metro farming: free grounds...

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

free grounds...

I've mentioned this before on this blog, but it is worth a reminder that you can walk into any Starbucks coffee shop and ask for used coffee grounds for the garden. This morning I scored two nice sized bags! Adding coffee grounds to your garden soil adds Nitrogen and acts as a pest preventer...

thank you Starbucks!

Walking around the garden tonight I noticed the first real tomato on one of my seed started Amish heirlooms...

Amish baby

... and a rare sight in my garden. A juicy red strawberry! Almost every ripe strawberry gets eaten by the squirrels and skunks, so finding a ripe one for myself is a real treat!

a rare find

1 comment:

Jean said...: Good tip on the coffee grounds from Starbucks. I put the grounds in my compost pile (when I'm lucky enough to beat the other gardener's to Starbucks). The grounds work a wonder, not just adding nutrients, but helps loosen up the compost too.; July 9, 2009 at 12:25 PM

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Welcome to Metro Farming! A blog devoted to the joys and rewards of growing, eating, and sharing high quality organic produce.

"The time is past to think of this as a hobby for enthusiasts; it is a fundamental part of human life."

Those words were written 30 years ago by Christopher Alexander in his book A Pattern Language in the chapter on vegetable gardening. Alexander warned of the disconnection that people have from their food sources, and the resulting insecurities and imbalances that follow. I firmly believe that we are now almost past the point of no return for most of American society in the loss of connection to the soil and our food sources. We make ourselves feel warm and fuzzy by buying organic foods at the Supermarket, and yet we have no idea where these foods were grown or how they were processed and packaged.

It is only by growing at least some of our own foods in soils that we have dug and prepared with our own hands, and in sharing that produce with our friends and neighbors, can we truly get back to the fundamental organic security that we all need as humans.

This blog is a diary of the journey back...