This is part six of a six-part series on seed starting. Part one can be read here. Part two is here. Part three is here. Part four is here. Part five is here.

While the forecast calls for a brief return to a wintery chill the next few days, the calendar is progressing headlong into spring, and the earliest daffodils–along with the just-unfurling green buds on the dreaded and omnipresent multiflora rose–are here. Soon, the earth will warm, and your seedlings will eagerly sink their bound roots into the big, living universe of your own garden’s soil.

TRANSPLANTING
Transplanting is an intuitive and extremely satisfying garden activity. Before transplanting, your bed is empty and shapeless; after transplanting, your garden comes alive with the rhythm and structure created by the rows, grids, circles, and freeform shapes your new transplants trace.

Most of us began our garden journey with an act of transplanting, usually a few tomato or basil or lettuce seedlings purchased from a garden center. And while transplanting is quite straightforward, there are definitely some things to keep in mind for the best results. Here are five thoughts.

1. Only transplant properly hardened off seedlings. Hardening off seedlings–the process of gradually exposing them to longer and longer periods of unprotected, outdoor conditions (starting with about two hours per day, working up to ten or twelve over several days)–is essential to ensure the survival of seedlings grown indoors. There’s no room for fudging here–especially with warm-weather crops such as peppers, eggplants, melons, and tomatoes. If you grew it indoors, it must adjust gradually to outdoor conditions. If you raise your seedlings in a cold frame, full hardening off is not necessary–just set your trays outside your cold frame for a day before transplanting.
2. Transplant only on cloudy days or on late afternoons of sunny days. The act of transplanting is, by nature, stressful on the seedling. Bright, hot sun and dessicating winds amplify the shock: the poor seedling spends its limited resources in a struggle for water and purchase in the soil, rather than just settling in. Young seedlings are much happier when they are given a cool, moist, dark breather before facing their first day in a whole new environment.
3. Prepare your bed thoroughly first. Incorporate compost and soil amendments before transplanting. It’s best if the seedling can have at least a few days without much disturbance to its root system. It also needs a good, fertile environment in which to sink its roots, and few weeds to out-compete it. Work to provide these conditions before putting the seedling in the ground. Even if the seedling is getting root-bound, even if the calendar says its time to transplant, wait: the work of correcting poorly prepared soil is far more painful than exerting a little patience beforehand.
4. Transplant gently. Once all the above conditions have been met, cut into the surface of your soil with a trowel or hand-held hoe to create a space for your seedling. Eject your seedling carefully from its container, and then set it into the space you’ve made. Except for tomatoes, nearly all vegetables should be transplanted so that the level of the soil surrounding the seedling is even with the level of the garden soil (tomatoes can be sunk more deeply–all the little hairs on the stem grow into roots). With your hands, push the surrounding soil towards the seedling to “seal it in”; pat the soil down so that the seedling is held in place firmly, as vertically as you can get it. Water in with a gentle setting on your hose (longer than you think–be sure that you do more than just a surface watering), and you’re done!
5. Consider the cutworm. If you’re gardening a new plot–and often if you’re not–you may face the dreaded cutworm, a small crawly creature that loves to fell young seedlings. It does its thing by forming a circle fully around the stem of a seedling and then chomping down. You’ll instantly recognize the damage–it really does look like a felled tree. It mainly affects tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, but it occasionally visits the stemmy bottoms of brassicas, too. To prevent this heartbreaker from ruining your day, put two toothpicks alongside and touching the stems of your transplants, one on each side of the stem. Do this at transplant time. The cutworm won’t be able to fully encircle the seedling and will give up. (Rarely do cutworms venture higher than the height of an average toothpick.)

That’s pretty much it! A few days after transplanting, your seedling should be well rooted, and cultivation with a hoe can take place.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Growing a garden is an invitation for trouble: thousands of other beings–from deer and woodchucks to bacteria and fungi–will be eyeing your vegetables just as hungrily as you are. While a good fence will keep the larger foes from your crops, the smaller ones are usually held at bay by the plant’s own defense systems. The key is providing the conditions that allow the plant to be as strong and resilient as possible.

Below is a list of common troubles seen in garden plants during their early years, along with tips on keeping your seedlings strong, healthy, and resilient.

