Can we grow food in public parks?

As we stepped out of the airport shuttle, a gleaming, new modern building challenged us to cross its threshold into the refreshing air- conditioned lobby. Once inside, we went straight to the front desk and checked in. A middle-aged, portly, balding Brit with glimpses of teeth missing smiled at us and gave us our keys. We rounded the corner from the brand new breakfast area, complete with waffle makers and juice dispensers, and called the bright, steely elevator.


Once in our room, we quickly threw everything down, grabbed a couple of hats and went back down to the lobby to ask about where we should go on our first night in the "Charm City".


We decided to go to Little Italy, since it was within walking distance. Thus began our explorations of a city that for many is known only for its high rate of crime and the Harbor. While these two elements do exist and are telling of what kind of a city Baltimore is, we refused to accept that this could define its identity.


After stepping out into the still- bright evening sun, we realized that this newly refaced 19th century building that now held our luggage was surrounded by an area that betrayed the modern interior. If we had let appearances dictate, we might have spent all our money on cabs. As we would find out, appearances were mostly only that.

In fact, one thing I found about this historically significant, coastal town was how seemingly progressive it was. Adjacent our hotel, stands St. Vincent Church, a mission-style building whose glory might be restored with a simple coat of white paint to repair that which is already peeling away from its obvious brick exterior. This church, we were told by a hotel employee, takes care of the homeless that flock to the public park just next to it. As one walks by, it is easy to see why a person would go there if they were homeless. There are many benches shaded by the massive trees. This is a perfect place to escape the brutally hot summers of Maryland -Baltimore is south of the Mason- Dixon Line. It's a testament to the city that the police station is in close proximity to the park, and yet the homeless are left alone to live in the park.


On another of our walks toward the western part of downtown, I encountered a public square in front of the courthouse where the plants in raised beds were not merely ornamental (they were very beautiful); the city ( or someone) had planted red cabbage, red and yellow-stemmed chard and kale. The plants were lush and well maintained, as if no one had touched them. I wondered if they were free for the picking. If not, they should be. My question is this: can we do this in Milwaukee?

June 14, 2012: Day of Hue?

Today, I was at a conference on technology that really was not going anywhere fast, when I received an email that the city nursery was giving away free flowers to non-profits. I had thought it would be a nice idea to have everyone on the block plant flowers, either on the curbs in front of their houses or in their front yards. In short, I wanted to beautify the block. There was a shooting on Sunday and since then I have really been trying to get the other residents to think about how aesthetics can play a role in inviting or repelling crime.
I decided to leave the useless tech conference in favor of gaining free flowers for the block. I had to drive all the way to 51st and Drexel. I had no idea how far away and in the middle of nowhere this was. As I drove down 51st St., I noticed a wooden, engraved sign, just like those in any of the city parks. This one tells you that you have arrived at the City of Milwaukee nursery (where they grow all of the plants for boulevard improvements and other initiatives paid for by the city). You have to get out of your car and open a large gate, then drive onto the property. Once inside, you have to get out of the car again to close the gate. They keep it very private.
I asked where I could find the "free flowers", and a hipster with hipster sunglasses on told me to pull around to the garage and that someone would be "wandering around". I found no one, but after asking again, they radioed the woman and I finally made contact.
There were so many different types of plants to choose from that it was a very difficult choice to make; I decided to ask for low-maintenance, hearty flowers so that the neighbors would be more likely to take them, knowing that the care would be minimal. The woman was extremely helpful and everyone was super pleasant. We loaded my car full of tall, purple flowers whose petals fall off at a whim, French's mustard-colored marigolds, low-lying, ground hugging pink flowers, ornamental grass and some kind of flowering plant with copper and rust-colored leaves- the flowers themselves are more like spiky caterpillars.
When I got them home, Steve and I divided them into 9 different groupings, with 1-3 of each type of plant; I distributed them to the neighbors who I thought could use more color in their front yards. I asked them to only accept the free plants if they would commit to using them in the front yard, in order to contribute to the look of the block as a whole. So far, no one has planted them, but I am hoping on Saturday to see splashes of intensity in every yard so that the block looks expressly unified in color...

