Problems with community gardens

SOLUTIONS TO COMMUNITY GARDEN PROBLEMS 

FOR COMMON PROBLEMS WITH COMMUNITY GARDENING PLEASE REFERENCE

 www.oxfordcga.org/Home/Sample-guidelines-from-other-gardens  

FOR AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO A COMMUNITY GARDEN PLEASE REFERENCE

www.verticalecogarden.com    

 Growing For Growing 1 

           The reason I reference the Oxford guidelines for problems with community gardens was because these guidelines are obviously in response to real experiences. The other reason was most of the articles from a web search using failure in my search word, were big on all the social advantages but short on objectivity. Having had the experience of wanting to start a commune back in the early 70's, and then actually living in one on 73rd and Jeffery in Chicago, I knew these ventures are not always warm and fuzzy. The FBI field office might still have a record of the raid if you want to verify. Nothing serious. Just a rainbow coalition, that when living together under the reign of J Edgar Hoover, were grounds enough. Any way,  I decided, offering a reality check on the matter of community gardens would be my contribution. In addition to the guidelines, an article on the Groundswell community garden, also found under community garden failures (I think U of Tenn.), has helped me realize the difference between community gardening and a community garden. I suggest you read it to help develop your own insights.

           My thoughts are, the difference boils down to intention. That’s a hard one to nail down because there are many different personalities and motives in any community garden, and these can also change in mid season. For one example, some will want vegetables. Regarding this intention, one of the guidelines address those who want organic, and others that may not have a concern with inorganic when broccoli leaves get holes and start to disappear. Others want an experience, or identify with being purveyors of experiences well covered by the heartfelt articulations of philosophical metaphors. When it becomes apparent that Eco Gardening isn't easy, it could be human nature to want to be the teacher. The thoroughness of the Oxford guidelines supports that the hybrid species of these two growth characteristics are probably found in most of our community gardens. Having said this, in addition to hosting a community garden, there are many ways to develop social skills, gain life experiences and mature. Community Gardens look like one option to do this while acquiring vegetables. I suppose the garden has a better chance of succeeding as long as the intention of growing vegetables is not lost in the manure.

          Growing for Growing 2 

           Personally, I have discovered, it takes a significant amount of grief before my eyes open to self awareness of some of my unconscious ambitions. On that, I can only speak from my own experience. With this in mind, I do want to talk about opinions I have formed reading complaints from municipal governments, viewing pictures of community gardens and from exchanges with community gardeners. Evidently, the community gardens that require city involvement usually get their blessings through a commitment of responsibility for many of the problems the guidelines addressed. Water was a key issue understandably. One city manager researched the amount of water needed from agricultural sources and was telling the garden master, ‘more water was not the solution’. Long story short, the city manager was frustrated about the above normal water usage and city payroll covering city workers for weeding and cleaning the garden. The communication was reminding the community garden members of their commitment. Ultimately, the city will be held responsible by the citizens who live there, and what the manager can offer might be limited. Most of the community gardens on Facebook post pictures. Most are conventional gardens and many of them are getting very impressive results. By that I mean, big vegetables and significant yields. There are also gardens in shallow wood frames on the ground.

          The world wide web shows many flavors of sq ft gardens, raised bed gardens, box gardens, straw bale gardens, containers gardens, vertical gardens, perma-culture gardens, buried log garden, etc., if I missed you, my apologies. However, I don’t see many hybrids. For example, making a square garden using straw bales for the walls, and then plant the walls too. Is this kind of thing allowed? There are also many types of gardeners, all very committed to their cause. Victory, sustainable, organic, etc. I can appreciate that. The type of gardening I provide combines aeroponic, hydroponics and geoponic. I have an advantage not being committed to a specific type of gardening. I am free to focus on what gets the best results for a target demographic. It’s called win-win. But again, we have to determine what good results are. So now we're back to intention. My intention was to provide a way to grow the most vegetables with the least amount of cost, labor, materials and space while making a profit. The picture on the left is from The Big Vertical Eco Garden™. The picture on the right are the same peppers growing in the ground.
     

