Coast Garden Leaders On The Rise!

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Eighteen Garden Leaders from thirteen gardens along the Mendocino Coast and Willits area gathered to network, learn from each other and build the movement for an accessible, sustainable food system!  The gardeners represented a great diversity of gardeners and communities within Mendocino County

Co-hosted by The Gardens Project of NCO and the Noyo Food Forest on the Coast, the goal of this three year program is to train community gardeners to share, organize, lead, and continue to build the movement for expanding and sustaining spaces for community and school gardens.

The Leadership Program is a component of NCO Community Action successfully receiving a USDA Community Food Projects grant to train community leaders in food production and work to alleviate poverty through re-building our local food system.

The group will meet every six weeks in Fort Bragg with each meeting focused on a different theme such as effective leadership, garden advocacy, market opportunities and growing community. Meetings are co-facilitated by Gardens Project coordinator Miles Gordon, Gardens Project and Noyo Food Forest staff.

This year's cohort represent the following gardens:Stone Soup Family Garden, Senior Kitchen Garden, Fort Bragg Grange Community Garden, Ecology Action Garden at Stanford Inn, Mendocino, Caspar Community Garden , Noyo Come-Unity Garden, Redwood School Rainbow Garden, Dana Grey School Garden, Fort Bragg Middle School Garden, The Learning Garden, Fort Bragg High School, Willits Charter High School Garden, Brookside School Farm, and the Willits Community Garden.

For more information about this year's Leadership Training, contact The Gardens Project or The Noyo Food Forest.

Garden Leaders on the Rise - North County!!

The Gardens Project of NCO has begun its second year of our intensive Garden Leadership Program to train community gardeners to share, organize, lead, and continue to build the movement for expanding and sustaining spaces for community and school gardens.  This year - Mendocino County North!

The Gardner Leadership Program began in January 2012 and brought together 24 gardeners from 12 different community and school gardens in the greater Ukiah area and Anderson Valley. In November of 2012, the Gardens Project graduated this first class of participants.  Check out our new Ukiah based Garden Leadership Council!

Our new group of garden leaders will meet every six weeks through November to teach each other greater skills in: Building Community and Communication, Effective Leadership, Accessing Resources and Hosting Work Parties, Marketing Opportunities, and Garden Advocacy.

By the end of the year long training, the participants will comprise our North County Leadership Council that will continue to meet, share, plan, and advise The Gardens Project. In year three, the training will move to gardens on the Coast (Point Arena to Fort Bragg).

The Leadership Program is a component of NCO Community Action successfully receiving a USDA Community Food Projects grant to train community leaders in food production and work to alleviate poverty through re-building our local food system.

The gardens represented at this year's training are: Willits Community Garden, Brooktrails Community Garden, Bobcat Garden at Brookside Elementary, Willits Charter High School, Willits Charter Elementary School, Yuki Trails Community Garden in Covelo, and the Commonwealth Gardens of Howard Hospital. For more information about this year's training, contact The Gardens Project.
 

Straw bale Gardens?

Don't pay for a bunch of soil, grow soil! Don't pay for a bunch of water, save water! Urban agriculture has no excuse not to grow food because of the latest techniques used to create garden beds. At the Willits Integrated Service Center straw bales are the way to reclaim the land, provide an amazing example of urban gardening and produce food for community.

The theory is very simple. If there is space that has no soil, in our case the middle of our court yard, it is better to grow soil rather than paying a lot of money to bring soil in. The straw bales become raised garden beds that can be used to grow anything but a root vegetable. The bales will break down into a berm of soil as beautiful as a compost pile in two to three years. The Nutrients the plants need will come from a 1" layer of potting soil and other specific inputs put on top of the bale. The bale itself acts as a rooting medium that will hold moisture and uptake applied nutrients. The result is an instant raised two foot raised garden bed for less than $10!

The process is easy.

First, purchase or get donated straw bales that are as seed free as possible. Our 25 bales of straw were donated from J.D. Redhouse, the local feed store.

2. The bales have been induced with a high nitrogen organic fertilizer, in this case, chicken and sea bird manure and water from a soaker hose. Within one week the bales had reached a temperature of 70 degrees. The bales will heat up for about 1 month and get very heavy with water and reach temperatures of 140 degrees.

3. The bales will be given the specific type of input they need for the plants they are growing before they are planted in.

4. The 1" layer of potting soil on the top is not necessary but is suggested if direct seeding.

5. Plant the plants on top of the bales by digging a small hole in the soft top side of the bale.

6. Water the bales once a day at first and then as the plants are more established, watering can be cut back to once every two days or sometimes once three days depending on the weather. We will use a drip system, donated from Drip Works, that will apply the water exactly where it needs to go.

7. Harvest the food when it is ready.

We will repeat steps 5, 6, and 7, until the bales have turned to berms that create food for the people.

Come see our straw bale demonstration garden at 221 South Lenore Ave, Willits CA, 95490

peas and carrots,

Mason

WISC Garden has Excellent Harvest and Prepares for Winter Season

The W.I.S.C. Community garden is booming right now!! Yesterday the garden gave twenty five plus pounds of produce to the Willits Daily Bread and has contributed food to 15 households and approximately 45 people in the last week. We also received a donation for some chicken eggs and now have a chicken feed fund.

