Urban gardening: The real green revolution

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Urban gardening, the gardening in the towns and suburbs, is highly political. Anyone who belittles this movement blocks his own view of this societal change.

If one would want to measure the success of a movement on the number of those that claim that it cannot possible be any good then the Urban Gardening Movement has during the few years that it has been in existence come a long way already.

Unfortunately there are some writers in newspapers and other media who belittle this to the extent that the state that those who long for the countryside and for gardening and farming should move to the countryside because towns and cities have been sealed, poisoned, and so on. They find it laughable that people are planting Marigolds in front of their doors or tomatoes on their balconies.

But many of those writers have actually no idea, it would seem, what this urban gardening and urban farming is all about. It is not about just growing food for oneself but to actually grow food for the people in the city, and in some cases those urban gardens are created in such a way that everyone can have the food for free (or almost for free) and the movement is growing regardless.

Urban gardening does not mean annexing of ground for private use but free access for all to grow food. It is a fact that the almost 500 urban community garden in Germany, for example, are some of the few places in the gentrified towns where people from different social strata meet in the public realm and interact by creating such gardens and working them.

Those urban community gardens are an innovative contribution to the restructuring of the living together in towns and cities where there is an increasing delineation between the different classes (and I do use the word class/classes here deliberately) which produces a great many risks for our living together in those spaces.

While growing produce for use by all, in community gardens “managed” and worked by all, by people from different strata and classes in the city, is one part of it such gardens also and especially aim to overcome the borders that have been created between people of different groups in society, in our increasingly gentrified towns and especially cities.

Through gardening together in reclaimed public spaces collective forms are created that can be seen as part of an ever strengthening commons movement even and especially in our towns and cities. Those forms could be the basis for new political framework to change society and all for the better.

Though not everyone may be realizing the potential that the urban gardening movement has to change the political structure and through it society as a whole. The powers-that-be, however, are well aware of its potential and thus use the media to belittle those that participate in this, whether in the form of community urban gardens or simply by trying to be somewhat more autark by turning their front and back yards and their balconies, etc., into spaces in which to grow at least some of their food.

People who are independent – to some extent – from the markets and people who join in community of whatever kind are perceived as a threat by the powers-that-be and thus every attempt possible is being made to discredit them in they eyes of the majority not as yet involved.

© 2017

Grow Your Own Mushy Peas From Suttons

Mushy peas? Mmmmmm ... yes please!!

Ah yes, nothing like a bag of chips and some mushy peas on a wet winter night to warm the cockles of your heart. The Suttons team know all about fish and chips coming from sunny Devon and they have decided to bring a little bit of the seaside to your garden!

So if you fancy growing your own mushy peas … just like the ones from childhood trips to the chippy. Look no further than Suttons new Pea ‘Maro’. This premier ‘marrowfat’ variety is ideal for making your own mushy or as some proper old Devonians call them ‘soapy’ peas. Harvest your peas when the pods are fully dry and mature and the peas are hard and firm. Peas can also be soaked for stews and casseroles. These little beauties can also be eaten fresh when the pods are young - although the peas are less sweet then most garden varieties they do have a distinctive savoury taste.

Sow from March for delicious peas from May.

• Makes perfect mushy peas
• Harvest when peas are hard & firm
• Rehydrate for stews & casseroles

Packet of 300 seeds costs £2.79


Suttons Mushy Peas - Just Like One From the Chippy

Source: Suttons Seeds www.suttons.co.uk

This press release is presented without editing for your information only.

Full Disclosure Statement: The GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW received no compensation for any component of this article.

3 Things Getting In The Way Of Your Urban Farm—And What You Can Do About It

Growing food in the city isn’t without its challenges, but there are things you can do to start living out your farming dream right where you are.

The homesteading life—a productive yard, some chickens, a canner bubbling on the stove, perhaps a little extra cash coming in from farmers market sales—has never been a more popular dream. As a hedge against the fragility of corporate employment, as a psychological antidote to the intensity of modern life, as a solution to questionable and uncertain food production, there are more and more people wanting to find a way to bring their food production "on site” to their urban or suburban yard.

