OK, this is way cool. I heard about it at the recent Green Town conference: New legislation has been passed to allow commercial food scrap composting in Illinois. And that will do, on a large commercial scale, what all us good gardeners have been doing for years -- return the nutrients from our kitchens to feed the microorganisms in our soil and ultimately feed plants. A major part of the garbage from our kitchens and restaurants could, ultimately, be diverted from landfills and put to good use.
They already are doing this in San Francisco, although they only started collecting a couple of months ago, so the first batch of compost probably isn't cooked yet. And it will take some logistical work to get this going in Illinois. But the Illinois Recycling Association is co-sponsoring a seminar on the subject Nov. 19 in Glen Ellyn. Check it out! Maybe a food waste composting effort could get going in your town.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Just not ready to plant bulbs
Once again, I was out in the garden today and couldn't bring myself to plant any bulbs. I have them -- have a list of them (more than 600) by species, cultivar and bloom time -- have a plan in writing for where each blessed one is to go in the garden -- all in writing. Have every bulb-planting tool known to man, of which all I ever use are a trowel and a shovel. But I just couldn't do it.
It didn't feel like time yet. The air was not crisp and bracing. Most of the leaves haven't begun to turn, apart from the stray 'Autumn Blaze' maple or gingko here and there. Despite day after day of drizzly rain and night after night deep into the 40s, there are brave little pink flower buds on the pot of impatiens on the patio table. The coleus has shriveled up and died, but the elephant ears, the geraniums on the stoop and many of the other annuals I've been waiting for frost to kill are hanging tough. The turtlehead and toad lilies are still blooming their hearts out, along with the goldenrod, Russian sage and lobelia out back in the sun. In my beds, everything gets packed tightly, and I cannot bring myself to cut down and clear away blooming perennials to make room to dig holes for bulbs.
I needed something to do to keep me out in the sun and fresh air today, so I got out the pole pruner and whacked back as much suckering growth as I could reach from the gnarly old mulberry over the patio and and the weedy Norway maple that keeps trying to make my part-shade bed into full shade. There was not a sign of leaf color on any of the branches that I brought tumbling down.
To plant bulbs, I need some physical cues, the way a poinsettia responds to day length and a crocus sprout responds to soil temperature. I need a frost to kill the impatiens and make them yucky melted green stems instead of brave little flower buds. I need colorful leaves cascading from the maples and the hackberry and the elms and the oak. I need to need to do some raking before I can tuck scilla bulbs into the lawn. I need a chill in the air that requires a turtleneck and a layer or two. I need to be able to ruthlessly yank out annuals that have died and hack away perennials that have gone dormant. It helps if there's a whiff of smoke in the air late in the afternoon from the neighbors' first wood fire.
I was pruning in a T-shirt this afternoon. T-shirt weather is not bulb-planting weather. It just won't do.
Now, I realize I am taking a risk. Warm as it may be (some days), the later it gets in October, the greater the risk of a sudden Arctic cold front that freezes the soil and leaves me with a lot of bulbs on my hands. Like that year (was it last year? the year before last?) when we got nearly a foot of snow the first week in December and me with hardly a bulb planted. I seized on one of those January warm spells (Chicago weather is nothing if not various) to scrape away mulch and shove bulbs into the chilly muck. A few of them bloomed.
Even if we don't get slammed, unless I get the bulbs in the ground soon they won't have many weeks to work on their root systems before the ground freezes up sometime during Advent. Every day they are out of the ground they risk drying out or getting moldy. And if I don't get them planted at all, they won't get the 14 weeks of winter chill they need to know to bloom next spring.
But I feel like I am caught in a gardener purgatory. All of the summer tasks are finished; all of the preparation-for-fall tasks are finished. I'm ready. I want it to be time for fall tasks -- collecting and shredding leaves and stashing them away, tucking up the dormant elephant ear tubers, planting the Narcissus 'Bridal Crown' and 'Tete a Tete' and 'Mount Hood' and the Allium ostrowskianum and Chionodoxa and the 'Elegant Lady' lily-flowered tulips. Can't I have a freeze please?
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
It didn't feel like time yet. The air was not crisp and bracing. Most of the leaves haven't begun to turn, apart from the stray 'Autumn Blaze' maple or gingko here and there. Despite day after day of drizzly rain and night after night deep into the 40s, there are brave little pink flower buds on the pot of impatiens on the patio table. The coleus has shriveled up and died, but the elephant ears, the geraniums on the stoop and many of the other annuals I've been waiting for frost to kill are hanging tough. The turtlehead and toad lilies are still blooming their hearts out, along with the goldenrod, Russian sage and lobelia out back in the sun. In my beds, everything gets packed tightly, and I cannot bring myself to cut down and clear away blooming perennials to make room to dig holes for bulbs.
