The Urban Garden Project Challenge 2010!

Calling all Urban Gardeners!  It is February and that means that for many of us planting time is only a few months away!  As we have been planning for 2010 here at the Urban Garden Project we came across an interesting short article in the Wall Street Journal.  According to the brief written by Scott Kilman, it states that a charitable organization estimated in a report out February 2nd that in 2009, 37 million Americans turned to food banks, soup kitchens, or other charitable means in order to gather enough food to exist!  That equates to 1 out of every 8 Americans!  It goes on to state that Feeding America, a Chicago based network of over 200 food banks saw a 46% increase in the number of people that they served in 2009 vs. 2005.  The survey was sent out to over 37,000 food banks nationwide.

So Urban Gardeners….here is our challenge.  We can help these 1 in 8 people in 2010!  When you are planning your garden, why not plan in one extra raised bed or till up a little extra space in your garden.  From that specific portion of your garden or from that particular raised bed, commit to donating that food to your local food banks.  With Urban Garden Project Members across the country wouldn’t it be amazing to see what we could do?  If you are committed to taking on this challenge please comment on this post and let us know!  For those who choose to participate send us photos if you can of your extra garden space.  Each of us taking a little bit of extra time on the front end can have a huge effect nationally!  As the year progresses we encourage you to weigh the produce that you harvest and donate out of the extra section or bed in your garden so that we can see what we accomplish collectively in 2010!

What We’ve Been Up To!

Hello Everyone -

It has been a few months since our last post.  Let me catch you up to date…..since August we have added Belted Galloway cattle to the Urban Garden Project, Built a few new sheds as a result of the new animals, and my wife and I welcomed our first child into this world on October 7th.  Needless to say we are trying to get used to our new normal!  In the mean time please check out our website for the organic beef program that we started at www.gracefarm.us

We will be loading pictures and updates there as well!  I hope that your gardening is going well and look for a new UGP posts this spring!

Update from the UGP!

Hello All -

Here is another brief update from the UGP.  We are now 3/4 of the way through our growing season and we will be planting this weekend for all of our fall crops.  Look for an update at that time of what we planted!  The pictures below show our latest harvest this weekend as well as our preservation methods for the produce.  The green beans that we have been harvesting we have blanched and then vacuum sealed to make them freezer ready.  This is faster and much easier than canning and with the Food Saver bags you can pull them from the freezer and drop the whole thing, bag and all, into a pot of boiling water to cook them!  Then just cut the bag and serve!

Preserved Strawberries and Green Beans

Weekend Harvest

Tomato on the Window Sill

The Urban Garden Project ADDS Cows! Lowlines and Belted Galloways!

Ok well not in our back yard!  Hello everyone.  I hope that this summer is finding you well and that your gardens are full of fresh produce!  While we continue to harvest from The Urban Garden Project Test Garden daily, we have been working to expand our operation to include cattle!  We don’t have land to run the cattle on but we have formed a partnership with a local couple who do have the land available.  This is something that a lot of you could do as well if you spend the time researching land in your area.

Land sharing is no different in concept than garden sharing and can allow even city dwellers to raise their own grass fed organic beef.  This economy has made family budgets tighten up and has forced a lot of us to rethink the way we live and what we eat.  For my family it is a matter of cost.  If we can enter into a land share agreement and raise our own organic, grass fed beef for close to the same price as store bought we really have to consider it.

Once we decided to move in this direction and we secured land, we started researching what type of cattle that we wanted based on the type and quality of meat.  Lowline Angus were the winners as they can be completely grass fed and finished without any grain.  This allows them to put out meat that can be higher in Omega 3’s than salmon and is considerably more lean than most grain or corn fed and finished beef.  Lowlines are also smaller and more manageable than standard sized beef.

So, a Lowline bull and a pregnant Lowline heifer were purchased along with a steer that was too good of a deal to pass up.  This got the heard to a manageable size, far short of what we hoped to grow it to eventually but none the less it was a good start.  We had decided that we would then look to pick up a few Belted Galloway cows in order to breed with the Lowlines.  This would allow us to get benefit from the Lowline’s beef quality with the Galloway’s frame size that is just slightly larger than the Lowline.  After research we found that the Belted Galloway’s were a bit more rare and found a breeder about 2 hours from our home and were planning a trip to visit her operation later in the month.

