grow your own!

mischief begins as summer draws near.

2008-04-21T21:26:00.003-04:00

I visited Sweetwater Farms the other day with my friend mark, and photographed their 6 acre facility just past the airport here in Tampa, FL. They are a community funded, volunteer driven all-organic farm that provides local residents and a fresh foods market with produce. They are a big example of Community Supported Agriculture, a type of farming that focuses on many members banding together to reap the rewards of growing their own food. find out more at the Sweetwater Organic Farms website, www.sweetwater-organic.org.

After that, mark offered to take me to a bit more secretive location, the Berns' Steakhouse Farm. This upscale Tampa restaurant grows all their produce on a small farm located on the corner of waters ave and the veterans expressway (map). There was no one there, so we walked through the gate and snapped some photos, and snagged a few other things.

unfortunately, this goof forgot the card reader, so there will be no pictures until I update again from home. Oh, and the Berns' had GREAT potatoes!

hibernation station

2008-04-14T11:30:00.003-04:00

this cold weather snap turned me into a hibernating bear today. so as I awaken, I will digress...

- when my "close to home" garden got mowed, I had to come up with a way to beat that system, and encourage others to get involved with these ideas. the gardeners of Toronto's Public Space had what I thought was a really novel idea where they use small signs to alert passerby of the presence of their gardens.

These signs ask people to tread carefully and to please water the plants, so I figured I could take a page out of their book and began to draft my own PLEASE WATER/DO NOT MOW signs. unfortunately for my pocketbook, but fortunately for my sense of humor, I am not city sponsored like the Public Space gardeners, so I ran things a bit differently. Here's what I came up with:

there are two varieties, one with a head of lettuce and one with a nice little sunflower. I made them from scratch in photoshop, and used my superb printmaking skills (thanks shanks) to faux-posterize and color reduce the images. A few prints and a quick trip to kinko's later, I had glossy laminated signs warning everyone that there are plants afoot. I put these up at my remaining three gardens, and so far so good. All the signs are still up as of last friday, and no more encounters of the john deere kind have occurred.

- the GoingGreenTampaBayExpo was held last saturday in the Sun Dome on USF's Tampa campus. there were lots of great exhibits, from hybrid cars and SUVs, to the Hyde Park Hemp shop. there were free tacos from chipotle, and some really great workshops and screenings going on. I spent the day handing out flyers for the blog that I whipped up from a photograph of the signs, and then added some neato corresponding design elements to spruce them up. if you got one of these flyers and actually read it and visited, please drop me a line on the comments or in a email, cause I love attention!

- a friend of mine came by the house last week and commented on my sweet porch garden, and proceeded to tell me about his porch garden that was ready to be transplanted. We decided to knock that out that same afternoon, and just waited for the rain to let up. we left for chris' as the sun came out, but by the time we got there, florida had other plans and it began to rain to rain violently on us, so we took a break. after it was apparent that we were not going to get more dry time, we decided to conquer the elements and hit it again. I covered my camera with a plastic bag, and we dug more beds and got al his little seedlings moved in to their new homes. check out the album here:

chris's house 4/11/08 6:50 PM

I'm making images of the signs up with the gardens, and I want to process them using HDR imaging, a new technique that increases the dynamic range of digital images. I hope to make some prints of them coming up soon; I'll try and drop one up here later tonight. until then, grow on!

a short yet triumphant interlude.

2008-04-13T19:47:00.002-04:00

It got surprisingly cold here in Daytona Beach FL, where I am visiting my family for the day. sorry for the lack of recent posts and the brevity of this one, but I'll get to a full update later.

- I believe I am successfully combating the problems I was facing earlier

- Had a great time at the GoingGreenTampaBay expo, even though I didn't present

- Helped start another garden

and a few more things, but right now I have to get on the road back to Tampa, so a full update will be in order then.

To add insult to injury...

2008-04-02T09:58:00.002-04:00

I was running late this morning, but still wanted to check on my close to home garden, as I was really afraid the pond created in fletcher field would have surely washed my plants out. Worse than any rain, I realized, was the man with the lawnmower that must have taken two or three runs to chop up a few salads worth of lettuce growing inbetween the trees. jerk. Anyhow, we'll strike that one off the list, and now I need a way to stop this from happening again. I'll be back.

new favorite?

2008-03-31T11:13:00.003-04:00

heh, i thought i lost this when wendy closed one of my windows out about a week ago.

anyways:

While i was in denver, colorado, I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had a multitude of things on display, but was most taken by the photographs and sculptures of Jasper De Beijer. check his stuff out here.

oh, and a map

2008-03-31T11:07:00.001-04:00

for your viewing pleasure.

View Larger Map

Longer days, longer weeks.

2008-03-31T09:59:00.003-04:00

Spring has sprung and the days are getting longer, and somehow the weeks feel as if they are stretching as well. No more new garden this week, but I did visit my friend Mark at his south tampa house to photograph his at home garden. Mark is an activist/artist who spends his days tattooing and his nights tagging and wheatpasting. You can see his work here and his garden here:

mark's house 3/30/08

I'm also want to include a few from the set that I really liked:

Can you tell what these are?

Mark's pumpkin patch

I thought these were just awesome; these rain barrel collection units are available to any resident of hillsborough county for absolutely free, and they may be available through other county or state sponsored programs as well. They are super easy to use, just direct the rainflow from you gutters to the top of the barrel, and a screen catches all unwanted solid matter and creates super clean water for irrigation. get some now!

mark makes jonelle do all the work...

