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Tips to keep your garden looking lush into autumn

On hot days herbaceous plantings will often show signs of sun wilt. Do not waste valuable water irrigating these during the day. With a cooler temperature in the evening these plants are well able to recover.

Should hot weather continue, save washing-up water and use this in late evening when it has a chance to soak down into the root zone rather than be evaporated into the atmosphere by the sun.

Dead head regularly. To prolong the display of colour in the borders nip off the faded and dead flower heads. This prevents energy going to seeds at the expense of future flower production.

Making compost? Good compost relies on moisture to keep the process active. In dry weather chuck a bucket of water over the heap regularly. Don’t forget to add a combination of green and woody material, mixing all together and turning regularly for best results.

Prevent tall plants in the herbaceous border flopping over each other by doing some staking and cutting back. Remember, some will have ornamental seed heads that, left alone, can provide autumn and winter interest. Others such as the large yellow composite Centaurea macrocephala are ideal to cut and dry for use as indoor decoration.

If your lawn is starting to look tired, raise the height of cut and extend the frequency of mowing. Move garden furniture regularly to prevent wear beneath.

This year’s high sunshine levels have seen blanket weed spread over ponds. This can be removed by drawing a split stick across the surface. Barley straw can be added to help keep it under control. Remove the spent flowers of water lilies and add a fertiliser tablet to the basket ensuring flowering to the first frosts.

Sow a catch crop of lettuce and a row of spinach. With the warmth in the soil and a splash of water in the seed drill germination will be rapid.

• Tony Garn is garden supervisor at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Gardening news, tips and solutions

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My friend, Roberta Webb, who raises pecans commercially on a ranch near Lubbock, Texas, thinks she has the solution to my black bird problem.

She said crows were once stealing as many as 30 pounds of nuts per crow from her pecan groves until she mounted several big plastic owls atop twenty foot sections of PVC pipe and placed them around the trees and now the crows won’t come near because they’re afraid the owls will get them.

I have two rows of late bodacious sweet corn just starting to tassel. I also have two big great-horned plastic owls in the mail and I’ve already been to Lowe’s where I purchased two twelve-foot sections of two-inch PVC .

I figure that once I get my pipes in the ground, my owls will still be ten feet high and well above my sweet corn which only grows to about seven feet tall. The owls are supposed to be twenty-six inches tall and look very intimidating. Sunlight or the slightest breeze is supposed to make them move around and twist their heads and they’re supposed to scare off black birds and rabbits as well, which would make them serve the ultimate dual purpose. I’d be hard put upon to tell you which I hate more; black birds or rabbits.

I forgot to ask Roberta if the owls kept squirrels out of her pecans because I would have thought squirrels to be more of a problem than crows to a nut grower.

Anyway, I figure that if the owls don’t work in my corn patch, they’ll give all the neighbors something to talk about and provide photo-ops for people who occasionally drive up Charlie Brown Road just so they can say they’ve been here.

In the meantime, I have discovered that I can’t shoot a shotgun because Mr. Parkinson makes it wobble too much to aim and the couple of times I tried, I did almost as much damage to my sweet corn as the feathered vermin were doing. But I still managed to down three big starlings with one shot when about a hundred of them flew off in a swarm when they saw me coming. I couldn’t have missed them if I’d been blind folded.

I used fishing line to hang the carcasses from my corn tassels but the flock came back and ate the rest of my first crop while they held a funeral for their buddies. Bumper Adams, from Letcher County told me that this had happened one time to Everett Banks when he tried the same tactic with a dead crow.

In other gardening news, we have eggplant, okra, bell peppers, cucumbers, Roma beans and tomatoes and such ready to pick but my garden is more akin to an everglade than something you’d try to grow veggies in and I’ve already ruined two pairs of sneakers trying to get a cabbage head. So last Saturday Loretta dragged my knee-high, rubber boots out of the basement, sprayed them full of raid and then vacuumed them out to make sure all the brown recluse spiders that might be hiding in the toes were dead and gone.

So I pulled them on and headed for the bell peppers which are about fifty feet out from any edge of the garden. I picked a five-gallon bucket full an assortment of all the stuff mentioned above and started back to the house when, all of a sudden, I discovered that I couldn’t move either foot.