          The key difference is this. The Vertical Eco Garden occupied only 5 sq ft of garden space and used only 6-7 cu ft of media to grow 25 pepper plants. Only 3 of these plants would work in a the same space in a regular garden and 5 in a sq ft garden. The Vertical Eco Garden™ makes it easy to recycle the amended media. Using more aerated non compacting sustainable and less expensive medium (boiled rice hulls, coir, etc.) will facilitate automated recycling of the media opening the door for competitive commercial urban farming for profit.  This would be a low carbon foot print source for your nutrient dense vegetables. The Vertical Eco Garden™ also folds flat and stores on a shelf.  City managers might be more open to the Vertical Eco Garden if they know of failures. Re; the intention of making a profit, profits are sustainable. I have read some community gardens are funded with grants. That can be yet a third intention. Grants are a type of donation. Someone made a profit somewhere to make that money available. The companies that provided the computer and programs and Internet service you are now using, were all able to provide them from profits. Also consider, that human social science evolved from being social, apart from working together. Learning to grow food instead of foraging, the first agriculture culture of woman heir-loomed us into language, art and expression. 

          Out of respect for this sacred tradition, I would want to do everything I could, to honor it in my gardening practices. There are a few articles written by a few brave objective souls who eventually and tactfully covered what I will diagnose as 'Konfused Intention Syndrome'. Lets not add the last S. Instead, using compassion with the intention of communicating, I will explain using a self disclosure. What that syndrome means to me is when I am leaning on others for whom it is I need to be. I have seen many pictures of shallow beds placed on  flat hard ground with little plants growing out of them. The gardeners standing by appear proud of their accomplishments. After all the work, they are appreciative, I’m sure. The beds that do get higher yields are sitting on aerated ground that has been cultivated. Likewise, the same smiles are seen next to stunted plants in deep boxes filled to the top with compacted humus heavy compost. Let’s do the math. A 4’ x 8’ by 12” square bed is 32 cu ft of soil. And that’s only 12 “ high. It should be at least twice that for growing bigger plants like peppers. That’s 64 cu ft. for one bed. Hopefully, no heavy down poor is forecast.  Yet this is in face of square foot gardens that use layers of straw, leaves, news paper, twigs etc, to prevent compacting and provide root anchorage, aeration and drainage. Is this allowed in the box garden identity? FYI, affordable boiled rice hulls can be used to get aeration, and the accumulation of  these is an environmental concern. Lots of heart and sweat equity, wheel barreled yards upon yards of compost manure with the main motive being to grow vegetables. Honestly? I can relate to the need to feel like I am doing something in these hard times. It is not a bad coping mechanism. 

          Here's another option. Working smart instead of hard (cost effectively) at gardening will provide the freedom to be more proactive. Nutrient dense vegetables don't have to come the hard way. The human spirit behind all this work is admirable and I am moved by it. Especially knowing it all has to be removed and done again every few years. Pine wood frames on wet ground will rot and attract termites. I wouldn't want that near my building or house. If you cant afford cedar, redwood or composite, an affordable treatment Grandpa used to use was boiled linseed oil and charcoal. God forbid, I have seen pictures of treated lumber being used for bed gardens. Yes you can line them with plastic and pray there wont be a heavy rain. Wood skid vegetable gardens are also a health concern because skids are often treated with arsenic to prevent infestation or could have accidentally absorbed concentrated carcinogens.   

