Wall Street Journal talks to urban farmers

A Cabbage Patch for City Hall. Last year, Baltimore City Hall replaced its traditional flower gardens with vegetable beds to help serve a local soup kitchen. But not all went as planned. Anne Marie Chaker reports on lessons learned and plans for this year’s crop.

Attack of the Rotten Tomatoes

By Anne Marie Chaker
Wall Street Journal
March 10, 2010

Excerpt:

The city of Baltimore replaced its flower beds in front of city hall with vegetables last year. The goal, says designer Angela Treadwell-Palmer, was to show that vegetable gardens could be attractive and to grow harvests to donate to a local soup kitchen. But the local charity reported that some crops—particularly beets, kohlrabi and eggplant—weren’t appetizing to people.

So this year, Ms. Treadwell-Palmer is redesigning the garden to grow bigger yields of fewer crops like cabbage, kale and collard greens. The garden will also have a less-fussy, more minimalist look. And in the spring, at least, not all the beds will be vegetable plots, leaving room for some tulips—and more time for gardeners to breathe. “It was hard work,” she says.

Spurred by the recession and the trendiness of locally grown produce, many people planted vegetables for the first time this past year. But rookie mistakes, combined with a particularly cruel growing season that included late blight and heavy rainfall, have many now wanting to throw in the trowel. Experienced gardeners say early spring is the perfect time to correct last year’s mistakes.

First-timers typically overlook fundamentals like light, good soil, planting time and proper spacing between plants. Also, “a lot of young people are kind of curious but don’t know the time commitment,” says Jon Traunfeld, a senior agent with the University of Maryland’s Extension service, which assists gardeners in communities statewide. Mr. Traunfeld, who specializes in fruits and vegetables, says the service was hammered with questions, logging in 1,963 phone calls and emails last year, up 47% from the year before.

See the complete article here.