Six inches below the surface my garden is normally hard clay but it has rained so much over the last month or so that the stuff has softened up and now it’s like quick sand. I set my bucket down in front of me and used my good arm to pull one foot out and then the other and I did this for like ten steps. It was either that or leave my boots stuck in the mud and I was wet with sweat when I finally made it to high ground.

It’s too bad that Loretta didn’t have a video camera handy because we missed a perfect opportunity to win the grand prize on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

OU architecture professor Ron Frantz specializes in midcentury design styles

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Ron Frantz, associate professor in the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture, grew up in a storybook ranch house in Rollingwood, and has turned his admiration for midcentury design styles into a career specialization.

Frantz said the emergence of so-called “Garden View” designs reflected key socio-economic changes taking place as the post-World War II building boom spun families farther and farther from traditional city centers to the suburbs.

As air conditioning became the norm in private homes, people no longer needed their front porches “for either comfort or for social needs,” Frantz said.

Frantz also pointed out that as television began to replace “neighborly conversations,” families became “more private” — eschewing formal living rooms and front parlors for carpeted family rooms arranged to feature the TV “and maybe the wet bar” — and that home design responded to these new proclivities.

Frantz spoke recently at the 25th annual Oklahoma Statewide Preservation Conference in Perry, discussing “Twentieth Century Living Spaces.” He cited a 1972 article by syndicated columnist Hiawatha T. Estes, who he called “a prolific promoter of ranch-style house plans.”

Estes, a Tishomingo native who in 1948 founded the Nationwide House Plan Book Co., syndicated his column from 1955 to 1986. In the article, Estes identified a trend: Americans were gravitating toward “Garden View” homes that shifted the more important rooms to the back of the house “to enjoy a garden view.”

Notice that “it didn’t say ‘sit in the garden,’ ” Frantz said. Ranch-style designs became popular because by the 1960s, “everyone wanted to sit inside, with the air conditioning and the television.”

Proposed Crestview Commons follows mobile eateries trend

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CRESTVIEW — The historic downtown district will follow the latest urban dining trend this fall when Crestview Commons opens on Main Street.

The City Council on Monday approved a proposal for an outdoor eatery featuring up to three mobile food services with permanent restrooms, landscaping and patio dining.

Crestview Commons will be on a currently vacant lot owned by Main Street attorney Nathan Boyles beside Foster Families of America thrift store. The project will allow innovative restaurateurs to introduce new cuisine ideas while offering patrons diverse dining choices, he said.

“Young gourmet chefs often can’t afford $200,000 to start a brick-and-mortar restaurant,” said Boyles, a Main Street Crestview Association member.

Some council members praised Boyles’ project and his previous contributions to Main Street, including opening his office courtyard to a weekly farmers market.

“I’ve seen the projects you have done downtown and I have to commend you on how they look,” Councilman Tom Gordon said.

“I think it would be a great benefit to the city,” Councilman Shannon Hayes said.

Councilman Joe Blocker questioned the aesthetics of downtown food-preparation vehicles and cast the lone “nay” ballot in the 4-1 vote approving Crestview Commons.

“A trailer’s a trailer, no matter how you sugarcoat it,” Blocker said.

Crestview Commons passed all of the city’s development stages, including approval by the fire department, the Technical Review Committee and the Local Planning Agency.

The process took more than a year, during which a similar project in Pensacola went from concept to opening in a matter of months, Boyles said.

Crestview’s review process “stymies forward-looking projects,” he said.

“We have outdated and outmoded codes that do not address the changing times,” Boyles said. “Frankly, it’s the young generation that’s going to be the savior or sound the death-knell of the downtown district.”

Contact News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.

Colorado Springs committees to study improvements to South Academy, North …

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South Academy Boulevard and North Nevada Avenue in Colorado Springs are separated by a distance of roughly five miles as the crow flies, but are inextricably linked because of community concerns over the future of the corridors.

South and Central Academy – once prime shopping districts – have seen several retail losses over the years as stores and restaurants bolted to newer parts of town. In 2011, a city study concluded that hulking power lines should be buried along a six-mile stretch south of Maizeland Road, and recommended pedestrian and bicycle pathways, landscaping and many other improvements.

