Wintertime extension of Plant Providence educational workshops

It might be cold outside (well, not THAT cold, it’s actually pretty nice for January!), but it is the perfect time to start planning for the growing season! Southside Community Land Trust and Farm Fresh RI invites the public to attend two free workshops on urban beekeeping (a primer that focuses on what it takes to raise bees food in the city) and seed starting. These workshops will be held at the Wintertime Farmers Market greenhouse space on Wednesday January 25^th 6-7pm and Wednesday February 1^st 5:30-6:30pm, respectively.

Want to learn what it takes to raise bees in the city? Learn more about it at the urban beekeeping primer workshop, which will be taught by Kelly Smith, Davis Park Community Garden coordinator. Kelly owns 5 beehives and has taken bee school classes and a week-long intensive advanced course by the Eastern Apicultural Society. Kelly will give a basic overview about what it means to keep bees in the city, going over topics such as materials required for urban beekeeping, resources and available education options for bee school.

Seed starting will be taught by Sidewalk Ends Farm’s Laura Brown-Lavoie, Tess Brown-Lavoie and Fay Strongin. This workshop will help people get a head start on preparing their favorite vegetables and herbs as well as accommodate for those who have limited growing space in their homes or apartments. The lesson will also provide information on growing sprouts and building your own indoor grow box to start seeds inside. Southside Community Land Trust will be offering free seed packets (lettuce, summer squash, etc.) at this workshop.

Register by emailing SCLT at amber@southsideclt.org or online at www.plantprovidence.org.

These workshops are an extension of the Plant Providence educational workshop series. First introduced in 2010, the Plant Providence calendar is a full-color poster printed annually that lists programs and events taking place throughout the year related to urban agriculture. In addition to the upcoming workshops on urban beekeeping and seed starting, the 2012 Plant Providence calendar will debut at Southside Community Land Trust’s Urban Agriculture Kick-off on March 3^rd at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center from 1-4pm.

The Plant Providence calendar is a project of Southside Community Land Trust and is sponsored by the Albin Family Foundation, the Urban Agriculture Task Force of Providence, Brown University’s Center for Environmental Studies, Casa Buena Builders, In.c, the John T. Howard Agency Farm Family Insurance, The University of Rhode Island Outreach Center, What Grows On in Rhode Island, and Whole Foods Market.

More information about Southside Community Land Trust is available at www.southsideclt.org

Time to Put Away the 2011 Calendar

The 2011 Plant Providence Calendar is officially over! What a delightful second year it’s been. We’ve definitely gained more momentum and interest for 2011 than the year before. About 375 people attended (up from 280 last year) our workshops, learning everything from urban chickens, to container gardening, to food preservation, composting and so much more.

Thanks to all who supported this initiative whether you were a workshop instructor, a sponsor, a community garden leader who hosted, or just someone who used the calendar to learn more about growing food. The Plant Providence Calendar is a community effort that you all helped be successful!

We’re excited to jump right into the planning for the 2012 calendar. Stay tuned in February for the debut of the calendar at our Urban Agriculture Spring Kickoff at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center. In the meantime, please consider supporting the Plant Providence Calendar. Your contribution helps keep the calendar thriving and the workshops affordable. Here’s to making food growing more accessible to all – together we’re making Providence a more edible city!

Update: Composting 101 Workshop location change

Because of a booking conflict with the Roger Williams Botanical Center, the composting workshop has been moved to the Roger Williams Park Community Garden. Same time and everything. Bring lawn chairs or something to sit on!

Just follow the signs to the garden and park on the street. Call Sejal if you have any questions or issues with finding the workshop 222-0116.

Composting 101

Doesn't look like much, but this "black gold" is a powerhouse of the soil nutrients that plants love

Here at Southside CLT, we love compost. It’s an amazing process that turns food and yard scraps into a nutrient-rich material that’s just heavenly for soil structure and growing food. City Farm diverts some 500 pounds of waste from the waste stream per week to make compost for growing food (1,539 pounds of it a year!) in the ¾-acre space in the southside.

The love seems to be catching on! While many cities like San Francisco and Fremont are leading the way with a municipal composting system, many backyard gardeners and environmentally conscious citizens alike are turning household food waste into what many call “black gold.”

If you are interested in learning more about composting, Southside CLT is offering a FREE Plant Providence workshop on “Composting 101” taught by Sejal Lanterman who runs the URI Master Composter program. Sejal will be teaching a comprehensive lesson that will cover the composting basics, science, the “recipe”, what not to compost, what are good bins to use and how to make your own bin. The workshop will be on Saturday, October 22nd from 2-3:30pm at the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center.

Space is limited, please register!

Parking directions Within Roger Williams Park:
Once in the park, bear right and follow the road until you see the Casino building right in front of you
Turn left and proceed past the Betsy Williams Cottage, turning
right to go down the hill after passing the cottage
Follow the next two signs directing you to the Botanical Center.
When approaching the Botanical Center, you will see horse corrals on your left at the top of the hill.
Please park in the “URI education” lot across from the horse corrals.

There will be signs directing you to the brick building in the Botanical Center classroom. Call Sejal at 401-222-0116 if you have any questions.

Update: Medicinal Herbs Workshop

The medicinal herbs that grow in the 1/2 acre plot by Farmacy are used in the store for their herbal remedies, teas and tinctures

Saturday’ workshop on Medicinal Herbs and Foraging was an engaging and fascinating lesson that helped open our eyes to the plentiful variety of medicinal plants growing right on Rhode Island soil. We chewed, smelled and tasted leaves, flowers and herbs that Farmacy Herbs uses right in their store. Mary Blue, founder of Farmacy Herbs, shared her wealth of knowledge that plants can be effective remedies and supplements for a variety of purposes – nettles for vitamins, iron and bladder health; violet for lungs; sage for sinus clearing, digestion and memory; hops (not just good for beer!) for stress relief and nerves. These plants are minimally processed into tinctures, teas, and ointments. When taken consistently in the proper doses, these herbal remedies can be highly beneficial for preventative care and holistic health.  “It’s another step towards self-sufficiency,” says Mary, “a lot of people that come here are looking for that. If you have access to this kind of knowledge and resources, you can rely more on yourself to care for your health and wellness.”

