Our Seed Germination Room

So we needed to start our seeds, a lot of seed, like 4500+ seeds.  How to do it one might ask.  First the problem of "bottom heat", heating the soil from below.  Like I said we're planting 4500+ seeds that's a lot of room to heat.  Our friend Dick Larsen came to our rescue.  Dick is the Chief Engineer, Receptionist, Assembly Foreman, and Mascot of The Vegetable Revolution (contact info at the end).  Along with a little help from my less than mechanical brain, we came up with, what we think was a great solution.   First off I must let you know that our mantra through out this process was "we don't want to spend much money" It was great walking through every home improvement store and hearing Dick say "Michael! We don't wanna spend a lot of money!" I grew to love the way Dick got gruff every time I wanted to spend a little of the money I didn't have. 

In case you were wondering what the two clowns that attempted this project here is a visual that you might want to forget.



First we started with a 4x8 sheet of plywood and cut it in half.

After we cut the sheet of plywood in half we framed in the outside edges with 2x2s. We did this with screws and a screw gun. 

After we had it all framed up we added the tubing for the hot water. 

We used 3/8" tubing, We started with 25 feet per table.  We later added 25 more feet for better heat disbursement.

We created a weaving pattern to move the heat around evenly.  We anchored that tubeing with standard electrical wire anchors.  We had to cut out an opening at the end to run the tubing out of once the cement had been placed in the table.


















After construction we moved them into my basement where we had a special room set up.  When I say special I mean that we had 6 brand new buckets to place our tables on.

Next is our pump and heating units.

This is what we started with.  A 120v hot tub heater it was out of a hot tub that someone was getting rid of.  FREE!

We added the FREE pump that came along with the FREE heater. To come up with something that looks like ET.











To taper the large out flow out of the heater to our 3/8" tubes out friend Craig (whom we gave a hard time every time we went in to Ace on Central) helped us find a solution.  Some pipe caps with some 3/8" hose thingies tapped in to them.

Next it was time to put it together.

Once it was put together is was time to add the cement

Roscoe had to help too!

At this point w actually added 25 feed more of tubing to the tables but we were in such a hurry to get it done we took zero pictures.

Now the pictures stopped completely.  We hadn't really planned on blogging about this.  But we hooked everything up and ran the system and the hot tub heater stopped working.  Dick came to the rescue and built a small water heater with a thermostat.  We have been maintaining a consistant tempeture of around 85 degrees.  We started our seeds and they are on their way.

Dick Larsen is a local Minneapolis foodie and he is the future of sub-irrigated container gardening.  he can be reached on Facebook @ The Vegetable Revolution

You can contact Buchanan Street Farms of Mike Smieja at: Facebook or Twitter or Email

My Garden Guru

For years my Father had a huge garden, 20'x44' to be exact. It was his place to unwind everyday after work. I could see the happiness in his eyes as he hand watered it with the hose, the gentle sway of the hose from left to right as he gave his little plants the life they desired. My Father was, is, and always will be my gardening guru. I remember in the spring we would go to the city lot where we would get loads and loads of free compost. He would till his garden across the width then across the length. He wold plan his layout on paper for weeks. My father used the same twenty foot 2x6 to mark his rows for as long as I can remember. I never really got into gardening with Dad. Looking back I wish I spent more time working the soil him. I think my passion was handed down to me in the same secret fashion that making sure you turn off the lights is.

When I was younger my Father and I planted a red maple. That tree grew to have a canopy that would make any Canadian proud, that canopy also blocked the afternoon sun from Dad's garden. I always said “let's just cut it down”. Dad never did have a response for that. He would move everything around each year in hopes that it would do better the next year., he always said it was to help the garden, I knew it was because of the maple.

63 and retired, my Father lives in Grand Marais, a small town in Minnesota,40 miles southwest from the Canadian border on Lake Superior. The growing season is very different from his old garden in Minnetonka (just outside of Minneapolis). My Dad's garden is barely 10x10 now, but he loves it as much, if not more than his previous garden. The challenge of the short growing season, finding soil amendments, the rocks. The northeastern region of Minnesota is one big rock. Yesterday I had spent the afternoon looking at seed catalogs with Dad. You could see his eyes light up as found watermelons that would work for him (he never grew them when I was a kid, I begged him to but he said his garden was to small, lol). We looked for hours and hours. Both of us planning our harvest, what we would can, what we can give away, what new and exciting things we can make, and what new techniques we can use to make all this possible.

People have been working the soil for years. My Father still uses tricks that my Grandmother taught him. I still use tricks that my Grandmother taught my Father. Somethings never change. People say that you cant teach an old dog new tricks. I gently helped change my Dad's mind about a few things for next year. When I drew an example of a potato tower and how they work, he was sold. We planned out how he can grow “up” rather then “out” with his cucumbers and beans.