Nevada, north of Garden of the Gods Road, was declared an urban renewal site in 2004, and much of its west side was transformed from a cluster of dingy motels and cluttered businesses into the University Village Colorado shopping center. The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs also is making improvements along Nevada’s east side – such as the Lane Center for Academic Health Sciences now under construction – and envisions others.

Now, city officials and community leaders are again gearing up to study the two corridors with the goal of producing substantive plans to revitalize South and Central Academy, while adding to the progress on Nevada and leveraging the growth plans of UCCS.

The goal: “Create more viable parts of the community,” said Springs developer Fred Veitch. “In both cases, they (South Academy and North Nevada) have, until recently, been in decline. Both need to be addressed, and proactively.”

Like other city and civic leaders before him, Springs Mayor Steve Bach has targeted three areas – downtown, North Nevada and South Academy – as so-called economic opportunity zones. The idea is to determine their highest and best land uses, while identifying jobs-generating strategies for the areas, among other goals.

Veitch said Bach asked him several weeks ago to head a task force to study the areas. Since downtown already has the Downtown Partnership and other advocacy groups, Veitch said the task force is focusing on South Academy and North Nevada.

Two committees composed of volunteers from the business community and civic organizations, city planners and Colorado Springs Utilities, among others, have been created to focus on each corridor. The panels held their first meetings this week and will meet regularly, Veitch said.

The Nevada committee is being chaired by City Councilman Don Knight and Rob Oldach, chief operating officer at Colorado Springs-based CSI Construction. The South Academy panel is being chaired by Councilman Merv Bennett and Tiffany Colvert, a broker associate with NAI Highland Commercial Group.

One of their first tasks: Establish boundaries for the areas along Academy and Nevada that will be studied. From there, the committees will begin identifying issues central to each corridor.

While Nevada already has been designated as an urban renewal site, the committee’s work is intended as a broader initiative to create a long-term vision for the area that creates synergy with UCCS’ plans, Veitch said.

South Academy will be a bigger challenge, he conceded. The area lacks an anchor, and caters to a diverse mix of neighborhoods. In order to be successful, the committee must reach out to ethnic groups and other residents along the corridor to gain their input, Veitch said.

Each committee will develop a strategic action plan with specific recommendations to improve each area, Veitch said.

He said he hopes that projects will be identified and work started by 2015. Costs associated with any improvements – and how they’d be funded – are unknowns at this time, he added.

Any recommendations must be sharply focused “and not just a white paper that says ‘this is an opportunity’,” Veitch said.

“He’s (Bach) talked about jobs and job creation and economic vitality,” Veitch said. “I think this is an attempt to reach out and say ‘what does that mean?’ And here are areas of town that I think are opportunities to do something and create something that actually does it and not just put a pretty plan together.

“What can we create that the community wants to see, that the community supports and leverages our assets to make this a better place to live and work?”

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Contact Rich Laden: 636-0228 Twitter @richladen

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Payson General Plan Predicts Hotspots For Growth

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As Payson grows from a struggling tourist town of 15,000 to a diverse college town of 40,000, much of the new development will concentrate along the highway, around the proposed campus, along Main Street and in industrial and high-density residential areas around the Payson Airport.

At least, that’s the blueprint for the future outlined in the proposed once-a-decade overhaul of the town’s General Plan.

The consultants who prepared the revision spent months gathering suggestions from citizens, then wrote an ambitious wish list for the future, politely sidestepping the still stubborn stumbling blocks of the past.

The plan calls for the town to finally escape its highway, strip-commercial prison, which has largely defined Payson until now. New development lured to the area as the town doubles, then redoubles in population will create walkable clusters of mixed residential and commercial.

The blueprint envisions smaller more diverse homes. It envisions highway frontage graced with trees, sidewalks and benches that hide parking and buffer shops and coffee-sipping shoppers from the rush of traffic. It aims for pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, a finally revitalized Main Street, a thriving university campus area, apartments and year-round industries built on hundreds of acres of empty land near the Payson Airport.