This last Sunday we received a call from this breeder and were alerted to an amazing opportunity.  A couple in the same town had a 2 year old Belted Galloway cow and that cow’s 2 month old Belted Galloway heifer for sale and needed to make a deal.  If they couldn’t sell them they were going to send them to auction.  We immediately loaded up a trailer and headed north to see if these cows were too good to be true!  When we arrived the cows were in great health, had a number of great characteristics, and it appeared that this deal wasn’t too good to be true!  Needless to say the negotiated purchase price paid for both the cow and the heifer was less than the retail price of the cow in a good market and as a bonus……we found out that the cow could potentially be pregnant again by the Belted Galloway bull that she was kept with after the birth of her heifer.  This could be a 3 for 1 deal!  I will post pictures in the next few days as we work to halter break the cow and the heifer and will post more about this new angle on our garden!  Also, we will post about finding land share opportunities and raising beef!

Visit our sister website at www.gracefarm.us

Also, here are a few links to info on the cattle that we now own:

http://www.usa-lowline.org/

http://www.beltedgalloway.org/

Harvest Time!

Hello UrbanGarden Project Fans!  It has been a crazy summer already!  Where did the time go?  Last night I made it out into the garden to have a look around.  Lately life has been crazy and I haven’t had the time to spend in the garden that I need the last week and here is what I came away with!  7 green peppers, 1 bell pepper, a small head of cabbage, 13 zucchini’s and 9 cucumbers!

Pictures from The Urban Garden Project Test Garden!

Strawberries Signal The Begining of Summer!

Here at the UGP Test Garden Summer is officially here and I don’t say that based on what the calendar tells us……I know that summer is here because we just had our first harvest of our 2×8 raised strawberry bed and we harvested over 20 oz of ping pong to golf ball sized berries.  (See the pictures below) 

This is my favorite site to see as it ushers in the harvest that is to come all season long.  After picking these sweet treats we washed them up and sliced them for one of my favorite deserts, not to mention one of the easiest!  Our strawberries grow in straight composted horse manure and the plants themselves were cast offs from a friends garden walkways!  How do you grow your strawberries?  Traditionally?  In Raised Beds?  In Containers?  Leave a comment and let us know!

I also found a great link to some easy and tasty recipes using your new harvest!  Check them out by clicking HERE.

The Urban Garden Project Crazy Chickens!

Well most of you know that we decided to bring chickens into our urban garden project test garden to really see how difficult keeping chickens is on a day to day basis.  We wanted to find out how realistic a backyard flock for every family in suburban America really was.  While we are only 6 weeks into it, I have to say that so far my observation is they are about as much work as a hamster.  That is if hamsters could fly and made clucking noises!  The day to day is so simple if you set it up right.  If you remember we incorporated our 2 story coop into one of our 4×4 square foot gardening beds.  This way we can rotate the coop between the beds if we ever feel the need or desire.  Inside the coop we installed a large capacity stainless steel gravity fed feeder that we suspended and a stainless steel gravity fed water trough.  Outside of checking the levels on the feed and the water every day or every other day, they really take care of themselves. 

I will say that they have been a great addition to our garden and have provided hours of laughter and entertainment in the  back yard.  This weekend I was working in one of the landscape beds and decided to let the girls out while I worked.  So, wanting to make them a bit more independent, I opened the door to the coop and walked away wanting them to figure out how to let themselves out.  One by one they figured it out, ultimately following in the flight path of the one that went before.  This worked great until there was one…….one chicken who is always the last to figure everything out.  I suspect that this chickens’ mother roosted beneath power lines or next to chipped paint because she is always the last one out and the last one in.  She was the last to figure out the ladder and the last to connect the fact that I=food.

All that being said we continue to enjoy our experience with the chickens so far and we are readily anticipating the arrival of our first eggs sometime in late September or early October!  Rest assured that we will continue to keep you in the loop along the way, documenting every twist and turn.

Busy Month @ The Urban Garden Project!

Hello Fellow Urban Gardeners!

It has been a while since we have posted and the reason???  It’s summer and we have been working out in the garden!  Some of our recent projects are not specifically in the garden but we always seem to find ourselves spending time in the garden regardless!  Today I built and stained what will be the frame supports for our nylon trellis netting for our climbing crops.  I used simple and inexpensive 2×2 lumber and cut all joints at 45 degree angles.  I used 3″ screws to fasten it all together and the same stain that we used on the beds was applied to the finished product to tie it all in.  The nylon trellis netting will then be tied onto the frame for a simple and cost effective trellis system for our Urban Garden Project Test Garden.  See pics below:

How to Build a Tomato Tower

Hey Everyone -

I recently stumbled across a great how to plan on building easy and affordable tomato towers.  Similar towers sell at my local Lowes store for over $60!  Check out the how to page by clicking HERE.