Working the soil is like so many other lessons in life. If we remain open minded, teachable, and willing to teach it benefits all rather than just one. My Dad taught me most everything I know about gardening, it makes me feel grateful to let him in on a few new things I have learned along the way. I hope in the coming years my gardening knowledge database can grow (organically of course), be shared, and helpful for all.

Empowerment is exciting.

Great meeting this morning! I met with the director of a local food shelf this morning. We are starting the process of investigating our local food system and how we can better it. In most cases food that comes from food banks is one of two different things. One, is that it hasn't sold, being of poor taste or low demand. Two, the food is cheap to make, and in most cases is high in fillers, fat and is low in nutrition. Last year this particular food shelf provided its clients with 3000 pounds of fresh produce. It was provided by private gardeners, community gardens, and local businesses.

Next growing season Buchanan Street Farms hopes to partner up with this food shelf to provide produce, education, and empowerment. We looking at some local spaces that can be turned in to community, educational, and empowerment gardens. Community gardens are generally gardens that people in the community work in some sort of communal fashion, whether it be by working the whole plot and sharing the harvest, or dividing it into plots to be worked by individuals. Community gardens are a great thing to bring the community together.

Our plan is to create gardens that our divided into 2 parts. The first part smaller plots for individuals that have had little to no experience with gardening. The second part will be farmed by Buchanan Street Farms. The idea is that Buchanan Street Farms will provide education and support to our new gardeners. We like to think that we can teach people to grow their own healthy produce. First year farmers will receive small manageable plots. By doing this we can offer more spaces and our new farmers can find out if this is something the enjoy doing. Second year farmers may be eligible to have a larger space. Our goal is to teach and educate leading to empowerment.

We are just in the planning/brainstorming phase of this look for more updates and news to come.

Getting Excited

So today I have been throwing myself into a world of excitement. We have an old carport in the back, basically a tin roof on posts it is closed in on one side. Today I went out and measured for the material that we are going to use to transform it into our new greenhouse. We will closer in all sides and put a clear roof on it. I also measured my basement. We are going to start all our own seedlings this year for our garden and some to sell at local farmers markets. This kind of stuff gets me excited in the off season. I also measured the top rail of one of our balconies to see how much we can grow there next season.

This is the time of year when all the seed companies put out their seed catalogs. Seed catalogs can give me hundreds of hours of reading enjoyment. Organic, heirloom, conventional, bulbs or plantings no matter what you into, if you are a gardener like me you'll be just like a little kid getting the Sears catalog when these catalogs start to arrive The part I really dislike is having to narrow down my choices. With hundreds of tomatoes to choose from, what's a guy to do. I had seven different varieties of tomatoes last year and some did great and some not so good. Some of the ones that did really well we kept the seeds and will plant them next year.

We have some really exciting things coming up this week so keep checking back!

The 2011 Experiment Went Well

So 2011 was a great year here. We learned a lot. We loved a lot. And we lived a lot. We found our magical combination of soil and organic fertilizer. Our neighbors are became sick of our zucchinis and our tomatoes. Don't plant the peppers so close to the tomatoes. Sunflowers take up to much room. Peas need a lot of love. Spinach doesn't like the hot summer. Rabbits love everything.

  
Jared was our saving grace this year. With his many years of growing experience and trial and error we had yields we would have never expected. Our small plot produced hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes. Tons of zucchinis. The basil was six feet high. None of this could be done without the help of of Jared.

Our produce produced more then food. One afternoon while hanging out in the front yard, a bunch of our neighbors came over to say high and thank us for the free food. I had two neighbors that had lived on the same block for over ten years that had never met until this sunny afternoon. What I learned is that so much can be accomplished via our food systems and through sharing in the harvest. Along with learning about growing we started canning. We canned 37 quarts of dill pickles, 60 pints of salsa, 30+ half pints of hot peppers, 50+ half pints of pepper relish, apple butter, pickled garlic and dilly green beans to name a few.

In 2012 the city of Minneapolis will unveil their Urban Farming Policy. This will lay out the rules to what is and what isn't allowed withing the borders of Minneapolis. I attended a few public meetings and forums about the policy. Recently they had a Minneapolis Homegrown meeting where R.T. Rybak spoke to the value of urban farm, community gardens, farmers markets, and farm to school programs.

So what does this mean for us? Well the plan for 2012 is to transition from a a homestead garden to a market farm. We are going to triple our growing space on Buchanan Street NE. We're in talks to farm a couple of different locations here in Nordeast. Our plan is to sell what we grow. We are going to offer seedlings, canned produce, and fresh produce for sale on site and at local farmers markets. Along with expanding our soil space we are going to add a chicken coop and experiment with aquaponics.

Talking with friends and family about what to plant, we keep getting asked if we are going to offer a CSA (community supported agriculture) program? Here is the idea that we are kicking around. We might take a trial run at a CSA program. We might offer 20 CSAs really inexpensive to see how it goes.

We're still planning on what we are going to plant next season. We welcome any suggestions, input, support or questions you might have.

-Mike