Tag Archives: Northern Virginia

Ecologically Friendly House and Landscape

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An Ecologically Friendly House and Landscape

Ecologically Friendly House and Landscape

Copyright Organic Edible Gardens LLC 2015

 

Organic Edible Gardens LLC just designed the landscape of this recently constructed energy efficient home. The house was designed and built by Enviro Home Design complete with large planters to catch most of the rainwater coming off of the roof.

For the landscape we designed a two tiered retaining wall planted with native Sedum and grasses to correct the steep slope on the north east corner of the property. The sunny front yard allowed for an Asian Persimmon tree paired with native red twig dogwood, a  Purple Leafed Plum paired with a gold leafed variety of Ninebark. In front are Half-High Blueberries and New Jersey Tea to the sides. Liatris spicata, white Echinacea, Baptisia australis and Comfrey are a few of the perennials.

In the shady back yard we chose Redbud and Serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis) as the understory trees paired with Arrowwood Viburnum and Catawba Rhododendron shrubs. Beneath the shade of the understory trees we chose a dark and mysterious Snakeroot cultivar with purple foliage paired by a light and airy yellow leafed spreading St. John’s wort.

For the part shade and part sun side yards we chose Honeyberries (Lonicera caerulea), Crandal American Black Currants, and Virginia Sweetspire.

Edible Landscape in Sun and Shade

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Edible Landscape in Sun and Shade

Copyright 2014 Organic Edible Gardens LLC

Edible Landscape in Sun and Shade

An edible and medicinal understory and pond designed for a shady back yard full of mature hardwoods. A small sunny patch in the front gave way to edible ground covers, perennials, berries and fruit trees. The front downspouts are piped into two rain gardens, one in the shade the other in the sun. The rain garden in the shade is full of moisture loving woodland medicinals, while the rain garden in the sun contains native insect attracting perennial flowers. Species include: Pawpaw, Fig, Peach, Aronia, Spicebush, Clove Currant, Elderberry, Blueberry, Yarrow, Anise Hyssop, Wild Ginger, Asparagus, Black Cohosh, Strawberry, Goldenseal, Ostrich Fern, American Lotus, May Apple, Giant Solomon’s Seal among multiple other soil building, insectary, and native plants.

Dog Friendly Landscape Design

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Dog Friendly Landscape Design

©2014 Organic Edible Gardens LLC

Back Yard Dog Friendly Design

The homeowners have two large dogs in a small back yard in Arlington.  We designed the landscape to allow the dogs to run the perimeter and guard their territory. Plantings are in slightly raised beds surrounded by stone. Species include Apple, Serviceberry, Swiss Stone Pine, culinary herbs, Prickly Pear Cactus and various soil building and insectary plants.

Fall Gardening and Organic Lawn Care

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Fall Gardening and Organic Lawn Care

©2014 Organic Edible Gardens LLC

 

Fall, in general, is the best time of the year for planting. With temperatures slowly cooling down and an increase in precipitation, newly installed plants have a good opportunity to establish themselves. Fall is the best time of year to plant cold hardy perennials, trees and shrubs. They will set their roots over the winter and come back strong in the spring. When it comes to the month of September specifically, this is a good time for planting cool weather vegetables like lettuces, arugula, spinach, beets and carrots. It is also the best time of year to perform a lawn renovation.

 

Here at Organic Edible Gardens we perform this lawn renovation organically. First we control weeds without the use of chemical herbicides. An organically fertile soil requires organic matter; it is the food that the microbes eat in order to produce nutrients for the plants. Most lawn soils, especially chemically treated ones have low percentages of organic matter. In order to improve this, we apply a top-dressing of well matured compost. We follow this with an aeration in order to improve soil porosity, work the compost into the soil and to provide a good seed bed for the grass seed. Seed selection is important as certain varieties are best adapted to our climate. Finally we apply organic fertilizers whose composition and quantity is determined by a soil test. A short time later, after a little help from Mother Nature in the form of rain, you can have a more drought tolerant, lush green lawn for your children to play in without the health risks of synthetic pesticides or contamination of the watershed.

 

 

Join Organic Edible Gardens at the Green Living Expo

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Join Organic Edible Gardens at the Green Living Expo!!!

Danylo Kosovych and Jon Storvick of Organic Edible Gardens will be hosting a booth at the Arlington Green Living Expo and Earth Week Community Fair.  We will also be giving a presentation on organic lawn care and edible landscaping!!!

Join us Saturday, April 26 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at the George Mason Arlington Campus, Founders Hall, 3351 Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA.