1. Damping Off. Damping off is probably the single most common ailment seen in seedlings grown indoors. It is a fungal affliction in which the young seedling’s stem withers at soil level; the seedling topples over and usually dies. The conditions that cause damping off are a combination of moisture and poor air circulation and moderate temperatures. The key to avoiding damping off is to refrain from overwatering–let the surface of the soil dry out a bit before each watering. It also helps to improve air flow, either with a fan or by moving your trays from a stuffy room to one that experiences greater air exchange. Some crops are notorious for damping off problems even when near-optimal conditions are provided: onions seem to be the most susceptible. (We lose some to damping off nearly every year.) Consider a damped off seedling or two to be a rite of passage–and then act quickly to improve conditions.
2. Leaves turning purple. This condition arises in April and later, mainly, when your young seedlings have exhausted the available phosphorus in their potting soil. Organic phosphorus is released slowly, and only limited amounts are available in mixes that are designed for seedlings. If your seedlings are hanging out for too long in their trays without being transplanted, you will likely see their leaves begin to turn purpleish. Luckily, nearly all seedlings will recover from this state when transplanted to a healthy, well-composted garden soil; they may shed a leaf or two, but they’ll probably do fine in the end.
3. Yellow leaves/failure to thrive. Yellowing leaves are usually a symptom of nitrogen deficiency, which is usually only a problem in a potting soil that is not fully amended with compost and organic amendments such as seedmeals. Be sure that if you are using a sterile soilless mix that it either comes with fertilizer included or you are providing some yourself–or, better yet, choose an organic, compost-based mix from the start. But do be aware that any potting soil has limited resources to share with a seedling; keeping a seedling in a tray for too long will allow the plant to suck all the nutrition from the soil. Staying on top of transplanting will prevent such conditions.
4. Tall, spindly seedlings. Thin, stretched out, pale seedlings are called “leggy.” The condition arises from two causes: inadequate light and an overcrowded tray. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: a sunny windowsill is usually not bright enough to grow good seedlings. Most leggy seedlings are grown on such a windowsill. Get a shop light with fluorescent bulbs or build a cold frame–you’ll be amazed at how legginess goes away completely. If you believe your light is sufficient, examine the density of your seedlings: once the leaves of neighboring seedlings actually begin to touch each other, a race for light and air begins that makes the seedlings grow taller without filling out horizontally at the same time. If this is the case, either transplant immediately (if the timing is right for the variety) or pot up your seedlings to larger containers.

And with that, this series on seed-starting comes to an end. There is much more that could be written–growing food is an incredibly complex (and yet straightforward!) endeavor about which I could talk or write almost indefinitely. However, there are orders to ship and seeds to sow here, soil to prepare and a fence to mend. Spring is here, and the window of opportunity for so many great garden efforts is opening. Dive in, and good luck!

Originally published on the Hudson Valley Seed Library blog

It’s clear that the time for growing food through community is here and cities across California are joining efforts to save water, unite neighborhoods, and build a strong movement for local food production. The Victory Garden Foundation in Oakland aims to match Sonoma County’s Challenge and install 350 gardens over the same weekend in May. In Santa Monica, the third annual 100 Garden Challenge, pioneered by Gardens of Gratitude, will take place April 24 and 25.

“Sonoma County’s 350 Garden Challenge seeks to inspire our citizens to create a healthy, homegrown food supply, save water and cut greenhouse gas emissions,” said Trathen Heckman, Director of Daily Acts, a Petaluma-based nonprofit that provides education about greywater, home food production, and a range of sustainable living skills.

Key projects to be undertaken over the weekend include:

On the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, April 22, 20 members of the U.S. Coast Guard will revitalize a garden at Burbank Heights Apartments in Sebastopol; community members will plant this garden on May 15 and 16.

Green Sangha, a nonprofit group of environmental activists, will install a model garden at Community Market natural foods store near Santa Rosa Junior College. Wine barrels, plants, and soil will be distributed to the nonprofit community organization Nuestra Voz to install container gardens at 60 households at Spring Village, a low-income housing complex in Boyes Hot Springs.

The 350 Garden Challenge initiative, which also seeks to educate and empower community and support local businesses, is a collaboration of Daily Acts, iGROW Sonoma, GoLocal, and Living Mandala, in conjunction with the Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) and dozens of other community groups and companies. SCWA, in turn, has provided a generous $25,000 matching grant for this project.

Want to get involved? Join the 350 Challenge Facebook page. Garden sites and participation is being coordinated online and in individual community meetings and events. Get ready to dig in!

With the beautiful, warm weather we’ve been having, many gardens are ready for their first direct sown seeds: those seeds that do perfectly well when planted directly in garden soil.

