New road to hoe

When word came down a few months ago that the 61st Street Community Garden was slated to be dismantled at the end of October, gardeners Mikael Karlstrom, AM'90, PhD’99, and his wife Beth Browning, AM’89, MSW’98, began planning to move to a different neighborhood. “The garden has been the greatest single factor keeping us in Hyde Park the past few years,” Karlsrom says. Longtime Hyde Parkers and University employees, he and Browning, along with their seven-year-old daughter, have kept a plot sinc

Brooklyn Bound

By: Cait Weiss Welcome back to Brooklyn Bound — our developing series of outer-borough investigations. Last week we looked at Williamsburg , the tiny neighborhood to the north that somehow donned a trucker cap, overzealous sideburns, a brief flirtation with keytar rock, and inspired a new line of GAP jeans and an entire subgenre of broken-heart music. Yes, Williamsburg, you are a muse for our modern-day culture, an inspirational holding tank for the post-collegiate, and a clear alternative t

With Organic Pest Control in Your Garden, You Are the Boss!

Be the boss in your own garden. Get rid of those filthy, disgusting pests eating your plants to death. Rule them out the best way possible. And, as universally understood, organic pest control is the answer. Why? First, chemicals are not wisest solution. Results they offer for your plants are not that awesome, not if you compare them to its true impacts. In long term you gradually add toxin to your plants, to the environment, to your neighborhood, to your family and—of course—to your own healt

Your Business Website as a Garden: For Show or Food?

People have gardens for different reasons. There are flower gardens, usually out front where passersby can easily see them, which are meant to provide enjoyment or present a certain “look” to the neighborhood and to the people who live there. And there are vegetable gardens, which provide food. If your vegetable garden is a hobby, and you don’t depend on it (i.e., nobody goes hungry if the tomato plants die), getting the kids to water it and pull weeds is a chore in itself. If your garden pro

5K to the Fifth

New Fifth Ward resident James M. Harrison follows the Astros’ “Race for the Pennant” 5K to the front steps of his own neighborhood: After running the 3.1 mile race with a friend, I decided that 5K’s should be the next topic on [Christian] Lander’s blog, “ Stuff White People Like .” Hundreds of people (many of whom were caucasian), rose with the sun for the big race at 7.00 AM. They came outfitted in their lightweight synthetic clothes and hot-to-trot running shoes– the perf

Baltimore Sun: Mayor plans to turn formal gardens in front of City Hall into vegetable gardens

This is great news! Where could we have a high-visibility garden in Milwaukee? City Hall certainly won’t work, as there’s no gardens there anyway. Perhaps the former Army Reserve site here in Bay View? What about the former Park East land? A few people have noted that the Kilbourn Reservoir Victory Garden (no direct relation to the Shorewood-based Victory Garden Initiative ) was started today. That’s a very good project for that neighborhood. (Apparently the article on that garden has bee