Homegrown Community Garden Tour 2012

This past Sunday was our 3rd annual Homegrown Garden Tour. With a break in the late summer heat, it was a beautiful evening to showcase 5 of our community and school gardens and the people that make them possible. More than 50 community members came out to experience and celebrate the State Street, Cleveland Lane, Plowshares, South Ukiah Head Start and Thunderbird Apartments gardens. Garden members served tasty bites made from their own produce, played music, grilled out and gave tours of their bountiful plots.

The evening wound down at the Grace Hudson Museum as people enjoyed fresh caprese salad, sipped wine, traded garden tips and discussed how adorable the Head Start garden is while they listened to lovely music provided by Steven Hahm and Sid Bishop. Thank you to all who came out to support the Gardens Project! We hope to see you again next year! 

A big thank you to everyone who  made the event possible!            

Garden managers and garden members from all five gardens

Grace Hudson Museum

Husch Vineyards, Fetzer Vineyards and Jaxon Keys Winery

Sid Bishop and Steven Hahm

Wipf Construction

Patrona Restaurant and Lounge

For more pictures visit our facebook page or our flicker page

Plowshares Current Happenings

The Plowshares Garden has been busy!
Read below and visit their webpage to learn more about what's been going on in the Plowshares garden, and get some new ideas for your garden too!

Garden Leadership Training:
The Garden Project http://www.gardensproject.org/ has begun a year long training of garden coordinators, and Plowshares is well represented. Five of us attended the first meeting and were warmly welcomed by representatives from many gardens in the area. Together we will learn leadership, outreach, coordinating work days, honoring volunteers, building community, accessing resources, and increasing food production! The goal is that through our efforts and networking we will help to build a safety net of food security for our community.

Donations:
Julie Price of Solid Waste Systems just sent us 20 yards of rich, black compost made from leaves and green waste from all the homes around Ukiah. It's symbolic of Plowshares being nurtured so richly by the whole community.
Last week North American Organics donated five yards of compost also, beautiful, rich compost! The fig trees from Mendocino College are settling into their new home. The starts from Lovin' Blooms are growing steadily. And Rainbow Ag brings us straw and hay as mulch. The community supports our work!

Kitchen survey:
Our friends at the garden of the City of 1000 Buddhas expressed garden leadership well, with "THE KITCHEN IS BOSS". We have asked our kitchen what we should grow and there seems to be general agreement that salad ingredients are top priority, onions and garlic and cooking herbs are very high priority, and, listed in order by number of votes received are: zucchini, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, beets, squash, chard, broccoli, cucumbers, kale, bok choy, leeks, and collards.
We're bound to grow!

Homegrown in Ukiah was a success!

Thanks to all of you who came out and helped make "Homegrown in Ukiah: A Community Garden Tour" such a wonderful event!



Over 50 community members came out to see 5 community and school gardens. During the tour we ate delicious snacks made from garden produce, shared gardening challenges and tips, heard stories about the gardens, and visited with new and old friends.

We visited the gardens at Orchard Apartments, Head Start (on S. Orchard), Cleveland Lane, Washington, and Plowshares.

After touring the gardens everyone gathered at Bella Vida where we drank wine, ate more delectable treats, and grooved to the music of Mendo Zone.




Hope to see you next year at our 3rd annual Homegrown in Ukiah: A Community Garden Tour!

Homegrown in Ukiah: Community Garden Tour!

Join our gardeners for the 2nd Annual "Homegrown in Ukiah: Community Garden Tour!" This year's tour will feature five gardens: The Cleveland Lane Community Garden, The Washington Avenue Community Garden, The Orchard Head Start Garden, The Plowshares Peace and Justice Garden, and The Orchard Apartments Garden.

The tour will begin and end at the Garden at Bella Vida (formerly Tierra). Reserve a ticket today: call 462-1955 or contact The Gardens Project

CCC Members Help Again!

An enormous thank you to the local California Conservation Corps (CCC) members who helped out Plowshares garden in Ukiah and Brookside garden in Willits this past Earth day. The CCC was a huge help to the Plowshares garden who is expanding their garden for this summer season to include the front side of their property. The members were essential in digging new beds, installing irrigation, and digging trenches for the expansion. The members at Brookside also helped to harvest food, dig new beds, and mixed in compost into existing beds.

The CCC is an essential assest to our community and our gardens - and as always they do an exceptional job and work hard. Thank you CCC for volunteering your time and helping The Gardens Project celebrate this years Earth Day!!

Thanksgiving in the Plowshares Garden

Thanksgiving in the Plowshares garden proved to be one of the happiest days for all involved.

The weather was gorgeous. People were rejoicing. Clients coming to eat, Mexican families from the neighborhood, and my partner Ed and I planted nearly 150 plants. Among those were: garlic, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and chard. Many of those plants came from Lovin' Blooms in Philo. Kevin from Navarro donated the pink hollyhocks which went along the north fence.

It was really a group effort. The wheelbarrow was flat and was needed to haul compost. Somebody offered to take it in their truck to the gas station. Meanwhile, the kids helped plant garlic learning alongside the adults as the next bed was double dug and filled in with amendments. Fresh hay was laid all around the baby plants to make sure they were warm and fed.

We all worked steadily for 3 days and by the last day nobody seemed to want to leave. Stories of gardens and childhood farms blew out with the west wind. There was a sense of accomplishment and a job well done. I think we could've planted a small farm there was so much enthusiasm! Who knows? Maybe we will.


Julie Drucker

United Way Day of Caring

Yesterday was the 19th annual United Way Day of Caring event, and with lots of help from some caring local volunteers we made things happen! With the help from employees from Fetzer Winery, and the Ukiah Valley Medical Center we were able to put in a wheel-chair accessible path at the Jack Simpson apartments. We were lucky enough to have 20 individuals help us accomplish making the path, and they were great!! The group was able to move a large pile of gravel from the parking lot into the garden, rake it out, and use the vibe plate to mush it all together. We were able to make a path around all the beds in under four hours!



The Plowshares Garden also had some great volunteers helping to pull out some tough bermuda grass and build the foundation of a potting shed adjacent to the garden, where vegetables will be washed, plants potted, and memories made. John Cunnan, a rockstar craftsman who has ventured into building with sustainably harvested Doug Fir trees that reduce fire hazard, led the team digging trenches, mixing cement, and carefully placing cinder blocks, all the meanwhile keeping the elegant structure to be in mind.

To see more pictures from the day, click here!!!

Thank you again to all the volunteers who came out yesterday, and for all the organizations for giving them the day off!!

Peas and Carrots-

The Gardens Project

Plowshares Garden's "Day of Caring" event

Plowshares garden is planning a volunteer workday on Wed, Sept 9th from 9am -noon on United Way's "Day of Caring". We will build a new potting shed with the help of master woodworker John Cunnan from Covelo. John will use "smart sticks", a term he uses for small Douglas fir saplings that he harvests, strips and makes into poles for building, for forest health and for fire safety. His project is to convince folks that fire safety can prove very lucrative and create beautiful structures. If we have enough willing help we will also clear Bermuda grass. To sign up for the "Day of Caring" workday, call 523-4485 x108, or go to http://volunteer.united-e-way.org/uwsml/volunteer/events/

If you would like to volunteer for any other Plowshares garden projects, contact Julie Drucker, Plowshares Garden Coordinator, at 707-937-3671.