Of course, Payson has been struggling to realize many of these glittering urban dreams for years — especially when it comes to the titanic struggle to turn the mile-long straggle of shops on Main Street into a meandering shoppers’ refuge to rival the the core shopping areas of small tourist towns like Jerome or Bisbee or larger regional centers like Prescott and Flagstaff. At build-out, Payson would have as many people as Prescott does now — but still one-third less than Flagstaff has now.

Years of effort to bolster Main Street succeeded in attracting some $14 million in private investment and transforming the area from one of the highest-crime areas in town to one of the safest. But despite that singular success, the clusters of shops remain scattered and ambitious plans and proposed developments have faltered.

Likewise, ambitious plans to put a roof over the Payson Event Center have repeatedly floundered. The town hoped moving the rodeo grounds from the shaded Rumsey Park to the spacious but sun-drenched site at the south entrance to town would draw an array of events and trade shows and spin-off development. Five years ago, the town announced with fanfare a plan to build a major hotel overlooking the Event Center, but that plan fell victim to the recession.

More recently, town officials hoped to take advantage of federal incentives to cover the Event Center with solar cells as part of the university campus plan. That fell through when the state and federal incentives expired.

Still, the General Plan revision anticipates major new projects in the four growth areas that will mingle commercial and residential and provide a setting for new industries providing year-round jobs.

The plan stresses the need to diversify the town’s housing stock, which now includes 8,417 dwelling units. Of those, 90 percent are single-family homes — including 5,668 houses and 1,738 mobile homes. Payson continues to struggle with a shortage of affordable housing — defined as the mismatch between the average wage and the average house price.

Multi-family units like condos and apartments constitute only 10 percent of the town’s housing stock, which makes Payson a tough place for renters.

With plans to build a university and various spin-off businesses and industries and the Arizona housing market on the mend, planners hope for a turn in the Payson real estate market as well.

That could soon confront town planners with the need to find some way to achieve the glittering promise of the General Plan’s effort to lure shoppers off the buzzing highway. Strategies include things like landscaping the now mostly barren highway frontage, moving storefronts closer to the street by shifting the parking lots to the back, building up to four stories to create facades and shaded places to sit and chat and eat.

Currently, about 55 percent of the town’s 20-square-mile area is zoned for residential, most of it low and medium density. Office zoning accounts for 1 percent, industrial zoning 4 percent and commercial zoning 3 percent. The commercial development generates most of the property taxes, which provides about two-thirds of the town’s budget.

The remaining categories include 21 percent devoted to open space — mostly drainage areas and hillsides, the 3 percent included in the Tonto Apache Reservation and the 3 percent of “civic” space — including town buildings and parks.

The development that flows into the four designated “growth areas” will largely determine whether Payson can generate the sales tax revenue it needs to pay for public services without losing its treasured “small town” feel.

Growth areas – Main Street

Residents expressed “overwhelming” support for the continued redevelopment of Main Street, in hopes of creating a healthy, pedestrian and tourist-oriented commercial area between the Beeline Highway and Green Valley Park, the consultants reported.

“Large scale retail development along Beeline Highway and State Highway 260, hurt the bypassed Main Street corridor,” they wrote, “increasingly Main Street serves as a pass-through rather than the destination and community center of a traditional ‘Main Street.’”

But the plan contained few new ideas on how to reverse the trend, with struggling shops too widely separated for casual strolling. The street varies in width from 61 to 125 feet, with fragmented sidewalks and little landscaping. The plan calls for filling in the gaps in the storefronts and developing consistent widths, features to slow traffic and the development of outdoor café seating. However, the plan included no discussion of how the town might pay for such improvements.

Payson Airport

The area around the Payson Airport has some of the largest undeveloped tracts of land and the most industrial and multi-family zoning in Payson, thanks to the annexation several years ago of some 200 acres private owners acquired from the Forest Service in a land swap that took 20 years to arrange.

The area has figured prominently in discussions between town officials and companies they’ve tried to lure to the region in the past several years. That included a Chinese consortium that wants to build a solar cell chip assembly plant here in connection with a university campus. In addition, town officials have opened discussions with several gun and ammunition manufacturers they hope will join the existing ammunition making plant now operating near the airport.