I needed something to do to keep me out in the sun and fresh air today, so I got out the pole pruner and whacked back as much suckering growth as I could reach from the gnarly old mulberry over the patio and and the weedy Norway maple that keeps trying to make my part-shade bed into full shade. There was not a sign of leaf color on any of the branches that I brought tumbling down.
To plant bulbs, I need some physical cues, the way a poinsettia responds to day length and a crocus sprout responds to soil temperature. I need a frost to kill the impatiens and make them yucky melted green stems instead of brave little flower buds. I need colorful leaves cascading from the maples and the hackberry and the elms and the oak. I need to need to do some raking before I can tuck scilla bulbs into the lawn. I need a chill in the air that requires a turtleneck and a layer or two. I need to be able to ruthlessly yank out annuals that have died and hack away perennials that have gone dormant. It helps if there's a whiff of smoke in the air late in the afternoon from the neighbors' first wood fire.
I was pruning in a T-shirt this afternoon. T-shirt weather is not bulb-planting weather. It just won't do.
Now, I realize I am taking a risk. Warm as it may be (some days), the later it gets in October, the greater the risk of a sudden Arctic cold front that freezes the soil and leaves me with a lot of bulbs on my hands. Like that year (was it last year? the year before last?) when we got nearly a foot of snow the first week in December and me with hardly a bulb planted. I seized on one of those January warm spells (Chicago weather is nothing if not various) to scrape away mulch and shove bulbs into the chilly muck. A few of them bloomed.
Even if we don't get slammed, unless I get the bulbs in the ground soon they won't have many weeks to work on their root systems before the ground freezes up sometime during Advent. Every day they are out of the ground they risk drying out or getting moldy. And if I don't get them planted at all, they won't get the 14 weeks of winter chill they need to know to bloom next spring.
But I feel like I am caught in a gardener purgatory. All of the summer tasks are finished; all of the preparation-for-fall tasks are finished. I'm ready. I want it to be time for fall tasks -- collecting and shredding leaves and stashing them away, tucking up the dormant elephant ear tubers, planting the Narcissus 'Bridal Crown' and 'Tete a Tete' and 'Mount Hood' and the Allium ostrowskianum and Chionodoxa and the 'Elegant Lady' lily-flowered tulips. Can't I have a freeze please?
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Learn all about composting
So after I posted yesterday's composting effusion I came across a workshop where master Gardener Kate Bradley will teach about composting technique, Nov. 7 at Jacob's Well Church in Evergreen Park. It's $20. See details here.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Carrying on about composting
So, my brother sends me this link to an article about composters in the Wall Street Journal and asks me, "Do you have any experience with any of these gadgets?" To which I replied:
The WSJ actually missed some other elaborate, expensive, fussy composting devices that have been making the rounds of trade shows this year. Just as well.
I personally have four compost bins, all of designs too simple, dull, time-tested and practical to have qualified for that article. No, I am not speed composting. I am composting without a deadline. It works fine.
To break down my knowledge of the devices described in the Journal article:
1. Indoor composting machine: Saw it at the Museum of Science and Industry Smart Home exhibit in March 2008. Thought it was absurd. Still think so. Spend $400, plus electricity, to do something you can do for practically free? Use an electric machine to do something that various bugs and microorganisms have been doing effectively for millions of years? Please. (Speaking of which, a director of sustainability for the Sierra Club doesn't like compost when "bugs and things get on it"? Where does she think compost comes from? Bugs and things make it.)
2. Tumbler composters (including that rolling ball thing) can speed up composting somewhat, with fuss and bother, and are especially appealing to impatient people, the kind of people who can't restrain themselves from poking the chicken all the time when they barbecue. Tumblers moderately speed up the process because if you regularly shift your composting materials, you redistribute the bugs and things and their food supply, providing more opportunity for feeding and reproduction. You also mix in air, providing aerobic bacteria with oxygen, which allows them to multiply more.
Usually, the directions for a tumbler composter will urge you to chop up the plant materials before you add them. Of course that speeds up composting, because a smaller particle size increases the ratio of surface area to volume and therefore provides proportionately more surface area for the action of bacteria and bugs and things. If you cut up your plant matter before adding it to any bin, you will get faster compost. You can mince it with a chef's knife and get faster compost still.
I have enough things in my life to fuss with, so I don't need a tumbler composter.
You also can get compost faster in any bin if you carefully calibrate the proportions of carbon-rich materials such as leaves and nitrogen-rich materials such as grass clippings. I don't do that either. I just toss in whatever plant matter comes along. It doesn't break down at the theoretical top velocity or get hot enough to kill weed seeds and fungus spores, but eventually I get compost.
