Upcoming Workshops

Ms. Janine's garden plot weeded, composted, and ready to get planted at this Saturday's workshop!

This SaturdayApril 13th, we will be hosting the first of our garden workshop series this year. Here is what we have in store. Can't wait to see you there!: 

Gardening Workshops at Boone Street Farm:

Saturday April 13th – Starting a garden- transplanting and seeding your garden bed

Saturday May 18th – Container gardening

Saturday June 15th – Managing weeds and insects organically

Saturday July 13th - Herbal medicine workshop- medicinal herb walk

Saturday August 10th – Transplanting and seeding your fall garden. Planting fall cover crops.

Saturday September 14th – Preserving your harvest- Share recipes, make and taste a few pickling recipes using vegetables from the garden.  Learn how to can, freeze and dry your extra produce from the garden.

Saturday October 12th – Herbal medicine workshop- cold & flu prevention

Saturday November 16th – Winterize your garden

Boone Street community garden and farm are located on Boone Street between 21st and 22nd St. 

Don't forget to friend us on Facebook or email us at boone.street.farm@gmail.com and ask to be put on our emailing list for more updates and announcements.

Volunteers Help Us Get Ready in Spring!

Special thanks to all of the volunteers who have helped us build walkways, plant ornamentals, move soil, and more!

Maya from the Farm Alliance brought a tour group from Gettysburg yesterday. The college students are taking a class about food systems and ethics, and were given a tour of various urban farms around Baltimore.

The students even helped our star youth gardener Brian to weed his garden plot and plant it with kale, carrots, and peas.

We were outside all day yesterday and had the chance to say hello to many neighbors and friends.

What's going o. In the field? Our hoop house plastic is not on because of our lack of water access right now, but a few tiny sprouts of peas and lettuce mix have begun popping up their first leaves. Garlic, green onion, and some baby collards are our main crops to harvest right now. Our produce is available at the Waverly farmers market on Saturdays along with other Farm Alliance produce.

Want to check out the farm and join in the volunteering fun? Send us an email at Boone.street.farm@gmail.com and we will keep you posted.

Happy spring planting!

After School Garden Club

New garden beds have been built for our weekly after school program!

On Wednesdays we are now hosting a free after school garden club for a group of students from Cecil Elementary, which is located just a few blocks from the garden.

Cheryl, Aliza, two teachers from Cecil Elementary, and other interns and volunteers are hosting the class from free right now. We will be applying for a grant this April to see if we can receive funding to host garden club for the 2013 - 2014 school year.

The students planted a variety of peas yesterday and will be planting sorrel transplants as well. Sorrel is a perennial herb that has a sour taste and is very hardy. Kids love it.

As part of the garden club, the students learned about different seeds and the biology of a sprout, and the basics of planting a seed. Next they will be monitoring the plants as they grow. By the end of the school year in May they will harvest and eat their peas!

We are hosting a volunteer day at the garden this Saturday the 23rd from 9 am to 1 pm.

Cheryl is also at the garden on Wednesdays from 9 am to 1 pm if you would like to help out during the week.

If you can't make it this Saturday, our next volunteer day is Saturday April 9th from 9 am to 1 pm.

Rebuilding with Rubble

Hello readers!

I took these photos two weeks ago after a block of houses near the Boone Street Garden was torn down.

There are so many thoughts I have about housing vacancy and urban planning, but I am no expert (and if it's urban planning and community engagement you want, you may as well visit www.nextdoor.com). So, I will stay fairly quiet, and just use the photo to document the current state of many blocks in the Greater Greenmount neighborhood.  For those of you who have visited us at the garden or who live in the neighborhood, you know all too well the terrible blight of vacant homes. One of my hopes for the East Baltimore - Midway neighborhood is that more neighbors get involved with the Greater Greenmount Community Association or other organizations, and that the neighborhood organizations, churches, schools and businesses come together to share their ideas, collect information, and have a direct say in the growth and rebuilding of their community.

At the garden, we are putting some of the bricks to use making mulch pathways to beautify the garden and make the space more functional.

This blog post about rebuilding has another meaning as well. 

By the end of the month, I hope to have created a new website for Boone Street Farm. This blog has been serviceable, but photos have been disappearing, and there are not as many bells and whistles as the potential website will have, such as integration with social media and a cleaner format. 

And so, please pardon our dust and our silence on this website as we make the transformation to a stronger, better Boone Street Farm. 

Found in the pile of demolished houses

What We're Up To in March 2013

- starting transplants indoors: peppers, tomatoes, marigolds, basil, creeping thyme, echinacea, and more!

- hosting a free weekly after-school garden club at Cecil Elementary from March - May 2013

- planning some strategies for littering and other waste remediation in the neighborhood

- consulting with various students and/or organizations interested in studying community engagement and urban farming, local food assessments, and more

- participating in the Farm Alliance of Baltimore 

- tackling the water access issue (as you can see in the photo above, we water the garden with a fire house attached to a hydrant right now)

- planning our upcoming volunteer days and next steps towards beginning the growing season

Pickled Beet Recipe on the Marc Steiner Show

Cheryl and our farm assistant Baba harvesting beets during our first year.

