Posts from — April 2009

photo credit: starmist1

I just wrote this rather long comment on Fern’s blog, in response to her post on climate change. I really love her blog and don’t mean to sound critical, but I thought it was worth repeating here, because her comments reflect a common misconception about how scientists are investigating climate change. Often people look at one year or one season’s weather and notice it is cooler than the previous year and so conclude that there isn’t clear evidence of climate change. The problem with this is that you can look at 1 or 2 years or even 3-5 years and find evidence for or against climate change.

There is a big difference between observing the weather and measuring the climate. I understand why many people, including some scientists are still not sure, but it’s important to talk about why so many scientists are convinced. Weather in individual places over time might be warmer or cooler year to year or season to season–there are always those types of variations. What makes many scientists worry is the changes in average temperatures world wide, over decades.

Biologists are also finding many plants and animals that are changing their ranges or flowering earlier. As gardeners, we can and should be helping to gather evidence about climate change in our local areas. Some gardeners regularly monitor the weather, including daily highs and lows, rainfall, and the first and last frosts of the year. This is the kind of information that, if it’s continuous for decades, lets you begin seeing climate change in action. You can also monitor your garden plants for changes in seasonality. If you want to monitor climate change for yourself and help scientists you could join the National Phenology Network. Their volunteers have been monitoring the dates of flower blooms (lilac and honeysuckle since 1956).  It’s normal to see flowers bloom earlier one year and later another, but when you monitor for decades and the average bloom date gets earlier and earlier, that’s when scientists start to worry.

It’s common for people to look at year to year variations and wonder where the evidence is, but a climate scientist is looking at decades (for temperature and precipitation changes) or centuries (if they are looking a CO2 levels in frozen ice.)

Here are a couple of audio stories from NPR about phenology.

Climate Scientists Enlist Citizen Volunteers
Beautiful Lilacs Tell a Tale About Climate

If you want more information, you might want to pick up The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth by Tim Flannery. Flannery does a good job of explaining what evidence scientists are examining and related politics.

Technorati Tags: climate change, environmental politics

Since securing my new garden I have been busily pulling weeds and loosening the soil to get ready for planting. I have had several beautiful days out in the garden, marred only by the constant swearing coming from the alley behind the yard. The Whitaker is an interesting neighborhood, with a strange mix of early 20th century cottages with beautiful gardens, warehouses, artist studios, and hipster food places. The neighborhood also has a surprising number of people who seem to on drugs and/or drunk, including the folks who live behind my garden.

photo credit: Aunt Owwee

Since this spot has been an organic vegetable garden for many years, the soil is good. I’m limiting the amount of digging and turning of the soil I’m doing, since the soils seems to have nice structure already. I bought a fork and I’m simply loosening the soil with the fork and then pulling up all the weeds.  Organic vegetable gardening can be a hassle some days, whoever was gardening before me didn’t spend much time weeding. The grass was already 6-8 inches high when I first saw the garden. I managed to clear two beds, about 3.5ft wide and 20 ft long. Discovering in the process that they are both filled with bind weed. ACK! But I wanted to plant several things that are better direct seeded, rather than transplanted, so I cleared the bed rather than sheet mulching.

Here’s what I have planted so far:

• broccoli
• red cabbage
• soft neck garlic
• russet burbank potatoes
• red pontiac potatoes
• yellow granex-sweet vidalia type onion (short day)
• red candy apple onion (intermediate day)
• super star onion (intermediate day)
• red wethersfield onion (long day)
• texas supersweet onion (short day)
• cascadia peas (bush snap peas)
• sugar pod II (bush snow peas)
• sugar daddy (bush snap peas)
• yellow rock onion
• white ebenezer onion
• arugula
• lettuce

This spring, since I’m gardening in a new place (and I’m a little behind schedule because I had to find a space) I stuck with varieties I could find at local nurseries, hoping that the nurseries were doing a good job of choosing varieties. Frankly, I don’t trust nurseries to do a good job of only selling what will grow well in their locale. Already I’m a little worried because it seems that some of the onions sets I bought are short and intermediate day when Eugene is a long day area. This doesn’t bode well for my onions. I also managed to save some garlic chives that I discovered there. I love all sorts of onion family plants and peas, I love peas. I may have overdone it planting peas and onions, but there is no way to have too many peas, and I’m planning to thin the onions for greens as they grow. Yum, I can’t wait!

photo credit: Ben30

A few weeks ago I lost the community garden lottery here in Eugene. The city was nice enough to send me a letter to let me know that I was number fifty seven on the waiting list. Apparently I’m not the only one with an urge to grow my own food. According to Oregon’s agricultural extension:

The number of names on a waiting list to rent plots in the Portland area’s 30 community gardens has grown to 1,000, according to Extension’s Clackamas County horticulturist Weston Miller, and landowners are offering to donate land for more community gardens.

I don’t know how long the list in Eugene is, but there are at least 57 people waiting. Further research would most likely reveal  long lists in other cities around the country. Faced with the depressing reality that I would have to make do with my little patio, I headed over to Down To Earth to buy a few containers. As I wandered from the nursery into the garden center, I noticed a bulletin board with various notices. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a post offering a backyard space for gardening. I called right away and now I have a lovely backyard space equal to a 600 sq ft community garden plot. It’s small, but as a grad student I have a limited amount of time for gardening.

Yardsharing is a new trend around the country, but the woman who is lending me her space has been doing it for years. The soil in my new garden is lovely, even if somewhat weedy.

Technorati Tags: community garden, community gardening, Eugene, yardshare