3. Vermiculture--worm composting--absolutely works. It can be done with a homemade worm bin made from a $10 plastic storage container with a lid and bedding made by shredding newspapers, and that's how most people I know do it. The expensive worm composters with the stacking layers make it happen a little faster and more tidily, and make it less messy (although not less fussy) to harvest the worm poo and worm pee that are the goal of the whole process.
Worm poo and worm pee (usually euphemized as "worm castings" and "worm tea") are potent soil amendments because worms have gazillions of microbes in their guts. They break down organic matter very efficiently, releasing many of its nutrients in a form plants can use. They reduce the particle size of the remainder to make it handy for other bugs and things in the soil to feed on and break down further. And the worm poo contains gazillions of microorganisms, which add to the variety of bugs and things in the soil. Healthy soil--soil that is best for plants--is soil that has lots of different kinds of bugs and things in it.
Where you can get into trouble with worms is if 1) You overfeed them, or feed them chunks of food too big to digest. They can only consume so much fruit or vegetable scraps; too much will only attract fruit flies. 2. You keep them too dry (they dry up and die) or wet (they drown, and die in an especially stinky way). 3. You are prissy about touching them. Sooner or later, no matter what kind of bin you use, you are going to have to touch a worm (and worm poo). They are of course completely harmless.
I don't have a worm bin because our basement is too hot and also is down four flights of stairs, and I am concerned that I would forget about the worms and let them starve or dry out. You don't have to fuss much with worms, but you do have to remember their existence.
Worm composting can be done in an apartment in a well-ventilated closet, but I don't have any closets near the kitchen. I've known people who keep a worm bin under the dining-room table. I'm not that hard-core.
As for outdoor compost, if I had a place out in the country, I would just have piles, and maybe turn them with a fork every couple of months. But needing to be relatively tidy in multi-unit housing in tight urban quarters, my personal bins are:
1. A bin of the type often called a holding bin. It is basically a rugged plastic perforated cube or cylinder about a yard across, with a liftable lid and a door at the bottom of one side. You put plant matter in the top, along with some soil or mature compost to get the crop of bugs and things started, and put the lid on. You keep adding stuff at the top. Meanwhile, the stuff toward the bottom is breaking down. After a few months you open the door at the bottom and, if the lowest layer of compost is done, you dig it out. You toss anything not composted back in the top. This will work more efficiently if you mix up the plant material as you put it in and if you occasionally poke or reshuffle the bin's contents to get air down into it. But I almost never do that. I have a special $35 compost-aerating tool that I haven't touched in years. Eventually I get compost.
The virtue of this bin is that it has a lid, is relatively neat so it doesn't freak the neighbors out and is fairly well fortified against varmints (although the top is now slightly squirrel-chewed). This is where I compost fruit and vegetable scraps. You can buy composters of this basic type for between $80 and $175; I think I paid about $100 for this one 10 years ago.
2 and 3. Two simple plastic bins each formed of a single sheet of sturdy but flexible black perforated plastic bent into a cylinder about a yard in diameter. I think I paid about $35 apiece several years ago. I use these for leaves, weeds and other stuff collected from the garden. I just toss it in, and after a few months I wiggle the cylinder right off -- the plastic slides nicely -- and dig out the finished compost from the middle of the resulting pile. I place the bin in a new spot, and dump in anything uncomposted to start a new batch. In the process, I have aerated the pile. I liked this method so well that I bought a second one of these bins. I hide them behind a hedge.
4. A space between our building and the building next door where I accumulate shredded leaves. Sometimes, at the bottom of the pile, I get something fine, dark and fluffy called leaf mold. It's basically what you would find in the bottom layer of leaf litter in the woods. It is different from compost because it is created entirely by fungi, with no help from bacteria, insects, arthropods and other critters. It does not pack the nutritional punch of compost, but it does improve the texture of sticky clay soil and is a good substitute for peat moss, much of which is not sustainably harvested. I rarely get leaf mold, though, because it takes a couple of years and I use up my shredded leaves much faster for mulch and as a compost ingredient.
I do use two devices to fuss with my compost: A milk crate, found in an alley, with which I sift it; and an electric blower-vacuum (they run $60-$100 at home centers), with which I vacuum up all the leaves as far as the cord will reach. Shredded leaves don't blow around or mat down when used as mulch, take up much less space than whole leaves in piles and break down faster into compost. (See particle size, above.) I am waiting eagerly for it to stop raining and for the leaves to fall so I can go out and suck them up with my leaf vacuum. I find it especially satisfying to suck up leaves other people have raked to the curb to be carted away.
Basically, you can spend as much money as you want to make compost, or none. You can fuss as much as you care too, and get as technical and precise in your formulation as your temperament and training insist upon, or you can just toss stuff in and let it do its thing. You can turn your compost pile every week or every month or hardly ever. The main difference in the result will be the length of time it takes to get usable compost.
