Initial sowing reflections

It would be really lovely to start this blog post by saying "Spring is upon us and the seeds are finally starting to sprout!" But alas, the frost continues and despite the slowly strengthening sunshine, the ground remains very much frozen solid and temperatures plummet every night below zero. This means that the growing season has got off to a rather slow start.

That hasn't stopped us enjoying ourselves though! We are holding meetings every Sunday and have been making planters, building seedling trays, tidying up in the shed and generally nesting.

Most of the plants have been sown now, the garlic is still thriving and the tulips are starting to show leaves. The borage can't be planted for a little while and we definitely need to sow more herbs for the staggeringly popular Tim's Tea Box! 

 

We have made it up to 100 orders with 54 Tim's Tea Box, 25 Fireworks, 8 Borsch, 12 Potato and 2 Little Green Ones. This is pretty exciting territory for Adopt A Box and we are trying to grow extra in case the boxes get vandalised.

At the moment the weather is so cold that none of the seeds are starting to germinate but they have at least been sown. They won't get killed from the frost and some of them even require a very cold spell in order to sprout. The colder temperatures in the greenhouse also mean that the plants will be more robust when they finally grow. Some of us have taken some seed trays (and egg boxes!) home to get them going a bit quicker.

Tim, Tina and Amanda

 Space is turning out to be in rather short supply in our current HQ at Institut For X behind Godsbanen but fortunately we got 50,000kr funding to build a modular Tetris-inspired greenhouse from Byggeriets Ildsjæle http://byggerietsildsjaele.dk/projekter/2013/adopt-box.

Building preparations are going to start on the 2nd of April and the big opening day will happen during Aarhus Sustainability Festival where Adopt A Box is going to be collaborating with Cirkus Mærkbar, attempting to make sustainability fun and accessible to children http://www.facebook.com/events/360244820732222/

If you are interested in looking after some plants for a couple of weeks, write us a mail! Otherwise join us on one of our Sunday meetings! There are more frequent updates on Facebook so "like" us here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Adopt-A-Box/352207261469041 and see what's happening.

Tis....!!!!

Jeg faldt over dette meget interessante indlæg om at bruge tis som gødning. Enten direkte blot opblandet med lidt vand eller til at sætte gang i kompostbunken. Det er så indlysende, nemt og oplagt og alligevel er det så fjern en løsning for mange….

http://www.nwedible.com/2013/03/how-to-use-pee-in-your-garden.html

Tis er dog en meget brugbar gødning, da den er rig på kvælstof, hvilket ofte er en mangel i andre gødningstyper. Ofte er indholdet af fosfor så stort at der - til skade for miljøet - vil ske en overgødskning med dette næringsstof, hvis der skal tildeles alt det kvælstof en afgrøde har brug for.

I strukturrige kompostbunker er tis en ren gave. En kompost kræver nemlig en hvis mængde kvælstof, for at mikroorganismerne kan arbejde hurtigt. Er der underskud af kvælstof vil processen gå langsomt og langt hovedparten af kvælstoffet vil befinde sig i mikroorganismerne og dermed ikke være tilgængelig for planterne – også kaldet immobilisering af kvælstof.

Til sidst vil jeg lige nævne at tis er en alt for kraftig gødning at bruge frisk – den SKAL fortyndes og dette indlæg er dermed ikke en undskyldning for at bruge kasserne som offentligt toilet!!! :)

Flyer 2013

udfordringer og nye erfaringer

Sidste års erfaringer med rodfrugter - gulerødder - var ikke voldsomt gode og det at udplante rodfrugter er ikke det mest optimale. Kartoflerne havde vi dog stor succes med, så med lidt mere omtanke og forsigtighed burde vi i år kunne producere nogle fornuftige rødbeder - vi tror i hvert fald på det....

En af de få (næsten) vellykkede gulerødder

Der er også rig mulighed for at vælge andre nyheder dette år som for eksempel porre og kål. Og med en hel kasse med krydderurter og derudover persille og hvidløg fra andre kasser, skal det nok fører til et godt og smagfuldt sensommermåltid.

Prikken over i'et bliver den smukke hjulkroner, hvis spiselige blomster pynter på et hvert måltid.

     - vi glæder os til at se, hvad og hvor meget der inden længe skal forspires........

Fantastiske gengangere!

Årets kasser er en god blanding af planter vi havde gode erfaringer med sidste år, planter vi ikke vil opgive til trods for mindre gode erfaringer og helt nye vi glæder os til at samle erfaringer om.
De fantastiske gengangere er bladbede, tallerkensmækkere og kartofler, de voksede generelt meget frodigt og var både smukke og gav et godt udbytte.

