Internship Conclusion

After about a month and a half of working with the Seattle Urban Farm Company, I have to say I've fallen in love with Seattle, from its inhabitants to its quaint neighborhoods to its dazzling mountain landscapes... but the thing I learned that I would most love to experience is the year-round fresh local produce. New York of course lacks this in its rotation of the four seasons and harsh winters. These urban farmers can enjoy a blossoming garden all year, something I hadn't been able to imagine besides down in the tropic regions that I got to experience last winter/spring while studying abroad. Instead of the heat and humidity of down there though, Seattle enjoys some warm days, some borderline hot days, and some periods of crisp, moist weather to keep things interesting (some call it gloomy but I can't say that until I've experienced it).

Enough about the weather though. I've gained a lot through the days working in the sun and rain with Brad, Colin, and Hilary. My last day yesterday was spent with all three of them doing the Mercer Island run, which I can imagine being cumbersome for just one or two people as there are six gardens, most of which require quite a bit of training. It was a warm day, up in the 80s I would guess, and we hustled through all of them. Hilary has been working tirelessly on the photos for the book that Brad and Colin just finished another revision stage for. It will be all about the ins and outs of urban farming and should be ready sometime around the end of this year. She took a bunch of pictures while we harvested, pulled, weeded, planted, munched on, fought with, tousled, teased, and fell into rhythm with each garden. It's becomes kind of meditative, kind of therapeutic when we work together, weeding especially. And it feels healthy just being surrounded by growth and urging on productivity with our hands and some tools, sweating and using muscles that lie dormant otherwise. I enjoyed going from working in a fast paced restaurant environment to doing maintenance runs with the company, discussing plans and memories, observing and working together. It was incredible to observe the differences in the attitudes and pace just from the difference in context, and it helped to reaffirm why I want to go into agriculture as opposed to corporate business.

I think I achieved most of my goals, from plant identification to learning about the organization of the company. There is a lot of planning that goes into it. I'm glad that I got to attend one of their staff meetings and a consultation to see exactly what those would entail. Having as many clients as they do requires a lot of record-keeping, from hours to produce, and it is improving all the time as they gain more experience. Future plans include having a storefront to sell seedlings and such, adding a whole other aspect to the company. I can't wait to go back whenever I get a chance and see how they progress.

If you need a list, I learned...
1. how to seed
2. how to fertilize- hydrolyzed fish, dry fertilizer, side-dressing
3. determinant vs. indeterminant; dwarf and compact varieties
4. how to direct seed beans: inoculating with microbes using spit!
5. germination and propagation
6. when to harvest a lot of things- e.g. garlic, potatoes, radishes, beets, lettuce, broccoli, and more...
7. when to pull things- e.g. bolted lettuce, bolted chard, peas, tomatoes with late blight
8. about some pests/diseases, e.g. late blight, cabbage loopers, slugs, etc.
9. needs and benefits of a rooftop garden
10. how to do a consultation
11. planning for an installation
12. how the company stays organized: seeding schedule, client folders, maintenance runs by location, planting for successional harvest, emailing clients for reminders and tips
13. importance of observation and upkeep
14. how to effectively communicate with clients
15. why farmers are some of the happiest people on earth

... among many other things, of course.

But onto the next adventure I suppose, with more skills and tools to bring to whatever other situation I am put into. Thank you so so SO much Seattle Urban Farm Company and all the great people I met there! I'll be back to visit soon I hope....

Keep on growing, Seattle!

When Bad Things Happen To Good Plants

The other day, in the on-and-off pouring rain, I learned how very essential it is to stay on top of maintenance. Clients have the option of taking on the responsibility of maintaining their urban farms themselves for the most part with only monthly maintenance or however often they prefer. The time saved by not coming each week saves money but if the garden is not looked after by someone... issues can and do arise, costing more time and energy later on. Pest problems get out of control, weeds get out of control, produce goes past its prime and time, effort, and plants put into it go to waste. Here are just a couple of the things we saw that can be avoided just by spending a healthy serving of time each week in the garden:

This is a bolted lettuce plant, meaning that it has developed one large stem and is growing up instead of producing tasty salad green leaves. After they bolt, they turn bitter and much less appetizing so they should be harvested before this point. 

Peas are also all ready to harvest and some that we saw had turned inedible from being left on the vine too long. These become bulky and leathery, also making them unfortunately bitter. 