June 12, 2012

Today, after biking to Alterra on 1st St. (as I do almost every day in the summer), I ran into my neighbor Geri, who lives behind us on the alley. We started talking and I asked her again how long she has lived in the neighborhood. "26 years," she said, almost with some nostalgia. I asked her what she thought we might do to create more of a sense of community on and around our block. She suggested a block party.
"Has anyone ever done this here?" I asked."No, it was talked about once, but they never acted on it." I then suggested we get a core group together to brainstorm about how to create a sense of community and told her I would talk to her soon.
On my way home from the spot in front of Doerfler school where I had run into Geri, I made a conscious effort to ride past the house of the block captain for the 3200 block of Scott. I had introduced myself on Sunday night after the shooting on the corner of 32nd and Scott. She wasn't home, but I did make sure to say hello to the people outside the house and even meet a friend of theirs, who doesn't live here. It is really important to keep up relationships; it takes time and energy to build them.
Once at home, I called Will at LBWN to see what could be done to expedite the pocket park project, since it seems that the residents (myself included) are losing some momentum. The project seems vague and out of reach. In addition to this question, I wondered if our block might be amenable to planting flowers in the admittedly slim patches of very often ill-cared-for grass between the crumbling,original slate curbs and the sidewalks. This neighborhood is incredibly rich in history, but like a fine old book that has sat too long in a damp attic, it needs the care of professional restorers to bring it back to its original lustre. Stay tuned for more on actively pursuing the ideal neighborhood...

Daily acts that promote neighborhood improvement

The next set of posts will be about my daily efforts to instill a sense of community among residents on and around my immediate block. Every day I am in town, I am making a commitment to do one small thing that works toward improving the quality of life in the neighborhood. I will then chronicle these actions. Through this, I hope to inspire others to do the same in their neighborhoods.

Pocket parks: Productive land-use to improve the quality of life

Since moving to the Silver City neighborhood in June 2009, I have been involved with an effort to make the neighborhood an even better place to live. It is much more feasible to do this by beginning with the smallest possible unit, the block.
In the fall of 2012, Will Sebern, the outreach coordinator with Layton Boulevard West Neighbors, followed up on a conversation we had had the previous summer about what to do with a vacant lot across the street from our house. It had been suggested that we look into purchasing the lot from the city and gift it to the neighborhood association so that they could do something productive with it. Will had another idea. He contacted the city and was given permission to begin brainstorming ways to use this forgotten piece of land. Architecture for Humanity came on board for design counsel and thus a partnership was born. Through several meetings between residents of the 3100 and 3200 blocks of West Madison, a design was chosen and plans to get the materials donated were made. The pool of initial meeting goers was mixed: Hispanic, White and African-American; young and old; men and women; renters and owners.
The next step was to contact the alderman's office to gain his support. A letter was sent to constituents within two blocks on all sides of the vacant lot (in Spanish as well as English). The last meeting was held on Sat., June 1 with about 12 residents in attendance. We are now looking to have Milwaukee Urban Garden purchase the property to maintain stewardship of the land, since the city will not allow any permanent structure to be built on city land. Once this is done, we will set build-out dates and any volunteers are welcome.

Clover heads? Ok. Locust seeds? Better not...

Last weekend, Mike and I decided to go on another foraging adventure. We decided to try another spot in the area, so we set out for Port Washington. Bike trails are great for urban foraging because usually it's like cutting a path straight through the woods, but it's paved. The Interurban trail is one of the most extensive paved trails in the state, stretching from Mequon to Belgium. Along this path I have observed wild asparagus, wild grapes, wood sorrel, high-bush cranberry, raspberries, rose hips,and many other great edibles. And in the morning, further north on the trail, not too many people are out, giving you the impression that you are all alone, a welcome feeling when you live smack in the middle of the densest neighborhood in the city.

When we arrived in Port (as the natives say), we parked right next to the start of the trail, adjacent to the old light tower. We were once again armed with plastic bags and scissors. As we started off along the trail, we began to look for plants to harvest. It being close to autumn, most of the fruits were gone, except for the cranberry, which aren't ready yet, and the wild grape, of which we had had our fill. About 15 minutes in, single berries dotted the raspberry bushes, and we nibbled on the them, so long as a bird hadn't stolen half of the berry before us. We walked and walked. This had once been our favorite biking spot; somehow our memories of the distance from point A to point B were coming up in bike miles. Walking took much longer than we would have thought. At a certain point, I started to feel hungry. Hunger then gave way to desperation as the coffee I had had that morning turned into low blood sugar. I was about ready to pass out. I needed to eat something.




All around me were light purple clover flowers. I realized that I should probably eat some, since I felt light-headed; at this point we had crossed the over pass of the highway, and were about 2 miles from where we started. I grabbed about 6 plump, spiky purple clover flowers and started eating. They can be quite good, with a texture that is not my favorite, sort of grainy and grassy and the same time. The flavor though is worth it. A kind of perfumy, honey flavor, with a hint of sweetness. In about 3 minutes, I felt much better, and we decided to head back to the car. We had not really found anything to harvest.