TEN TIPS FOR DIRECT SOWING

1. Begin in the late winter or early spring–but not until the soil is ready. Many cool-weather crops, such as spinach, peas, arugula, and hardy salad greens, benefit from being sown as early as possible. Germination may take a bit longer than under warmer conditions, but they’ll be off and running early, which means the plant has the maximum amount of time to grow before summer heat sets in. However, it’s important to wait to sow until the soil has recovered from the winter freeze-up and has returned to a friable, arable state. You’re looking for the top several inches to be dry and crumbly enough that the soil doesn’t stick as you run a tool across the surface but instead falls away in small chunks or crumbles. Clay soils can sometimes take 1-2 weeks longer than sandy soils to become planting-ready. As you continue to add organic matter to your soil over the years, it will become lighter and lighter and more easily worked at the start of the season.
2. Do a thorough, pre-emptive weeding. Direct sown crops produce tiny seedlings that need careful attention to flourish. Among their greatest needs is to be free from crowding by weeds. This is easily accomplished in the greenhouse, where seedlings can be started in a weed-free potting soil. But when direct sowing crops, gardeners must pay careful attention to weeds during the seedling’s early days. Get a head start by doing a thorough, pre-emptive weeding before sowing. Pay special attention to stolon-rooted grasses and other perennial weeds, as it will later become nearly impossible to remove these aggressive growers without disrupting tender young seedlings. If gardening in a new or neglected patch, consider sheet mulching or tilling and raking multiple times to kill lurking weeds.
3. Amend the soil thoroughly. It’s much easier to create a fertile bed for your plants before planting seeds than after they have emerged. An unplanted bed can quickly be thoroughly hoed and raked multiple times to incorporate a big pile of compost; trying to do such a thorough job once the seedlings are up is nearly impossible. So don’t jump the gun: add compost, lime, soybean or alfalfa meal, rock phosphate, kelp, or any complete organic fertilizer before planting. Many plants benefit from later side-dressings as well, but they won’t make up for the first-round big boost to initial fertility accomplished by thoroughly incorporating amendments.
4. Create furrows of the proper depth. As I mentioned a couple posts ago, most seeds germinate and take root best when sowed at a depth of approximately 2-3 times their width. (For mid-summer direct sowings, you can increase this a bit if it’s dry and hot, as the moisture remains lower in the soil.) Figure out the proper spacing for the variety you are planting, then use a stick, a tool handle, or a piece of lumber to press clean furrows into a well-prepared (and therefore loose and friable) garden bed. Space these furrows apart from each other at the spacing recommended for the variety you are sowing. Press the implement into the soil until it reaches the proper depth: for small seeds like arugula and lettuce, this will be an extremely shallow furrow (1/4″ or so), while for beans or peas the furrow will be a good 3/4″ to 1″ deep.
5. Plan for thinnings when possible. Before actually sowing seed, consider if the crop you are sowing can be harvested young for table use. If so, consider sowing more thickly than the plants ultimately need to be spaced in order to harvest tender young thinnings early. This works well for any crop harvested for their leaves, such as spinach, lettuce, arugula, parsley, cilantro, and Asian Greens. Just remember to thin the plants promptly at the 3-4″ tall stage so that the plants you are growing for full maturity are not stressed by overcrowding as they grow.
6. Sow the seed. Once you’ve done all of the above, sowing the seed is easy! Depending on the seed size, either sprinkle or drop the seed at regular spacing into the bottom of your furrow. Don’t be too stingy with the seed–but don’t be too loose, either. Ideally you’d like an evenly spaced succession of seeds in the furrow at a spacing that is closer than recommended (if thinning) or just about what is recommended (if not thinning). It’s best to oversow certain crops–most notably spinach–to make up for the naturally low germination rates.
7. Keep it firm! One mistake often made by new gardeners is to try to keep the soil around the seeds extremely loose. While in general a loose soil is a sign of healthy tilth, most seeds germinate best when they have somewhat firm soil surrounding them. The reason is that firm soil does a better job of pulling moisture from below and transmitting it to the seed, while loose soil dries out quickly under the sun’s rays. So, once you’ve sown your seeds in the furrow, brush soil on top of them and press the soil–either with your open palms or with the flat side of a furrow-making stick–so that it is snug. This isn’t a strength test: save your muscles for turning compost. Just a gentle “tucking in” is all it takes to keep the seeds in a good, well-wrapped state for healthiest germination.
8. Water in, then relax. Always water in your seeds after planting, and continue watering regularly until you see seedling emergence. Make your waterings thorough in order to saturate the soil. Then–unless you have extraordinarily sandy soil–don’t water again for 48 hours. Seeds need a combination of moisture and warmth to germinate, and especially during the first half of spring the heat can be in short supply. Watering too freuqently keeps the soil even cooler, so restrain yourself. It can be difficult when you’re desperate to see a little green appear, but it is the wisest course of action and will hasten germination.
9. Weed and thin promptly during first month. While weeds can inhibit the growth and productivity of all plants, tiny seedlings can be stopped completely in their tracks by weed competition. If you know you’re a lazy weeder, make a resolution with yourself to invest all your weeding energy up front. Let the ripening peppers and tomatoes and squash be weed-choked, but for goodness’ sake keep your young spinach, peas, and beets clear of lambsquarter, spiky amaranth, and horse nettle. A sharp hoe can get the job done quickly, while a thick layer of mulch spread open to allow seedling emergence can keep weeds smothered. However you do it, get it done: a weed-strewn patch will seriously slow down direct-sown seedlings.
10. Consider a seeder to help if sowing on a larger scale. If you’re making the transition from having a small garden to growing all the vegetables you need, you may want to consider a seeder to make direct sowing operations fast and easy. Your bed needs to be loose and very friable for the seeder to operate smoothly, but once you’ve created these conditions it will seriously speed up your sowing time. Popular models are the Earthway seeder and the drool-worthy (and pricey) six-row seeder available from Johnny’s Seeds.