Last night we had a Winter Planting Workshop that featured the expertise of Antonia Partridge our local Brookside School Farm Manager. About ten people were in attendance and we learned how to plant most of the fall crops, how to irrigate to achieve maximum harvest, what some of the companion plants are, and we received a vegetable planting guide to help us the rest of the year.

We are having a potluck this evening starting at 5:00, Wednesday, September 22nd where we will be honoring the Solstice and eating some of our amazing food. Please come and join us and bring a dish to 221 D. South Lenore Ave. Willits CA.

Blessings,

Mason Giem

The Fall Harvest is Coming In!!

Howdy Folks,

The Willits Integrated Service Center Community Garden is very glad to harvesting great food right now. Many of our plants are producing food and the potlucks have been the most fun yet. If you have the time come visit us every Wednesday afternoon and share in the fun and food of the garden. Our chickens lay five eggs last night and the Hopi Blue corn is ripe. Last week we gave away about 25 pounds of food to the Food Bank, The Daily Bread, and some hungry people who came to the office. Please enjoy the latest pictures of all the goodies.

Here are some recent pictures of the Wisc Community Garden.

This is a short season corn patch for the local public schools.

This heirloom tomato looks delicious!

We have HUGE sunflowers! Some are 20 feet tall!

This is a view right down the middle of the garden. My how it has grown.

This pepper will make a nice Chili Rea-no.

Natural Building in Community Gardens

I recently attended a week long Natural Building Intensive course at Emerald Earth in Boonville. In this course, we learned how to use basic materials such as wood, earth, rock, and straw to build beautiful, safe structures. The methods feel so intuitive, and the work is most often accomplished as a community. Using these techniques, you can build large homes and skyscrapers, but I'm to take what I learned and start small by constructing some structures and garden features in community gardens throughout Mendocino County. We are starting with a small cob greenhouse at the South Ukiah Head Start Preschool garden, a cob bench at the Cleveland Lane Community Garden, and counters and benches to surround the earth oven already constructed at Talmage State Preschool (there is also a cob greenhouse there!). In Willits, Mason has plans to also build a shed in the WISC garden, and in Ft. Bragg at the Learning Garden, Veronica Morales of the Noyo Food Forest plans to build an earth oven.


This is an example of a cob bench at Emerald Earth.

These structures will make the gardens even more functional, beautiful spaces for communities to gather. And the best part is, we're going to build them together, strengthening partnerships with different organization, such as the Solar Living Institute and Head Start Preschools, and building community so that we can then take what we know to share with others. I can't wait! See you out there.

happily yours,

WISC Garden Gets Chickens!!

The Willits Integrated Service Center recently received a donation of 9 egg laying chickens! A community work group worked until 11:30 in the evening to build a pen for the chickens (Thank you Kevin, Cate, Allison, Charlene, Garland, Brian, and Kyle).

The chickens enjoyed their home for the first night but then a breakout happened.

Here is a short story that Chris Hardacker created to describe the new life of the chickens.

---- Mason

WISC Garden Grows 15 Fruit Trees Bigger!!

On Wednesday November 11th 30 people from the community gathered to celebrate the new homes of 12 apple and three cherry trees. With drums playing African planting rythyms, the Emandal choir singing songs of plant growth, a healing OM circle and compost donated by Spare Time supply of Willits, these trees are sure to produce abundantly for all. Located in the middle of the Willits Integrated Service Center as a symbol of food security, these trees are an important step in the development of the Willits Permaculture Water Conservation Demonstration Garden.

A special thanks to Common Vision (http://www.commonvision.org/) for their efforts in our community and all over the state of California in bringing healthy food to stomaches every where. A big thank you also needs to go to Willits city Mayor, Larry Stranskey, because he worked hard in planting a tree and was very appreciative of community coming together for positive action. A thank you also is well deserved to David and Ursala Partch whose efforts have made the WISC garden into a beautiful example of Permaculture and Water Conservation. Over the 2008-2009 growing season the WISC garden provided over 1,000 pounds of food for the Daily Bread, Food Bank, and Volunteers!

If you are interested in volunteering at the WISC garden please contact Mason Giem at 841-0464.

Sincerely,

Mason Giem

Americorps VISTA

Community Gardens Organizer

Garden Season Begins at WISC

Hurray, the 2009 gardening season has officially begun at the Willits Community Garden, located at the WISC. We kicked off the season with a potluck dinner to welcome volunteers to the garden site. We had a nice gathering with about 10 volunteers and someone from the Willits News, who put a great article in the paper the following week. 

Our first work day was on March 27th in the afternoon. There were 7 of us there and we succeeded in planting out peas after first fixing the trellis. Then we transplanted some strawberry plants that had erred into the paths. And we did a fair amount of weeding and thinning.

Thanks, everyone for showing up. Your contributions make this happen!

David, Garden Manager

December activities at the WISC garden

The WISC garden is in winter mode right now.  Cover crops have been seeded and have started to sprout.  The garlic is peeking and the wheat is green and happy.

Some of the fall crops are still in the ground, ready to be harvested, including broccoli and cabbage.

The sheet-mulched area has been expanded, hybernating over the winter until the spring crops will go in.  

Enjoy the holidays!