Moral of the story: If you don't want your ear bent, don't be sending me links about composting.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
The WSJ actually missed some other elaborate, expensive, fussy composting devices that have been making the rounds of trade shows this year. Just as well.
I personally have four compost bins, all of designs too simple, dull, time-tested and practical to have qualified for that article. No, I am not speed composting. I am composting without a deadline. It works fine.
To break down my knowledge of the devices described in the Journal article:
1. Indoor composting machine: Saw it at the Museum of Science and Industry Smart Home exhibit in March 2008. Thought it was absurd. Still think so. Spend $400, plus electricity, to do something you can do for practically free? Use an electric machine to do something that various bugs and microorganisms have been doing effectively for millions of years? Please. (Speaking of which, a director of sustainability for the Sierra Club doesn't like compost when "bugs and things get on it"? Where does she think compost comes from? Bugs and things make it.)
2. Tumbler composters (including that rolling ball thing) can speed up composting somewhat, with fuss and bother, and are especially appealing to impatient people, the kind of people who can't restrain themselves from poking the chicken all the time when they barbecue. Tumblers moderately speed up the process because if you regularly shift your composting materials, you redistribute the bugs and things and their food supply, providing more opportunity for feeding and reproduction. You also mix in air, providing aerobic bacteria with oxygen, which allows them to multiply more.
Usually, the directions for a tumbler composter will urge you to chop up the plant materials before you add them. Of course that speeds up composting, because a smaller particle size increases the ratio of surface area to volume and therefore provides proportionately more surface area for the action of bacteria and bugs and things. If you cut up your plant matter before adding it to any bin, you will get faster compost. You can mince it with a chef's knife and get faster compost still.
I have enough things in my life to fuss with, so I don't need a tumbler composter.
You also can get compost faster in any bin if you carefully calibrate the proportions of carbon-rich materials such as leaves and nitrogen-rich materials such as grass clippings. I don't do that either. I just toss in whatever plant matter comes along. It doesn't break down at the theoretical top velocity or get hot enough to kill weed seeds and fungus spores, but eventually I get compost.
3. Vermiculture--worm composting--absolutely works. It can be done with a homemade worm bin made from a $10 plastic storage container with a lid and bedding made by shredding newspapers, and that's how most people I know do it. The expensive worm composters with the stacking layers make it happen a little faster and more tidily, and make it less messy (although not less fussy) to harvest the worm poo and worm pee that are the goal of the whole process.
Worm poo and worm pee (usually euphemized as "worm castings" and "worm tea") are potent soil amendments because worms have gazillions of microbes in their guts. They break down organic matter very efficiently, releasing many of its nutrients in a form plants can use. They reduce the particle size of the remainder to make it handy for other bugs and things in the soil to feed on and break down further. And the worm poo contains gazillions of microorganisms, which add to the variety of bugs and things in the soil. Healthy soil--soil that is best for plants--is soil that has lots of different kinds of bugs and things in it.
Where you can get into trouble with worms is if 1) You overfeed them, or feed them chunks of food too big to digest. They can only consume so much fruit or vegetable scraps; too much will only attract fruit flies. 2. You keep them too dry (they dry up and die) or wet (they drown, and die in an especially stinky way). 3. You are prissy about touching them. Sooner or later, no matter what kind of bin you use, you are going to have to touch a worm (and worm poo). They are of course completely harmless.
I don't have a worm bin because our basement is too hot and also is down four flights of stairs, and I am concerned that I would forget about the worms and let them starve or dry out. You don't have to fuss much with worms, but you do have to remember their existence.
Worm composting can be done in an apartment in a well-ventilated closet, but I don't have any closets near the kitchen. I've known people who keep a worm bin under the dining-room table. I'm not that hard-core.
As for outdoor compost, if I had a place out in the country, I would just have piles, and maybe turn them with a fork every couple of months. But needing to be relatively tidy in multi-unit housing in tight urban quarters, my personal bins are:
1. A bin of the type often called a holding bin. It is basically a rugged plastic perforated cube or cylinder about a yard across, with a liftable lid and a door at the bottom of one side. You put plant matter in the top, along with some soil or mature compost to get the crop of bugs and things started, and put the lid on. You keep adding stuff at the top. Meanwhile, the stuff toward the bottom is breaking down. After a few months you open the door at the bottom and, if the lowest layer of compost is done, you dig it out. You toss anything not composted back in the top. This will work more efficiently if you mix up the plant material as you put it in and if you occasionally poke or reshuffle the bin's contents to get air down into it. But I almost never do that. I have a special $35 compost-aerating tool that I haven't touched in years. Eventually I get compost.
The virtue of this bin is that it has a lid, is relatively neat so it doesn't freak the neighbors out and is fairly well fortified against varmints (although the top is now slightly squirrel-chewed). This is where I compost fruit and vegetable scraps. You can buy composters of this basic type for between $80 and $175; I think I paid about $100 for this one 10 years ago.