 

En fuldvoksen bladbede er ikke den mest almindelige grøntsag at se i de danske butikker, derimod sælges der en del som babyleaf, hvor den går under det engelske navn Mangold.
Bladbede er en meget gammel kulturplante der blev dyrket helt tilbage til romerriget og måske også blandt de gamle ægyptere. Som vild plante voksede den langs strandende.

Tallerkensmækkere er frodigheden selv og naboplanter skal ikke være for skravlet, hvis de skal klare kampen om kassen. Både blomster, blade og frø kan spises.

Kartoffeler må siges at være nemt at finde i supermarkeder på markeder eller hvor man nu køber sine grøntsager, og prisen er lav sammenlignet med andre grøntsager. Så det virker måske ikke som den mest oplagte plante at dyrke på sin sparsomme plads i byen. Men man gør det alligevel, for det er en fascinerende grøntsag og samtidig smuk og frodig. Der findes et utal af bud på, hvordan den dyrkes i krukker, så man løbende kan høste friske kartofler.
Så vi er ikke de eneste der er vild med den selvom det er lidt af en fattigmandsspise.

5 BOX COMBINATIONS - OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

We are proud to present this year's box combinations!

1) Tim's Tea Box - Chamomile, lavender, chrysanthemum, mint and sage
2) The Potato Box - Potatoes and marigolds
3) The Borsch Box - Beetroots, nasurtiums and garlic
4) The Little Green One - Cabbage, nasturtiums and leeks
5) Fireworks - Red Swiss Chard, multicoloured cornflowers, parsley and borage

A box with contents costs 200kr. This is an increase from last year, which is unfortunate, but last year was a our very first year and the boxes simply cost more to produce and maintain that we anticipated. If you were involved in the project last year, and still have a box lying around, it costs 100kr to have it replenished. Adopt A Box is a non-profit project run by the organisation Himmelhaven and all "profits" go to green initiatives and other voluntary projects.

If you would like to order one or even several boxes, please write to foedevaregruppen@gmail.com with your name (plus the name of your business), a contact telephone number and your address (of where the box will be placed). You'll then receive an email with details about payment and delivery. Please write to foedevaregruppen@gmail.com if you have any questions!

We unfortunately can't accept any orders made after the 17th of March as we propagate all of the plants ourselves and this takes time.

So far this year, Adopt A Box would like to thank Great Coffee for their coffee grounds which we're using to spice up our soil with nitrogen, to Insitut for (X) that have been so kind as to host us and our meetings, to Helledige Islandsheste for their very kind donation of quality Icelandic horse manure and to Hvidløg og Vin for their generous discount on fantastic garlic cloves that we already planted in October last year.

We're looking forward to a very exciting 2013 and hope to experience the same fantastic support that we enjoyed last year! See you out on the streets soon!

At vælge en kasse – sædskifte.

Når man skal finde noget at putte i sin jord, er det værd at overveje, hvad der var i den sidste år.

Så er man blandt dem, der nu skal i gang med andet år som urban farmer og bruger samme kasse og jord som sidste år, kan man overveje at vælge noget nyt i år.

Grunden til dette er, at mange skadegører bliver på det sted, hvor deres foretrukne afgrøde stod sidste år, så for ikke at placere et helt spisekammer lige for næsen af dem, placere man afgrøderne i et sædskifte, hvor planter af samme familie ikke står det samme sted i nogle år.

Kartoffelskimmel

I vores tilfælde vil det betyde, at hvis man har haft kartofler første år, kan man overveje noget andet i år. Har man haft bladbede, er det ikke optimalt med bladbede og rødbede året efter, bederne er dog generel sunde planter, så risikoen er ikke så stor. Derudover anbefaler man ikke løg og porre efter bladbeder.

Dette er dog kun retningslinier og der er heldigvis ingen regler i vores kasser….. :)

Efficient City Farming - Berlin

I sommers så jeg forskellige bud på Urban Farming i Berlin.
Her er et par billeder fra et projekt, der omdannede containerer til produktion af fisk og grøntsager. Systemet med at kombinere fisk- og planteproduktion hedder aquaponic og er en kombination af aquaculture (fisk i tanke) og hydroponics (planter der gror i vand)
I containeren er der et akvarie med fisk, der godt kan lide det mørkt og trængt og vandet herfra ledes til to tanke, der omdanner ammonium til nitrat. Herfra ledes vandet op til drivhuset ovenpå containeren og forbi planternes rødder. Planterne optager næringsstofferne og renser dermed vandet samtidig med at der produceres frisk grønt.

http://www.ecf-center.de/en/ecf-containerfarm/

Man kan lade sig inspirerer til at bruge vandet fra akvariet til vanding af potteplanter, eller man kan prøve konceptet af i mindre målestok :)
En google-billedsøgning viser flere muligheder  - for eksempel dette: http://www.instructables.com/id/Small-Aquaponic-Unit/

Hvad skal der være i kasserne - udover planter!