For more information, please visit http://www.arlingtonenvironment.org/expo

We hope to see you there!

Join Organic Edible Gardens at the Green Living Expo

Mulch: Materials and Strategies

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Mulch: Materials and Strategies
By Danylo Kosovych, Owner
Organic Edible Gardens LLC

There are many benefits to mulch, including improved soil moisture retention, weed suppression, increase in organic matter and aesthetic quality, but like most things, a sound approach goes a long way,  if applied too thickly, it can create problems like root collar disorders in trees, anaerobic soil conditions and killing of tender perennials. There are multiple material options to consider as well as the ideal time of year to apply mulch.

The best time of the year to apply mulch to your garden beds is the early spring before perennials emerge. It is best to wait until most of the snow has finished, if applied too early, the mulch will be flattened and weathered come spring time. Perennial garden plants will emerge through mulch if not applied to thickly. Attempting to mulch after perennials emerge requires significantly more care because recently sprouted perennials can be damaged if covered by mulch. Mulch applied in spring prevents annual weed seed germination in garden beds and can smother already emerged perennial weeds.

There are many mulch materials available, but the most widely available are shredded bark, leaves and wood. The best mulch resembles most what nature produces. Nature’s mulch is a combination of leaves, downed twigs and trees, therefore one could assume that leaf mulch from the county facility is the best option. While it does produce rich dark soil when used over a number of years, it contains a lot of weed seeds and can counteract the weed suppression benefit of mulch. Bark mulch is high in tannins which over time lowers the ph of our already acidic soil. There is never such a high concentration of bark around plants in nature; it is always accompanied with wood and leaves. No material is perfect, but out of the three, wood mulch is my mulch of choice because it keeps weeds down, looks attractive and has balanced nutrients.

If you would like to smother a section of weeds or lawn consider using a compostable material like cardboard. Weed fabric should be avoided in garden beds. It never breaks down! If not removed annually, perennial weeds begin to seed themselves on top of the fabric, growing roots throughout the fabric, making it more difficult to remove the weeds. It also stratifies soil, not allowing the organic matter of broken down mulch to mix with the lower layers of soil. As a result, roots remain at the surface. Over time, the fabric becomes clogged with organic matter, preventing water from infiltrating into lower layers of the soil. Cardboard, on the other hand can be left in place because it breaks down over time, improving the soil.

Mulch: Materials and Strategies

Ten year old weed fabric with a thick layer of weeds growing on top

Mulch: Materials and Strategies

Cardboard also smothers weeds but breaks down over time

 

PDF Download of Permaculture Presentation

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In case you missed our talk at the George Mason University Permaculture Design Course (or just want a copy of the presentation), here is the full PowerPoint presentation in PDF format – this includes both Danylo’s talk on the business and Jon’s presentation on plant guilds and polycultures.

Download: OEG-GMU PDC Presentation (PDF, 17.0MB)

Thanks again to Danielle Wyman and the Mason Sustainability Institute for inviting us to speak!

PDC 2014 Community Spotlight Discussion

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PDC 2014 Community Spotlight Discussion

PDC 2014 Community Spotlight Discussion

Join this year’s Permaculture Design Certification class as they welcome Jonathan Storvick and Danylo Kosovych of Organic Edible Gardens for an exclusive event open to the community. Organic Edible Gardens LLC is a Permaculture-based business working on the ground in our nation’s capital region and striving to make a positive impact on our cultural and environmental ecosystems.

What: The Organic Edible Gardens team will present the details of their initial formation and subsequent adaptation in order to succeed as a business in tough economic climates and fill a niche in the competitive landscape industry.  Examples will be shown of current gardening practices and services as well as their direct effects upon the physical and social landscapes. They will discuss design methodology, ecosystem dynamics, plant guilds appropriate to the Mid-Atlantic region, and elements of design for creating resilient and sustainable perennial polycultures.

When: Tuesday, March 11th

Where: University Hall room 1200

Who: Mason and non-Mason community members welcome

 PDC 2014 Community Spotlight Discussion

Jonathan Storvick is a horticulturist and landscape designer with Organic Edible Gardens LLC in Arlington, VA.  He earned his Permaculture Design Certificate in 2009 and has studied with Edible Forest Gardens authors Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier.  He has contributed literature survey research to a forthcoming book on coppice agroforestry, and is currently developing a permaculture homestead and nursery business.

