Brookside Volunteer Day

21 volunteers from Willits High School showed up on Tuesday October 27th to volunteer over 52.5 hours of labor! We had a lot of fun with an inspiring gardener pledge, dirt clod throwing, garlic planting, manure spreading, cover crop planting, frost killed crop removal and roto tilling. We had snacks of local organic apples, organic peanut butter, and high spirits. I want to give a special thanks to Antonia Partridge the farm manager for her excellent leadership in directing the students in the best ways to garden. I would also like to thank David Stephens a counselor from the High School for his innovative grading program that gives points for community service. We are looking to create a weekly high school volunteer day on Tuesday's. Please call Mason Giem if you are interested in volunteering.

Garden Work Days

This past weekend Nokomis Head Start and South Ukiah Head Start had work parties at the gardens. The families and children came out to celebrate their gardens by building compost piles, harvesting produce, pulling out summer crops, and moving dirt!



Jack Simpson also hosted a work day at their garden. They were able to plant some Iris bulbs, herbs, and flowers around the boarder of their garden. The Jack Simpson garden is looking fresh for the fall with their new starts already planted!





Looking for something to do this weekend? Talmage state pre-school is having a work day with the CCC volunteers where they will pull up summer crops and plant some fresh fall starts! Check out our event calender page for more information on this weekends work parties, and for future volunteer opportunities!

Gardens get new gates!

Ukiah High Students With Gate
Originally uploaded by The Gardens Project

A big thanks to the welding class at Ukiah High. They donated their time during class to make some awesome looking gates for some of our gardens. The gates were made for Nokomis, Talmage State Pre-School, Orchard Apartments, and the MCOE youth gardens.

Thanks also to Reliable Mill steel who helped us in obtaining steel for the gates, and to Norcal powder coating and NCD painting who will paint the gates for us this week. Look for the gates in your neighborhood garden!

Winter Bed Prep

The following tips have been provided by the MCOE Youth Garden. The MCOE Youth Garden is currently winterizing their garden sites and would like to share some insights with you:

Chris Nelson writes:

1.Compost dead plants to create a good soil conditioner. Hot, active piles of compost kill weed seeds and diseased pathogens. Make sure you throw questionable plants into the trash or put on the burn pile.

2. To prevent rodents from nesting in the soil, wait until the ground is frozen before adding a 6 inch layer of winter mulch.

3. Protect the tender bark of young trees from growing critters by wrapping stems or trucks with wire or commercial tree guards.


Miguel Pereida writes:
1. First, clear out the bleached stems and foliage of annual plants. The cool weather is a good time to make a cold frame to protect winter starts.

2. Man, if it snowed in Ukiah it sure would make a great mulch. Snow covers and isolates the soil like a mulch!

3. Protect your rose trees from the winter! Make sure to stake and wrap burlap around the rose stems. Also add a 6" layer of mulch. This will help protect them from the cold.



Jose Nunez writes:
1. Now is the time for bare root season. It's time to plant new trees. Make sure you pick a spot with good soil that has lots of worms and microbes. It is very important to put in new mulch when prepping the area. Old leaves work really well and break down easily.

2. Pruning time! You should cut off dry stems off of trees that are dry. You should also cut out any dead or dying plants. Put them in the compost and have them serve you in their next life as a soil builder.

3. STOP FERTILIZING YOUR ROSES! Fall brings on the dormant season for roses. Make sure your last rose feeding is 2 months before the first frost.

Daniel Alvarez writes:

1. Cut back dry stems of perennials to soil level after the first frost to neaten the garden and remove pest eggs and disease spores that may linger. Leave stems with attractive seed heads for winter sowing.

2. Compost dead plant debris to create an organic soil conditioner. Hot, active piles of compost kills weed seeds, inactive piles do not.

3. Cut off diseased foliage from evergreen plants, shrubs, and discard it in the trash. Rake up and discard the old disease bearing mulch, too.

Gardener of the Month - Genaro Vega!

Congratulations to our first Gardener of the Month: Genaro Vega! At The Gardens Project, we know Genaro as The Chili Man, for his knowledge and cultivation of different varieties of chili peppers. Genaro is also the volunteer coordinator at the largest and oldest community garden in Ukiah – the Cleveland Lane Community Garden. To witness the tremendous work Genaro dedicates to this garden and to hear him speak of his respect for chili peppers is truly inspirational. The Gardens Project interviewed Genaro one afternoon and, unsurprisingly, he offered some valuable insight into the world of Ukiah community gardens. To watch the interview, click here.

Do you know someone who should be our next Gardener of the Month? Nominate them! Contact us and tell us why you think they deserve be highlighted.

To see pictures of the Cleveland Lane Community Garden, click here. To see Cleveland Ln. in person, visit it! It’s located behind the Grace Hudson Museum. Here is a map.

Solar Living Institute offers class at Talmage

The Solar Living Institute has partnered with the Gardens Project and is offering an Earth Oven class at the Talmage Garden. An earth oven is a wood fired oven made out of a cob like mixture that you can make tasty breads, great pizzas, slow cook some stew, or make some roast! The workshop will cover: basic oven functions and designs; available materials; proven construction methods; and resources for students to build an oven of their own! The best part of the workshop is that you get to actually take part in making the oven at the Talmage garden. Anyone interested in the Earth Oven should go to the Solar Living Institutes website to register.

But, before you can build an Earth Oven, you need to build a foundation for one- and the MCOE youth garden students sure did build! With the gracious help from John Richards construction, a local Rammed Earth Builder, the youth were able to mix earth and cement and helped compress it into a foundation. It was a dusty process, but they did a great job! A huge thanks to John and his son, Caleb, for all their help and consultation in building our rammed earth foundation.