2 and 3. Two simple plastic bins each formed of a single sheet of sturdy but flexible black perforated plastic bent into a cylinder about a yard in diameter. I think I paid about $35 apiece several years ago. I use these for leaves, weeds and other stuff collected from the garden. I just toss it in, and after a few months I wiggle the cylinder right off -- the plastic slides nicely -- and dig out the finished compost from the middle of the resulting pile. I place the bin in a new spot, and dump in anything uncomposted to start a new batch. In the process, I have aerated the pile. I liked this method so well that I bought a second one of these bins. I hide them behind a hedge.
4. A space between our building and the building next door where I accumulate shredded leaves. Sometimes, at the bottom of the pile, I get something fine, dark and fluffy called leaf mold. It's basically what you would find in the bottom layer of leaf litter in the woods. It is different from compost because it is created entirely by fungi, with no help from bacteria, insects, arthropods and other critters. It does not pack the nutritional punch of compost, but it does improve the texture of sticky clay soil and is a good substitute for peat moss, much of which is not sustainably harvested. I rarely get leaf mold, though, because it takes a couple of years and I use up my shredded leaves much faster for mulch and as a compost ingredient.
I do use two devices to fuss with my compost: A milk crate, found in an alley, with which I sift it; and an electric blower-vacuum (they run $60-$100 at home centers), with which I vacuum up all the leaves as far as the cord will reach. Shredded leaves don't blow around or mat down when used as mulch, take up much less space than whole leaves in piles and break down faster into compost. (See particle size, above.) I am waiting eagerly for it to stop raining and for the leaves to fall so I can go out and suck them up with my leaf vacuum. I find it especially satisfying to suck up leaves other people have raked to the curb to be carted away.
Basically, you can spend as much money as you want to make compost, or none. You can fuss as much as you care too, and get as technical and precise in your formulation as your temperament and training insist upon, or you can just toss stuff in and let it do its thing. You can turn your compost pile every week or every month or hardly ever. The main difference in the result will be the length of time it takes to get usable compost.
Moral of the story: If you don't want your ear bent, don't be sending me links about composting.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
A blog about the 61st Street garden
Now there's a new blog about the 61st Street community garden that is going away. It's a very Hyde Park kind of blog. Takes me back to undergrad . . .
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The end of a community garden
Had this sad memo forwarded to me:
Demolition of the 61st Street Community Garden -- 10/07/09
Dear Community Gardeners --
We are sad to have to tell you that the University of Chicago has informed us they will not change their plans to demolish the garden, nor delay the demolition date, nor continue any further discussions. The stated reason is that the garden space is essential to the construction of the new Chicago Theological Seminary building at the southeast corner of 60th and Dorchester. They have said they intend to begin the demolition shortly after Halloween.
We had hoped to convince the University that the value of the garden outweighed the practical construction convenience. We argued that there are reasonable construction alternatives more gentle than demolition. In the end we were unable to persuade the University. The final decision was made at the highest administrative level. Although we do not yet have other sites to relocate gardeners, we are working on a number of possibilities.
In the meantime, we will be at the garden on Sunday, October 18 and 25, 10:00 to 4:00, with a pick-up truck to help gardeners relocate the hardware items (trellises, cold frames, etc.) and perennial plants they wish to save. And on Sunday, November 1, same hours, we will have the last garden BBQ and pot-luck.
We hope the 61st Street Community Garden has given you as much joy as it has given us,
-- Connie Spreen
-- Dan Peterman
-- Jamie Kalven
-- Jack Spicer
To me, this is terribly sad. But it underscores the crucial importance of getting control of any land on which you start a community garden.
Many gardens are started on vacant lots, either with or without the permission of a landlord who doesn't have any immediate use for the parcel. But over time -- often after the community garden has thrived for many years and given many people joy -- the owner does come to have a use for the land. And in my experience, the neighbors' pleasure and benefit from a garden never wins over the interests of the property owner who paid for the land and pays the taxes, presumably because he or she expected to have a use for it in the long run.
I grew up in Hyde Park in urban renewal days when there were vacant lots all over. Many were colonized by enthusiastic gardeners. Almost all those lots are built up now. It is the nature of neighborhoods to change.
Conflicts such as this one at the 61st Street garden contributed to the founding of organizations such as NeighborSpace and the Community Greening program at Openlands. Among other things, they can advise would-be community gardeners on figuring out who owns the land, what might happen to it in the future and possibly how to get control of it. It's crucial to remember: Don't expect a garden to go on forever on land you don't own.
That's a hard thing to say to a gardener, or to someone burning with enthusiasm to convert a rubble-strewn gang hangout into a place that a community cares for and watches over. It's like trying to convince someone who's fallen madly in love to slow down and think it through. But like swept-away love affairs, hasty community gardens often end badly.