But obstacles can make it difficult to take the leap—or even to feel like it is possible to get started. Here are some ideas that might help you get started working around those challenges and headed towards a better life.

Read more here.

Homeless People Plant a Rooftop Garden and Feed the Shelter Organically

Heartwarming stories about individuals and organizations offering compassion and help the homeless abound and most of us enjoy being reminded of the goodness in our fellow humans and being presented with a ray of hope within what is a widespread challenge that faces our world and local communities; and while idealistic gestures that are very often well-intending are certainly feel-good and help bring attention to the issue of homelessness, the issue itself remains.

While it has come to public understanding that one of the biggest problems faced by homeless people is loneliness and lack of connection with other humans, the real issues of being out of sync with the system itself remain and those issues need to be explored and understood.

This is why the Metro Atlanta Taskforce for the Homeless, is catching some big media attention.  The Taskforce is serving the homeless in the community by allowing homeless people to serve themselves.  A rooftop organic garden in the city is designed to feed displaced people green natural healthy foods and to establish routine capabilities of self-sufficiency, otherwise known as Agorism.This truly allows individuals without homes the opportunity to empower themselves in tangible ways.

The rooftop garden,operated by the Metro Atlanta Taskforce for the Homeless, provides marginalized individuals routes through which their root problems can be addressed, rather than simply providing temporary solutions to cover symptoms.

Read more here.

Academia and allotments: the students growing their own food

Thanks to a growing awareness of sustainability issues, students around the country are swapping evenings on cheap beer for afternoons spent growing their own fruit and veg. Natalie Leal looks at the rise of edible campus initiatives

As students head off to university this autumn many will be able to dig up some campus-grown potatoes or pick an apple on the way to their halls of residence thanks to a recent rise in edible campus initiatives across the UK.

More than 20 such growing projects now exist around the country, see students growing fruit and vegetables on site with some keeping chickens or beehives. Enterprising undergraduates at universities from Exeter to Newcastle have set up the student equivalent of farmers’ markets and veg box schemes with some even producing their own beer, honey or jam.

This may not sound like typical student behaviour, which stereotypically involves cheap cider and beans on toast, but the organisers of the projects stress that there is, in fact, a large and growing number of engaged young people desperate to do something practical. They want to make a positive difference – both in their immediate environment and to the world – and they are doing this through food.

One of the first institutions in the UK to start looking into the idea was the University of Brighton. Inspired by the first ever edible campus at McGill University in Canada, architect and research initiatives leader Andre Viljoen and his colleague Katrin Bohn wanted to create something similar. But, he says, 10 years ago people were generally nonplussed by the idea.

Read more here.

LA County Gets Rolling on Turning Ugly Vacant Lots Into Useful Urban Farms

LA has been pushing for tax breaks for owners of vacant urban lots who lease out the neglected land to people who want to farm on it, and now the LA County Board of Supervisors (which would have to approve the tax breaks before they could be implemented) is doing their part to make it happen. County Supes voted today to start hammering out the details of the eventual program that would allow for property owners to get at least a five-year property tax break on lots under three acres that are leased to people who want to grow food on them,says the City News Service.

The tax break would only apply for privately-owned lots in certain, to-be-determined areas of the county, and cities that fall within the boundaries would be able to choose whether they want to be part of the program or not, but some members of the LA City Council have already expressed their support for having LA opt in.

Read more here.

Agroecology is Working – But We Need Examples to Inspire Others

Using the wrong measure of success is certain to lead to the wrong solutions being adopted. In the economy at large, the narrow pursuit of GDP growth remains the primary tool used by policymakers to assess progress. This has motivated economic strategies that have delivered short-term GDP boosts, but in ways that have harmed the environment and disadvantaged many groups in society.