For at få nogle velvoksende planter er det vigtigt at kassen indeholder næringsstoffer og en god jord. En god jord vil sige at 50% af den ikke er jordpartikler men derimod luft og vand, i et forhold hvor plantens rødder hverken vil lide af ilt- eller vandmangel.

Almindelig havejord dækker ikke disse behov særligt godt, når det fyldes i en kasse, og det er derfor vigtig at tilsætte gødning og strukturgivende materiale. Begge dele kan umiddelbart være vanskeligt at skaffe i byen uden at gå ud at købe spagnum og kunstgødning, der ikke er de mest bæredygtige løsninger.

Men her er et par bud på, hvordan det kan løses:


Kompost: En lille kompostbeholder er en rigtig god løsning, og der er folk der eksperimentere med at lave det i opbevaringskasser, så det fylder så lidt, at de kan stå under vasken, på altanen eller i kælderrummet. Små kompostbeholdere er dog ikke de nemmeste at få til at fungere, og man skal forberede sig i god tid inden udplantning for at få lavet en god omsat kompost.
Alternativt kan man hente kompost på genbrugspladsen, ulempen ved det er, at man skal afsted med trailer og ikke helt ved hvad der er, i den kompost man vender hjem med.
Kompost er også godt til at forbedre jordens struktur, da den indeholder en del svært omsætteligt materiale.



Hvis man vil i gang med en lille kompost er der lidt inspiration at hente her:
http://www.facebook.com/Hjemmekompostering
http://www.urbangardening.dk/?cat=12


Kaffegrums og gødning fra høns, kaniner og marsvin: Alt sammen gode kvælstofholdige gødninger, dog også en fordel hvis man kan kompostere det inden brug eller i det mindste blander den op med jorden i god tid inden der skal plantes i den. Tilsættes det kompost vil det for komposteringsprocessen til at gå hurtigere.
Kaffegrumsen håber vi på at afprøve i år.....




Uld: Ubehandlet uld er også vist sig at fungere godt som gødning. Også menneskehår kan bruges, men indholdet af næringsstoffer og tungmetaller adskiller sig fra uld. Fordelene ved uld er, at det ikke vejer særligt meget, og at det ikke lugter. Derudover holder det godt på vandet.




Kokosfibre: Dette er et godt alternativ til spagnum, da det giver en god struktur, holder godt på vandet og ikke vejer særligt meget. Dette er et restprodukt fra kokosproduktionen og bidrager dermed ikke til ødelæggelsen af højmoser.


http://www.ikea.com/dk/da/catalog/products/90231416/?query=KOKOSN%C3%96T+Pottemuld

Biochar: Et produkt der øger jordens evne til at holde på næringsstofferne, så de ikke vaskes ud af jorden ved megen nedbør. Desuden oplagre det kulstof i jorden til gavn for klimaet.

A little bit of Spring inspiration from the Eden Project

https://www.edenproject.com/

Earlier this week I went to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK. It's a massive botanical garden built up in a fairly hostile environment - a disused china clay quarry. The centre is home to a rainforest biome housing cocoa, coffee, papayas, bananas etc. and a Mediterranean biome with citrus groves. The centre aims to both educate and inspire visitors and I certainly left with a spring in my step and a desire to get planting!!

The project aims to appeal to all the senses boasting scented gardens, colourful exotic plants, a vegetable patch and an area dedicated to utility plants for dyes, biomass and medicine.

The sheer number of plants still in leaf just goes to show how a little bit of effort during the Summer and Autumn can really pay off in the miserable months of January and February! Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask!) we ate all the plants last August so we don't have any Swiss Chard left in the boxes! Although there are a few leeks at Radar which really ought to be eaten soon. Maybe we should prepare them for the next Adopt A Box meeting on the 13th of February - http://www.facebook.com/events/247308762068301/

At this next meeting we'll decide what plants we should focus on for the box project this year. Tina who is unfortunately unable to come made the following suggestions

Kvælstofsamlende kasse med ærter og dild eller bønner og persille

Kartofler og morgenfruer

Hvidløg,  rødbeder og tallerkensmækker

Bi/grøngødningskasse (ex: blodkløver og solsikke)

Porre, gulerødder og hjulkrone

Hope to see some of you at the meeting next Wednesday! Otherwise, hang on in there, Spring is just around the corner! Soon the tulips will be out (we've got about 70 waiting to be put in the Adopt A Boxes that are still on the street!)

New Year and Greenhouse dreams

Happy New Year everyone! 