Mark and Jo offered to accompany me out to sweetwater farms this week to photograph and get free food, so look for that in the next update or so. my gardens are doing pretty well, even in the crappy florida sand. Fruits are stating to pop up, as well as flowers, so hopefully a good update will be in order in the next day or two.

everyone should watch this,

2008-03-31T09:54:00.001-04:00

if you aren't easily offended.

updates!

2008-03-26T08:39:00.004-04:00

Garden updates:

garden updates 3-25

we planted a new garden to recognize easter and the beginning of spring, pics available here:

New Garden - 3-23

Look for the updated map sometime today.

nothing else for now, just trying to get rid of the SARS/bird flu I caught last week in denver...more on that situation later.

how to: start a garden

2008-03-04T16:05:00.004-05:00

so, this is the first tutorial section of the blog, and in this session i want to go over the in's and out's of starting your own guerrilla garden.

This section will be dedicated to starting a garden from seed alone, and the next section will be on planting your seedlings out on their own in your very own guerrilla garden.

first things first, you need to determine where you live, because that will be a large factor in deciding what to plant, and when to plant it. once you have determined this...take your information to the internet or your local garden center, and you should soon know what to look for.

here in florida, i prefer things that do not require everyday tending, so I choose things like beans, peppers, and herbs, because they are pretty hearty and seem to thrive as long as they have enough water.

so by now you know where you live, what you can grow, and you are ready to get dirty...here's how:

Starting from seeds, you'll need:

1. Seeds.

2. A Germination Box (available very cheaply at Lowe's or Home Depot).

3. About 2 hours of free time.

Start by taking your germ box, and pouring enough water into it to just cover the peat pods, and within minutes you'll see them go from the little flat discs:

to swollen hunks of peat:

You can then fluff and level the peat pods to ready them for the seeds:

When the pods are ready, pour off the excess water and start by pushing the seed(s) (use a few if they are teeny tiny) into the pods about 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch down.

Then, cover the seeds lightly with peat, and put the protective greenhouse covering back on the germ box. You may want to purchase a small flourescent light or two to put on top of your germ box to promote seed growth, but this is totally up to you.

The seeds should germinate soon, so be on the lookout for part 2: the TRANSplant!
(that sounds like a bad movie.)

grow on!

giving a house call...

2008-03-04T15:32:00.004-05:00

because the plants need a check up.

you can see the progress here -

Check Up - 3-4-08

I also put another garden in the ground, check this album out for more on that:

New Garden 3/3/08 10:27 AM

and I'll post the updated map as well, just for good measure:

View Larger Map

I finally began to see fruit, oddly enough at the sycamore site, which I did not expect due to the poor soil. unfortunately, the rowlett park tomatoes are looking a bit weak, so the rain that seems impending today will hopefully do them well. oh, and the bugs are here! I found two little caterpillars munching on my bean sprouts, which i don't terribly mind, but then I saw one wrapped in a bean leaf and sewed shut like a cocoon, so i had to displace the little bugger before he became a pest.

I also want to update the links section, as there are some other fantastic resources out there even more dedicated and crazy than I, so check em out!

plans for the next 7 days: another garden, hopefully in the railroad garden area (designated on map), and a good bit of tending to try and fix up some of the yellowing stock.

until next time, grow on!

video!

2008-02-27T11:47:00.004-05:00

finished a video clip, and finally compressed it for the web. you can find it here:

yesterday was fertiizing day, so I hit the existing gardens with a dose of TerraCycle organnic plant and vegetable food. I like this stuff because i know it works, and it's all natural, made from liquified worm poop and distributed in a recycled soda bottle. unfortunately, an impending rainstorm deemed documentation unfeasible, so expect a picture update on thursday.

oh, and the next garden is on deck, and will be planted as soon as weather permits.

also coming soon is a link section so you can know more than i can ever tell you.

grow on!

Finally

2008-02-12T18:57:00.000-05:00

an update.

as of today, february 12th, the project is in full swing. the first generation of seeds had sprouted enough to be transplanted by the 2nd of feb., so the made their permanent home at Rowlett Park, in the heart of Sulphur Springs, one of Tampa's poorest communities.

we planted the second generation of seeds friday the 1st, and unfortunately, as of this writing it looks like they did not fair as well, with a less than 25 percent germination rate. i believe excess humidity or the temperature changes may be responsible. if they do not sprout soon, we'll have to continue and start a new crop, as i don't think they can be salvaged.

here's some images from the last few weeks:

la plants

and, last but not least, the map is up and running! check it out and be sure to watch the locations for updates
here

grow on!

GraphicStudio

2008-01-16T02:24:00.000-05:00

Visited the good old GS on Monday, they have some interesting stuff in the works going on currently:

Trenton Doyle Hancock: Does these weird narratives that he constructs on his own. I was most perplexed and intrigued by his bucket of pepto-bismol, except that it's just the color of PB. It's actually these ground up organism things that these strange refugee apes eat , and then hallucinate on. Oh, and then he has this crazy ass wallpaper he's working on. Same ape and pink motifs, but the glow in the dark, and are going to be 30' by 70'.

AND

Christian Marclay has two projects going on, on based on comic book onomatopoeia, and another on these rather beautiful cyanotypes of old cassette tapes. It's a rather strange but unique process where he is making unique prints, 35 in all, by contact printing a cassette tape, and more importantly, the magnetic tape inside, all strewn about in a sort of continuous line drawing.

google up, kids.

~s

p.s. The seeds are coming, and they have something to say.

erect jesus

2008-01-14T10:34:00.000-05:00

good read...

statues cause outrage

edit:

oh, and this guy: the east london decapitator

welcome...

2008-01-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

to 2008, where it seems that it's going by faster than ever. watch for the seeds to sprout very soon...