 PDC 2014 Community Spotlight Discussion

Danylo Kosovych is the owner of Organic Edible Gardens LLC. He has a M.A. in Anthropology from George Mason University. His thesis focused on western participation in Amazonian plant based medicine. He earned his Permaculture Design Certificate from Wayne Weisman of The Permaculture Project. Danylo is a NOFA Accredited Organic Land Care Professional.

*Contact Danielle at dwyman@gmu.edu for more details or to RSVP*

Pruning in the Dormant Season

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Pruning in the Dormant Season

©2013-2014 Danylo Kosovych and Organic Edible Gardens LLC

What most people consider pruning is taking a power tool to the exterior of a shrub and turning it into a perfect ball, or hedge row. While this tactic applies to hedges it does not benefit most shrubs and trees. A common pruning practice that you will see when it comes to trees is chopping off the top of crape myrtles. The crape myrtle will survive and flower a lot the next year but the aesthetic structure of the tree is lost forever and will have to be pruned in the same manner every year thereafter.

A much more practical way of pruning which enhances the aesthetic structure of the tree while aiding in pest and disease resistance and increases fruiting (in fruit trees), is pruning from the inside out. This process is called thinning.

The primary objective of thinning is structural; open up the canopy for air and light penetration. Allowing more air to flow in the center of a tree or shrub canopy reduces disease by allowing limbs and leaves to dry sooner. Increasing sunlight onto the interior buds of a tree increases fruit production.  Shaded branches are unproductive but they still use nutritional resources.

During the winter, woody plants store their energy in their trunks and roots. Branches have little stored energy and can be removed without altering the stored energy of the tree or shrub. Because of their dormant state large portions of trees and shrubs can be removed. Plants heal best in the spring and summer, when their physiological processes are at their peak. Wounds from fresh cuts are prone to winter injury, therefore late winter is best. Plants can also be pruned in the summer but major limb removal should be kept to a minimum because you will be reducing the energy of the plant. If the plant is spring flowering and the pruning needs minimal you can wait until after flowering.

The best way to prune a tree or shrub is by looking at the plant from the inside out. Before you cut anything, analyze the plant. Find the large branches that reach the canopy. They should come out of the trunk at an almost perpendicular angle. These are the main structural branches. Do not remove these. Start by removing dead, diseased or broken branches. Any small branch that starts within the interior and does not make it to the canopy can be removed. They are shaded and unproductive. Remove any branches that come out of the truck with a very small crotch angle and then grow vertically through the canopy. They are shoots. They will be of smaller size than the main structural branches and entangled through the entire canopy. When making a cut it is best to remove an entire branch from the trunk at the end of the branch collar.

Pruning in the Dormant Season 1

The resulting tree or shrub will have a cleaner look. There will be less small limbs in the interior of the canopy making the larger structural branches more visible. It will also be more resilient and require less ongoing maintenance as plants pruned from the top down.

Pruning in the Dormant Season 2

January- A Time for Rest and Reflection

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January- A Time for Rest and Reflection

©2013-2014 Danylo Kosovych and Organic Edible Gardens LLC

The shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere is December 21st , the winter solstice. From the advent of the solar calendar, cultures have been holding celebrations on this day in association with their religious beliefs. At this time of the year all of the season’s agricultural work would have been finished and the days were dark and cold. People were indoors and free of the bulk of their chores. If you make your living as a landscaper like I do then the agricultural ebb and flow of the seasons still largely applies. In reference to the suburban garden, the plants are in dormancy and the ground is frozen, now is a good time to rest, relax and reflect.

While snow will have to be removed from paved surfaces like the driveway, walkways and streets, it can be left alone on planted surfaces. Plants with marginal cold hardiness should have been mulched and protected from frost before the onset of winter. Late winter is the best time of the year for dormant pruning but not until February or March. The year’s gardening work is finished. Take some time off.

Many companies have realized that giving their employees time off of work can actually increase productivity and quality of work when their employees return. This is especially true in reference to creativity. Progressive companies like Google are known to give employees an entire month off in an effort to boost creativity. As a result of this policy they have produced some of their most creative innovations. Removing yourself from direct mental and physical engagement with your work allows you to return to your work refreshed and with a new perspective. Simply being able to rest and refresh the mind and body will lead to improved results when one returns. A change of scenery and a break from the ordinary routine can produce insights previously not thought of.

If you kept records of your garden now is a good time to look them over and think about the next year. Walk the garden in winter and take note of the structure of trees and shrubs as they are bare of leaves. Pay attention to the garden beds and pathways, their layout is easier to see without all the vegetative growth of the summer. But most importantly take a load off. Read a book next to the fire. Go on vacation. Meet with family and friends. Drink, eat and be Merry!