Enjoy the weather, folks! Monitor your soil, and as soon as it’s ready, let spring begin!

Originally published on the Hudson Valley Seed Library blog

After hiding indoors all winter, nothing beats the brisk chill of the early spring in my rooftop garden. Cleaning up the dead branches left from the year before, turning the compost, the sweet smell of worm poop in the air as I work amendments into the cool soil. But most exiting are the first green fronds that have begun to emerge — perennials and even volunteers — and the protected annuals springing forth from the previous fall planting.

Kept under a cold frame all winter, three types of spinach and arugula got a head start when the weather started turning around a few weeks ago. The sun also fired up our blueberries, strawberries, chives and sorrel — and gave me a chance to plant some marigolds, bush beans and mixed greens, all now growing.

This past weekend, we chowed down on the early bounty: spinach quiche, sorrel soup, kale in our fresh morning juice, and an arugula salad. The kale was sweet, having been left out through the snow. I even dug up a patch of danvers half-long carrots, protected in the soil all winter and perfect for a carrot, walnut and current salad.

Spring is a constant surprise: Garlic planted last fall pushing northward, the thyme you thought was dead coming back, and even some oregano that you neither planted nor expected to volunteer on your roof.

Spring is about potential. Its about taking on new projects, exploration, and the nitty gritty practical planning for the months to come. Its about planting herbs in your windowsill again (even if you killed them the year before), spying an empty lot near by and asking around about whether can grow on it, getting a few hens and building a coup from scratch, signing up for a CSA, joining a Crop Mob, even just waking up early to get to the farmers market to score some fava greens and claytonia!

Are you new to growing? Just planning your garden and looking for some fool-proof advice? Doug Muller from the Hudson Valley Seed Library has penned some of the finest tips on planning and planting for the thoughtful and thorough gardener (they’re informative, too, for the giddy and impulsive gardener like myself). We are featuring the series on Civil Eats, check out Crafting a Seed Starting Schedule, Starting Seeds Under Protection, his instructions on building A Quick and Easy Cold Frame, and a How-to on Sowing Practices. (The next post in the series will be featured on Friday, and the last post will be up next week.)

Let us know about the creative places your cultivating, your early spring meals, or what is surprising you in your garden!

This post is part of a series called Roof Garden Rookies, which explores my attempt, as an amateur gardener, to grow a garden on the rooftop of my building in lower Manhattan. My roof garden was recently featured in the New York Times.

Last week I wrote about the process of building raised beds for my rooftop garden. The next step was clear: ready the soil and onto planting.

First thing was first, we started with 1000 pound of soil from the Lower East Side Ecology Center, a potting soil mix that includes vermicompost, coconut-based coir (a sustainable replacement for peat), perlite, green sand and black rock phosphate.  Once we got each of the 20-pound bags up the stairs, we began to fill the beds and quickly realized that we’d need another 500 pounds.

Eight of the beds were prepared with Garden Tone, an organic soil preparation for vegetables, as well as mushroom compost, a byproduct of mushroom growing that is full of minerals, as well as seabird guano for slow release fertilization.

Then, the fun part: making a planting plan, gathering the seedlings, and getting dirty!

Many of the seedlings I planted were either from Silver Heights Farm at the Greenmarket, which carries a large variety of heirloom seedlings, or they were grown from seed by me or by Kerry Trueman of Retrovore.com. Many of my seeds came from the Hudson Valley Seed Library, a local seed library that works with heirloom plants that grow well in our area.

Some of the seedlings I planted out included: Tollies sweet pepers, habenero peppers, three types of eggplants, eight types of tomatoes, bush and climbing beans, strawberries and blueberries, an heirloom melon called the Delice de la Table, two types of cucumbers, two types of zucchini, a Musque de Provence, green and white pattypan, butternut, and blue hubbard squashes, beets, carrots, turnips, lettuces, piracicaba broccoli, a variety of flowers and a bed full of herbs.

For each plant, I consulted my book (Tanya Denckla’s The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic, among others) to make sure I was planting companions and not foes, then I laid out my plants, leaving room for marigolds and other flowers in the beds, dug a hole for each, adding mycorrhizal fungi to help prevent transplant loss and a moisture crystal to keep moisture at the roots, and then tucked in my new green friends.

The acidic bed required Holly Tone, a preparation for evergreens — lovers of acidic soil. In addition, I supplemented garden sulpher around the base of the blueberries and euonymous vines I planted there.