State Route 260

This stretch of highway frontage will likely be transformed by the construction of the proposed university campus on 253 acres of land south of the highway. The Rim Country Educational Alliance also has the option to buy about 100 acres between GCC and Tyler Parkway, where it hopes to build a research park and other facilities. The university plan calls for a 500-room conference hotel on a hill overlooking the campus.

Instead of building a strip mall string of stores looking toward the highway across barren parking lots, the plan calls for building clusters with landscaping, sidewalks, bike paths — and parking lots tucked in around back.

“The goal will be to define a district anchored by vibrant retail and commercial framing the core intersection and extending along both roadways. Gila Community College and any future higher education institutions will create demand for a young “hip” district focused on the public space. Small, loft-style apartments will accommodate students and increase market feasibility.”

Beeline Highway corridor

The Beeline remains the “spine” of Payson, the consultants concluded, with average traffic flows of 2,000 to 3,000 cars a day — soaring to 20,000 on busy weekends.

The General Plan should encourage commercial infill all along the highway, with efforts to shorten setbacks and provide sidewalks, tree canopies and features that buffer shoppers and pedestrians from the intimidating rush of the highway.

Payson business owners trying to survive along that frontage have struggled for years, trying desperately to get some of the 20,000 drivers to slow down and turn off the highway.

The General Plan discussion in the report focused on finding ways to redevelop chunks of highway footage, in hopes a new approach could make drivers slow down and park.

“Beeline Highway is the commercial lifeblood of Payson,” the report concluded. “It offers the greatest visibility for retail, dining and commercial activity. However, development over the past decades has resulted in inconsistent facades and setbacks, excessive curb cuts, loss of tree canopy, and lack of gateways defining the Beeline Highway as part of the community.

“Designating areas for mixed-use development/redevelopment along Beeline Highway helps to define the corridor as a destination.”

McKinley Park Community Garden Promotes Healthy Lifestyles

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McKinley Park Community Garden.
(The Gate/ Adriana Cardona-Maguigad)

The McKinley Park Community Garden (MPCG) hosted its first garden walk, a tour of the neighborhood gardens owned by local residents.

The garden walk is just one of the many efforts of the McKinley Park Community Garden, a not-for-profit organic garden established last April.

On Saturday Aug. 10, residents saw firsthand the lush vegetation of the garden and the crisp leaves flapping in the wind.

Gardeners young and old visited each plot, curious to see what harvests would be born. Yet the sun’s beams radiated on nature lovers near and far as they relished in the day’s summer beauty.

Besides the MPCG, people were given maps of gardens nearby, where residents opened up their backyards and shared the joys of their personal at-home greeneries. One man even owned a chicken and gave those on the tour fresh, organic eggs.

The garden provides plot land and soil for residents who may not have their own backyards and want to grow crops of their choice at an affordable rate. Community gardeners pay $50 for the entire growing season from May through October.

“We really wanted it to be rooted in community, and not [have] decisions made by just one person,” said Corenna Roozeboom, McKinley Park Community Garden organizer.

MPCG is not exclusive to McKinley Park residents. Gardeners from Pilsen and Back of the Yards have bought plots as well. It serves all Chicago residents, but particularly those living in South Side and West side neighborhoods who want to grow their own food but can’t, Roozeboom said.

Urban gardening is part of a broader agricultural movement in the U.S. that has gained exposure in recent years. “People are becoming more aware of where their food is coming from. They want to eat healthy food without industrial chemicals,” Roozeboom said.

Located at 1900 W. Pershing Rd., the community garden is situated in front of a warehouse. While the warehouse had been abandoned for 50 years, Roozeboom said she still had to negotiate with the property owner over the course of nine months in order to get permission to use the land.

Through persistence, she secured a two year lease agreement with the property owner. She was able to secure a two-year contract. In lieu of paying for the use of the warehouse’s lawn, Roozeboom and local gardeners must maintain the care of the property.

Ten residents form the community garden’s steering committee. The committee helps draft the garden’s bylaws, coordinate outdoor events including the garden walk and monthly volunteer cleanups, as well as workshops on planting, composting and square foot gardening that take place at the local library.