Food systems are no different. If the measures of progress are too narrow or too focused on the short term, the long-term outlook will suffer. In food systems, success is often reduced to increased yields, net outputs and net calorie availability on a global level. More is better and quantity trumps quality.

This allows many crucial factors to fall through the cracks. How resilient are yields in the face of environmental shocks and disease outbreaks? How much do they vary from year to year? Where and to whom is food made available, and with what nutrient content? How well do these systems preserve the natural resource base for the future? How much employment do they generate, and under what conditions? Do consumers know where their food comes from and how it was grown?

Though some proposals have been made to address this gap, there is no consensus yet on the metrics that can capture these factors comprehensively. But we do have emerging examples of food and agriculture systems that are capable of sustaining, stabilizing and improving yields, preserving the environment, providing decent employment and secure livelihoods, and delivering diverse, nutrient-rich foods – in the places where they are needed most.

Read more here.

11 Easy Plants for Your Fall Garden

If your summer garden was a bit of a disappointment, first of all, know you are not alone. It was a wet, soggy, soaking summer around our parts (as well as most of the U.S.) and the gardens grew fungi instead of tomatoes this year.

I have great news if this was your garden … it's time for fall planting. Squeal!

I have had the most wonderful time the past couple of weeks putting in my fall garden. It's been cool and refreshing, and I have found complete and utter joy in ripping out my soggy, sad, dilapidated summer plants. Good riddance!

There is nothing like a fresh start, especially in the garden.

This is where I want to be. Right here on my knees, playing in the dirt, planting things and watching them grow. There is just nothing else like it, except maybe milking the cow, or bringing home baby piglets, or a kiss from a calf.

Here are 11 easy plants you can put in right now for a fall harvest:

Read more here.

Gardening Is Good For Your Health

Gardening Is Good For Your Health – It Can Fight Stress, Keep You Limber, And Improve Your Mood!

ardening is one of the most pleasurable experiences for Gillian Aldrich, 42, who started growing vegetables in her backyard some time ago!

Gillian is now working on planting a bed of hydrangeas, butterfly bushes, rose Campion, and—her favorite—pale-pink hardy geraniums. As she digs in the garden, her kids often play around her, sometimes taking a break to pick fresh strawberries.

Instead of just watching them, Aldrich is playing along. She says: “When you sit at a desk all day, there’s something about literally putting your hands in the dirt, digging and actually creating something that’s really beautiful. There’s something about just being out there that feels kind of elemental.”

Aldrich isn’t the only one who feels this way. Many gardeners view their hobby as the perfect antidote to the modern world, a way of reclaiming some of the intangible things we’ve lost in our “dirt-free” existence.

The sensory experience of gardening “allows people to connect to this primal state,” says James Jiler, the founder and executive director of Urban GreenWorks. “A lot of people understand that experience. They may not be able to put it into words, but they understand what’s happening.“

Read more here.

Across Africa, a New Kind of Container Garden Is Changing Women’s Lives

Growing food in sacks uses fewer resources and less labor and provides high yields too.

Residents of the Kibera slum in Kenya tend to vegetables planted in sack gardens. (Photo: Tony Karumba/Getty Images)

Some people have the talent to take a simple idea and adapt it into a solution with far-reaching benefits. Take Veronica Kanyango of Zimbabwe, a grassroots organizer who works in home-based health care and hospice for people with HIV/AIDS. She’s managed to take a couple of bags full or dirt and turn them into an agrarian movement.

“You show her a sack garden, and she’s turned it into a network of women who are producing lettuce and tomatoes for the Marriott hotel,” said Regina Pritchett of the Huairou Commission, a nonprofit that works on housing and community issues for women across Africa.

Using bags of the sort you stuffed yourself in for a race on field day—which are filled with manure, soil, and gravel—sack gardening or farming has been successfully adopted in areas of Africa where agriculture faces distinctly different challenges. It’s proved an effective way to grow food in regions with drought as well as areas prone to flooding, in rural communities and in urban slums. At the Grassroots Academy coordinated by the Huairou Commission in the spring of 2014, Pritchett said, the concept exploded.