Today (Thursday February 14th) at 6pm, the Marc Steiner Show on 88.9 WEAA will be airing a seasonal local food recipe presented by Boone Street Farm!

We selected a recipe for "Pickled Beet Salad." The recipe uses seasonal ingredients, the majority of which are available  right now at the year round Waverly Farmer's Market on 33rd St. 

Plus, the beets will dye everything in your kitchen pink, just in time for Valentine's Day!

Pickled Beet Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

Fresh Salad greens- spicy mix- ½ lb

Shallot/Onion

Pickled Beets- 8 oz

Radishes- 1 bunch

Goat Cheese

Lemon

Orange

Dijon Mustard- 1 tsp

Olive oil – ½ cup

Sea salt

Serves 6

Salad Dressing

• Grate the lemon and orange until you have 1 Tbsp lemon zest and 1 Tbsp of orange zest
• Squeeze fresh juice from the orange and the lemon until you have ¼ cup of lemon juice and ¼ cup orange juice
• Mix the orange and lemon juice together.
• Then whisk in 1 tsp of Dijon mustard
• Finally whisk in ½ cup of olive oil until they emulsify (blend together)
• Add sea salt to taste

Putting the Salad Together

• First thinly slice the onion and pour ¼ cup of the pickled beet juice(brine) over the onions and let them stand for ~10 min
• Slice up the radishes into rounds
• After you rinse and spin the greens, toss the fresh salad greens with the onions and radishes   
• Top the salad  with the pickled beets and crumbled goat cheese

We’re finished!

Some beets are available now from farmer's who have kept their beets in cold storage since the fall harvest, or who may still be growing beets in a hoop house.

Now through early March is the time to be planting beets for a May harvest.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation is a great resource guide for canners. We modified their recipe to make our pickled beets. We prefer a more savory blend of black peppercorns and mustard seeds instead of the cinnamon and cloves. You can also adjust the sugar to taste. Start with less and taste the canning liquid to sweeten it to your preference.

Pickled Beet Recipe

• 7 lbs of 2- to 2-1/2-inch diameter beets
• 4 cups good quality apple cider vinegar (5 percent)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons canning, pickling, or sea salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 2 tsp of black peppercorns
• 1-2 tsp each black and yellow mustard seeds
• 4 to 6 onions (2- to 2-1/2-inch diameter) if desired

Yield: About 8 pints

Please read Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning. If this is your first time canning, it is recommended that you read Principles of Home Canning.

Procedure: Trim off beet tops, leaving 1 inch of stem and roots to prevent bleeding of color. Wash thoroughly. Sort for size. Cover similar sizes together with boiling water and cook until tender (about 25 to 30 minutes). Caution: Drain and discard liquid. Cool beets. Trim off roots and stems and slip off skins. 

Slice into 1/4-inch slices. Peel and thinly slice onions. Combine vinegar, salt, sugar, and fresh water. Put spices in cheesecloth bag and add to vinegar mixture. Bring to a boil. Add beets and onions. Simmer 5 minutes. 

Remove spice bag. Fill jars with beets and onions, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Add hot vinegar solution, allowing 1/2-inch headspace.

Adjust lids and process according to the recommendations in Table 1.

Variation: Pickled whole baby beets. Follow above directions but use beets that are 1- to 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Pack whole; do not slice. Onions may be omitted.

Getting Started: Year #3 at Boone Street

This past Sunday, February 10th, we had our first volunteer day to get started for the 2013 growing season. I can't believe we are already at year #3!

It's been a long, interesting road learning how to grow on a large scale, getting started with the Farm Alliance of Baltimore, coordinating volunteers and community programming, being visited by many neighborhood kids, writing grants, and maintaining  community relations, but here we are!

I didn't take any photos on Sunday, but thought I would re-post a few photos from past years. The top photo is a memorial to our sign that Cheryl coordinated our first year, which was created by our five YouthWorks employees, five teenage girls who were employed by Baltimore City to help us out on the farm. Sadly, the sign was vandalized about six months ago, so we repainted over the blue interior and will have a new sign soon.

The photo below shows our first work day in March 2011! Special thanks to the Greater Greenmount Community Association for their partnership on that first day and over the years.

If you would like to see more photos of Boone Street, here is a link to a Google photo album with photos from the blog over the past year. I hope to have improved photo albums on the website soon. I also apologize for all of the missing photos on this blog, I am having some issues with Blogger and hope to be fixing it soon.

Here is a photo from one of our first volunteer days from year #2.

By year two, we were able to triple our profits from $1000 to $3000. We grew over 1000 pounds of produce in our second year. Another blog improvement I hope to make soon is a separate page for Year 1 and Year 2 at the garden, and a list of our accomplishments and challenges each year.

This note we found last year written on a sign next to the garden is a positive memory!

And now, Year #3!

Top Three Favorite Moments from this past Sunday, 2/10:

1. High School Volunteers

Two high schoolers from DC volunteered at the farm for a whole six hours! They volunteered as part of an assignment from their science class. They helped us plant seeds in seedling trays, pick up trash, planted about 60 feet of peas, and grab a bunch of bricks from a nearby block of demolished houses. One of the students was from Rome, and was excited to have our number #1 volunteer Brian teach him how to play football.