The community garden received strong support at the municipal level. 12th Ward Ald. George Cardenas provided city shovels and landscaping equipment during the construction of the garden, Roozeboom said.

The garden itself is approximately 84 by 284 feet, and the plots themselves are 4 by 8 feet. The rectangular design of the community garden and the close quarters of its plots encourage neighbors to interact side-by-side.

Sixty-three plots will yield a variety of crops, including corn, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, sweet potatoes, beans, beets, cucumber, lettuce and even quinoa, kale and Swiss chard.

The crop yields of two plots will be donated to two local parishes, St. Andrew Lutheran Church and St. Maurice Church.

So far, McKinley Park residents’ response to the community garden has been positive. Blanca Aviles, McKinley Park native and member of Windy City Harvest, has recognized the benefits such a community garden has given to the locals. “Being able to grow your own vegetables offsets supermarket prices and helps people add greens to their diet,” Aviles said.

Roozeboom, along with Aviles and other gardeners, hope to foster McKinley Park’s growing passion for gardening, and even more so the general well-being of the environment. “There’s value in taking care of something together,” she said. “I hope the garden helps people connect with Mother Nature even more so now.”

The McKinley Park Community Garden’s next event is the first Garden Cocktail Soirée, a social evening of flora-infused drinks taking place on Friday Aug. 30 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. The garden is open to the public.

Jardín Comunitario en McKinley Park Promueve Estilos de Vida Saludables

(The Gate/ Adriana Cardona-Maguigad)

El Jardín Comunitario de McKinley Park (MPCG) celebró su primer paseo de jardines, un recorrido por los jardines del vecindario propiedad de los residentes locales.

El paseo de jardines es uno de los muchos esfuerzos del Jardín Comunitario de McKinley Park, un jardín orgánico sin fines de lucro establecido el pasado mes de abril.

El sábado 10 de agosto, residentes vieron de primera mano la exuberante vegetación del jardín y sus frescas hojas ondeando en el viento. Jardineros jóvenes y mayores visitaron cada parcela, con curiosidad por saber cómo nacerían las cosechas. Sin embargo los rayos del sol radiaban sobre los amantes de la naturaleza cerca y lejos mientras disfrutaban de la belleza de verano del día.

Además del MPCG, la gente recibió mapas de los jardines cercanos, donde los residentes abrieron sus patios traseros y compartieron las alegrías de sus propios jardines. Un hombre incluso tenía una gallina y le dio a aquellos en el recorrido huevos frescos, orgánicos.

El jardín provee una parcela y tierra para los residentes que no cuentan con sus propios patios traseros y quieren sembrar las cosechas de su elección a precios asequibles. Los jardineros comunitarios pagan $50 por toda la temporada de siembra de mayo a octubre.

“Realmente queríamos que se basara en la comunidad, y que las decisiones no fueran tomadas por una sola persona”, dijo Corenna Roozeboom, organizadora del Jardín Comunitario de McKinley Park.

MPCG no es exclusivo de los residentes de McKinley Park. Jardineros de Pilsen y Back of the Yards también han comprado parcelas. Sirve a todos los residentes de Chicago, pero particularmente a aquellos que residen en los vecindarios del sur y oeste de la ciudad que deseen cultivar sus propios alimentos pero no pueden, dijo Roozeboom.

La jardinería urbana es parte de un amplio movimiento agricultural en Estados Unidos que ha obtenido exposición en recientes años. “La gente cada vez está más consciente de dónde provienen sus alimentos. Quieren comer alimentos saludables sin químicos industriales”, dijo Roozeboom.

Ubicado al 1900 Oeste Pershing Rd., el jardín comunitario está situado frente a una bodega. Aunque la bodega había estado abandonada por 50 años, Roozeboom dijo que todavía tuvo que negociar con el dueño de la propiedad durante nueve meses para obtener el permiso para utilizar el terreno.

Mediante persistencia, ella pudo asegurar un contrato de arrendamiento de dos años. En lugar de pagar por el uso del césped de la bodega, Roozeboom y jardineros locales deben darle el mantenimiento a la propiedad.