“Of all the practices in the room, that’s the one people were most excited about. There’s not a high cost to get started, you’re not waiting on someone to give you seed funding. You could grab a sack and do that tomorrow,” she said.

Read more here.

5 Colorful Cauliflower Varieties To Grow

With a massive heatwave underway here in South Carolina, I can’t help but daydream about fall and its cool-weather crops. It’s the only way to stay sane in the 100-plus degrees with what seems like 100-percent humidity. This hopeful thinking has me considering which types of cauliflower to include in the garden this year. The following are a short list of several cultivars that can add some interest to this often-overlooked vegetable.

1. Purple of Sicily Cauliflower

Steph L/Flickr

An Italian heirloom, Purple of Sicily cauliflower is known for its delicate mild flavor and gorgeous deep-purple heads, which range between two and three pounds—large enough to serve an entire family. It also has a high degree of insect resistance, making a great choice for the garden. When cooked, the brilliant purple color fades to light green.

Read more here.

Perennial Vegetables: Grow More Food With Less Work

Combine permaculture gardening techniques and edible landscaping ingenuity in your garden by growing perennial vegetables. You’ll be surprised by how little work garden perennials require when compared with the work you expend growing annuals. Plus, our list of best perennials and resources guide will get you started with this sustainable, practical gardening technique.

Suppose a new agricultural breakthrough promised higher yields, a longer growing season and much less work. These claims can become real benefits for those willing to make a change to a way of gardening that more closely mimics nature.

Nature’s ecosystems always include not only annual vegetables, but also perennials — edible roots, shoots, leaves, flowers and fruits that produce year after year. Besides fruit-bearing trees and shrubs, more than 100 species of perennial vegetables grow well in North America.

By growing perennials, you’ll create a more diverse garden that ultimately needs less from you: You’ll spend less time working and more time harvesting.

“It’s as close to zero-work gardening as you can get,” says Eric Toensmeier, author of Perennial Vegetables. “Our perennial vegetable beds planted 11 years ago still bear food, and all we do is add compost and mulch once a year.”

What’s more, growing perennials extends the harvest season without a greenhouse, cold frame or other device. You can harvest Jerusalem artichokes all winter as long as you mulch enough to keep the ground from freezing.

Read more here.

The 16 Best Healthy, Edible Plants to Grow Indoors

From farmers’ markets and Community Supported Agriculture, to urban farms and rooftop gardens, to produce delivery services, more and more people across the U.S. are embracing farm-fresh food.

And for good reason: Locally grown produce tends to be better for the environment and for local communities than its store-bought counterparts. Growing food at home also ensures that growers know exactly where their food comes from and how it was grown (no need to worry about deceptive food labeling). If you’re not whipping out the pruning shears yet, consider this: Learning new skills is good for our brains.

Luckily, you don’t need to be a farmer (or even live near a farm) in order to reap the benefits of home-grown produce. If you have a sunny window (or two, or five) and a bit of extra time on your hands, then you’re capable of growing your own food right at home. Read on for our roundup of 16 easy, healthy plants to cultivate indoors — and how to get them growing! 

General Growing Tips

Before you get started, here are a few tips that will be handy to keep in mind no matter which of the plants from this list you choose to grow.

1. All of these plants require well-draining soil, which means you will either need to use a pot with holes in the bottom or pile up some stones in the bottom of your pot before adding soil (so that the water can drain through the stones). If you choose to use a pot with holes in the bottom, be sure to put a shallow drainage container under the pot so the water doesn’t drain onto your floor, shelf, or windowsill.
2. For each of these plants, feel free to purchase potting mix at a garden center or make your own (You can also choose whether or not you want to stick with organic soils). Each plant grows best in a slightly different soil environment, but this general potting mix recipe will help get you started.  
3. Many of these plants grow best in areas that receive lots of sunlight and remain fairly warm throughout the day. Sunny windows are extremely helpful for growing plants indoors. However, if you don’t have sunny windows (or if the area is a low temperature), grow lights will be your new best friend — they help maintain optimal light and temperature conditions for plants regardless of outside weather or indoor conditions.

