Do you like to talk about gardening, planting trees, planting shrubs, yard care, landscaping ideas, harvesting the produce from your garden and more?

The Eastside Pioneers Neighborhood Association (ESPNA) would like to hear from you, just send your thoughts, ideas and suggestions to mlaplante@aol.com [1] We will publish whatever you give us in this regard in our newsletter, on the RNeighbors blog at www.Rneighbors.org [2]. It would make a great discussion topic at neighborhood meetings. We could also trade thoughts and ideas via e-mail. It would be great to see what kinds of ideas we could come up with to enhance neighborhood gardens.

My wife Chris and I like to garden and we try to get our kids involved in it as much as we can too. Around our home we plant mostly flowers. We also have a 20’x20’ garden plot at my uncle’s farm north of Rochester that we use to grow all kinds of vegetables, berries etc...

We make our own compost using grass clippings, shredded paper, leaves (from our trees and shrubs) etc.. It seems like the secret to a good compost pile is not to load it down with the wrong stuff and to try to keep the proper nitrogen-carbon balance at all times.
At first we were using one of those compost barrels but we weren’t producing nearly enough to keep up with our ideas for our gardens. We converted a small corner of our backyard into a compost pile. This year we have an ample supply of compost for our garden needs.

We also catch the rain in 55 gallon barrel drums for use later on both our urban and rural gardens

We usually mix manure that we get from a friend’s farm with our compost and some peat moss for a good, rich mix to put in our garden beds.

Chris plans and researches the garden, sending away for catalogs, all kinds of different seeds and garden accessories. We’ve already started plants for this year downstairs under plant lights set on a timer. Once they are large enough, we will replant them in larger pots and set them outside in a small greenhouse during the day.

This year we had a master gardener from Sargent’s Garden Center come out and help us plan a backyard landscape design, so we will be working on that this spring as well.

We have a cherry tree in our backyard that yields what seems like a ton of cherries to be used for jellies, pies and cherry crisp.

This year we tapped our maple trees for sap. We bought a couple of galvanized steel trash barrels and dumped the sap into them. We also purchased a 28 quart electric steamer and boiler to boil the sap down outside. We now have about a gallon of pure maple syrup that we use on pancakes, waffles, corn muffins, etc..

Also this year we thought we would see what it would be like to harvest our own eggs. Chris and my son Joe researched the subject of urban chickens in Rochester even going so far as to talk to others in Rochester who raise chickens within the city limits. We also applied for the necessary permits and were able to obtain those fairly easily. Chris found plans for a chicken coop on-line, ordered them and then shopped around for the supplies. Joe and I supplied the muscle to haul the material around and to help assemble the structure.