2. A Visit From Former Homeowners

A nearby church, St. Ann's, has several congregants who used to live in the East Baltimore - Midway neighborhood, including some who used to live on the block where the farm and garden are now located. A couple stopped by on Sunday to visit the old site of the husband's home. The marble step of the home is still in the ground. Mr. Jonathan's garden bed is now located where his mother's old flower bed and their garage used to be. It was wonderful speaking to them about what the block used to be like back in the day, and we hope to capture their oral history soon! They pointed to the home shown below, which had the back of the house collapse, and remembered how immaculate it's former owner kept the house. One interesting fact they told us: the first African American pilot shot down and captured as a POW in Vietnam grew up on the community garden side of the block.

3. Visits from Friends and Supporters

Mr. Jonathan was there battling away with the vicious bermuda grass, even going so far as to dig a trench all the way around his bed. He is a very experienced and determined gardener, and I hope to get some photos of his bed and composting methods, and to do an interview with him soon. His garlic and green onions are peeping out of the ground, and I'm really excited to see his ginger grow.

Brian, Ferb, and Kamera, some of our frequent young visitors showed up to visit and lend a hand. Brian was a real champion helping us move bricks from the demolished houses, and had fun teaching Francisco how to play football. Even Kamera helped me fill seedlings trays with compost, although she couldn't resist squishing her fingers into each cell packed with with soil, so we had to keep refilling the trays! She and Ferb found a lot of worms to play with.

Ms. Katia, a local homeowner, carted many carloads of bricks from nearby demolished houses so that we can use them at the garden. She has been a great supporter of the garden and has donated many fruit trees, grape vines, and perennial shrubs, as well as the funding we needed to pay for city water access last year. If you are on our email list or Facebook page you saw the recent link we posted of the house that she has available for rent. The photo gallery of the house includes photos of the garden.

Marie, a graduate student from Johns Hopkins, stopped by to talk to neighbors about doing an interview for a study about community perceptions of urban farms. It was great to see her, especially as we are going through some growing pains this year as pass the honeymoon phase and are beginning to work out how this project fits into the long term vision of the neighborhood.

We look forward to engaging even more volunteers and supporters this year.

Thank you to everyone who read this very long post!

We hope this gives all of you readers a picture of what is going on at Boone Street Farm and Community Garden as we get started for year #3.

If you would like to get involved, please email us at boone.street.farm@gmail.com to get on our email list, follow us on Facebook, or come to our next volunteer day this SATURDAY, February 16th from 10 am to 3 pm.

See you Saturday!

Pickles & Upcoming January Events

Boone Street Farm pickles are now on display at our friend Dane's new coffeeshop located at 34 Lanvale Street.

It's the perfect spot to grab a pastry, a hardboiled egg, and a cup of really great coffee while you're waiting for the Bolt bus, taking a train, going to a show at Metro gallery, or watching a movie at the Charles. It's an absolutely beautiful and bright little cafe, and will be focusing on local foods.

All produce in the canned goods grown at the garden over the summer: pickled okra, pickled green beans, and a sour & hot green tomato relish that goes great on a cheesy quesadilla or with tortilla chips. You can even get some super local eggs that Dane is making into an amazingly simple egg salad, with thyme and a little bit of very good mayo.

Other updates from the farm in late January?

It's still grant writing and crop planning time! More info to come soon about the plants that we are excited about growing, how you can sign up to purchase Boone Street produce, and more.

Don't forget to check out these upcoming events:

CGRN Summit

Baltimore's best community gardening resource hosts its annual summit to plan for 2013! CGRN was essential for us, they gave the first $1000 grant to Boone Street Farm so that we could purchase compost, seeds, and tools. I don't know what gardening would be in this city without this organization. Can't wait to attend.

January 31, 2013 — 6:00pm - 8:30pm
Location: 2640 Space, 2640 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD 21218
For more information or to RSVP, please contact Anna Evans-Goldstein at anna.evans-goldstein@parksandpeople.org or (410) 448-5663 ext 128.

Greening University

Event Description: Workshops and resources detailing the best practices for gardening and managing open spaces, led by Baltimore’s premier gardening experts!

Keynote Speaker: Beth Strommen, Director of the Baltimore Office of Sustainability

Audience: This event is for Novice & Experienced Gardeners, Community Leaders and Community Professionals.

Fee: $1 to $3 donation requested.

Course options will include:

1. Beekeeping & Animal Husbandry
2. Fruit Trees 101
3. Large-Scale Gardening (farming)
4. Gardening With Kids
5. Cooking Good Food from Easy Veggies
6. Laws and the Land: What you might want to know
7. Get Started with Power in Dirt-Land and Neighbors
8. Stormwater Management for Community Green Spaces
9. Just Starting? You Need Site Evaluation
10. Ask the Experts

Levering Hall (on the West side of Campus)
Johns Hopkins University Homewood Campus
3400 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218