Field Trip

Yesterday we all ventured outside of the City Farm boundaries to see other endeavors of urban gardening.

We visited several community gardens, including:


Saint Isadora Community Garden (at St. Michael's Church)



Manton Avenue Garden, which is rumored to be closing down next year...

Glenham Community Garden, which has an awesome sunshade constructed by Ironworks.

Olneyville Woonasquatucket Riverside Park Community Garden



We also passed by Pearl Street Community Garden, established by the Fertile Underground and masterfully graffitied. Check out some awesome pictures of the site.

We also stopped by a plot of land that is currently maintained by a few urban gardeners but illegally transformed, and basically a free for all garden spot...


Some arugula growing there.


Also.... Raspberries are back!!! The bushes that we have at City Farm are Everbearing, or primocanes, which means that they provide berries once during the early summer, and once around the late summer/fall.

Stay tuned for pictures of the second harvest!! :>

Bug Catchers

Today we took the kids around the farm to catch some bugs!

Perfect bug catching includes....


A jar of any size (smaller may be easier for small children)


A good net (not totally necessary, but sure is exciting for kids)



A magnifying glass for close inspection


Some pictures for identifying


A list to count out the number of bugs we find

We also read a cute story about a boy named Liam and his urban garden-- The Curious Garden by Peter Brown:



On Mondays we always have a rambunctious group, so it was nice seeing them go crazy looking for bugs- After we caught them, we all let the bugs go and explained why it is important having lots of bugs living at the farm.

Dead Heading

Returning to the idea of energy:

To get the most produce out of each plant....here at the farm we like multitasking- while harvesting basil, sometimes you may come across a plant that is not necessarily tall enough to harvest, but you may notice that it has a tower that is flowering at the top- cut off the triangular tower. Making seeds expends a great deal of the plant's energy- energy that could go towards more growth in the plant rather than reproduction.

Though we harvest a great deal of calendula (to sprinkle the petals in our salad mix), a number of flowers die before we can use them. After the flower petals fall off, seeds form in the head (more noticeable in other flowers, such as sunflowers) and by snipping off these past-due flowers, you can shift the plants energy back to producing more buds. This is called "dead heading."


Calendula, dead head on the right



It is sad to think that my internship at City Farm will soon be over.. I have learned so much and met so many generous and good natured people while working at the farm..

Thursday Market

Today we harvested for the Thursday Armory Square Park Farmers' Market. Rich has expanded me and Patricia's internship duties to be self-instructed and intuitive- this means that we are harvesting and completing tasks without verbal communication. At this point we have learned what needs to be done based on the day of the week. It is exciting to have Rich ask at some points if we have harvested something, and for us to reply, "Already done, boss." Sean encouraged us to call Rich, "boss" to push his buttons a bit- he likes to think of us as more of a team.

A "new" perennial flower has bloomed at the farm, raising eyebrows and adding an interesting twist to the flower arrangements.



No one knew what it was called, so I looked it up, and turns out it is a "White Bellflower." Gorgeous.

The wildlife of Providence seems to seek refuge at City Farm... We have a problem with feral cats sneaking into the farm- I did not think that they could pose such a big problem, but they managed to scale the greenhouse roof, tearing a hole in the plastic... a tedious revamping of the greenhouse was needed as a result (this was back in spring). They also cause mischief by hunting birds, some of which may be a part of depleted species.





Anyone know what kind of bird this is?

The Cercospora Leaf Spot seems to have subsided. Rich has been continuously cutting off infected leaves and feeding them to the chickens- the dry weather lately has helped to decrease the spread and survival of this fungus as well.


Ruby Red Chard, recovering well!


Still a couple of spots..

I helped set up the market a bit today. For the Thursday market, City Farm participates in a co-op style arrangement with Red Planet Vegetables and Front Step Farm. This means that each farm agrees to bring a certain amount of produce for the stand and then the farmers can interchange the responsibility of working each market.



Than (from Front Step Farm on Westminster Street), sets up his raspberries for the market.


Other news...


We are bringing Green Concord Grapes to the Saturday Market now!!

Cercospora Leaf Spot

As expected, Rich won the flower arrangement contest at the Thursday market. He said that one of the other arrangements sold but was not sure whose it was. His arrangement was gorgeous, I am glad that someone was able to take it home.

Some sort of disease has been plaguing the chard recently. After researching a bit, it seems that the Giant Swiss Chard and Golden Chard appear to be affected by Cercospora Leaf Spot, a fungus that looks like so:



And lower leaves appear as so:





After researching a bit, I found that it may be best to remove the affected leaves and spray the remaining in a diluted milk mixture (30%) and a bit of baking soda. Rich is away in Seattle this week, visiting his family, so perhaps Sean and I will try this remedy.

If anyone has a suggestion for other effective ways to treat this fungus, please leave a post!!

Honey Bee

Recently, I visited Christina and Erika's plot at Urban Edge Farm to help them out for the afternoon. Christina Dedora is the Director of Operations and Erika Rumbley is the Community Gardens Network Coordinator at Southside CLT. Christina is very experienced in growing flowers while Erika brings in knowledge about growing food to their farm land.

City Farm has taught me a great deal-- it was nice taking all of that knowledge to practice while harvesting in a different location as well as learning variations and additional knowledge from these other farmers. Although I have been harvesting flowers for City Farm, Christina was able to teach me when a flower should and should not be picked. Rich had explained that it is best to choose flowers that are not fully open, and that they will open while sitting in a vase, but Christina showed me when the best time is for harvesting sunflowers. Like other flowers, it is a good idea to harvest them when not quite fully open, but she also taught me how to tell by just looking at the face of the flower.


A sunflower with a puffy face will not last long once it is cut.
When you think about it, this makes sense because it is an indication that the sunflower has finished growing and is starting to focus its energy on producing seeds.



Today Than, the apprentice at City Farm last year, stopped by to open up a beehive.


The two beehives at City Farm.

He has been beekeeping for three years now, and he was explaining to me and a volunteer, Karen, how he is experimenting with natural beekeeping. This means that he does not buy frames (that have a wax border preinstalled). One problem with preinstalled was frames is the wax that is being used- Conventional beekeeping uses pesticides and antibiotics (directly in the hives) causing chemicals and toxins to build up in the wax that is used for these frames.

He explained that in conventional beekeeping, it was first thought that breeding bigger bees meant more honey, but this theory has been nullified. Natural beekeeping focuses less on the size and honey output of the bees, and more on the health of the bees.



Natural beekeeping seems to make sense-

"As long as we treat we get weaker bees who can only survive if we treat, and stronger parasites who can only survive if they breed fast enough to keep up with our treatments. No stable relationship can develop until we stop treating," Bush Farms.

Than gave us a taste of their honey too! Yum.