[Community_garden] "Mr Rushing is innocent--at least of THIS crime, your honor..."
Mike McGrath
MikeMcG at PTD.net
Tue Mar 18 12:35:28 EDT 2008
Ha! My bad--I saw 'old ties', but it actually said old tires (which I also despise and think should be burned for fuel in specialized plants instead of used around plants, but I have to get back to work....)
Sorry pal!
---McG
----- Original Message -----
From: Felder Rushing
To: Mike McGrath ; Don Boekelheide ; community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Cc: harristakoma at erols.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: Railroad ties???
who said i recommend railroad ties??? tires, sure - anyone who has a serious problem with using them is so left-brained they should hold their breath while riding around town (and ever wonder what ppm means when it comes to nasty stuff dissolved in RAINWATER?
i don't use or recommend rr ties, mike. never have. but tires... are at least as sustainable as whiskey barrels, and the metals in the steel belts neither leach nor are absorbed by plants...
felder
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike McGrath
To: Don Boekelheide ; community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Cc: felder at felderrushing.net ; harristakoma at erols.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:24 AM
Subject: Railroad ties???
Yikes! They are moy moy toxic!
Old railroad ties are treated with penta and/or creosote; two of the only substances that even Republican scientists agree cause cancer! I like Felder a lot, and he can PERSONALLY take the risks he chooses, but we shouldn't deliberately bring cancer into community gardens.
(C'mon Don--what about old tires? Or maybe depleted uranium? That stuff holds up forever!)
If it comes to that, drop back to flat!
---McG
----- Original Message -----
From: Don Boekelheide
To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Cc: felder at felderrushing.net ; harristakoma at erols.com ; Mike McGrath
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: Sandbag that garden! - And retreads...
Hey, all,
Much as I hate to admit it, Mike's right - I mean, it is obvious, the first thing I did at Urban Ministry was put in some...that's right ... raised beds. Round jobbies made of masonry not wooden boxes, but still. You already know my official reasons, to give tired homeless folks a place to sit and rest, and and having to garden in an area of compacted crappy soil without drainage, but reading Mike's post I realised there was another factor - I needed instant "something to look at" aka "success". Now, it isn't sustainable gardening success, that only comes with years of daily practice doing gardening. Just like meditation (the two are closely related, at least in my mind). But boxes, planters, whatever ,do give you something to show the community, the folks, and the funders. We got those beds in place in a couple weeks, stuck in some pansies, put up homemade prayer banners on conduit poles 10 ft tall to catch the wind, and when 'official' opening day came the 'garden program' was a smash hit.
But I still don't like boxes. Treasure of the Sierra Madre attitude: "Boxes? We don't need no stinkin' boxes..." But I'll use 'em when they can help.
But be careful, folks. Three things to consider:
* Watch the budget, since wood and fill soil can both get very expensive very fast. A local well-heeled, well-meaning non-profit just burned up $3000 to build six modest boxo beds at a single school and fill them with purchased soil. That's three !#@$% GRAND! That's enough to fund my program for months!
* Don't make the box the end when it is really only the beginning. All the ACGA stuff about working with people and building community, and all the hort stuff that garden-types like me rant on about - you've got to pay attention to all that. Watering. Weeding. Planting with the seasons. Who will do the work? Also, keeping fill/potting soils fertile and healthy can be a challenge. Ask yourself how the box will look under a worst case scenario. If you aren't pretty sure you can avoid that, I'd avoid the box (not the garden - just the box).
And think about squares. Boxes are little houses, squared off extensions of our built environment. Meanwhile, nature curves and dances. Boxes are purchased. Nature can't be purchased. It's a question of deeper aesthetics, and how much our garden design is based on fear of nature and a desire to control it and put it in a box, as opposed to embracing and celebrating the natural world. I'm not saying either approach is right or wrong, but suggesting that it makes sense to stay ever mindful of wider perspectives in our rush to accomplish things, and make the world a better place through our particular garden projects.
(btw, building boxes to the golden section rectangle/Fibonacci sequence dimensions strikes me as monumental silliness, though that's in vogue right now. At a recent garden conference, I heard a garden writer I otherwise much admire go wandering into this swamp - and all the slides in her PowerPoint were sized 1:1.618. Inspiring. Cosmic. I just hope she runs into Pogo in that swamp, before it's too late).
