Do you love the idea of home grown vegetables? Do you have visions of coming home from work and heading out to your backyard garden to figure out what’s for dinner? Many of us have these visions but don’t have the time or the know-how to bring them to fruition. Enter Green City Growers, a Boston-based backyard farming operation. Green City, which uses organic methods, specializes in installing customized raised beds in urban and suburban settings. Raised beds make it possible to grow vegetables virtually anywhere: pavement, rooftops and poor soil are all equally suitable locations for a raised bed garden. Green City also offers a variety of maintenance and education plans, which makes them a great option not just for your backyard but also for your school, community center or company.
Founded in 1981, Beyond Pesticides is a non-profit organization devoted to assessing and publicizing the risks of conventional pest management practices and identifying and promoting healthy and environmentally-friendly non-chemical alternatives. Beyond Pesticides provides a wealth of information about pesticides including the Pesticide Gateway, a database of 80+ pesticides, and fact sheets on non-chemical treatments for a range of pests, from ants to rodents to wasps.
The Northeast Organic Farming Association is a non-profit, membership organization that supports sustainable agriculture in the Northeast. NOFA MA is one of seven NOFA chapters that provide a variety of services farmers, land care professionals, and consumers. Consumer programs include workshops on topics such as organic gardening, food preservation, and winter gardening. They also publish an organic food buying guide and a list of MA CSAs (CSA stands for community supported agriculture. A CSA supports itself by selling seasonal shares; shareholders pay an upfront fee for a certain amount of farm-grown or raised food each week).
How would you like to feast on homegrown blueberries, raspberries, apples and pears? This may sound like something out a dream, but with the help of Risa Edelstein, a sustainable landscape designer with a strong interest in edible gardens, this dream can come true. Risa provides a wide-range of services including design, installation and maintenance. She also maintains a blog called Garden and the Good Life
Minuteman Landscaping provides organic landscaping services to residents in the Greater Boston area. In addition to offering organic lawncare, Minuteman also provides organic mosquito and winter moth control. We have used Minuteman at my house for several years and have been extremely happy.
They do not provide irrigation services. If you are interested in outdoor water conservation, you may want to consider Greenscapes.
Greenscapes provides organic lawn care and irrigation management services to residential customers in the Greater Boston area. If you are considering switching to an organic lawn care provider and/or would like to make sure that you are watering you lawn and garden only when and as much as you need to, Greenscapes is a great company to consider.
The owner, Frank Knoll, is certified by NOFA (Northest Organic Farming Assocation) as organic lanscape professional and by EPA’s Water Sense Program as an irrigation auditor. Frank knows his stuff and is passionately committed to what he does.