            The difference between a community garden and community gardening might be best determined by yield. If getting a bunch of vegetables that look like those at the farmers market is the primary intention of the garden, that is what you will get. That’s what farmers do. They want yield. Using their science, if they can get consistent yield ahead of rising cost, they stay being farmers. It might be more helpful to buy produce from them than to spend resources on making half baked gardens. If Activism is your calling, there are alternatives. Start a farmers market if there isn't one or facilitate distribution from farms to store's located in  food deserts. Or start a co-op to buy produce from a local grower using Vertical Eco Gardens™ (conscious intention). Our commune (40 years ago) used to place our orders with the Urban Farm (40 yrs ago) in the spring so they knew what to plant. If you do want a community garden it might be a good idea to read the Oxford guidelines along with books on gardening and soil amending. If you have second thoughts, let me share my vision of a community garden in full bloom. A bunch of people standing around with cold beverages in one hand and a watering can in the other. Reason being, all you really have to do when gardening with the Vertical Eco Garden™, is water it and yourself. Watering the Vertical Eco Garden™ can be done more efficiently with the drip irrigation provided. On a really hot day, a spray hose works for both garden and gardener. Or, for the romantic, watering cans could be individual artistic expressions. Perhaps holding an annual watering can competition would be fun. I see plenty of big smiles, couple of Frisbee's being flung around, zucchini and sweet Italian peppers on the grill. Acoustic trio kickin' it out, Why not? Whats wrong with this picture? Why not have the Vertical Eco Garden™ do the work for you so being out of doors can be more enjoyable.

Pocket Garden Problems And Sustainable Medium

Conventional Potting Soil Test

In order to discuss problems with Pocket Gardening, I first have to briefly talk about potting soil and validate the information. I will use the experiment in this picture. The above picture is of a potting soil test with mixtures of more conventional potting soil. These consist mostly of peat moss with compost manure and or forest products & a little top soil. Each vertical chamber in this Vertical Eco Garden, having 5 pockets on the front, has a different blend of potting soil. The only soil that was significantly different is the middle row. Row 3 started out of the gate strong but finished last. Visually, the soil in the first row looked like what a novice (me) would consider a nice rich earthy looking soil. It was rich, moist and beautiful. However, this produced a smaller compact plant with more secondary growth between the main branches & smaller peppers. The second row received potting soil that was used the previous year, and it was amended with a product called Organic Garden Tone by Espoma. The 2 main Ingredients in Garden Tone is Hydrolyzed Feather Meal and Pasteurized Poultry Manure. Since this was re-used (amended) potting soil I will touch on information on how to do that and then we will get back to the experiment.

