Garden Variety: Baltimore's City Hall Garden - A blog for the Mid-Atlantic gardener by The Baltimore Sun's Susan Reimer

October 12, 2009

Baltimore's City Hall Garden make the big time

Baltimore's City Hall Garden, and yours truly, Garden Variety, made the big time with an appearance on Garden Rant, perhaps the most popular garden blog out there.

Susan Harris, one of four bloggers on Rant, is a resident of Tacoma Park, and she took time to visit the City Hall garden last week and talk to designer Angela Treadwell-Palmer about the lessons of the garden's first year.

You can read Susan's impressions on Garden Rant.

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Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

Vegetarian birds

I'm not an ornithologist, but I thought birds were seed-etarians. Or worm-etarians.

I am certain I never thought of birds eating cabbage.

But that's what's going on at Baltimore's City Hall gardens.

Planted with kale, cabbage and some fall greens, the gardens, which were so beautiful and bountiful this summer, are being decimated by -- birds.

"I didn't believe it until I saw it," said Angela Treadwell-Palmer, who designed the first-ever vegetable gardens around the War Memorial Plaza.

Certainly, she thought, it was rabbits that ate the kale and cabbage down to the ground as soon as the seedlings emerged.

Nope. It was birds. Wrens and starlings, she thinks. She saw them swarm the gardens and then flock to the treetops around City Hall the moment a car passed and startled them.

This the first setback for the City Hall gardens, which produced more than 1,500 pounds of produce for Our Daily Bread, Baltimore's soup kitchen.

The gardens were largely undisturbed by critters, vandals, disease or insects this summer - although just about all the zucchini disappeared and many of the tomatoes were picked.

Apparently, the birds don't like everything.

"They haven't touched the "Osaka Red" mustard greens," Treadwell-Palmer said

Those are plenty hot for humans. They are waaayyy too hot for birds.

On the left, "Golden Acre" cabbage, which has been feasted upon by birds. On the right, "Osaka Red" mustard greens - not so much.

Photo credit: Susan Reimer

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Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

August 3, 2009

Baltimore celebrates its vegetable gardens

War Memorial Plaza, just outside Baltimore's City Hall, was the scene this weekend for the 22nd Annual City Farms and Community Gardens potluck supper.

Baltimore has more than 600 vegetable garden plots in the city, and more than 200 of the citizens who tend those gardens gathered Saturday evening to show off their produce - and their recipes.

The Sun's Dan Rodricks was there and filed this report.

War Memorial Plaza is home for this event, but it was an even more appropriate location this year. As reported here on Garden Variety, planters surrounding the plaza have been planted with vegetable crops for the first time ever.

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Karl Merton Ferron

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Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

June 25, 2009

Baltimore's City Hall vegetable garden: an update

The vegetable gardens planted around Baltimore's War Memorial Plaza, in front of City Hall, have produced more than 1,500 pounds of vegetables for the kitchens of Our Daily Bread, which feeds the homeless.

That's good news.

But perhaps just as important is this news: "The garden has been respected," said Melissa Grim, acting chief horticulturist for the city's departments of parks and recreations.

What she means is, aside for the odd head of cabbage gone missing, there has been no theft or vandalism in the multiple beds that surround the plaza. The gardens are lush, productive and unharmed.

"And no rats!" said Angela Treadwell-Palmer, who designed the gardens for the city.

Because of the abundant spring rain, the garden produced hundreds of pounds of lettuce and beans and is still producing kale, collard greens and Swiss chard.

Now the summer crops are maturing: cherry tomatoes are just about ripe and there are blossoms on the squash, peppers and eggplants. The onions are nearly as big as baseballs and the corn has just been transplanted from the city's greenhouses.

Next week, there will be "mailboxes" in the garden with recipes and information about growing and eating vegetables as part of an education campaign Treadwell-Palmer believes is needed.

"I think it is really cool that the homeless are eating better [at Our Daily Bread] than most of the citizens in the city of Baltimore," she said.

Those who stop by the garden, she said, will ask what the plants are because they have either never seen where vegetables actually come from or because vegetables are not part of their daily diet.

"We offered broccoli to people when we were harvesting it and they turned us down," she said.

From her point of view, and that of the Master Gardeners like Larry Kloze of Mount Washington and Ursula Scheffel of Coldspring who are tending it, the gardens are a huge success and actually cheaper to manage that the city gardens planted with annuals that must be purchased and maintained.

"The seeds were donated by Meyers seeds," she said. "And the Master Gardeners are here every Thursday working for free."

The harvesting of the spring crops took place every week. There will be a lull now until the summer crops mature. A public harvest event, attended by Mayor Sheila Dixon, is set for July 23.

"We will keep sending it to Our Daily Bread until they tell us to stop," said Treadwell-Palmer.

For a photo story on the City Hall vegetable garden, keep reading.

Continue reading "Baltimore's City Hall vegetable garden: an update" »

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Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

April 6, 2009

Baltimore's vegetable garden

When you garden, you are likely to step on a few blooms.

It looks like you can step on a few toes, too.

Mayor Sheila Dixon's decision to allow the city's Department of Parks and Recreation to plant vegetables ourside City Hall was met with delight from the folks at Our Daily Bread, who will benefit from the harvests.

But some noisy old crows came out to pick at the idea.

In a letter to the editor Robert Abramson implied that it was a waste of money, despite the fact that the seeds and most of the labor will be donated.

There was a real "fiddling while Rome burns," tone to his complaint.

City dweller Sam Sessa, who blogs on Midnight Sun, is convinced the pigeons will do all the harvesting as they did with his garden. And, in an e-mail to me, another reader said that the pollution in city will taint the vegetables and make the poor sick, and they will sue the city.

I am thinking that it is more likely that politics will taint this ambitious project. I am afraid if it fails - in even the smallest way - a political reason will be found for its failure.

Let's lighten up, people. Cities all over the country are planting vegetables in public places, most often to benefit the poor. They will meet with varying degrees of success and the gardeners will learn from their mistakes. Even a handful of tomatoes and peppers can ease someone's hunger.

If you want to find fault with such a decent enterprise, you should wear a "curmudgeon" sign around your neck.

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Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

April 2, 2009

Beautify America: Eat your vegetables!

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's ambitious plans for vegetable gardens outside City Hall, outlined in my story in The Sun today, made me think that perhaps we should be planting edible landscapes around all our public buildings: libraries, schools, courthouses and firehouses - for the benefit of the poor or for those who work and learn in those buildings.

And it is evidence that the pendulum has swung from the 1960s, when Lady Bird Johnson inspired the nation to plant wildflowers along highways and on other public land. Beautification was the watchword then. Food safety and healthy eating are the anthems now.

Flowers vs. vegetables. It is an old rivalry. Especially since the ancients found so many uses - medicinal and food - for flowers.

I like what Roger Doiron said in today's news story. The edible landscape advocate said that these kinds of projects can make cities rethink their ability to feed themselves, that urban areas are not condemned to poor nutrition and hunger just because the earth is paved over there.

I wonder, too, if this sudden explosion in interest in vegetable gardening will make flower gardeners like me feel guilty. Like we aren't contributing to the common good with our hydrangeas and our coneflowers. Like we are wasting our land and the sun and the rain that feed it.

And I wonder how the nation might have reacted if Lady Bird Johnson had urged us to plant corn or soybeans along the highways and in the median strips, instead of waves of colorful wildflowers.

Photo courtesy of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

Posted by Susan Reimer at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Baltimore's City Hall Garden

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