About 1/2 mile before the car, I looked to my left and saw white and purple pods hanging down from a tree with pinnate leaves. I thought it looked like a black locust tree. I had never really noticed these before, so I got out my field guides. These were definitely black locust pods. In Sam Thayer's book The Forager's Harvest he explains that many people say these are poisonous to humans. He goes on to say, however that Euell Gibbons claimed that he and his family used to harvest the green seeds and cook and eat them without any consequences. He also says that he has eaten them and that he never had a problem. So Mike and I did something that we should never have done. We opened up a couple and ate some seeds. They were delicious! They were a cross between raw sugar snap peas and green beans. Upon further inspection, I realized that the book made a difference between raw and cooked. The cooking process took care of the toxins.



Now we had really done it! As we walked back to the car, Mike told me he felt strange. I asked him what he felt like. He told me that he was spacy and sweaty and that he felt shaky and was extremely hungry. Of course these were the very symptoms I had experienced a half hour before. He had the coffee jitters, but of course our mental state was all about being poisoned by the seeds.

He began to eat wood sorrel and started to feel much better. We then headed into town to eat at some family restaurant. I was pretty worried, especially since I had only eaten three seeds and Mike had eaten like three pods. I was afraid I had killed my friend!

That night, I called him to see if he was still alive. Then, for good measure, the next morning, I sent this text: still alive? He never answered back. Luckily he called me later that day. We had survived, but we will never again eat anything where there are conflicting stories. I looked up black locust seeds, and apparently if we had been horses, it might have been a different ending...

Wild grapes, cont'd.

The last time I posted something on wild grapes, I had found some growing along the chain-link fence that separates the bike path from Miller parkway, just near the stadium. I tasted one, but did not attempt to harvest any, since they were most likely covered with car exhaust and other noxious substances coming from the the road. This year, however, I found that there were many other vines growing within a mile from the place where I first laid eyes on this plant I remember from my childhood.

I finally decided that I would actually challenge myself to do the thing I didn't believe I could do: make grape jelly. For some reason, I hd always been intimidated by the thought of the effort it took to make jelly. Perhaps it was the mysterious pectin, or perhaps the thought that I would have to learn canning methods that prevented any bacteria from killing me. In any case, it was kismet that I read the chapter on wild grapes in Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus; there, he gives a recipe that just seems manageable. I also discovered that the only reason to can something is if it won't be put in the fridge and consumed within a month. These two bits of information allowed me to conquer my fear of jellies and jams.




In order to stalk some great vines and fruit, I biked almost every day near the place I had first seen the many vines growing over a 3 mile stretch on a bike trail near my house. When I had finally figured out which stretch had the nicest and ripest fruit, I called my foraging partner, Mike, and we made a date to harvest that next weekend.


Starbucks, 8 am. We caffeinated ourselves with admittedly very un-local beans, and set out to the harvesting spot. Each of us armed with plastic bags and a pair of scissors, we walked about a one and a half-mile stretch. From vine to vine we filled our bags with mostly ripened, but a some green, grapes. (Most recipes say to use a mixture since the unripe ones have more pectin in them.) When finished, we each had about 1.5 to 2 quarts of bunches of mostly dark purple, pea-sized, surprisingly insect-free grapes. We could not of course stop ourselves from eating a few, although eating is not really the right word. You mostly suck the juice and spit out the relatively large seeds and tough skin.


When I got home, I put the grapes in a big pot of water to wash them, then I drained the water and put them back in the pot. The question now was whether to boil or not to boil...Gibbons says yes and Sam Thayer, a more recent foraging expert says no. I went with Euell (No offense Sam, but Euell has been a hero of mine for a long time.)
I put enough water in the pot to almost cover the grapes but not quite. I then used a plastic potato masher, being careful not to crush the seeds, and mashed the fruit until it seemed as though all of the juice that could be crushed out, was crushed out. I then put the fruit on a medium high flame for about 15 minutes, after which I drained it in a jelly bag. I read somewhere not to squeeze the bag, but I did anyway, since there was so much more juice in the fruit left over after I drained it. I threw away the pulp and the bowl of juice was covered and placed in the refrigerator for two days, in order to let the tartrates in the grapes sink to the bottom of the bowl. This substance is not wanted and will make the jelly gritty.





After two days in the fridge, I carefully poured the juice into a pot, making sure not to get any of the silt that had settled on the bottom in the juice. I then followed Euell's recipe, which calls for a cup of sugar per cup of juice. I dissolved the sugar in the juice and cooked it until it boiled, then I dissolved some pectin (Euell's recipe does not call for pectin, but I was afraid that this grape variety did not have enough in it to really make a jelly) in a little water and put that into the juice. Once it was boiling hard for about three minutes, I took it off the stove and poured it into a sterilized pickle jar and put the lid on. As soon as it was cool enough to touch, into the refrigerator it went. The next day, it had set; the flavor is much more intense than the stuff you buy. It has a tartness reminiscent of currants. Imagine a fruit growing everywhere, but no one but the birds enjoying it! It's well worth the time to notice these little purple berries. If you're into local food, what could be more local?