For more information about Farmacy and the kinds of workshops and classes they offer visit them at http://farmacyherbs.com

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Putting Gardens to Bed

The growing season is coming to an end as the days grow shorter and the temperatures get colder. Join us on Saturday October 8^th from 10-11am at the Brown Street Park Community Garden (224 Brown Street) for a workshop titled “Beginning Organic Grower Series III: Putting Gardens to Bed.” The workshop, taught by SCLT’s Leo Pollock and Little City Growers’s Adam Graffunder, will teach gardeners how to transition their gardens for the fall and winter seasons.

Topics covered will include season extension, learning about mulch and cover crop (to maintain soil fertility over the winter) and how to cultivate garlic. The workshop will be offered in Spanish the following morning, October 9^th from 10-11am at the Templot Community Garden on 40 Appleton Street in Olneyville. The Spanish translated workshop will be taught by Jairo Rosales, the Templot Community Garden leader.

The Beginning Organic Grower Series is a three-part workshop curriculum to teach and support people in the city on how to grow organic food. Southside Community Land Trust will continue to offer the series for the 2012 Plant Providence Calendar. For a complete list of workshops and updated information, visit www.plantprovidence.org.

Medicinal Herbs and Foraging

This Saturday from 3-5pm, Farmacy Herbs is hosting a Medical Herbs and Foraging workshop at their store on 23 Cemetery St. in Providence.

Farmacy Herbs is a holistic health and education center, which has been offering free or sliding scale herbal consultations, resources and classes to the community since 2003. They have a 1/2-acre urban herbal garden and farm in Providence and just this year, purchased a 5-acre farm in West Greenwich!

The workshop will be taught by Farmacy Herbs’s Mary Blue, who has been facilitating the Farmacy’s Herbal Education and Training Program for 10 years. You’ll learn how to recognize and use medicinal herbs. Several of their common herbs they use in tea blends include horsetail (high in silica to support healthy joints!), dandelion (good for your liver!), red clover, chamomile (helps with relaxing), and many more!

To register for this free workshop, click here!

Urban Beekeeping Workshop Postponed

Something came up last minute for our beekeeping workshop instructor – we’ll be cancelling this Saturday’s workshop and moving it to another time. Details TBA. Sincere apologies for any inconveniences!

You’ll Wanna Bee there!

This Saturday, September 24th from 2-4pm Jeff Mello, founder and owner of Aquidneck Honey, will be teaching the Urban Beekeeping workshop at City Farm (corner of W. Clifford & Dudley). This will be an exciting workshop to learn the basics of raising those amazing insects that spend their lives buzzing to flower and flower, to let us harvest and enjoy the sweetener we all love – honey. Space is limited so please register!

Local, raw honey purported to be an excellent natural supplement for allergy prevention. It is always best to get honey that is raised closest to where you live; the closer the better since it will have more of the pollen in the area that you’ll want to have your immune system get used to. In honey the allergens are delivered in small, manageable doses and the effect over time is very much like that from undergoing a whole series of allergy immunology injections.

In addition to being a concentrated energy source, honey (especially local and raw) contains a wide array of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and amino acids. Essential minerals, such as calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and zinc are also found in honey.

According to the Aquidneck Honey website, “Most of the honey found in supermarkets of commercial grade has been pasteurized (heated at 70 degrees Celsius or more), cooled rapidly, and filtered so it looks cleaner and smoother. Pasteurization kills yeast cells in the honey, preventing fermentation and slowing the speed of crystallization in liquid honey. This process proves detrimental to the health benefits of honey because the yeast and enzymes responsible for activating vitamins and minerals in our body have been partially destroyed. Therefore, this precludes raw, unfiltered honey to be more nutritious because it is relatively low in moisture content for stability, and is high in antioxidants.”

Winter Greens and Low Tunnels

Saturday morning was a beautiful day to learn about over wintering greens and building low tunnels at the Davis Park Community Garden. We learned that plants like chard, parsley, spinach, arugula, carrots and collards are able to survive the winter if kept full grown. These vegetables won’t grow again until March, but you’ll yield a lovely harvest once spring hits!

Seed in September (even October). Cover your garden bed with row cover in November. In December, put up hoops and plastic. Keep the plastic on until mid to late March, not harvesting on sunny days to prevent wilting.  Once your direct seeded salad greens are about 7″ tall, you cut the leaves about an inch above the crown of the plant (being careful not to cut off the crown). In doing this, the leaves will grow back, slowly if it is cold and dark, and quickly if it is warm and sunny.  Katie Miller of Scratch Farm suggests “planting claytonia, spinach, ruby streaks mustard, collards, and lettuce all in mid September, plant more spinach than anything else, and pick everything but the spinach in the late fall when it is ready, save the spinach for the really cold dark days, it will survive better than the rest.”

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Once you build your low tunnels you won’t need to water the entire season. Try to “aerate” your low tunnels on sunny days to regulate humidity. If you wanted to harvest, don’t be scared if your plants look really bad after they get exposed to the cold air. They will be shocked by the dramatic fluctuation in humidity levels but they’ll bounce back in a few days (aren’t plants amazing?). Any questions about over wintering greens and low tunnels can be directed to Katie (katie.miller@gmail.com) of Scratch Farm! Thanks Katie for doing the demo for us!