Bundle up for the holidays and cover up your garden rows too!

Would you like to enjoy your garden for an extra couple of months? 

Or boost your winter garden's growth?

Row covers are a great way to extend your growing season!

Floating Row Cover Workshop at the State Street Community Garden

Row Covers have many benefits: they protect plants from the frost and wind, block pests and diseases, and regulate soil temperature and moisture.

And row covers are easy to construct!

Floating row cover material is also known as all-purpose garden material or reemay. This magical material is made of polypropylene and allows air, water, and 85% of sunlight to pass through to plants.

Row covers can be constructed out of hoops or you can lay the reemay right on top of the plants. Metal hoops for row covers can be purchased at garden supply stores or you can scavenge around your house for recycled materials to use.

During the Gardens Project's Row Cover Workshop this fall, Master Gardener Gloria Jarrell shared her creative methods of building row covers out of recycled materials. Check out the examples below:

Example of metal hoops that support row covers

More metal hoops

Recyled fencing

Recyled irrigation hose

How to attach irrigation tubing:
use wooden stakes, attach nail, place hose right over nail.

Milk jugs or other plastic containers filled with water are a good way to hold down the edges of the reemay, you can also use rocks or bury the edges in the soil.

Once you have your row covers installed, don't forget to monitor your plants growth underneath and remember to check for pests.

A good place to purchase reemay and other row cover supplies in the Ukiah area is DripWorks Irrigation in Willits. It is more economical to buy a large roll of reemay, so organize and share with your garden neighbors. Reemay can be stored and used year after year.

Check it out! Gardeners have been covering their crops for a long time.

In nineteenth century France gardeners used 'cloches' or bell jars to cover individual seedlings to protect from frost. Each jar had to be propped up during the day to provide ventilation. Today, we are lucky to have technology like reemay material.

A great article with more information and resources about row covers: http://www.organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/row-covers?page=0,0


Interested in attending future Gardens Project workshops? Check out our events page.
Have questions? Feel free to contact us!

A Community Treasure

This December brings great promise to Mendocino County! There's the welcome rain, of course. But there's also a new social movement afoot... a movement towards creating a culture of health and wellness. It's called Leaders for a Healthy Community.

Over 40 service professionals (including professionals from health clinics, school gardens, family resource centers, afterschool programs, Health and Human Services, high schools, preschools,  hospital foundations, teen leaders, and parent leaders) came together in both Ukiah and Willits for the first of 10 monthly Leaders for a Healthy Community meetings. The participants officially signed on as Health Leaders, committing to work within their organizations to implement health, nutrition and physical activity programming and policies, and committing to collaborate and form new health connections across the community.

What a community treasure! The Health Leaders bring so much enthusiasm and experience to this work. All are dedicated to creating a community where health and wellness are front and center, where opportunities to eat well and be physically active abound. They are excited about sharing resources, learning more about nutrition education, promoting activity, building relationships across the community, and truly moving the dial towards greater health and wellness in Mendocino County.

In the new year, expect to see "health happening here" as the Health Leaders roll out their programs and make presentations to decision-makers and governing bodies around Mendocino County.

Mendocino FarmHack: Fuel Farming for the 21st Century this weekend!

The Great Crooked Neck Squash Adventure!

The First-hand experience of FoodCorps Service Member Sarah Stowell

In early October in the garden at Nokomis Elementary School several fifth graders were exploring when they found the crooked neck squash they had planted last school year. They wanted to try eating the squash so bad that several students asked to try it raw! I warned them it was much better cooked but they tried it anyways saying how good it was but agreed it would be better if cooked.  So they asked when we could cook it. Having never cooked with squash before I was a little nervous about making sure we prepared it in a way the students would like. When talking to the principal, John McCann, about the plan to cook the squash with the students I found out that he was not personally a squash fan although he did agree to try it when we made it.

After doing some research on squash recipes and talking with the students we decided to make squash bread! Over the course of several days 6-8 students from each of the 4^th and 5^th grade classes and several of the 3^rd grade classes came to bake a loaf of bread to share with their classmates.

In order to limit the amount of processed sugar and to improve the texture we used raisins and unsweetened apple sauce as our secret ingredients!

Everybody who tried the bread, including the principal, said they loved it!

I would like to thank John McCann for making this experience possible!

2014 Garden Survey Results, FUN!

Wheelchair Accessible Pathways at Vinewood!

Next time you're going for a walk in the park, check out Vinewood Park Community Garden's new hard-scape pathways! These gravel paths make the garden more accessible to gardeners in wheelchairs and gardeners who have other mobility issues. Thanks to the Chamberlain Creek Conservation Camp Crew for all of their hard work!

Check out more photos on our Flickr!

Ruth giving the pathways their first test run!

Saved from the gophers! Thanks CCC!

Thanks to the California Conservation Corps crew members for all their hard work gopher-proofing and cleaning up the Mendocino College Preschool Garden! It was a beautiful fall day. Keeping the gophers and other burrowing critters out of the garden beds will definitely allow the preschoolers to see the fruits of their garden labor!!

How to gopher-proof you ask?
We dug out the raised beds, laid in gopher-wire metal mesh, and nailed it to the bender boards 3 - 4 " apart. We then filled the beds back in with a mixture of the original soil and compost. In addition to keeping the gophers out, this work helped aerate and add important nutrients to the soil.

Want to see more photos?
Click here!

Interested in volunteering at workdays like this?
Let us know!