Heirloom Seedlings @ Atherton Mill Market

The early spring planting season is here, and beginning on Saturday, March 10, we’ll have a selection of cold hardy early spring varieties for sale at the Atherton Mill Market @ 2104 South Blvd.  Shop lettuces, spinach, arugula, beets, mustard greens and more. Our seedlings are started using quality open pollinated seed from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds or Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and raised in a simple grow media made up of perlite & peat moss ; ingredients approved for organic growing by The Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI ).

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Safely Preserve Wood Structures with Timber Pro

Since it’s inevitable that all wood in contact with the ground contact will eventually rot, the challenge isn’t to try to make it last forever, just  as long as possible. Pressure treated pine is great for decks and fences, but not a good choice for building projects like raised garden beds and chicken coops, where there is direct contact with food or animals. Still, these urban farm structures often represent a significant investment, and every effort should be made to make them last as long as possible. Here at Microfarm, we build the vast majority of our projects using various sizes of Western Red Cedar lumber. It naturally resists rot and decay much better than other softwood varieties like Spruce, Pine, or Fir, but will still eventually succumb to the elements. So how do we safely extend the life of cedar garden beds, chicken coops, compost systems, and wooden greenhouse frames that we build?

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Dilworth Kitchen Garden

At just five years old, James Funderburk helped dig rocks out of his family’s two acre garden plot on the rural outskirts of Eden, NC. “Everyone in my family would walk through the garden together pulling rocks from the newly tilled soil. My parents, grandparents, cousins…we’d all be out there tossing rocks into a huge pile,” James explains. “Even at that age, I appreciated the quality produce from our garden.  I’d take a salt shaker to the garden, and eat tomatoes like they were apples.”

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Garden Tool Maintenance

Maintaining sharp edges on your garden tools makes digging, hoeing, chopping and slicing easier, and makes gardening more fun.  A 10” Mill Bastard file is a good all purpose file that can sharpen most of the tools in the shed, even the lawnmower blade. Remember to sharpen only the beveled side of the edge ( angled side ), applying pressure as you push the file forward, and lifting up as you draw it back. 

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Serious About Growing : The Cotswold School Garden Club

Cotswold school’s garden beds sit right out in front, but are easy to miss if you don’t know where to look.  There is no wood framing, just a series of humble mounds of soil placed far enough apart so that the first graders don’t dare mistake the third grade bed for their own.  I knew when the husky kid in the Green Bay Packers jersey correctly explained the difference between a spade and a shovel, that the Cotswold School Garden Club was serious about growing.

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