We ended up spending over double the time we would normally spend in a garden and had to pull and replant a lot of things which was unfortunate. Gardening is good exercise for the body, rest for the mind, and nourishment for the soul. I feel lucky to get to spend that much time in a garden (even in the rain) and I don't even get to enjoy all the goodies that come from it with a little encouragement and support. When we work for the garden, it works for us!  

The Dreaded Late Blight

These above are signs of late blight in tomato plants - dark splotches on the stem and leaves, death of an entire stem. This disease is hard to prevent and hard to control but can cause the death of the entire plant before it comes to fruition. We were careful to not touch the plant with our gloves that would touch plants at other locations so as not to spread it, and washed our bare hands thoroughly after tying these up. Sometimes the plants can survive through the disease but if there are other plants that are not yet infected, it is best to pull the infected ones to prevent spread. Keep an eye out for these ominous splotches! 

Goody Goody Garlic

Garlic harvesting time is upon us! SUFCo just harvested their garlic patch and they are looking mighty tasty hanging up in the shed. The right time for harvesting is a little bit ambiguous to many people as can be seen by a quick google search which results in a wide variety of techniques. Harvested too soon, they haven't grown to their full potential; too late and they don't seem to store as well. A great reference for garlic farmers is an unambiguous book called Growing Great Garlic, which I deem trustworthy- if the man can write a whole book on garlic, he must be pretty knowledgeable on the topic.

About a month ago, we started telling people to harvest their garlic scapes, which many people (myself included!) didn't know were edible. The scape is the thick green stalk in the middle of the garlic plant that grows up and curls with a white segment that would become the flower. Once they start to curl, they can be harvested. "Because of their substantial heft as opposed to garlic cloves, they are vegetable, aromatic, and even herb all in one,"says one writer who goes on to rave about garlic scape pesto and provides other ways of using the scapes, including grilling them or throwing them into a "double-garlic soup" (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/06/the-crisper-whisperer-what-to-do-with-garlic-scapes-recipe.html). Here is one fast and favored recipe for garlic scape pesto. 

Definitely ready to harvest

Garlic scapes are just the preview to the real feast of flavor, but timing is key. The whole growing underground thing makes it rather more difficult to tell when garlic is ready as compared to say a squash that you can watch size up. It also depends on the variety, especially between soft- and hard-neck garlic which can be harvested a few days to a week apart. But according to the expert garlic growers, soft-neck  should be harvested when there are still 5 green leaves on (6 if it is a large harvest) that serve as protection during storage. The green leaves are important because they indicate sturdy protection as opposed to decaying or decayed wrappers for the garlic bulbs, and the number is important because some are lost sometime between harvesting, cleaning, and curing. For hard-neck (or "ophio") garlic, harvest time is even more critical because there is more potential for decay if left too long, and also the cloves are more likely to split or break, therefore needing more protection. For this, the expert says to harvest when there are six leaves left and the sixth leaf has browned at the tip. He mentions that other growers harvest "when plants are about 40% browned and 60% green" but also thinks it is better to harvest a little earlier rather than later. 

Harvested hard- and soft-neck garlic

If that isn't enough detail for you, there are quite a few books entirely devoted to garlic, some of which can be found here: http://www.filareefarm.com/book.html. 

Potato Passion

Potatoes are one of the most fun things to harvest in my humble opinion. Last week, we visited a garden where one woman harvested her own and so I had the delightful duty of digging for some buried treasures she might have missed... found some lovely little gems too. Maybe not everyone finds this as exciting for me but I never really grew out of that childhood love of dirt. Having dug for worms with my dad and uncle every time they wanted to go fishing instilled an attachment to dirt under my fingernails and the joy of flinging it around until it's in my hair, smeared on my face, and coating my hands....

All nostalgia aside, potatoes harvest time is another one that might be a little difficult to discern. If you are looking for "new potatoes," or those little sweeties that are still full of sugar not yet turned to starch, then you have to dig them up while the plant is still happy and green. When the plants have started to die back you can find starchy, mature potatoes. If you want to wait a bit longer, they can still be harvested when the plants are falling over, and you can be sure the potatoes will be big and heavy with starchy goodness. Sometimes you might see them poking their faces out of the soil but it is best to cover them to protect them from the sun which turns them a greenish color, making that part bitter and possibly harmful. Green in this case does not mean go- it is a warning of the presence of solanine, a toxic substance most concentrated in the skin, so cutting away the green part will remove enough of the toxicity to make it fine for eating.