Sorry it's been a bit quiet on the old blogging front but it's most certainly not because nothing's been happening.

On the 12th of January team Adopt A Box sent off an funding application to build a greenhouse down at Institut For (X) at Godsbanen. This greenhouse would give us the necessary space to expand our production of plants as we propagated all the plants at home last year and well, as none of us has moved into a new house with lots more windowsills, we need some more growing space.

The greenhouse was designed by Vitalij and Vilius and is inspired by the Tetris form - the idea being that we can transport individual modules if we want to hold a workshop or get invited somewhere with the plants. We have applied for funding from the Danish fund Byggeriets Ildsjæle - http://byggerietsildsjaele.dk/. We'll hopefully hear from them at the beginning of March, just in time for the sowing season! Here's a little picture of what the greenhouse would look like:

In other news, we have moved Adopt A Box HQ from the Front Runners on Mejlgade to Institut For (X) down by the old freight yard. There is more space to get our fingers dirty down there and we have got a bit of growing space in D House. As everything is pretty freezing outside, there is not much greenery in there at the moment aside from the many many garlics we planted in October and the salad planted at the same time that has not grown in any visible way over the last 3 months.

We have around 100 sprouting garlic cloves of 4 different varieties. They come from a family farm on Sjælland - http://www.hvidløg-vin.dk/

We're having our first meeting after the New Year this afternoon, feel free to join and just ring 27430039 for more details/directions! We're going to have to decide where we want to focus our efforts this year. Whilst we only advertised in the Latin Quarter last year, it might be fun to include other neighbourhoods, maintaining the idea that many boxes in one area will somehow protect each other by making it clear that it's a project and not just a random potato box.

We're also going to have to choose which plants we want to grow, bearing in mind that we can be a little more adventurous this year. We've already got lots of seeds ready to experiment with including Callaloo (a brightly coloured Caribbean spinach) and Cucamelon (a funny mix of cucumber and melon).

I hope there will be some more growth to show off soon! But for now, we can collectively dream about balmier times! See you later, or at some point in the future hopefully.

A delicious and oh-so local feast

Just over two weeks ago we held the grand finale of the Adopt-A-Box project.

We harvested all the goodies that have been grown on the pavements of Mejlgade and Graven in the centre of Aarhus and were surprised at just how much there was above and beneath the soil!

The vegetable that we are (probably) most proud of is a single green pepper, grown by Sander Jensen of SmallGiant Communications. This hardy little fellow made it through rain and shine and has survived 2 months on one of Aarhus' busiest streets - Mejlgade. Behold its glory!

 
All the potato boxes, even the ones that had their leaves ripped off during the summer, had a decent crop. The potatoes were pretty small but perfectly formed and not suffering from any diseases or fungus. We used two different kinds which meant that we both had some bright red and some regular new potatoes.

Beside the potatoes, we had a pretty spectacular crop of Swiss Chard, which has by far been the most visible and the easiest vegetable we have grown - and so rewarding! I have noticed that Swiss Chard is often used in plant boxes and in community gardens and I can only presume that it is because of its size and stunning appearance.

It's not a vegetable that you often find in the supermarket which means that it takes a bit of imagination to decide how to cook it. We used some of the less exposed Swiss Chard (less potential for wee wee) for a salad and thoroughly rinsed and fried up the rest and made it into a pie. The pie, with Swiss Chard, goats cheese and pine nuts tasted absolutely incredible! A bit like a mixture between beetroot and kale.

 

We didn't have much luck with the carrots, which was half expected. They were very difficult to propagate despite the ingenious use of toilet rolls and they were also very difficult to transfer meaning that many of the fragile roots were disturbed in the process of planting them out. We did however manage to get a few beautiful cherubim-like ones which we scrubbed clean and sliced into the flower and leaf salad.

Most of the salad heads were wilted by the time of the harvest. Salad requires frequent, large amounts of watering which has been difficult to provide over the summer, especially seeing as a lot of the box parents went on holiday, next year maybe spinach will be a better alternative. We decided not to eat the few surviving salad heads - we judged it to a bit too risky in terms of drunken encounters...

 

 
With kind donations from Karlbak, OliNico, Skt. Oluf, RisRas, Jeremys Brød, New Age Shop, Arkitektforbundet, Svineriet and SmallGiant Communications we put together a harvest feast and bid the residents of the Latin Quarter welcome to send Adopt-A-Box 2012 off with a bang.

We would like to say a great big thanks to everyone that gave a hand during the harvesting and the feast preparations - we could not have done it without your help! Also a really big thanks to everyone that has been involved during the 3 months that the boxes were on the street. We have learned a lot of things from this year's project and are bursting with ideas for next year! 'Like' our Facebook page to keep up to date with what's happening with Adopt-A-Box!