With the addition of a composter for kitchen and garden scraps, and a few more flower plantings, the garden is off to a great start. After two weeks, I am happy to report a few tasty salads and strawberries, along with some developing zucchinis, tomatoes and beans! I can’t wait for the day when I harvest a whole dinner. Now, all we need up there is a table, and I’ll be outside all summer.

Photos: Yann Mabille, close look at the beds, one planted side, and me, exhausted after a day of planting

Our plan includes a roof garden made up of fruit, vegetables and native flowers that can serve as an oasis in the city for me and my neighbors. I started my seedlings under the kitchen table in my apartment a few weeks ago in order to give my plants a head start on the growing season. For my indoor growing, I used the system the team of seasoned growers at retrovore.com put together (shown in the video below, hosted by Retrovore’s Kerry Trueman) to start my squash, swiss chard, sunflowers, tomatoes, broccoli and Brussel sprouts. (Check out their site for a lot of other great books and help for people new to gardening.)

The system is simple: aluminum trays, capillary matting for sustaining moisture, potting soil, cowpots (a great alternative to peat), a container for water, and then the lighting set up, which gets only slightly more elaborate, but it is still easy and inexpensive to get everything you need at Home Depot or Lowe’s (or even a local hardware store that carries pipe and industrial lights). Check out the video, and you will be growing in no time:

Last year we built a fortress, created to deter deer, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, and wild pigs from our own little slice of edible possibility. Today we are in the middle of planting our spring garden in this enclosure, now just a blank, dark dirt slate of bumpy rows and discarded piles of weeds. Shaping the earth is like frosting a chocolate cake, at least to this baker’s mind, and has inspired my next birthday party creation. Right now, though, it is time to focus on what plants will grow. 

Dave spent at least the last month researching, sorting, and picking out seeds, some from his own collection and some from rare seed catalogues and websites. So far, we have some old standbys such as carrots, beets, lettuces, radishes, turnips and an unintended sugar-snap pea hybrid from saved seed; and some new editions like asparagus, fenugreek, cumin, and a cilantro from Oaxaca. Dave enjoys the excitement of the seed selection process in much the same way some of us might find joy in the finest Parisian patisserie (there I go again with the baked goods). To say the least, we now have a ridiculously large stock of potential food, awaiting the elements to bring life. No matter what we actually choose though, it is always a wild card what will actually grow, flourish, and become. Some winter squash seeds from a few years ago became a hybrid this last season, morphing from a basic butternut (or what we thought was basic) to an interesting and delicious mystery.

The newness of spring also brings new ideas of what we will soon eat, and projects of how to make these gems last as long as they can. Will we finally start our homemade grapefruit bitters for cocktails? How about more preserved Meyer lemons with some interesting herbs? Or maybe just classic pickled beets with a touch of clove? But right there lays the nexus of a problem I find myself grappling with time and again. After the harvest, the glean, the washing and prep, the brining and boiling and sealing and storing, I can’t bring myself to actually EAT what I have made. It is too special. I find myself saving it for the ultimate occasion and then before I know it, another season has arrived along with another cratefull of the very same produce that is caged within my mason jars. Some could compare this self-inflicted issue to saving a nice bottle of wine too long, year after year for that one perfect moment, instead of enjoying it at its recommended prime. Fellow Civil Eats contributor and environment editor Aaron French recently touched upon this issue, citing a Harvard Business Review article about “how people place an unreasonably high value on products they made or assembled themselves” via “The IKEA Effect”. The lesson for me is to start treating every day like it’s worthy of jam, no matter how rare or involved or alone or hurried things may be.

So here is a recipe for preserves that I am entitling “Jam for NOW”. Write that in thick black Sharpie on the top of your canning lids and follow the command. Use the finest fruit you can get your hands on, and even if you only get enough to make a couple of jars, listen to your deepest inner voice when it declares, “I want blackberry jam on my toast today!”

Jam for NOW

(Makes about 4 pints)

9 cups fresh blackberries (or any other berry or combination)
6 cups sugar
Juice of 2 lemons

Wash the berries, making sure to remove any with signs of mold, and place in a large, non-aluminum saucepan. Crush the berries (or blend with an immersion blender). Add sugar and lemon juice. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Cook until desired thickness is achieved, stirring to prevent burning. Remove from heat and fill hot jam into hot, sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch space from the top. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean towel before securing each with a two-piece canning lid. Process the jars for about 10 minutes in boiling water to seal. Remove from water with tongs and let sit on a countertop to cool before storing.

Last month I reconnected with my southern roots and traveled to my hometown, Atlanta, Georgia for a week’s immersion into the current developments around the local food movement and school garden education, particularly with my family’s organization, Seeds of Nutrition. My trip, however, was filled with much more than a visit to a few school gardens. I would soon be surprised by the South’s progress in the sustainable food movement.

