Dear PoPville,
I spotted this plant a few nights ago along Florida Ave. while walking my dog. It immediately took me back to my childhood in the South with its wonderful lemony fragrance. Sadly, I never learned its name. From what I recall, it typically blooms at night, but it was also blooming this morning when I snapped this photo. Does anyone know what it is?? Thanks!”
“Dear PoP,
It’s not a great picture, but I was excited to see a tomato plant in the plaza by the farmers market. There were some flowers on it, so it should have tomatoes if it gets watered.”
That’s some serious resiliency. Awesome find!
While we’re on the topic, if anyone has some particularly good looking tomatoes or other vegetables starting to ripen on the vine, please send a photo to princeofpetworth(at)gmail and say what neighborhood your from. I was a bit jealous of the group I passed below in Capitol Hill
From an email:
Date: Saturday, July 9, 2011
Time: 1:00pm
Place: On V Street, NW, between 2nd and 4th Streets, NW
Lunch will be provided
Everyone in the community is invited!
Want to learn about gardening or urban farming? Better access to fresh produce? Or workshops to improve your health? Come out to the Green Tomorrow’s and CSA Open House! Green Tomorrows (GT) is a gardening and education program providing fresh food to individuals or families in DC. Our CSA (Community supported agriculture) program is a produce subscription program, where participants can earn a weekly bag of locally grown, organic produce.
How it works: Green Tomorrows is a program we like to think of as a “learn for food” program. In exchange for two or more hours per week of instructional, hands-on help on the farm, participants receive a bag of fresh farm fruits and vegetables. GT participants are encouraged to attend free Growing Gardens Workshops to further their learning experience and/or to count as their two hours for that week. With a subscription to our CSA program, participants can receive local fresh organic produce; we even provide a Common Good City Farm bag!
“Dear PoP,
Thanks to everyone who came out to help with the Bruce Monroe Community Garden last weekend, we managed to get about 8 beds built and a few filled with soil. We still need additional volunteers to help move dirt on Saturday, from 9-12noon, if anyone is around and willing to help! We need to get more dirt out of the way before we can continue building plots.”
Bruce Monroe Park Community Garden is located at Georgia Avenue at Columbia Rd., N.W. (behind tennis court). Another reader sends some more photos of the progress.
Photos courtesy of The Farm at Walker Jones
“Dear PoP,
We are the largest school gardening program in the city right now and one of only two “farms” alongside Common Good City Farm. The project blog may be found at wjfarm.org.
The first photo is a shot from the back of the farm where you can see our school in the center. New building. Lots of glass.
The second photo is of Jeff Miller of DC Honeybees showing the kids what one of our two hives on the farm is up to. We have a hive of Russian bees and a hive of Italian. The Italians are very lively and excitable.
The third photo is of our perennial herb bed.”
Sounds and looks awesome:
Design: The Farm is located ten blocks north of the U.S. Capitol and is across L Street from the school [1125 New Jersey Ave. NW]. The Farm contains four large production-scale beds for greens and vegetables just south of a small orchard of figs, paw paws and persimmons surrounding an outdoor classroom. A large sections of herbs and flowers for school-made products lines the west side of the garden, while the east side contains a small greenhouse, shipping container tool shed, outdoor pizza oven, and raspberry patch.
Action Plan: The following plan outlines possible next steps to make the vision of Walker Jones Farm a reality:
Summer 2010: Establish Farm. Plant beds, set up utilities and create orchard and outdoor classroom
Fall 2010: Integrate farm into Kindergarten curriculum and hold Fall farm celebration
Spring 2011: Plant spring garden with input from Walker Jones community and neighborhood
2011-2012: Work on integration into school cafeteria and curriculum, including product development
2012-2013: Begin selling products, serving food from farm weekly at school and share practices
Photo by flickr user s.schmitz
From an email:
Hello DC Gardeners!
Community gardening is one of the hottest past times sweeping the country and today you have the chance to sign up to be part of it right in your own back yard! By growing you own food you’ll be:
getting back to nature,
saving money on grocery bills,
eating locally,
Improving your health
helping the environment,
and meeting friends and neighbors!Contrary to popular belief, summer and fall crops can be planted in throughout the summer, and harvested as early as July and as late as October!
So, whether you have little to no space to garden, or want to expand your existing gardening opportunities come and join the Bruce-Monroe Community Garden TODAY!!!
Use this LINK to both:
Reserve your garden plot, and/or
volunteer with dozens of your neighbors and volunteers from across the city to build the garden plots the weekend of June 25th.The garden beds will be constructed in a quick, building blitz from 9 am to 1 pm over the June 25th weekend. We have volunteer groups already committed that will provide tools, materials and labor – but we need your help too! The garden is located in the Southwest corner of the new Bruce-Monroe Community Park (Columbia Rd & Georgia Ave. NW). Participation is open to all DC residents wanting to actively garden!
So, please fill out the online form and…
…Happy Gardening!!!
I’ve seen bath tub planters before but this is the first tv planter I’ve seen.
What do you think – good use of recycling or trashy?
Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC
“Dear PoPville,
We are trying to start a vegetable garden in our back yard. We built two raised beds for this purpose. I planted some peppers, some basil, parsley, cucumbers and zucchini. The next day I looked out the window and thought Hey, where’d the basil go? It looked like something had come along with scissors and cut the leaves off the basil and the parsley.
The next day, several leaves were missing from the pepper plants.
Last year we had cutworms eat the tomatoes, but somehow i don’t think cutworms are going to neatly snip off a couple of leaves a foot off the ground. Horticultural oil only mildly deters whatever-it-is. Birds? Squirrels? Has anyone else experienced this, and caught the plant vandals in the act?”
I was once told that Blood meal is a good deterrent. What do you guys do/use?
The famous 11th Street Chicken from July ’08
“Dear PoP,
My wife and I were hoping that either you or the commenters could steer us in the direction of this information. We hope to keep some backyard hens for some eggs. What regulatory hoops do we need to jump through to do so? The information out there on this topic is somewhat conflicting. We have tried contacting Tommy Wells’ office because they were the ones to introduce the reform bill last year, but we haven’t heard back yet.
I think our lot is big enough and we could probably get permission from our immediate neighbors, but if it is everyone in our square who needs to give us permission, that really makes things impossible. We’re on a big square with some apartment buildings, people we don’t know, etc.
Now, I don’t want this to get way off track into a discussion about the desirability of Wells’s proposed reform and of backyard poultry-keeping in general. I just want to figure out if we can do this and stay on the right side of the law as it is written right now.”
In June 2010 we we learned that Department of Health regulations did not permit keeping hens in your backyard. I feel like we would’ve heard if Council Member Wells’ reform bill would’ve changed these regulations. My guess is that his bill did not pass – does anyone know for sure?
Is this an obstacle course for squirrels?