Somerville Urban Ag

City Hall has a new ambassador…an Urban Ag Ambassador!

Meet Abe Gore. He’s a Somerville resident who just recently completed the City’s first Somerville Urban Ag Ambassador Program.  As part of the community service component, he has become the steward of the City Hall garden.  You know…the garden on the steps of City Hall that we wrote about all last year?  With the cabbage worms?  And all the municipal employees eating healthy produce for lunch?

Abe, like all Somer’villens, is really into food, urban ag and food policy.  In fact, he just concentrated on all that in his graduate studies at the Heller School at Brandeis.  We are thrilled to have a smartypants urban farmer who is as enthusiastic about growing local food in Somerville as we are!  Welcome Abe! (now, don’t anyone tell him about those cabbage worms ;-)

Green City Growers teaching about growing food in the city.

OHHHH YEAH. SOMERVILLE URBAN AMBASSADORS PROGRAM.  SPREADING THE LOVE. READ ABOUT IT IN THE SOMERVILLE BEAT!

Somerville Community Growing Center holds its ORGANIC SEED SALE!

(hands in the air)

By purchasing these 100% certified organic seeds, you are helping the Somerville Community Growing Center raise money that will support a great 2013 season.  (oh yeahhhh) You’ll also help create a healthier community by growing your own delicious produce and flowers. Order here.

photo: Cleaning and saving seeds High Mowing Seeds Vermont

Have you always wanted to be a better, more productive person…in the garden? Well, this is your chance! (drum roll please….)

Introducing the Somerville Urban Agriculture Ambassador Program!

The Mayor’s Urban Ag Initiative and Somerville’s own Green City Growers are jointly launching a FREE, intensive, hands-on educational program to train 15 Somerville residents of all ages in the skills needed to be able to grow food at home and in the community.

Residents would leave with certification as a “City of Somerville Urban Agriculture Ambassador,” and there will be an expectation of at least 30 hours of volunteer time in Somerville gardens over the course of one year as part of this program. The course is free to accepted Somerville residents.

The Details
Courses will take place on 4 consecutive Saturdays, March 16th- April 6th, from 10am-4pm. All sessions will be held at the Green City Growers office, near Union Square, at 600 Windsor Place, Somerville, MA.Lunch will be provided on the first day, and for other days, participants will be expected to bring lunch or venture to the Union or Inman areas for a lunch break.

Application Process
We are looking for Somerville residents who want to get involved in growing food, both at home and within their community. The program is open to all residents, and all ages and we hope to host a diversity of demographics and representative communities. Application deadline is February 15, see below.

The Course
Topics will include, but are not limited to:

• Getting Started: Light, soil viability, locating your ideal garden space, containers vs. raised-beds vs. in-ground, small and intensive techniques
• Installing a Garden: Raised-bed construction, soil selection, watering and irrigation
• Planting: Picking priorities for your space, choosing plant varieties, seeds vs. starts, finding good seed and plant suppliers, creating a crop map, plant spacing, cool vs. warm weather crops, perennials and annuals
• Garden Maintenance: maintaining healthy and fertile soil, organic fertilization methods, micronutrients, soil testing, spacing and thinning, transplanting, watering schedules, trellising, mulching, pest and fungal management, pruning, harvesting for maximum yield, winterizing the garden.
• Season Extension: Cold Frames, hoop houses, plant selection for winter growing, winter maintenance
• Beyond your Garden: Introduction to bee and chicken keeping, cooking with your produce, and information on getting involved in your community.

To request an application, DUE FEB 15, please email:

urbanagambassadors@gmail.com

Applicants will be notified by March 1st, 2013.

A Garden Party in the Snow?

Well, no…not exactly.  But the Somerville Garden Club is celebrating their 19th Anniversary on Wednesday, January 9th in Davis Square. Of course, it will be inside; but, it is a potluck party with gardeners and it is winter…so, it’s a garden party near the snow. Come on out…(er…I mean in)… details here.

photo by seligr on Flickr. it’s in London, but could most certainly be in Somerville, New England.

$195.80 is one hundred and ninety five dollars and change!  DOLLARS, $195 organic!

The cold weather is here now, signalling the end of the 2012 Somerville City Hall Garden. (cue sad violin music) Although the cabbage and collard greens could probably make it a little while longer, the garden is “officially” done for the season, soon to be replaced by some decorative holiday flair. Since May, we have been tallying the produce we have harvested: 5 heads of cabbage, 7 bushels of collard greens, 6 of kale, 11 heads of lettuce, 7 bunches of chives, 16 peppers, and 18 tomatoes. We got some beets (okay, they were small, but still we got 14 of them!), 6 pea pods, 11 bunches of swiss chard, 12 mini eggplants and lots of fresh herbs: lemon balm, parsley,mint and basil, plus the..er…uncountable (read “funny looking”) vegetables. Made up of simple crates filled with soil, the garden gave us 16 SF of growing space on either side of the City Hall main entrance. The seedlings were donated by McCue’s Garden Center  and tended by 11 novice gardeners who really enjoyed spending their lunch hour outside, at least that’s what they say. In total,  we grew about $195 of food. That’s US dollars BTW…cashola, money!…and that’s without counting the aforementioned oddling veggies or herbs. At 32 SF total garden, that’s $6.11 per square foot in yield. Not fantastic, but pretty good for some lunch hour, novice, employee-farmers.

We learned a couple of things that could make for a better harvest next time. The depth of the containers was not enough to get big tomatoes and we should have added compost tea and watered more diligently…We killed some cabbage worms along the way and witnessed some other small scale plagues, that we were able to conquer. All in all, we are happy with the results. Especially since there are  also the immeasurable yields: watching the plants grow, flower, and bloom everyday as you come into work; witnessing the conversion of non-gardeners to “productive” food growing members of society; and seeing people smiling as they point out the different plants when entering City Hall to pay a bill or get a license. And, then there is the taste! Um… hello?! Nothing tastes better than something you grew yourself, even if it is a little ugly and scrawny. No joke, our locally grown, picked at the peak of ripeness, official city vegetables were delicious! Everyone involved had a great time and the whole experiment just points to the conclusion that growing food in Somerville makes sense, (and cent$). Urban agriculture, just adds up!

A beet is a beet, no matter how small.

We’ve got it all at City Hall.