Diez residentes forman el comité directivo del jardín comunitario. El comité ayuda a redactar los estatutos del jardín, coordina eventos al aire libre incluyendo el paseo de los jardines y limpieza con voluntarios, además de talleres de plantación, compostaje y jardinería de pies cuadrados que se lleva a cabo en la biblioteca local.

El jardín comunitario recibió apoyo a nivel comunitario. El Concejal del Distrito 12 George Cardenas le ofreció palas y equipo de jardinería durante la construcción del jardín, dijo Roozeboom.

El jardín mide aproximadamente 84 por 284 pies, y las parcelas miden 4 por 8 pies. El diseño rectangular del jardín comunitario y la cercanía de sus parcelas animan a los vecinos a interactuar de lado a lado.

Sesenta y tres parcelas rendirán una variedad de cultivos, incluyendo maíz, chiles, berenjenas, camote, frijol, betabel, pepino, lechuga e incluso quinoa, col rizada y acelgas.

La producción de dos parcelas será donada a dos parroquias locales, la Iglesia Luterana San Andrés y la Iglesia San Mauricio.

Hasta ahora, la respuesta de los residentes de McKinley Park al jardín comunitario ha sido positiva. Blanca Aviles, originaria de McKinley Park y miembro de Windy City Harvest, ha reconocido los beneficios que dicho jardín comunitario les ha dado a los residentes locales. “Poder cultivar tus propias vegetales compensa los precios de los supermercados y ayuda a la gente a añadir verduras a su dieta”, dijo Aviles.

Roozeboom, junto con Aviles y otros jardineros esperan fomentar la creciente pasión de McKinley Park por la jardinería, y más aún el bienestar general del medio ambiente. “Hay valor en cuidar algo juntos”, dijo. “Espero que el jardín ayude a la gente a conectarse con la madre naturaleza y más ahora”.

El próximo evento del Jardín Comunitario de McKinley Park es su primer tardeada de cocteles en el jardín, una noche social de bebidas infusionadas de flora que se realizará el viernes 30 de agosto de las 6:30 a las 9 p.m. El jardín está abierto al público.

L.A. Finally Realizes Front-Yard Gardens Are A Good Thing

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If you live in Los Angeles, here’s a good way to fight crime: Read the Bureau of Street Service’s Residential Parkway Landscaping Guidelines, then take to the streets. Regardless of what neighborhood you’re in, you’re bound to find something illegal on almost any block—whether it be near Beverly Hills or near Baldwin Hills.

Until just this week, many of the front-yard vegetable gardens (a rare sight) you might spot while cruising the block for landscape crimes were illegal too.

Rose bushes, towering shrubs, cacti, bougainvillea—if these are planted on the strip of land between the sidewalk and the curb, publically owned land known as a parkway, their presence is almost certainly against the law. According to the guidelines, “non-standard parkway plant materials”—anything other than grass, basically—must be shorter than 36 inches, can’t be noxious or invasive, and should not have “exposed, rigid spines or thorns.”

Despite the rampant presence of residents with a blatant disregard for the landscaping law of the land, no one in Los Angeles seems to care about parkway planting rules until someone puts in a vegetable garden.

Ron Finley—he of the “if you ain’t a gardener, you ain’t gangster” TED talk fame—planted just such a parkway garden in front of his house in South Central L.A. in 2010 and was duly fined by the city the following year. City Council member Herb Wesson, who represents the district where Finley lives, stood by the activist-gardener, vowing to change the restrictions. On Tuesday, two years later, now-City Council President Wesson brought up a measure that would temporarily suspend the parkway garden restrictions. It passed unanimously.

“They’re worried about someone tripping over an eggplant,” Finley said of the city’s initial resistance to changing the rules. “Not tripping over the couches and the bed and the garbage or the condoms. They’re worried about an eggplant. I’m glad we got our priorities straight.”

But it’s not like he’s been in a holding pattern for the past two years, waiting until the city changed its regulations. Just two days before the measure passed, he helped to plant “one of the biggest street, vegetable edible plantings in the city” on parkways in a South Los Angeles neighborhood.

Elsewhere in the city, other gardeners have ignored the restrictions too, including Abbie Zands, who hired the edible landscaping design company Farmscape to install a raised vegetable garden on the parkway in front of his Los Feliz home. He too was fined, as was Finley’s neighbor, Angel Teger, two incidents that led to a renewed round of media coverage, including a column by Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times.