Read more: http://greatist.com/health/best-plants-to-grow-indoors

7 Crops to Kick Off Your Spring Garden

Is your green thumb itching to get gardening again? These cold-loving crops will help you get the growing season started.

Most of us gardeners eagerly anticipate getting our hands in the dirt after a long winter indoors. To get a jump on the spring growing season requires a bit of planning, as well as knowledge of cold-tolerant vegetables and season extension techniques.

A key is to prepare the soil in the fall, so you can begin planting seeds in the spring as soon as the soil has completely thawed and warmed to the seed variety’s minimum temperature for germination. Keep in mind that heavy soils, such as clay, compact when worked while wet, preventing drainage. Allow them to dry out adequately before working them, especially if you didn’t prepare them in the fall.

Growing crops that germinate at cooler soil temperatures also helps you get an early start. (It also helps if they can withstand unexpected late frosts, though isn’t necessary if you use row covers or cold frames when the temperature is expected to dip below freezing.) To determine the soil temperature, stick a soil thermometer about 1 inch deep into the soil and allow it to stabilize. If it’s at the minimum recommended temperature, it’s time to kick off planting your spring garden. Here are seven crops to try.

1. Beets (Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris)

Some beet varieties, like heirloom Chioggia, mature in as little as 45 days, making them ideal for an early crop. When soil has warmed to 40 degrees F, plant seeds 3/4 inch deep, 1 inch apart, in rows spaced 12 to 18 inches apart. When seedlings are 4 inches tall, thin them to 4 to 6 inches apart by cutting off the tops. Don’t pull seedlings, as this might uproot nearby plants you want to keep.

Beets tolerate soil low in nutrients but need even water to prevent becoming bitter, so keep soil moist, but not soggy, throughout the growing season.

Begin harvesting beets when they reach 1 inch in diameter, or if you want larger crops, wait until they reach 3 inches in size. Larger beets can become pithy. Beets can withstand light frost, but should be harvested before the heat of summer, which slows sugar production, making them less palatable.

Read more: http://www.urbanfarmonline.com/urban-gardening/backyard-gardening/7-crops-to-kick-off-your-spring-garden.aspx

Developing a sustainable living may require urban agriculture

Imagine living in an inner city and buying your vegetables and fruit just moments after they've been harvested. Imagine waking up to the rustic sound of a cock crowing. Imagine your household waste and sewage serving to grow even more food in a highly sustainable way. This is the promising picture painted by the EU-funded Supurbfood project.

"The goal of the Supurbfood project," Han Wiskerke tells youris.com, "is to make urban and peri-urban agriculture much more important than it is now." Wiskerke is the coordinator of the project and a professor of rural sociology at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands. He goes on to explain that the project also aims to close the food-waste cycle, to shorten the food supply chains, and to create multifunctional land use in cities.

The results of Supurbfood cannot be quantified just yet since the project will continue until October 2015. But it is clear that promoting urban agriculture is likely to encounter some hurdles. Among them, one of the issues is "legislation, most of all," the coordinator explains, "For instance human excrement is often forbidden as manure in food production; yet it can be a very valuable component of compost."

All the other possible problems can be dealt with. The lack of space, for example, can be solved by growing vegetables, nuts, and fruit in parks. Poultry and small animals can be kept on rooftops, and in petting zoos. And 'greening' a city makes it a nicer place to live in, with cleaner air and more recreational facilities. Multifunctional land use is key according to Wiskerke.

But the implementation of this ambitious plan is not all straightforward. "Pollution, however, is a problem," he admits. "Not so much for air pollution; you can wash that off easily, but pollution of the soil; that needs to be monitored carefully."

