a group of local citizens who have joined the rapidly-growing, worldwide Transition Initiative Movement . Transition Initiatives empower communities from the grassroots level to squarely face the challenges of peak oil, climate change and financial instability and find ways to collectively and drastically reduce carbon emissions, significantly rebuild resilience and strengthen our local economies.

This event is one of a series of Transition Denver events called Transition Fridays. Contact Dana Miller at 303-300-3547 for details, or visit www.transitioncolorado.ning.com for information about this event or about Transition Denver, as well as the other Transition Initiatives springing up in Colorado and other cities around the United States.

Who Says You Can't Garden In Winter?

Ah, winter gardening.... the ultimate recycling in action. There are many ways to turn lawns into food, but if one has a lot of time they can choose to simply "mulch" their grass. Composting requires greens (nitrogen) and browns (carbon). Grass is a green, and cardboard, dry leaves, and newspaper are all browns. The hope is that together they will break down and form wonderfully rich soil.

So, I set about collecting boxes from the grocery store, newspapers from my parents, and dry leaves from my neighbors. The result was several hours of work outside and a (temporarily) very ugly backyard. But I got to think a lot about the process of growing food, and turning waste into nourishment.

It's fun to see that so many things can become compost. The lawn staples that held down the weed blocking fabric came in a little cardboard box, which promptly went right on the lawn as soon as the staples were gone. I had stored the newspapers in paper grocery sacks, which also went on the lawn. The sacks were from Whole Foods and advertised that they were made of recycled materials. Indeed! Now I'm going to recycle those bags into food!

Gardens do this all by themselves. Growing food is all about the cycle of birth, death, and re-birth. Over-ripe food rots back into the soil, leaves fall, and old plants get eaten away by worms. All of it goes to nourish the new seedlings in the spring.

I've found you can get very philosophical when left alone with a project like this for several hours. So now, here are the photos of the job....

***Note to any readers that may be considering donating their yards to Heirloom Gardens --- don't worry. We'll use a sod cutter and compost the sod for the garden. :)

The first step is to put down a layer of cardboard over the grass (and snow).

Next I added the leaves. Clover was a big help.

Lucy helped, too.

I finished with a layer of newspapers, then covered everything with the weed block fabric (which lets moisture in) and stapled it down.

Here's what it looks like when it's done.

The yard in progress.

Lucy likes the black fabric because it heats up so nicely in the sun.

It's good to rest after a long day of work!