This newer leg of the Mendez Foundation, Seeds of Nutrition, has developed into a school-based education program offering experiential learning through gardens and cooking. Prior to Slow Food Nation, I worked with the Mendez Foundation to create a scope and sequence for this curriculum that teaches elementary children about where their food comes from. Now based in Atlanta, Seeds of Nutrition has taken hold in three Atlanta public schools. It involves school children in every step from planting to harvesting to chopping and tasting. Teachers and administrators are filled with excitement as they have seen the Seeds of Nutrition lessons reinforce their day-to-day lessons in math, science and language arts, rather than pull time from these core competencies. In Atlanta, schoolteachers and parents are asking for school gardens and recognize the importance and potential of the school garden as the logical venue to teach the year’s curriculum through experiential learning activities.

My week in the South was to end with the 12th annual Georgia Organics conference. This year’s conference was a record-setting success, drawing more than 1,100 attendees. Overall, it was very impressive and featured workshops by Slow Food’s Erika Lesser and Josh Viertel, Will Allen of Growing Power, Will Harris of White Oak Pastures, and the famous Barefoot Farmer, a biodynamic farmer from Tennessee, among others. The workshops covered the usual topics: from biodiversity to institutional purchasing to young farmers, with a panel of elementary and high school students making changes in their communities, young farmers, and Severine Fleming of the Greenhorns. And, the closing feast featured beautiful, southern food from local farms and chefs. With Michael Pollan’s closing keynote address, the energy in the tent was undeniable.

The conference weekend ended with a Slow Food Southeast Leaders regional meeting at Love is Love Farm, a CSA farm in metro Atlanta operated by Joe Reynolds and Judith Winfrey. When not working the land at Love is Love, Judith puts in her time as the co-leader of Slow Food Atlanta, and Joe is the farm educator with Seeds of Nutrition. The South is truly doing it and there is quite a wave of momentum and excitement flowing through Georgia right now. People are moving and shaking.

That was supposed to be the end of my trip — an inspiring conference with like-minded people. But, a temptation to stay for a reggae show kept me in the Atlanta area for a few more days. Little did I know that I would miss hearing the Original Wailers for a surprise adventure. At the conference, I met Daron “Farmer D” Joffe. In retrospect, knowing now that we have mutual friends out here in California, we were destined to meet there. Farmer D sits on the board and was previously Vice President of Georgia Organics. I had heard of his many ventures and accomplishments, and was soon able to take a look at some of them firsthand. With aligned missions of spreading the work and word of sustainable agriculture to all, we embarked on a journey through coastal Georgia to visit some of his farm projects.

Our first stop was historic Savannah where he is consulting with the Bethesda Boys Home, the oldest boys home in the country, to install a biodynamic farm, which will provide not only produce, but educational and micro-enterprise opportunities for the boys. As with most of Farmer D’s work, he maintains a perspective of social justice and giving back to the community. After stopping at a local restaurant in Savannah, Cha Bella, that is exercising the farm-to-table protocol, we visited the restaurant’s farm, also a Farmer D project. This little farm not only grows food for the restaurant, but also offers educational opportunities to youth. A group of college students from Vermont’s Middlebury College came to the farm for a volunteer day to contribute their time to the Planting Community Project, a community food project (CFP) grant from the USDA, spearheaded by Farmer D in partnership with Union Mission, a Savannah shelter for men, women and families. The project focuses on connecting homeless individuals with limited resource farmers; and in addition to providing access to local organic produce, participants learn about organic growing, cooking and entrepreneurship.

Our next stop was Cumberland Island, the nation’s largest National Park Island, complete with wild horses, gators, wilderness and turn-of-the-century architecture. The Greyfield Inn on the island hired Farmer D to install an organic vegetable garden for the inn’s restaurant. Eventually the Greyfield Inn will also use the gardens and its produce to bring in chefs from around the nation to offer guests a complete farm-to-table experience. In one 13 hour day we transformed overgrown beds of weeds filled with legless lizards and sand gnats into ripe and fertile beds replete with Farmer D’s biodynamic compost (a certified biodynamic product that he makes from the compostable waste gathered from Whole Foods Markets all over the southeast) and his organic fertilizer, ready to be planted with greens, herbs, root veggies, and flowers. In alignment with biodynamic principles, and on the new moon, we prepared the beds with a biodynamic prep so they could begin their transformation.

A few islands north would be our last stop. The farm on Hampton Island provides produce to the island’s Culinary Program, and more impressively, is a venue to bring school children through for agricultural learning. Seventy-five kindergarteners arrived from the Savannah Country Day School to spend the day learning about where food comes from at this pristine farm. Farmer D and his co-educators lead the children through explorations of how plants and animals grow. From having their own school gardens and rich field trips such as this, these little Georgia kindergartners were quite literate about food origins.