Other scientists in the field are generally in favour of the project concept. And they point out that the project's inherent process of international dialogue is one of its crucial and very innovative aspects. In addition, the sharing of experiences and exchange of best practice makes it unique, and the most promising project of its kind.

Read more: http://phys.org/news/2014-10-sustainable-require-urban-agriculture.html

THE MOST PROFITABLE PLANTS IN YOUR VEGETABLE GARDEN

Many vegetables can be expensive to purchase by growing the most expensive vegetables in your garden and buying the least inexpensive vegetables at your grocery store you can easily help drop your food budget.  This especially important for people like me with very limited space to grow everything that I consume.

It may be impossible to put a price on the satisfaction of bringing in a basket of produce fresh from your garden.  As well as the enhanced flavors from having truly fresh produce from your garden compared to that of your local supermarket.  Though when I was harvesting my potatoes this summer with my daughter I did have the thought, Would it have been smarter for me to grow something else in this space?  I estimate out of the 4-5 square feet I used for these plants I probably got about $4-5 worth of potatoes.

I did a little research first to determine yields of various plants per square foot and secondly what the value (organic supermarket prices USD) of the yielded produce at harvest.  Given I am a city dweller with a fairly small footprint for my vegetable garden (about 30-35 square feet) making decisions on what to buy at the supermarket and what to grow in the garden may be a huge money saver with just a few dollars invested in some seeds for your vegetable garden

Now from the results below you can see the winners for the most produce value per square foot are many of the leafy green vegetables/herbs (cilantro, lettuce, chives, dill, Swiss chard) next comes many of the larger vine plants (tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, peas) with many of the root plants taking up the rear.  Now much of this makes sense where many of the vine plants grow on trellises and are allowed to spread, which I guess is sort of cheating the square foot rule but I will let it slide.  Compared to the root plants whose production is entirely dependent on the space allowed in square footage they have to grow as well as these are normally inexpensive produce items to begin with.

Read more: http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/most-profitable-plants-in-your/

Succession Planting: Keep It Coming

A smart succession plan means fresh food from spring until snowfall.

Get Acquainted

Succession planting—following one crop with another—is the most important tool for maximizing a garden's yield. Creating a detailed succession plan now eliminates the guesswork of what and when to plant later on in the season. Get started by making a list of all the vegetables you want to grow and developing an understanding of their individual growth habits and preferences.

Catalog descriptions and seed packet instructions offer each vegetable's vital statistics, including when to first plant in spring, how many days the variety takes to reach maturity, how much space it requires, and if it is frost-tolerant.

Consider, too, how long each vegetable produces. Some crops, such as radishes and cress, have a harvest period of just a few weeks. Carrots, beets, and other vegetables with an intermediate maturation time may be sown in spring and again in late summer for fall and winter harvests. Others, including tomatoes and peppers, are long-season crops that bear continuously, while Brussels sprouts, corn, and winter squash remain in the ground for several months but only bear at the end of their season.

Read more: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/succession-planting-keep-it-coming

Cold Frames, Greenhouses, and Beyond: Four-Season Gardening

Cold frames, greenhouses and hoop houses help extend your gardening efforts into all four seasons.

Learning to garden in four seasons – rather than one (summer) and fragments of two (spring and fall) – can be a bit like learning to think in four or five dimensions. But the rewards, say Colorado gardeners Rick and Shirley Visser, are mind-boggling abundance: fresh salads in December, carrots in February, spinach in March, and a whole new appreciation of what’s possible.

“Some people want to plant a garden and have it over with. But I’ve had more produce in fall than I’ve ever had in summer,” Visser says.

For Adam Montri, who, with his wife, Dru, and young daughter, Lydia, runs Ten Hens Farm in Bath, Michigan, the difference a high-tunnel hoop house made on their farm was the ability to reap an income year-round rather than just for the summer season.

In his job educating about hoop houses, a joint project of Michigan Food and Farming Systems and Michigan State University, Montri also noticed a less tangible, but infinitely richer, change.

“You always get a community growing around the farmers’ markets,” he says. “This makes that com-munity happen year-round.”