Now - the real reason for this post is that I forgot a very important container option. After my kids got on the schoolbus early this morning, an old red pickup with a shotgun cross the back window and a NASCAR bumper sticker came cruising through the neighborhood, looking for me. They were going to take away my Dixie ID and either make me leave Carolina or wear a Yankee button on my baseball cap. Why? I neglected to mention old tires. They are a traditional planter material down here. Sure, they have some problems, but what else are we going to do with them? If they are good enough for Felder Rushing's planters, they're good enough for me. Check it out: http://www.felderrushing.net/frontyard.htm
Don
http://urbanministrygarden.wordpress.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Mike McGrath <MikeMcG at PTD.net>
To: Don Boekelheide <dboekelheide at yahoo.com>; community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:07:51 AM
Subject: Sandbag that garden!
I disagree with my good friend Don about the usefulness of raised beds. I
find them to be a great solution to crappy conditions. (And Don--a lot of
those flat-earth ancestors didn't make it past 35. And the Native Americans
largely ate what nature grew for them.)
BUT I want to thank Don for a great idea mentioned later--raised beds framed
by sandbags! You just need to bring the empty bags to the site, then you can
fill them with the crappy stuff you're trying not to grow in. Bravo, Donnie
Boy!~
(As Abbie Hoffman once said, I will Steal This Tip!)
---Mike McG
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Boekelheide" <dboekelheide at yahoo.com>
To: <community_garden at list.communitygarden.org>
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Trex or other building material
> I'm afraid I too agree that, in my experience, building boxes isn't
> usually necessary for gardening (even out in Colorado, admittedly a
> challenging place in your higher, drier areas). I grant you that
> containers made of anything - wood, masonry, plastic, brick, clay, trex,
> ferro-cement, cardboard, old kids' plastic swimming pools, etc, etc - are
> good in some special circumstances for holding soil, improving drainage,
> etc. They also clearly define areas, which some folks prefer
> aesthetically. But they add an additional level of expense (sometimes, a
> lot of expense) and futzing, and come with a whole new set of problems
> like potential toxicity of some materials, rotting out, and maintenance.
> And when they are abandoned or go weedy - at a school, for instance, over
> the summer - they can look pretty awful and become a strong visual
> argument for why it makes no sense to fund or support garden projects.
>
> So, are you _sure_ you don't just want to garden? Have you considered
> looking for a suitable spot for a community garden, for instance? Save
> some open space, build soil, etc. Work together. Build community, not
> little boxes (...on the hillside, as Malvina used to sing...).
>
> If you are very sure, though, that you want to make boxes, I agree that
> masonry is a very useful option to consider, rather than wood or trex.
> I've used blocks very successfully at Urban Ministry (where I mostly
> needed something for tired folks to sit on, but also in one particular
> spot had horrible drainage), and in other sites. The option from Lowes
> Depot I like best are 4x8x16 solid concrete blocks. If the project
> doesn't work out, these blocks are reasonably easy to remove, reform or
> recycle.
>
> Another option, if you are growing food, are "pillow packs" made very
> simply by filling big black plastic sacks with soil mix. There are fancier
> 'grow bags' that commercial nurseries use - both these options might be
> interesting under xeric conditions. They won't win any beauty pagents and
> plastic has all kinds of problems, but I've seen them used very
> successfully to produce quite a bit of food.
>
> Last but not least, what are the local containers that you have there
> traditionally? What did the first settlers build with, or the First
> Nations peoples who were there before? How did they garden? Rather than
> start with boxes - and we all have garden books and mags full of pics of
> boxes to inspire us - why not, er, think outside the box?
>
> Don
> http://urbanministrygarden.wordpress.com
> (I have some pics of the Urban Ministry masonry beds on the blog, if you'd
> like to see. They are done with 'landscape' blocks with round edges, a
> donation from a local soils and mulch company, Blue Max).
>
>
>
> From: community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org
> [mailto:community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org] On Behalf Of
> GivenTrees at aol.com
> Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 8:50 AM
> To: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
> Subject: [Community_garden] Trex or other building material
>
> Hey all, I'm looking for material to build raised beds, cold frames
> etc. to
> grow organic veggies in. Trying NOT to cut any trees or use
> traditional
> lumber material. I've always heard redwood was the best wood to use,
> but looking
> for alternatives. I think there had been a discussion here before
> about
> Trex, is there any leaching? Down sides? Alternatives? Suggestions?
> Thanks Tina
>
>
>
>
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL:
> http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20080317/ed965fe4/attachment.html
> _______________________________________________
> The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of
> ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and
> to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
>
> To post an e-mail to the list: community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
> http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20080318/4f6d5a7e/attachment.html
More information about the Community_garden
mailing list