Still, I hope at least some of those Hyde Park and Woodlawn gardeners find spaces for their cold frames and perennials before spring. If not? I can testify it's certainly possible to grow tomatoes in containers on a 3rd-floor porch.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Demolition of the 61st Street Community Garden -- 10/07/09
Dear Community Gardeners --
We are sad to have to tell you that the University of Chicago has informed us they will not change their plans to demolish the garden, nor delay the demolition date, nor continue any further discussions. The stated reason is that the garden space is essential to the construction of the new Chicago Theological Seminary building at the southeast corner of 60th and Dorchester. They have said they intend to begin the demolition shortly after Halloween.
We had hoped to convince the University that the value of the garden outweighed the practical construction convenience. We argued that there are reasonable construction alternatives more gentle than demolition. In the end we were unable to persuade the University. The final decision was made at the highest administrative level. Although we do not yet have other sites to relocate gardeners, we are working on a number of possibilities.
In the meantime, we will be at the garden on Sunday, October 18 and 25, 10:00 to 4:00, with a pick-up truck to help gardeners relocate the hardware items (trellises, cold frames, etc.) and perennial plants they wish to save. And on Sunday, November 1, same hours, we will have the last garden BBQ and pot-luck.
We hope the 61st Street Community Garden has given you as much joy as it has given us,
-- Connie Spreen
-- Dan Peterman
-- Jamie Kalven
-- Jack Spicer
To me, this is terribly sad. But it underscores the crucial importance of getting control of any land on which you start a community garden.
Many gardens are started on vacant lots, either with or without the permission of a landlord who doesn't have any immediate use for the parcel. But over time -- often after the community garden has thrived for many years and given many people joy -- the owner does come to have a use for the land. And in my experience, the neighbors' pleasure and benefit from a garden never wins over the interests of the property owner who paid for the land and pays the taxes, presumably because he or she expected to have a use for it in the long run.
I grew up in Hyde Park in urban renewal days when there were vacant lots all over. Many were colonized by enthusiastic gardeners. Almost all those lots are built up now. It is the nature of neighborhoods to change.
Conflicts such as this one at the 61st Street garden contributed to the founding of organizations such as NeighborSpace and the Community Greening program at Openlands. Among other things, they can advise would-be community gardeners on figuring out who owns the land, what might happen to it in the future and possibly how to get control of it. It's crucial to remember: Don't expect a garden to go on forever on land you don't own.
That's a hard thing to say to a gardener, or to someone burning with enthusiasm to convert a rubble-strewn gang hangout into a place that a community cares for and watches over. It's like trying to convince someone who's fallen madly in love to slow down and think it through. But like swept-away love affairs, hasty community gardens often end badly.
Still, I hope at least some of those Hyde Park and Woodlawn gardeners find spaces for their cold frames and perennials before spring. If not? I can testify it's certainly possible to grow tomatoes in containers on a 3rd-floor porch.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Toad lilies, a small pleasure of fall
Isn't that a lovely little thing? It's a toad lily. It blooms for me every October, just as the petals of the Japanese anemones have fluttered away. There are dozens of these little purple-spotted orchidlike flowers--about an inch across--growing up stalks with handsome shiny dark-green leaves. The plant thrives in shade, with no attention except top-dressings of compost. Planted by the front walk where I can pause to enjoy it, the toad lily gives me something to look forward to every fall.
I don't know what species of Tricyrtis this is -- my mother gave me the clump years ago, and she didn't know. Probably Tricyrtis formosana or Tricyrtis hirta. But if you're interested, Richard Hawke of the Chicago Botanic Garden did an evaluation of Tricyrtis species a couple of years ago; find his report here.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
The march of the houseplants
The autumn redeployment is underway. The houseplants are on the move.
About this time every October, I feel like armies could be moved with less effort. And yet I've been doing it for more than 15 years.
There are about 18 plants, more or less, that make the descent every spring from the third and fourth floors of my apartment building to the garden. They live in plastic pots, some of which slip into terra-cotta containers of various shapes around the patio or spotted under trees or in the beds. Others are disguised by coir liners in hanging baskets around the patio.
In spring, it's a lovely feeling. The plants are pretty sad after a long winter in north-facing windows. They are dusty and thin for lack of sunlight. They've been gasping in low humidity and heated air. Some may have spider mites or other afflictions. I feel like I'm liberating them, moving them out into the sun (well, shade) and the cleansing rain, out where predatory bugs can clear up the mites and aphids. Some I repot if they need it. I know they'll grow green and happy through the summer and be lush and full by fall.