Ready to harvest potato plants

Someday I will definitely be growing my own potatoes; they are relatively easy to maintain and produce quite a bit (one plant = 3-4 pounds of potatoes!) and there are so many beautiful varieties to explore. Not only do I enjoy harvesting them most, but I enjoy buying them most of anything at the farmers market as well... the potato man has blue ones, purple ones, yellow ones, pink ones, roasters, mashers, long ones, fat ones, anything I could ever desire in a potato. All this passionate talk of potatoes is making me want some... or maybe that's just the Irish in me.

Life on the Roof: Rooftop Gardens

Scene: The Bastille- a beautiful, classy restaurant in the charming Ballard district

A room full of vivacious people eating and drinking cheerfully, laughter floating through the air from every corner, all of them caught up in their spirited conversation, distracted from the life that is blossoming above them... 

Seattle Urban Farm Company installed this productive green roof in 2009 and it has gotten tons of media and public attention since its creation. They created an organized array of custom-made raised beds and kiddie-pool-sized containers with all kinds of complex little systems, including drip irrigation, ground heating, and season-fitting shading. This of course took a lot of planning and detailed work but the rewards are bountiful and can be reaped year after year, with many added benefits. One can arrange to take a tour of this inspirational installation simply by contacting the SUFCo or the Bastille restaurant: 

SUFCo Rooftop Gardens

The Bastille Restaurant

Five Reasons Why a Rooftop Garden is a Good Idea:

1. Insulation: Plants keep the planet temperate by absorbing the suns heat and serving as a blanket in cooler weather, and on a roof can do the same for the building. Sounds cozy to me. Added bonus: they reduce costs of heating and air conditioning.

2. Rain catchment: Rooftop gardens snatch up all the precipitation they can get (which is why they would be so happy in Rain City). They allow the water cycle to flow naturally as they slowly release the water back into the atmosphere through condensation and evaporation while the soil serves as a natural filter.

3. Productive use of open space: While space is becoming more and more limited on this planet, the new direction we are taking for building is up. In the city especially, as discussed a little bit in the previous post, unused ground is hard to find. Building up + Container gardening = Rooftop container garden!

4. Positive attention-grabber: The restaurant came to the company looking for something marketable and innovative, and this certainly fulfilled that. They are now able to put salad on their menu with produce right from their roof. Local is in these days, and how much more local can you get than that?

5. Delicious veggies for the hungry bellies! No explanation needed for that one.

Contain your produce!

In this spacious city of Seattle, many people (myself included) find themselves confined in the garden space department. But container gardens are easy to create, and can make an empty corner look lively and lush. Here are some tips to help one embrace this kind of confinement:

1. Container: always a good place to start. The larger the container of course, the more space there is for growth. Different types of produce require different amounts of space, in the same way as they do in the garden, and if you start small, you can transplant them as their roots expand and take over the pot. You can easily tell when a plant is feeling crowded by the root growth: if the roots are coming through the bottom and expanded all the way to the rim of the pot, you may want to upgrade. There are a variety of materials that pots are made out of, including of course plastic and terracotta. While terracotta is beautiful, it has a tendency to dry the soil out a lot more quickly than other materials. If you're feeling thrifty, you can easily make a container from many things, such as a burlap sack, which I think make for a pretty hip decoration.

2. Getting dirty: Use potting soil (not seed starting mix), and go organic if possible. Adding perlite can help with compaction- you don't want the soil to become too heavily compacted to the point that it stifles your plants little roots!

3. Only contain what should be contained: The best way to grow plants in containers is to find those that fit inside them. Compact, bush, or dwarf varieties are best suited to fit in small spaces. A good example of the difference between these and regular varieties is bush vs. vining cucumbers: bush spans around 2-3 feet, while a vining plant would span around 5-6 feet (unless controlled by a trellis).

4. Light: Different plants of course require different amounts of light, but they all need a minimum of 5 hours of sun to stay healthy. Check seed or plant packages to tell you exactly how much is needed.

5. Water: It is better to water in the morning, and make sure to water the soil not the leaves to minimize evaporation. It's also best to let the soil dry out between waterings to discourage pests, including fungi and some diseases. 

