Leda’s No Impact Week & Your Edible Garden
A couple of weeks ago I participated, along with close to 5000 others, in the No Impact Project. It was a week-long carbon cleanse that had me cooking by candlelight and going back on the strict version of my 250-mile diet. You can read about what it was like in this piece I share with fellow Green Edge NYC member Patricia Curry.
What would you like to learn about how to grow your own food, even if all you’ve got for garden space is a window box? As part of my new job as gardening program coordinator for NYBG, I’m brainstorming classes to go along with next year’s Edible Garden theme. There’s also the opportunity to include some edible garden-related cooking and food preservation classes in the kitchen they’re installing in the new Manhattan branch of NYBG. What do you want to know about edible plants, how to grow them, and what to do with them? I’d love to hear from you!
Cheers,
Leda
Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch: A Memoir with Recipes by Leda Meredith
What about toilet paper? Sorry, but I have to ask.
Yeah, the TP question: the Beavan family did without during their No Impact year. I did not. I use Marcal’s Small Steps brand, made from recycled paper, and that is as far as I’m willing to go on that issue.
If I were lucky enough to be attending your classes, Leda, I’d want to know which vegetables succeed in planters. Tomatoes, beans, beets, potatoes - even tall ones like corn. How to grow them, how to protect them from birds and insects, what kind of exposure to sun they like, suggestions for places an apartment dweller can put a planter in.
…I’ve always wanted to grow potatoes in a sack or in a stack of car tires…
I’ve been thinking for a while about the question of mapping edible plants in public gardens in New York City. Obviously there are inherent problems…but trees should be fairly stable in terms of staying in situ for years. Amelanchiers, mulberries for instance?
As a would-be forager I’d like to know where I can hunt and for what?
To this selfish end almost two thirds of the plants planned for a little park I’m designing on East Houston are to be edible, and are native - at least in the broad sense of the word: they are from the eastern seaboard. This is not a private garden, but will be a public one…and I’m hoping that others will feel happy to forage for berries and fruits, too.
I’ve been thinking for a while about the question of mapping edible plants in public gardens in New York City. Obviously there are inherent problems…but trees should be fairly stable in terms of staying in situ for years. Amelanchiers, mulberries for instance?
As a would-be forager I’d like to know where I can hunt and for what?
To this selfish end almost two thirds of the plants planned for a little park I’m designing on East Houston are to be edible, and are native - at least in the broad sense of the word: they are from the eastern seaboard. This is not a private garden, but will be a public one…and I’m hoping that others will feel happy to forage for berries and fruits, too.