I am interested in making biochar in my small urban garden, and using it to amend my soil. Do you have resources on how to go about this?
We have a few books on this topic. Biochar for Environmental Management is for large-scale landscapes, and Gardening with Biochar (Jeff Cox, Storey Publishing, 2019) is a how-to for home gardeners. I recommend that you first read WSU professor Linda Chalker-Scott’s fact sheet, Biochar: A Home Gardener’s Primer. Cox’s book offers directions for making a TLUD (Top Lift Up-Draft) stove for pyrolysis (combustion of organic matter with restricted air flow). If created properly, biochar is a good way of sequestering carbon instead of releasing it. However, Chalker-Scott says “proper pyrolysis is impossible to achieve at home since oxygen is present and temperatures are too low. Improper cooking also generates carbon dioxide and other pollutants. You are better off using pruning debris and other home-garden wastes in your compost pile or on top of your soil as a natural and sustainable organic mulch layer. Ideally, biochar can be made commercially from excess crop residues, invasive plant species, such as kudzu and English ivy, and other organic materials that might otherwise end up in landfills.” Biochar is available for sale from some nurseries, much as you might purchase compost.
Typically, I don’t like books that claim to be the “ultimate” in the title as they usually disappoint. I brought this bias to a book from 2016 (but new to the Miller Library) titled “The Ultimate Guide to Urban Farming” by Victoria, British Columbia author Nicole Faires. I can’t claim expertise on urban farming and its many aspects, but I was very impressed by the thoroughness of this manual on the topic.
It’s important to first know the scope. This is not about edible landscaping or urban homesteading, the latter a term the author describes as “dabbling in a wide variety of self-reliant skills to raise food and make things for their own family like knitting, canning, and beekeeping.” By contrast, the goal of an urban farmer is “intensive food production near or in a city” with the intent of selling most of that food to others.
The author used the city of Havana, Cuba as a model. Forced to become self-sufficient without reliance on petroleum products following the end of the Soviet Union, this city of 2 million gradually developed a localized food system that she encourages Canadian and American cities to embrace. Faires also recognizes that “farms” come in all sizes, suggesting that balconies and window boxes, even indoor light gardens have the potential to be productive income sources.
After these preliminaries, the rest of “Urban Farming” is a systematic and meticulous review of the many, many crops one can consider, including those that might be used for purposes other than food. Besides the expected guidance on planting and growing, this includes the intricacies of harvest, storage, and selling your products. Raising a wide-ranging variety of animals for profit, including fish and shellfish, is also explored.
Excerpted from the Spring 2022 issue of the Arboretum Bulletin
We are planning to have a ‘green’ wedding, and thought about giving baby trees to our guests as favors, as a way of giving a gift that will leave an environmental legacy. Do you know of any sources?
I have had several questions like yours in the past, and I usually recommend substituting flower or vegetable seed packets, or perennials (including edible plants like herbs) for saplings. Many of the saplings available are conifers which mature into large trees–often too large for smaller home gardens, unless the residents intend to make them into bonsai specimens. Summer is probably the most labor-intensive time to plant a tree, because of the greater need for irrigation. That being said, there are numerous companies which market ‘baby trees’ (seedlings) as gifts. Here are just two examples:
Tree in a Box
Green World Project
If you want a green gift which is sustainable, I recommend giving low-maintenance perennial plants which have a high likelihood of survival even in a small home garden or apartment balcony. Another alternative is to donate an amount to an organization that reforests or restores natural areas, and then provide a certificate to each guest saying that a tree has been planted to mark the occasion of your wedding. See links to various organizations that take donations below:
American Forests
Arbor Day Foundation
The Heifer Project
I want to plant my parking strip for a vegetable garden. Do I need a permit from the city? And if so where do I get a permit?
You do not need a Street Use permit for gardening activities in the planting strip.
Here are the City of Seattle’s current guidelines for parking strip gardening.
Linden Mead, a Seattle Department of Transportation arborist, addresses one of the concerns I would have about planting edible crops next to a street:
“Although the list may not be exhaustive, and gardeners are encouraged
to be creative, they do need to follow some parameters. Plants grown
within the area equal to or less than 30 feet from an intersection
may not exceed 24″ (2 feet) in height at maturity. This is so that
visibility is adequately maintained (cars and pedestrians visible
to each other). When a planting strip is 5 feet wide or less, plants
may not exceed 36” (3 feet) in height at maturity. This is to help
assure pedestrian safety/visibility as well as to maintain pedestrian
walkways and the roadway clear of overgrowth which may impede travel
on the right-of-way. With wider strips, it is possible to put in scattered,
taller plants, if planted in the middle of the strip.
“There are also regulations about ‘hardscape’ – which may include
planting beds in the strip. Raised beds may be constructed from
timber but rocks or bricks that are easily moved (read here ‘picked
up and thrown’) are not allowed. Permits are also required to plant, prune or remove trees.”
Seattle Department of Transportation has specific information about growing food in the planting or parking strip. There are some concerns as well as a few restrictions, described here:
“SDOT prohibits fruit trees because of the slipping hazard for pedestrians from fallen fruit. For some residents, it’s their only sunny area to grow vegetables. But the planting strip is a public space, part of the public right-of-way, so it’s hard to control what pets or people do there. It can be harder to reach with water, and there may be concerns with the soil.” It is also a good idea to test the soil for contaminants before planting edible crops.
“Urban Habitats is an open-access electronic journal that focuses on current research on the biology of urban areas. Papers cover a range of related subject areas, including urban botany, conservation biology, wildlife and vegetation management in urban areas, urban ecology, restoration of urban habitats, landscape ecology and urban design, urban soils, bioplanning in metropolitan regions, and the natural history of cities around the world.” Urban Habitats will become Urban Naturalist. The Urban Habitats site will remain available for past journal issues.
A good book to help those of us living on tiny urban lots, or in the even smaller spaces of condominiums and townhouses is Big Ideas for Northwest Small Gardens by Marty Wingate. It guides the city gardener through design consideration and appropriate plant selection. One chapter answers common questions city gardeners have, such as “Can I have a wildlife garden?” Color photography by Jacqueline Koch helps make this informative book a pleasure to read.