This is another area where there are very helpful classes in the city with more tips and tricks. A lot of this information in fact came from a class that I took through Seattle Tilth, a large non-profit that offers adult and children's education, many volunteer opportunities and internships, underprivileged youth gardening training, a garden hot-line, and much more. The class I took was titled Container Herb Gardening and took place in the beautiful little Victor Steinbrueck Park downtown by Pike Place. It was a lovely location for an outdoor class and the instructor was extremely well-prepared with all kinds of props and examples. She also made an effort to appeal to everyone's needs- for instance, one girl wanted to just do some herbs in her apartment for cooking so the instructor made a point to let her know when certain plants would do better indoors and what kind of things she should be aware of. Best part about it was that it was FREE and I just had to pre-register by email. They have tons of adult ed classes but here are the ones coming up in July that pertain to this particular subject: 

Fall and Winter Vegetables in Containers: 7/9 10am-12pm, Counterbalance Park

Container Herb Gardening: 7/13 5:30pm-7:30pm, Victor Steinbrueck Park

Container Herb Gardening: 7/17 10am-12pm, Belltown Cottage Park

Fall and Winter Vegetables in Containers: 7/24 10am-12pm, Belltown Cottage Park

Marinara, Salsa, and Ketchup

THE GREAT WALLS OF WATER: The walls of water keep the tomato plants from being stressed by the cold at night, as the water absorbs the change of temperature in the environment. By encouraging them to grow faster, they will mature faster and put on ideally more fruit sooner so that they will have more time to ripen. While not as celebrated as China’s, the tomatoes think their walls are pretty great, especially during those cold, lonely nights.

PESTS WE’VE SEEN LATELY: Flea beetles are on the hunt for our tomato plants these days. They tend to attack newly transplanted seedlings but spraying Rotenone or Red Arrow every couple days will protect them until they recuperate after an attack. Using Reemay, or row cover, is another method: the flies will scatter in fear when you approach and then an application of Reemay will keep them off. Once they have settled, hardened, and regained their strength, the plants will be much less susceptible.

PRUNING: for more savory fruit and less disease!

Tomato Pruning Video

This video is extremely helpful for the delicate but necessary pruning. Just to sum up what he says in the video:

- Pruning is meant to increase yield and avoid disease

- By encouraging growth into the “leaders”, more fruit is produced

- Leaders are the first main stem and the second branch that grows below it; everything else is a “sucker”… because they suck the energy away from where it should be! (or maybe for some other reason)

- Some tomatoes don’t need pruning: called “Determinate”, and they are bushy rather than climbers

- Indeterminate plants are those that need to be trellised and pruned

(they need more TLC, but they produce higher quality fruit… worth it? I think so.)

- When should you stop the growth? 30 days before the first frost, remove the ends of the leaders to force energy to the fruit and inhibit new growth… get the most out of the plants for the last harvest!

Where a "sucker" once was... 

HOWEVER, let’s be sure to not go overboard with the pruning, as it could shock the plant and make it more susceptible to disease, possibly killing it before it even produces any fruit at all! Tragic.

CITY TOMATOES: As mentioned before, determinate tomatoes are bushier and compact which would be best for containers, which is often the limit in an urban setting (I’m experiencing that limit now!). They are actually quite suitable to hanging upside down (with the roots inside the container and the stem going through a hole in the bottom). Here’s a couple step-by-step links:

Instructables: How to plant hanging upside-down tomatoes

How Did I Do It?: How to grow hanging tomatoes

Harvest won't be until late August/early September (this is true in Seattle but it of course depends on the climate) but we can enjoy watching the magic as they turn from flowers to fruit, green to red, red indicating when you need to stop what you're doing and pick that ripe one and take the first bite of juicy bliss.

By the way, there are some great classes on how to PRESERVE TOMATOES going on this summer if you’re preparing for a tomato overload. I’ve taken a class on general canning with Ms. Phelps and I would definitely recommend them. So, if anyone is interested:

How to can tomato products including sauces, salsas, and ketchup! Last Sunday of each month: Seattle Can Can: Canning 104- Tomatoes

How to make homemade ketchup! Email Vic.Phelps@gmail.com if interested:

Seattle Can Can: Ketchup Classes Forming Up

So many colorful varieties! 

Backyard Beauties!

Here are a few examples of the beautiful things I get to see as an intern and the urban farmers get to see just looking outside their window!

One of the backyard gardens where we harvested a whole lotta lettuce and some scrumptious spinach.

Snap Peas reaching for the sky.

A little baby asparagus in it's first year (it'll be harvested next year).

Newly transplanted broccoli with sawdust to keep away root maggots. 

Another lovely, thriving garden.

Vigorously flourishing Snow Peas! 

