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Community Corner

Good Advice for Growers

Tips from a local gardening pro, building a raised bed with salvaged wood, and where to score some quality soil in the third installment of this series on urban gardening.

One big advantage of being a is that it’s pretty easy to find a  knowledgeable acquaintance who can help when you have questions.

For me, that person is David Grefrath, a friend who manages the garden at the proudly-titled Fort Awesome, a co-op in Berkeley owned by Cooperative Roots, a non-profit dedicated to promoting cooperative living in the Bay Area.

Grefrath became interested in urban gardening while doing relief work in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth ward after Hurricane Katrina. When the need arose for someone to manage a community garden there, he took charge, and had what he described as an “incredible, magical experience” that cemented his interest in community gardening. He’s been managing the garden at Fort Awesome, a lush oasis on residential King Street, since last May.

I recently asked Grefrath to come by to check out my garden and offer any advice he might have. The first thing he did was to admire the location.

“You’ve got a nice spot,” he said. “Sunny, south-facing, not too many obstructions.”

Despite having , our backyard does have a lot going for it. I wanted to know what else could be done to help it reach its full potential.

For one, Grefrath recommended taller raised beds. The ones we have, constructed by previous tenants, are too short. They range in size from about 12 inches to no more than 6 inches in height, which will only accommodate crops with pretty shallow roots. He suggested a minimum height of 18 inches.

Wood can be expensive, but if you’re creative or know where to look, you can find scrap wood to construct a garden bed. There’s a great article on the website about selecting wood for raised beds and the possible dangers of using pressure-treated wood.

Wood used for garden beds will eventually rot, and many people use pressure-treated wood to stave off the inevitable. It’s cheaper and lasts longer than natural durable woods like redwood, but it has been shown to leach harmful substances like chromium and arsenic into the soil it contains.

The Ecology Center article lists a few options for safe, inexpensive materials to use instead. Being frugal, my roommates and I decided to go with the least expensive option and went to to find salvaged wood.

Urban Ore is the place where all sorts of discarded things are saved from the landfill and given a new life. We found a good selection of salvaged planks, albeit irregularly shaped. If you aren’t bothered by a bed that's a little uneven on top, you can get enough wood, as we did, for not much more than $10. We also checked with the staff to confirm that the wood wasn't pressure treated.

Our new raised bed may not be the prettiest you’ll see, but it’ll get the job done - once we get some soil to put in it.

So far we’ve been using plain compost, with mostly good results, but I thought I’d ask Grefrath what he thought about it.

“You can do it,” he said, “But it has a tendency to be too warm for most stuff.”

By “warm” he wasn’t referring to the temperature. Grefrath meant that the , because it’s made up largely of table scraps, has high levels of nitrogen. Nitrogen is a necessary nutrient, but one that's best in the right proportions.

“Some stuff will do really well in it,” Grefrath said, but other plants will “burn out.” That means they grow really fast in the beginning but peter out when it comes time to flower or produce fruit.

This might explain why our pea plants still haven’t started bearing any fruit. According to my copy of Golden Gate Gardening, peas should start producing pods at about eight to ten weeks, which is about how long it’s been since I planted them. But there’s no sign of pods yet.

Which also explains our broccoli. The four broccoli plants we planted are growing marvelously, except there’s no broccoli. Three of the plants bolted (went to flower) right off the bat, while the last one has leaves the size of kites, but there’s not so much as an inkling of a head of broccoli forming in the center.

Grefrath recommended that we buy soil at American Soil in Richmond. He and the sales department at American Soil both recommended the “Local Hero Veggie Mix” at $38.25 per yard (short for “cubic yard,” about a pickup truck bed-full). It's a blend of soil and organic materials that is specifically tailored for Bay Area veggie growers.

The big soil haul is on the agenda, as soon as we find a free weekend and, perhaps, another neighborly acquaintance who happens to have a pickup truck?

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CORRECTION: David Grefrath's name was originally misspelled (as Grefath). This has been corrected.

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