I have seen directions for amending potting soil that required heat treatment in a clear plastic bag to be placed in the sun for X time at X temp to kill microbes. Then it said there were good and bad microbes but didn't explain how to discriminate. The short answer, not found in the article is that bad microbes can live in compacted soil with little air because oxygen is of no use or is poisonous (anaerobic) and will inhibit or kill them. The friendly microbes thrive on air and produce stimulating root growth hormones and beneficial trace elements like nitrogen and phosphorous. The article said to add more perlite for aeration & vermiculite for more water retention. Instructions for testing drainage VS water retention said to pour water in the pot and see if it drains and how fast. This information was all after the fact regarding our test. Regardless of this, the second row did good. I think it was because we simply amended (re-mixed) with a bio-intensive plant food, and planted an heirloom that was smart and tuff. The reasoning was, if the potting soil worked the year before, it just needs nutrients and cultivation (loosened- up). The third row was an expensive $40.00 per 2 cu ft bag to be used for growing what used to be a weed, but now is a medicine. The Master Gardener in charge of the experiment thought it looked like the peat moss was too fine and would compact. The fourth & fifth row did the best. The forth row is called All Pro and is a Michigan based company that was purchased from a garden center in Byron Center Mi on sale for about $7.00 / 2 cu ft. It contained a lot of composted forest products. The fifth row was a home -made mix and had a lot of composted leaves with a little top soil. All of the soils used different amounts of perlite for aeration and we added Garden Tone to all of the soils as well. So, all of the soils had the basics of a potting soil described in the following, more or less. The first ingredient I will mention is the main medium, It is the bulk of the potting soil. The functions are to provide the plant roots with a home that will hold a good balance of air, water, food and stability (root anchorage). For this, Peat Moss has been the main source for a long time. However, other medium & sustainable types have come of age. Coir is probably the most used to replace peat moss because it has very similar properties. Some a little better (less compacting) & some a little less, (water / nutrient retention) but this isn't rocket science if growing heirlooms. For a sustainable to replace peat moss go with Coir that is made for growing plants and not for bedding or as feed filler and just add a little more plant food per the same directions on the label.
The next amendment is compost. Compost is decomposing organic matter like manure with bedding of straw or wood shavings, or chicken manure with rice hulls or wood shavings (chicken liter), and forest products (leaves & wood etc).
Ideally, any compost will contain a full range of materials in different stages of decomposition from chunks to what looks a little like muck. This is the humus content, it is the residue from advanced stages of decomposition. Humus will hold 90% of its weight in water and it gives the soil stability for root anchorage, but it has little to no nutritional value. If your compost is too chunky and drainage is too high, vermiculite is added to retain water. If it is too mucky, add rice hulls, perlite and coir or peat moss along with plant food. Most of the compost should be in the middle. Not too fine or muddy and not too chunky. A bag of potting soil / compost should not be heavy and wet. What is desired is organic material that is decomposing (good microbes), not decomposed or not decomposed enough (nitrogen lock up). Chunks of wood for example, should be fingernail size and be able to crumble between your fingers. A few small sticks are OK for resisting compacting. The finer particle (humus) will typically compress and form when pinched between your fingers but a handful of the potting soil should not form or clump together when compressing a handful. This would indicate the humus content is too high. The next amendment is for air or aeration in the soil. Traditionally, this has been perlite. It usually makes up 20% to 25% of the mix. However, we’re about to change that with rice hulls.

For aeration, Rice hulls are the new kid on the block and this is what I want to talk about.You may have heard some bad reports on rice hulls. Well, there's a reason for that. Rice hulls are either boiled or un-boiled. Boiled rice hulls are used by the nursery industry to replace perlite. I think this is preferred by their customers in the big cities who don’t want to deal with floating perlite in managing waste water, treatment and run off. Riceland learned the hard way on how to perfect boiling rice hulls. The problem was this, Sugars & starches are the first to break down in decomposition. When that happens it takes nitrogen from the soil (nitrogen lock up) So, Rice hulls used for aeration took nitrogen from the plants and then it decomposed too fast. I suspect this may have caused them to lose structure and resist compacting. With less nutrients then less aeration, the plants were stunted. The relationship with aeration and nutrients is this. Granted, roots need air, but so do the microbes that have the job of breaking down the organic matter and provide food. So, aeration is key. To fix the problem with the rice hulls was to boil the starch and sugar out of them.
Even this process had a learning curve. It required replacing the water between batches to get rid of all the sugar and starches. What is left behind is a SILICATE like hull shaped material, that now, free of sugar and starch, will not take nitrogen from the soil and will decompose more slowly while holding the hull shape to provide aeration. Here's my thinking and here is how I want to incorporate rice hulls in the Vertical Eco Garden. Granted the boiled rice hulls are free from sugar and starch and are now a silicate structure, but are still organic, and it will eventually decompose. Although it doesn’t have the sugar and starch content that locks up nitrogen, it will still absorb nitrogen (nitrogen Lock-up) in a saturated treatment to initiate decomposition.

Regarding Pocket Gardens, We realize the Vertical Eco Garden resemble a pocket garden. And this is a problem because Pocket Gardening doesn’t work as well, especially for growing vegetables. In fact, we are the opposite in functionality. From ALL the pictures of pocket gardens I have seen, they must be using heavy compacted soils. Because the plants resemble our stunted pepper plants in the heavier, more compacted media in rows 1 & 3. My position is pocket gardening relies on heavier soils in an attempt to get root anchorage so the plants would not blow out in the wind also preventing the soil from drying too fast in their fabric. This is the another pocket garden issue. I won’t go into all the engineering water flow specs for Geo materials because that tends to get a tad boring. However, I will just say they are being misunderstood and are being applied backwards in most cases.