Some glorious Snow Pea blossoms.

Fresh, crunchy snacks... yum. 

Putting the Seeds to Bed

Day three of the internship and I finally remember to bring my camera and snap some photos to better explain things. When I arrived around 8am this morning, my first duty was to seed several flats according to the seeding schedule, which is maintained to ensure that there is a sufficient number of plants to distribute to the gardens at the right times. Seeding is done every week as plants need to be replaced, replanted, or when the optimal time arises for new plants to start their growing season.

Here are the steps to seeding the lettuce. Quite tedious as I mentioned, but pretty simple. This efficient method is not something I would have known intuitively. 

1.    Fill seed bed with moist soil: SUFCo uses germination mix, which is a blend of peat moss, perlite, and dolomite lime. Balanced fertilizer is also added along with some water before filling the trays, making a welcomingly nutritious and moist bed for the seeds to germinate in.







2.  Push another similar tray down on top of that one to push the soil down, making a cozy niche for the seed to lay in

3.  Place one of the teeny-tiny seeds in each cup (aim for one, it’s not easy), keeping track of which varieties are in which row using tags. By limiting the number of seeds in each, we limit competition for light and nutrients between them. If too many seeds grow close together, the plants get "leggy", meaning they grow up instead of flourishing out as they should. 

4.   Cover with a thick, fluffy layer of soil

5.   Press the fluff down to compact the soil to hold the seeds in place (it's like tucking them into their little beds!)

6.  Brush excess off, careful not to remove the soil in the cup

7.   Water the bed. Usually after watering, the beds would go straight to the comfy greenhouse, but since it's now above 50 degrees at night, we can leave them outside to germinate! Hooray for warm weather! 

After two flats of that, we had 256 lettuces all set to grow! I seeded five different varieties of lettuce, meaning that while all part of the same species, they have qualities that set them apart from one another. They are diversified even just by the color of their seeds.

So it begins! In a few weeks, these little fellers will be ready to move to their new urban farm homes to mature to their full, healthy, leafy potential, perhaps eventually ending up in a refreshing summer salad... maybe with some juicy tomatoes!? More on those succulent red spheres soon.

"The word "miracle" aptly describes a seed."
-  Jack Kramer

"Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed.  Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."
-  Henry David Thoreau

Dirt that's good for the soul...

I'm currently a junior at Cornell, studying Agricultural Sciences, which has propelled me to embark on this blogging adventure to fill an internship requirement. I’m very excited to be spending my summer in the voluptuous city of Seattle, reading, drinking coffee, knitting, blogging, cooking, and gaining all kinds of urban agricultural enlightenment. My hope for this blog is for it to not only be an internship update provider, but also a cozy place to share insights, ideas, and excitement about urban farming and all that goes with it.

After visiting for three weeks, I found Seattle to be a place of immense passion, brewing tons of fresh ideas, and nearly bubbling over with proactivity. An agricultural enthusiast will never be bored in this city: with Pike Place Market as one of the main tourist attractions (I challenge you to name another city with a farmers market that attracts 10 million visitors each year and is open 7 days a week [pikeplacemarket.org]), district farmers markets every weekend all year round, P-Patch community gardens scattered about, frequent work parties with organizations that adore volunteers, and tons of classes on a wide range of topics from planting to preserving, it’s difficult to miss out on the movement.

This all of course enticed me to buy another plane ticket about a week after returning home.

Volunteering during my visit helped me to network a bit and meet many enthusiastic community members. The one volunteer experience that helped me most was a trial day with the Seattle Urban Farm Company, a growing enterprise that builds and maintains edible landscapes in the backyards of Seattle residents. Throughout the season, the company grows whatever the clients’ hearts (or stomachs) desire about as close to home as you can get, making fresh produce literally a hop, skip, and maybe a jump away, depending on the size of the yard.

My trial day was spent maintaining some of these backyard farmyards with the lovely farmer Hilary, and some of the customers who wanted to take part. We also visited a rooftop garden on top of the Bastille restaurant in Ballard that the company installed and maintains as well. Now that I have returned, hungry for more urban ag action, I am interning with the Seattle Urban Farm Company for the rest of the summer. What better way to get to know the city and learn all the dirt on urban agriculture? Not to mention crop seasonality, business management and organization, social media, plant varieties, and much more….

So, here I am, starting a blog, ready to share a great summer with whoever cares to take part. The positive energy and excitement are aflowin’! Time to dig in.