For many farmers in the upper two-thirds of North America, planting under cover – whether that cover is as minimal as compost-heated planting beds with floating row covers or as intricate as a 30-by-90-foot greenhouse erected over cherry trees – can alter an operation’s destiny and the farmer’s relationship with the land.

The Vissers became four-season gardeners – a term they coined in tribute to Eliot Coleman’s groundbreaking 1992 book, Four-Season Harvest – when they moved from a higher elevation down to Longmont, a town outside Boulder, Colorado. Another daughter was selling her small, turn-of-the-century home with an extra-deep lot, and Rick had long craved the space, soil and less harsh climate. When remodelers came to make changes to the house and make his garage an art studio, he had them rework the yard as well – incorporating six raised beds, a mini-orchard and composting area, and two sheds. Soon after, he built a cold frame to the specifications in Coleman’s book.

Read more: http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/cold-frames-greenhouses-and-beyond-four-season-gardening.aspx

Succession Planting: Keep It Coming

A smart succession plan means fresh food from spring until snowfall.

Get Acquainted

Succession planting—following one crop with another—is the most important tool for maximizing a garden's yield. Creating a detailed succession plan now eliminates the guesswork of what and when to plant later on in the season. Get started by making a list of all the vegetables you want to grow and developing an understanding of their individual growth habits and preferences.

Catalog descriptions and seed packet instructions offer each vegetable's vital statistics, including when to first plant in spring, how many days the variety takes to reach maturity, how much space it requires, and if it is frost-tolerant.

Consider, too, how long each vegetable produces. Some crops, such as radishes and cress, have a harvest period of just a few weeks. Carrots, beets, and other vegetables with an intermediate maturation time may be sown in spring and again in late summer for fall and winter harvests. Others, including tomatoes and peppers, are long-season crops that bear continuously, while Brussels sprouts, corn, and winter squash remain in the ground for several months but only bear at the end of their season.

Create a Planting Schedule

Assembling all of this crop information into a planting plan is a bit like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle of the garden. Simplify things by drawing a spring, summer, and fall diagram of each bed. Begin plugging vegetables into the diagram, with early, quick crops followed by long-season ones. Be sure to note the approximate date each crop needs to be sown or transplanted and when the expected harvest date is.

Read more: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/succession-planting-keep-it-coming

Rediscovered Roots

These uncommon vegetables are short on glamour but rich with culinary possibilities.

Cultivating something old, but new to our gardens, is a wonderful way to connect with our ancestors—or in this case, with our “roots.” And daikon, celeriac, salsify, and scorzonera are root vegetables with old-world associations. Although common in European or Asian cooking, these crops barely register with American gardeners today. What a shame: All four offer nutritious top greens as well as flavorful roots that extend the harvest season well into winter. It’s time more gardeners tried these honorable heirlooms.

Salsify and Scorzonera

The young leaves of salsify and scorzonera are edible, and their flower stalks can be blanched and served as you would asparagus. Yet it is the roots that are most prized by gourmets. Salsify produces pale-skinned, often forked roots with tiny rootlets, while scorzonera resembles a petrified brown carrot without the taper; preparing the long, slender roots requires some effort. Both vegetables are southern European natives, widely cultivated in the United States during the 18th century but largely absent from seed catalogs today. They are readily available in European produce markets during the late fall and winter months, a tribute to old-world traditions.

“We grow salsify and scorzonera as an ornamental crop,” says Doug Croft, horticulturist at Chanticleer, a public garden near Philadelphia where the vegetable garden is more about design than harvest. Transitioning from a summer garden to fall often leaves gaps in the rows, but Croft discovered that salsify produces a brilliant green rosette during the fall months when many other vegetables are past their prime. “As a bonus, the plants send up flower stalks with gorgeous composite flowers,” Croft says. As biennials, the plants bloom in their second year: purple flowers for salsify and yellow for scorzonera.

Read more: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/rediscovered-roots