This was my first exposure to the South’s sustainable agriculture uprising. It was a refreshing feeling, one of pure joy. I’ve lived away from the South for 14 years now, and noticed a major shift on this trip. The sustainable food movement wave is spanning across the country into pockets we may not have expected a decade ago. Not that sustainable agriculture is new to the South. Will Harris’ family-owned grass-fed beef operation in Bluffton, GA, White Oak Pastures, has been in operation for five generations. But I witnessed for the first time a shift of awareness in Atlanta and beyond. Schools, parents, institutions, and communities are ripe for change. Their arms are open and they are ready to take the steps. The South shall rise again!

After 10 days of incredible action—sod removal, bed and ground preparation, installation of irrigation lines and fencing, the building of a fantastic soap box—the lawn in front of San Francisco’s City Hall was transformed into the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden. It was a perfect planting day as 150 volunteers helped moved nearly 4,000 plants into their new homes. Teams divided into zones with their leaders and peacefully planted lettuce, tomatoes, beans, herbs, flowers and so much more. Good thoughts and prayers (including those from the next-door religious meeting) were had by all. Together, we built a “garden of communities,” as Victory Garden Manager John Bela calls it. Bela and Willow Rosenthal, founder of City Slicker Farms, in West Oakland, where the seedlings were started, joined Slow Food Nation Executive Director Anya Fernald and Founder Alice Waters to welcome Mayor Gavin Newsom to the garden.

The Mayor and Alice planted lettuce together in the garden and each spoke of the need for a sustainable food system, with the Victory Garden being just the first step to creating a national goal of making fresh, local food available to everyone. With an emphasis on good food being a universal birthright, they championed the myriad individuals, organizations and City departments involved in making the Slow Food Nation Victory Garden possible, and called for continued leadership and stewardship for such programs.

The day was glorious in its simplicity: take an urban plot of land and make it green. Meet your neighbor and do good. Grow food for people in need. These are all part of the vision and mission of Slow Food Nation to bring good, clean and fair food to all. Come join us this summer at the Victory Garden and at Slow Food Nation.

We are extremely grateful to our partners on this project:

Garden for the Environment’s Victory Gardens 2008+ Program, CMG Landscape Architecture, City Slicker Farms and Seeds of Change;

The Mayor’s Office, the Department of Public Works, the Department of the Environment, the Department of Recreation and Parks and Norcal Waste Management;

Lyngso Garden Materials, Earth Savers, Bountiful Gardens, Cole Hardware and Demeter USA;

Food & Water Watch, the Presidio Native Plant Nursery, The Presidio Trust, Alemany Farm, Friends of the Urban Forest, Ploughshares Nursery, the Urban Permaculture Guild and the San Francisco Food Bank;

S.F. Beautiful and New Resource Bank;

Katrina Heron, our Board Chair, who has shown enormous leadership – and was the first to have vision of creating the Victory Garden in Civic Center plaza;

Whole Foods Market, lead partner of the Victory Garden, which provided us with a delicious Victory Garden planting breakfast;

Bon Appetite Management Company, which prepared an outstanding and beautiful lunch for nearly 200 people on Civic Center plaza, and whose Google Café prepared lunch for hundreds of volunteers over the 10 day installation period;

Sunset Magazine, lead Media Partner of the Victory Garden;

And last, but not at all least, the countless hours spent by volunteers, including Slow Food Nation staff, on creating a vital, living and breathing garden in the center of San Francisco.

Photos by Scott Chernis

As the founder of City Slicker Farms, a non-profit urban agriculture organization in West Oakland, my mission in life has been to bring “slow food” to the least served. Ten years ago as an aspiring farmer it didn’t seem exciting to me to grow more beautiful specialty vegetables for rich people. I didn’t think it was fair that good food was limited to those who could pay farmer’s market prices. At City Slicker Farms we have developed ways to subsidize the price of the organic foods we grow so that we can offer sliding-scale prices and free organic backyard gardens to those who lack funds.

We have been blessed to be a co-creator, along with Garden For the Environment’s Victory Garden Program and Slow Food Nation, of the San Francisco Victory Garden being built as we speak in front of SF City Hall. Our role has been to grow all of the seedlings for the project and lend our gardening and community building expertise, developed over seven years of building productive urban farms and backyard gardens across the bay in Oakland. Our staff will be on hand in the next few months on Sundays and Mondays to show the garden, give advice and lead community groups.

Our impetus for getting involved in this exciting project was and continues to be our mission to bring slow food to everyone, not just the wealthy. In order to lessen our ecological footprint and provide food security for ourselves we have set a goal in our community of West Oakland of growing 40% of our fruits and vegetables right in the city. Although we’ve only reached a small percentage of our goal we know this is possible. It’s just a matter of developing the infrastructure for a productive urban agriculture system. We believe in beginning to build that infrastructure in the least-served communities, such as West Oakland, first. Otherwise, as usual, working-class folks are forgotten.