I've usually taken a bunch of cuttings and rooted them over the winter to use for annual containers and underplanting: purple heart vine as a groundcover where the jack-in-the-pulpit dies away, variegated spider plants to take over a shady spot after the Virginia bluebells yellow and droop. These plants do fine beneath trees and between buildings because most of them are understory plants in their native tropical forests. That's why they can stand the shade of a Chicago interior.
It's the autumn retreat that is such a struggle. As the nights hit the high 40s, I know I'd better get it done. I dither for a week or so. But these are tropical and subtropical plants, and even when it doesn't downright freeze, such low temperatures are tough on them. So I try to get all this done at least a couple of weeks before the likely first frost.
First I have to make some hard choices. There are only so many windows, even north-facing windows, in my apartment, so only a few of the once-hopeful cuttings will make the cut. And always there's a plant or two from last year that fails the acid test: It's just not worth carrying back up three flights of stairs.
I've pretty much saturated my neighbors, family and friends with houseplants, but I'll try one more time to give some away. The scorned will be left to their doom in the first frost.
Next I have to scrounge through the collection in the basement to find the right size of basket for each of the chosen ones, and make sure each of these cachepots has a functional plastic liner to catch surplus water. A pinhole leak can be a major headache.
This year, as most years, I couldn't do it all in one day. I got the plants as far as the back porch stairs and gave out. They sat there, stationed step by step, for almost a week. I kept telling myself that they were at least too high to be killed by a ground frost.
None of these plants is anything special. I have no rare orchids or remarkable bromeliads. I don't know any of the cultivar names and have never bothered to try and figure them out. You could pretty much match the collection at any Home Depot. These are plants that are, obviously, not fussy.
But they are friends of mine. We've been through a lot together. We have a history. I know who gave me the foxtail fern and the cuttings for the spider plants and the prayer plant and the cactus and the begonia, although I could never remember all the many folks I've given cuttings to. I remember who I was with when I bought the staghorn fern. I remember every house and apartment the ficus and the arrowhead have ever lived in, and the people who spent time with me there. Some of these plants are decades old.
So when I get the plants upstairs (as I finally did last night) and arranged on their various tables and windowsills (which I have not; they're all on the dining-room floor) they won't just be air cleaners or sources of oxygen. They won't just soften my decor. They won't be just a taste of nature or a glimpse of summer in the depth of a Chicago winter. They are companions, protectors, memory-keepers. Like memories, they may dwindle and grow thin. Some will be lost. But most will live with me until it's spring again.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Openlands fights to keep Hinsdale forest preserve preserved
I'm late catching up with this, but Openlands, the Chicago-area land conservation organization, is seeking help convincing the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County not to give the village of Hinsdale a 40-year lease on part of the Bemis Woods Forest Preserve, to erect buildings and "dramatically alter this area."
"Before the District's upcoming board meeting, on October 7, please call or write the Commissioners and ask them not to surrender our region's precious open spaces," Openlands pleads. Check out their arguments here.
No Olympics for Chicago: good or bad?
So it was over quick: Chicago will not be hosting the Olympics in 2016. I have to say, I'm not quite heartbroken.
The Olympics would have been a great image booster for the city. They would have showcased it to the world in a whole new way. But there were always nagging doubts about the specifics of the plan. Most attention focused on the money, but my question always was: How would this make Chicago a better city?
Would this be the Millennium Park of Olympics? Or would it be the Soldier Field of Olympics?
There was a lot of vague talk about public transit, for example, but the bid plan didn't actually include major permanent improvements to the CTA, Pace or Metra. The bid said that the stadium in Washington Park would be temporary, but in fact, the part left behind would have been a major permanent structure plotzed in green space in a Frederick Law Olmsted park.
The old Michael Reese Hospital site would have been redeveloped as athletes' housing, then sold for condos. That would have meant demolishing the old hospital campus--and although the whole complex (where my brother was born) isn't worth saving, it includes several notable buildings connected with Walter Gropius that are worthy of preservation.
There were a lot of tempting prospects in the Olympic bid: Better pedestrian access to the lakefront across Lake Shore Drive, for example. Getting Northerly Island finally redeveloped as parkland. Showcasing Washington Park and reviving the struggling neighborhood around it.
But those good ideas are still out there. Now the city can sort through the wreckage of the Olympic planning, pick out those aspects that really would make Chicago greener and better, and move on them--with its own interests in mind, not the IOC's.
If Chicago had the will to get this Olympic bid together in the depths of a recession, it has the will to do other great things. If Patrick Ryan figured he could raise all that private money to fund the Olympic Games, let him put that fundraising prowess to work to get other things built that will have a more lasting value.
He could start, for example, by raising money for an underpass to Buckingham Fountain visitors can get beneath Lake Shore Drive to reach the lake.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
The Olympics would have been a great image booster for the city. They would have showcased it to the world in a whole new way. But there were always nagging doubts about the specifics of the plan. Most attention focused on the money, but my question always was: How would this make Chicago a better city?