Mechanical Root Anchorage

Basically, in pocket garden materials the water flow specification of a filtering application is being applied to a drain design. So the water runs out too fast. To compensate, they go with either more humus or too much vermiculite. To make matters worse, they have resorted to combining organic (cotton, hemp, etc.) materials in the construction of pocket garden material to absorb or wick water. These won’t last long either, in or out of doors because they will become plant food. The Vertical Eco Garden goes in the opposite direction. Our roots anchor when they grow through the UV resistant geo material from the small pocket into the rooting chamber. This chamber can now use loose aerated mixes of medium. Water is utilized by using only one dripper set on low to feed the 5 growing stations below. This is a drain design application. This, along with root anchorage is the key difference. For example: When bush beans are planted, 15 plants will be watered by one single drip irrigation component.We are focused on our mission to get the biggest yield from the lowest cost, from the smallest volume of growing medium in the least amount of space.Growing vertical is just the natural consequence of that. So, another question that fits this mission statement is, why can't the same amendment for aeration (boiled rice hulls) be used for a portion of the compost as well, increasing both aeration and microbial nutrition. The potting soil test indicates this is the direction to go.

I was looking at a back yard garden composter in a farm supply magazine. It showed a barrel full of what looked like oak leaves. I prefer Maple leaves. The advertisement said it could compost leaves in 15 days and it would contain the odor even with a rich nitrogen additive. So, in the same way as is practiced to decompose leaves we are initiating decomposition of boiled rice hulls. So far, they are decomposing. We think we can control this to the mid way point of decomposition. We don’t have big chunks and we won’t have the sludge (humus) because we are starting with a more uniform material. These little hulls will still work for aeration because so far, they are holding much of their shape. They don't break apart, crumble or turn to mush.




The Vertical Eco Garden is currently getting high yields from 25 to 75 short to mid size heirloom varieties in only 6-7 cubic ft of potting soil, using a garden space of 5 sq ft. However, we're pushing for vegetables from 90 heirlooms. This will be the results from having mechanical root anchorage in a loose non compacting aerated microbial rich potting soil. We've replaced heavier soils for a more aerated medium that provides a more bio-intensive environment. We have combined the best of aeroponic, hydroponics and geoponic in one system. Vertical Eco Garden has found ways to improve this by utilizing the rice hull amendment not only for aeration but also to extend the growth life of the potting soil. Theoretically, this is done by manipulating nitrogen lock up in the boiled rice hulls before it is added to the soil. Then it will provide both aeration and bio-intensity which work hand in hand. It just makes more sense. But let’s not stop there. What about rice hulls for water retention? Visualize this, Peat moss absorbs water like a sponge. In your head, do this little experiment for. Take a sponge and let it absorb as much water as it can and ring it out in a small bowl. Then let that sponge absorb water again and lay it on a dish. Which one will dry up faster? The water in the bowl (rice hull) or the water in the sponge (peat moss)? If you guessed the water in the sponge you are correct. Theorizing rice hulls can do more of the main functions of a potting soil, we are going to do another growing media test.

Mini VEG™ Vertical Eco Garden™

The picture on the right is our Mini VEG 9. It has three vertical rooting chambers. Each chamber will receive different percentages of rice hulls as a growing media. One will have 100%, the middle will have 75% and the third will have 50%. All of the same bush beans will be planted as a control perimeter. We will be sure to keep you posted.

The 2 pictures below are the growing stages and results of the potting soil test pictured at the beginning of this article. It also demonstrates big plants can come from what looks like a small pocket. But make no mistake, this is NOT pocket gardening.