Food in Boston

Thanks to permaculture twitterer Leonard Barrett I recently learned about a nifty public gardening project just across the JP/Brookline border: the 200 foot garden. Leonard is from Portland, OR which makes it funny that he was my info source for this project that I bike within a few hundred feet of multiple times per week. I guess the internet is good for something.

I went for a peek at the garden the other day, and I liked what I saw. It’s a great location — in the five or so minutes I spent looking around, plenty of folks walked by. Patrick and Tracy have great signs explaining what the project’s about. Things were nice and tidy for this time of year, too, with just a bit of grass peeking through the mulch.

I’ll be interested to track the progress of this project, and hope there’ll be more work days coming up in which to meet Patrick, Tracy, and the others involved.

• Helped friends install a raised bed in their front yard. We used stones that had been piled in the back yard to define the space — no lumber needed! I’m also encouraging them to try planting in sheet mulch, rather than buying a bunch of soil. To that end, recommended Gaia’s Garden for more on sheet mulch, and generally being an awesome resource.
• Picked up a used copy of Taylor’s Master Guide to Landscaping (recommended in GG). Far from permaculture in its outlook — one passage talks about grass as being way easier to keep up than plantings — but there looks to be plenty of use.
• Asked some pros about my knotweed mulch project. Loose consensus: as long as the knotweed bits are root free, it’s not totally crazy.
• Weeded the garden, mounded some soil around those corn plants that are growing the best, added some more knotweed leaf mulch.
• Tabled on behalf of the Board at the JP Harvest Co-op for Member Appreciation Day. Signed up at least one new member, and had some good conversations with long-time members.
• Last and definitely not least: picked some strawberries at The Food Project’s Lincoln farm, turned them into some fabulous dessert.