A Visit to Queen City Acres

This week, students from the Community Teaching Garden visited one of the sites for Queen City Acres in Burlington’s New North End. Nestled behind a home on a quiet cul-de-sac, one would not expect to find such a dense and productive growing space. It was there we met Ethan Thompson, the urban homesteader behind Queen City Acres.

Ethan Thompson of Queen City Acres. 

For the CTG students, this was a great opportunity to learn more about some of skills, practices, and tools that can be helpful when transitioning to growing on a larger scale or using a production model. Our plots at the Ethan Allen Homestead and Tommy Thompson Community Gardens tend to measure around four by twenty feet. Ethan’s growing space in the New North End is about one tenth of an acre. While it is densely planted, it is spacious enough that his plants appear happy and healthy and clearly produce a high yield.

Ethan explains the principals of a tomahook system and lower and lean planting to students.

Many of the CTG students were particularly interested in the scaffolding Ethan uses to grow his tomatoes, implementing a lower and lean technique (see above). He also had an interesting collection of tools which make managing his homestead with just a small, dedicated crew of weekly volunteers a feasible venture. Among the tools that were new to students were the tilther, the jang seeder, the flame weeder, and the Quick-Cut Greens Harvester. Both the tilther and the greens harvester are powered by a cordless drill, and it was fun to see a common tool repurposed to power garden equipment.

A Quick-Cut Greens Harvester

Thank you again to Ethan for taking the time to show us around, and for making our visits to your homestead both educational and fun!

To learn more about Queen City Acres, check out their website, Facebook page, or stop by  one of their weekly pop-up markets at MetroRock Station in Essex (Thursdays 6-9) or Scout & Co. in the Old North End (Fridays 4-7).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preserving the Harvest: Medicinal Herbs and Flowers

It is hard to believe the middle of July is upon us! After a cool, rainy start to the season, we have had abundant sunshine in past weeks, which has led our gardens to take off! We are now harvesting our first cucumbers, zucchinis, and summer squash, as well as herbs, greens, and flowers. While there are some staples we get to enjoy all season, the students in the Community Teaching Garden have not forgotten to savor those foods we have just a fleeting moment to enjoy. For many, that means preserving the harvest just as quickly as these seasonal treats come and go. This spring and early summer, we have already enjoyed lemon balm, rhubarb, and strawberry jams, candied angelica, pickled fiddleheads, kimchi, and a variety of pestos, all made with ingredients from the garden. We look forward to preparing and sharing more of our harvest as the season progresses!

 

In order to make the most of our harvest, the students in the Community Teaching Garden advanced course have begun to focus their attention on the herbs and flowers they would like to process throughout the season. Specifically, we have begun to collect and dry calendula, lavender, mint, and lemon balm to include in teas, salves, and balms. Additional herbs we hope to incorporate in our preparations include skullcap, chamomile, yarrow, and bee balm. A simple approach to drying herbs and flowers is to hang them in a shady, dry spot with some airflow (see below). Alternatively, it is quite simple and inexpensive to build drying screens at home. Either way, it is important to make sure that herbs are completely dry before storing them in order to prevent rot.

Mint dries in a student’s home.

We will also be using fresh herbs and flowers to make tinctures, butters, and honeys, and we look forward to sharing our recipes with you!

 

 

 

 

After the Flood: Practices to Support Your Garden Following Excessive Rain

Burlington has experienced substantial rain in the past several months, and over the 4th of July weekend, we received a large thunderstorm which created flood conditions in the Intervale. In addition to wreaking havoc on a number of the commercial farms based there, sections of the Tommy Thompson Community Garden were completely submerged, leaving students in the Community Teaching Garden class asking how they can recover from a flood.

Erin stands forlorn in the flooded Community Teaching Garden. 

In class this week, our dear teacher Carolina provided both advice and caution as well as hands-on demonstrations of how to care for gardens after they flood. Her first advice: wait until your garden dries before trying to assess the damage. While Erin (above) has taken care to walk only on the paths in the garden, soil is particularly vulnerable to being compacted when waterlogged. It may be difficult to resist the temptation to care for your plants, but it is worth the wait.

Just one day later, Ehrin stands in our almost dry garden! 

After your garden dries, look for signs of where the water came from. The Intervale is located on a flood plain along the Winooski River. Had the flood source been the river, wood chips, straw, and debris would be strewn around the garden. Had the river flooded, our gardens would have risked contamination and needed to be cleared. Thankfully, the flood was caused by rain. The straw and wood chips in our garden settled more or less in the same places we had arranged them before the storm. Take a careful look, smell, and feel of your soil. In our plots, we found that the soil was quite muddy and stinky. That odor was caused by bacteria which breeds in anaerobic environments. As a quick response, you can perforate your soil using a pitchfork to facilitate drainage (see photo below).

After assessing the source of the damage, remove any plants that are particularly affected. In our gardens, the majority of the tomato plants in the flooded area needed to be removed, as tomatoes can be quite sensitive to excessive water. Next, push aside straw mulch if you use it, in order to let both the mulch and the soil dry. Then, aerate  your soil and add fresh compost to boost the nutrients and to allow those nutrients to travel more easily. Remove the lower leaves of plants which had been waterlogged (see photo above) and transplant new seedlings if you wish to replace the plants that you lost. Finally, avoid planting seeds while the soil is still very moist in order to prevent them from rotting. Having taken these steps to care for our gardens, the students in the Community Teaching Garden are hoping for a strong recovery over the next couple of weeks. We hope that if you were affected by the flood that your gardens are well on their way to recovering!

 

 

 

Looking Back, Planning Ahead

At the start of this week’s class at Tommy Thompson, we spent some time checking in on our own plots and adding a dose of kelp to everything (except the solanaceae, which received Tomato-tone). Carolina brought us some extra herbs, peppers, and cucumbers to fill in our plots, the compost was turned, weeds were plucked, and some of us tended to communal areas as time allowed.

After some hands-on work in the garden, we headed over to the picnic shelter to discuss our seasonal calendar. Carolina had printed out blank calendar pages from April – October to help us visualize our timeline for the season. We also had some candied Angelica and chocolate covered pretzels to munch on while we worked on our plans.

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It was great to collaborate and see what we had accomplished so far, and what we could expect in the second half of the season. These calendars will come in handy next year when we set off on our own garden adventures, whether it be at home or in another VCGN plot.

Since our last class, we’ve unfortunately had a great deal of flooding in the garden. It seems to have made a miraculous and full recovery in the past few days, thanks to abundant sunshine and warm temps. Here’s hoping our plants are well-hydrated and healthy moving forward.