Our first urban farm was built on an empty lot in 2001 and we started putting produce out on a card-table later that year. A few short years later, City Slicker Farms now has a network of five Community Market Farms that supply over 8,500 pounds of urban-grown organic produce each year to our community. In 2005 in an effort to more deeply involve community members who were busy making ends meet, we began a Backyard Garden Program. Our motivating question was, if people lack food why aren’t they already growing their own? We found that although gardening is the number one American hobby, the expense of the materials is too great for working-class families. It just doesn’t make sense to spend a dollar to buy a cabbage seedling when you can buy a cabbage for a dollar in the store. The other factor was that the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers never learned the skills that Grandma and Grandpa knew.

Our Backyard Garden Program took off, and we were soon sadly turning away families from throughout the Bay Area—even San Francisco. City Slicker Farms sets each family up with a planter-box garden with all the seeds, seedlings, soil and information they need to grow their own food. We continue to provide all the necessary supplies and seedlings as well as mentoring visits from experienced gardeners to support them to be successful growers. They are then encouraged to recruit and mentor new families. We are really just bringing out the skills and abilities that are already there in the community and the results are astounding. In three years we have built over 80 backyard gardens and in 2007 participants grew over 10,000 pounds of produce. As we work towards an equitable food system on the regional, national, and global levels, the home-gardening solution can be easily implemented and sustained right now with resources we already have in our communities. We don’t need huge bureaucratic systems or vast sums of money, all we need is funding for a few program coordinators, a greenhouse, soil, and seeds, and people.

Collectively, we have the choice to build such an infrastructure now, rather than waiting until necessity requires it. The difference will be in the amount of suffering we experience when the price of petroleum and petrochemicals begins to be factored into the price of our food. As the price of fuel increases, the price of food goes up—we’re already seeing this. People living in poverty are already suffering from food insecurity, but at what point will middle-income families be impacted to the point of relying on emergency food sources? Supporting emergency food programs requires an ongoing subsidy, while stimulating urban agriculture programs creates self-sufficiency and stimulates local economic development and small-scale entrepreneurship. It’s up to us. At least on the city-government level we can make a difference by beginning to advocate for funds for urban agriculture development. The fact that San Francisco is supporting this beautiful and productive garden right in front of City Hall is proof that we can motivate at least our local elected officials to care.

Contrary to the popular belief that California is the bread-basket of the country, our state is actually a net-importer of food. Since most people live in urban centers, urban dwellers need to take some responsibility for their own food needs. Will we wait until people are suffering even more or will we begin the process of creating the necessary infrastructure for a sustainable urban food system now?

Throughout the Third World the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is spreading a system of support for home gardening and small-scale agricultural cooperatives in both urban and rural areas. These systems are implemented through national agriculture departments. In the U.S., since the Farm Bill and Department of Agriculture almost exclusively support large-scale rural agribusiness, real hope lies in municipal and county governments to provide the supports for urban agriculture.

So what are the possibilities in San Francisco? Because of our long growing season in the Bay Area, intensive urban agriculture can provide from one to three pounds of produce per square foot per year. Each person consumes approximately 300 pounds of fruits and vegetables per year. That means a space of 10’x10’ to 20’x20’ (100-300 square feet of growing space, not counting paths) would be needed to grow ALL of the fruits and vegetables for each person.

An average San Francisco backyard (25×40), if cultivated intensively could grow all of the fruits and vegetables for one person. A goal of growing 20% – 40% of the fruits and vegetables consumed in San Francisco could be achieved through a combination of backyard gardening, community gardening, school gardens and increasing urban agriculture on currently unused municipal land (if we assume each household has five members that means the backyard could grow 20% of the household food needs; since not all households will grow food, add to that other urban farming lands)

Current City resources could easily be redirected to support such an effort and are an extremely cost effective way of improving the sustainability of our food system and eliminating food insecurity. What’s necessary is to collectivize certain aspects of food production such as materials sourcing and plant propagation. Compost can be made through municipal programs, mulch from tree care can be used for pathways. Centrally located greenhouses can also serve as pickup locations for plants, compost and mulch. Current university and non-profit resources can be developed to provide urban agriculture technical assistance advisors for home producers, urban gardens and entrepreneurial gardens.

So, what are we waiting for? I encourage everyone in San Francisco to build on the success of the Victory Garden and work with the City to ensure that community resources are allocated to this simple solution. City Slicker Farms will continue to advise the GFE Victory Garden Program so that by sharing our experiences and learning we can contribute to it’s success. We hope to spread the backyard gardening system we have developed to other communities as well and encourage you to get started in your community.

We need ongoing support to continue our work of bringing organic urban-grown produce to low income Oaklanders. If you would like to send contributions to support our work, please send them to:
City Slicker Farms
1724 Mandela Parkway, Suite 5
Oakland, CA 94607
510-763-4241
cityslickerfarms.org