From the Jungle to the Ledge

Until about two days ago the yard outside of the Green City Growers office was getting very difficult to navigate. Looking out the office window, you were transported into a jungle of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons. Eggplants held their own in a bed, herbs poked their little leaves out of the fray, blueberry bushes calmly ripened their berries. The tomatoes and peppers were jumbled together: Black Prince next to Black Velvet, Yellow Brandiwine in between a Sun Cherry and a Jet Star, Commandment pepper squeezed beside a Jalepeno. There was nowhere to walk because the squash were in the path. The gate could barely open as the jungle inside, bursting with leaves and flowers hoping to turn into fruit, pushed its way outwards.

Then, the jungle moved to a farm. Well, much of the jungle. And the farm isn’t traditional. It’s rather small on the scale of farms. But it’s on a roof. This “farm” is the rooftop garden on a restaurant called the Ledge, in Dorchester. This installation is different than some of our other rooftop projects because we are working with green roofing engineers: instead of putting garden beds on the roof, the entire roof has become a garden.

When you step onto the roof, it appears that you are walking on mulch, but it is really recycled car tires that have been painted brown. Underneath are a few different materials designed to help with drainage. The garden beds themselves are much larger than our typical 4x4. There are four beds which stretch out across the roof, each containing two, or three, or more, mounds wide enough for two tomato plants to sit comfortably next to each other. The planting medium is a special lighter-weight soil mix that will allow the plants to grow while keeping the roof from collapsing under its weight.

Yesterday we finished planting at the Ledge. The garden is filled with tomatoes, squash, eggplants, and herbs. After mapping out the crops, Marianna estimated that there might be over two hundred plants on the roof.

The jungle next to Green City Growers has moved. The space next to the office looks rather prim: the plants politely staying out of the paths, the vegetables respectfully giving each other room to breathe. On the roof, the newly planted vegetables have an exciting view: guests dining on the patio, cars moving on the street, and other, less attractive, roofs nearby which are, sadly, plant-less.

Ladybugs in the Refrigerator

In the small fridge in the back room of the office, nestled behind a chocolate mocha cake, is a bag of rather subdued ladybugs. They are not a snack for hungry Green City Growers employees. No, instead of hanging out in the fridge waiting to be eaten, they are hanging out waiting to eat.

Ladybugs are one of the best biological controls for aphids, as they find this common garden pest to be particularly delectable. Aphids are small insects that suck the sap out of plants. This can stunt the plants’ growth, make the leaves curled or yellowed, and transmit viruses to the plants. Aphids also excrete a sticky liquid called honeydew on the leaves that can lead to a build-up of black sooty mold. Bad news.

A plant with aphids on it might look like this:



Last Friday, one of the gardeners, Allison, and I released ladybugs in a client’s garden in an attempt to rid the garden bed of aphids. Hopefully, this will happen:


So that’s why we have a bag of presumably slightly hungry ladybugs in the office. Why are they in the refrigerator? It helps them chill out.

Some tips on releasing ladybugs in your garden and make sure they stay:

-Put them in the refrigerator for a few hours to calm them down first
-Spray your plants with water so that the ladybugs will want to stay and drink
-Release them in the evening so they will stick around and get acclimated
-go to http://www.naturescontrol.com/ladybugs.html for more tips

The Art of Mixing Soil

You might not think very much about the soil that fills your garden bed. Maybe it looks dark brown, you notice if it is dry, or it is just the background to the beautiful flowers and tasty vegetables that grow out of it. Here at Green City Growers we think about your dirt. We spend abundant time on the art of mixing dirt, working with a palette of peat moss, compost, vermiculite, and top soil to create that deep brown that makes your greens happy.

Last week we mixed some quality soil for two new clients: Ula Café in Jamaica Plain and Mathworks, a software company in Natick, MA. After loading up the truck with forty-two bags of compost, an assortment of other soil components, a wheelbarrow, seven wooden raised bed frames, and irrigation tubing, Jessie and I drove to Ula Café where we met her brother Brett to install the beds. Once the beds were laid out, we mixed the soil, pouring the different ingredients onto a tarp, swinging the tarp from side to side so that the peat moss, compost, and vermiculite swirled together in a mess of brown, black, and silver, and dumping the mixture into the beds. We reached our arms into the dirt, mashing up large clumps of compost and looking for buried treasure: a hidden heap of airy vermiculite or a dry pocket of peat moss. Our work done, we ate a lunch of delicious sandwiches at Ula Café where the beds would soon grow a variety of herbs, and moved on to Mathworks where we installed four vegetable beds on the patio outside of the cafeteria.

Yesterday, another summer intern, Marianna, and I spent the morning mixing up two large tubs of soil to repot some zucchini, peppers, and eggplants that had outgrown their small pots. With the heat of summer upon us, the summer crops are raring to go!

-Amy Shmania, summer intern