“Last time I checked, Los Angeles had 5,000 miles of ruptured sidewalks—some of which look like mountain ranges—caused primarily by invasive roots on unmaintained parkway trees planted by the city,” Lopez wrote at the end of July, suggesting that vegetable gardens on parkways “is the least of our worries.”

While the city finally seems to agree with that sentiment, Farmscape’s Dan Allen points out that the suspension is temporary, designed to give the Bureau of Street Services time to come up with an amended list of approved plants. Allen’s concern is that only nominally edible plants like rosemary and lavender will be added, leaving out the likes of tomatoes and cucumbers and fruit trees. Raised beds may not be approved either.

Finley, however, is dismissive of the “academics” worried about a plant list. “The city doesn’t have enough money to enforce this shit,” he said, imagining how ridiculous a vegetable beat cop policing someone’s garden would sound: “Hey, dude, that’s purple cabbage—you’re supposed to have rhubarb.”

Which is not to say that Finley doesn’t see the City Council’s action as a major victory. ”I think it’s a long time coming. It’s a sign that, possibly, the people who run the city want to change this food injustice, equality injustice, and change the health of certain communities. It’s big.”

Our Town: Roswell Garden club does more than lunch

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If you’re having a bite in a Roswell restaurant and wind up near a group of women with soil smeared on their shirts and caked on their sneakers, there’s a good chance you’re next to ladies of the Roswell Garden Club. The organization’s 40-plus members pride themselves on being a club that’s not afraid to get down and dirty in the name of community beautification.

“We’re not a lunch garden club; we’re a working garden club,” said Debbie Vann, the current president. “We get out there and work, then we go to lunch looking really dirty.”

The grassroots group has been making Roswell a bit lusher since it was formed in 1951 as an offshoot of the Roswell Women’s Club.

“Some members wanted to do more with floral design and landscaping,” said Vann. “The first project we took one was fixing up the town square. We’ve put up the gazebo and two benches there, and we donate funds for the upkeep. If someone calls and asks us to help with a simple project, we will – and if we take it on, we take care of it.”

The club maintains and supplies the plants for gardens at Barrington Hall and Smith Plantation, two of the city’s historic homes. At Barrington, they restored a neglected boxwood garden, planted a vegetable garden, cleaned up the butterfly and hydrangea gardens and put in a pink garden to honor cancer victims. They also work on landscaping at the Roswell Adult Recreation center and were recently asked by the Visitors Center to take over care of their side garden.

But their energies aren’t restricted just to planting and weeding. On Oct. 12, they’ll sell jams, jellies and baked goods and provide free activities and crafts for kids at Smith Plantation’s Fall Farm Days. They’ll then move onto decorating the Smith house inside and out for the holidays and trimming the official city tree on the square.

Selling homemade goodies and hosting a spring plant sale enable the club to supports its endeavors and to make donations to causes such as Habitat for Humanity and the Ronald McDonald House. But it’s not all hard work; the group has monthly meetings the feature interesting speakers and often head out on garden tours.

“It’s fun!” said Carolyn Herndon, who joined in 2006 after seeing photos of the club in action. “I’ve made a lot of new friends. Anyone can join; no special knowledge, just an interest is required.”

Member Hilary Boyle joined the club a year after moving to Roswell from England in 2005.

“I love it because I have always been an avid gardener,” she said. “As a London native, it’s in my blood.”

The club’s friendship and comraderie were the draw for Vann.

“When I first moved here in 2002, I had quit working, and a neighbor invited me to a meeting,” she said. “It was a great way to get out and make new friends.”

Each Saturday, we shine a spotlight on a local neighborhood, city or community. To suggest a place for us to visit, e-mail H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or call 770- 744-3042.

Gardening Tip – 17th August

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Gardening Tip – 17th August

17/08/2013 , 9:57 AM by Peter Riley

Worried about unwanted insects destorying all your hard work in the garden? John Gabriele has some tips to help you out

Download GARDENING TIP 17 AUG

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Gardening Tip – 17th August

Gardening Tip – 17th August

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