Would this be the Millennium Park of Olympics? Or would it be the Soldier Field of Olympics?
There was a lot of vague talk about public transit, for example, but the bid plan didn't actually include major permanent improvements to the CTA, Pace or Metra. The bid said that the stadium in Washington Park would be temporary, but in fact, the part left behind would have been a major permanent structure plotzed in green space in a Frederick Law Olmsted park.
The old Michael Reese Hospital site would have been redeveloped as athletes' housing, then sold for condos. That would have meant demolishing the old hospital campus--and although the whole complex (where my brother was born) isn't worth saving, it includes several notable buildings connected with Walter Gropius that are worthy of preservation.
There were a lot of tempting prospects in the Olympic bid: Better pedestrian access to the lakefront across Lake Shore Drive, for example. Getting Northerly Island finally redeveloped as parkland. Showcasing Washington Park and reviving the struggling neighborhood around it.
But those good ideas are still out there. Now the city can sort through the wreckage of the Olympic planning, pick out those aspects that really would make Chicago greener and better, and move on them--with its own interests in mind, not the IOC's.
If Chicago had the will to get this Olympic bid together in the depths of a recession, it has the will to do other great things. If Patrick Ryan figured he could raise all that private money to fund the Olympic Games, let him put that fundraising prowess to work to get other things built that will have a more lasting value.
He could start, for example, by raising money for an underpass to Buckingham Fountain visitors can get beneath Lake Shore Drive to reach the lake.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Contest: Photograph nature in the city
Have you noticed all the natural beauty in Chicago? No, not architecture. Not Buckingham Fountain. Not the Bean. Natural beauty: lake, sky, plants, animals. Have you noticed with a camera?
The Chicago Park District is now accepting entries for its first annual "Nature in Chicago" photography contest, to lead to a traveling photo exhibit. The deadline for entries is Nov. 15. Not that the photos have to be taken within that time frame, but that's the period during which they will accept submissions through Flickr. Find the full details here.
The park district is not requiring photos of pristine and undisturbed nature, which would be a stretch, since they are requiring that all the photos must have been taken within the city limits. Virtually all of the city has been a construction site at one time or another if it's not downright landfill. And they are not requiring that the photos have been taken within the parks.
Which is interesting. Sort of goes along with the whole "Chicago Wilderness" concept of the city (and region) as one great, continuous habitat, which we humans inhabit along with a lot of other things that make their homes wherever they can find a spot in the greatly altered landscape. Monarch butterflies don't care if the milkweed on which they lay eggs is in a park or a back yard or a railroad right-of-way. Rabbits are not concerned with whether their breakfast is a wild meadow, somebody's prized salad garden or the annual flower beds in Grant Park. And remember the coyote who dropped by the downtown Quiznos a couple of summers ago? As far as the coyotes are concerned, it's all their territory.
So maybe you have some cool nature-in-the-city shots on your hard drive or your photo sharing site. Or maybe this will inspire you to get out and poke a lens around. There's all that lakefront. There are all those parks. There are a surprising number of patches of recreated prairie around those parks. There's the Chicago River. There's the North Park Village Nature Center. There's Lake Calumet. Who knows what you might find in your viewfinder?
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
The Chicago Park District is now accepting entries for its first annual "Nature in Chicago" photography contest, to lead to a traveling photo exhibit. The deadline for entries is Nov. 15. Not that the photos have to be taken within that time frame, but that's the period during which they will accept submissions through Flickr. Find the full details here.
The park district is not requiring photos of pristine and undisturbed nature, which would be a stretch, since they are requiring that all the photos must have been taken within the city limits. Virtually all of the city has been a construction site at one time or another if it's not downright landfill. And they are not requiring that the photos have been taken within the parks.
Which is interesting. Sort of goes along with the whole "Chicago Wilderness" concept of the city (and region) as one great, continuous habitat, which we humans inhabit along with a lot of other things that make their homes wherever they can find a spot in the greatly altered landscape. Monarch butterflies don't care if the milkweed on which they lay eggs is in a park or a back yard or a railroad right-of-way. Rabbits are not concerned with whether their breakfast is a wild meadow, somebody's prized salad garden or the annual flower beds in Grant Park. And remember the coyote who dropped by the downtown Quiznos a couple of summers ago? As far as the coyotes are concerned, it's all their territory.
So maybe you have some cool nature-in-the-city shots on your hard drive or your photo sharing site. Or maybe this will inspire you to get out and poke a lens around. There's all that lakefront. There are all those parks. There are a surprising number of patches of recreated prairie around those parks. There's the Chicago River. There's the North Park Village Nature Center. There's Lake Calumet. Who knows what you might find in your viewfinder?
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.
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