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.

Two Times the Tree Care!

Coming up this weekend there are TWO OPPORTUNITIES to learn more about caring for fruit trees and orchards in Mendocino County. 

      

How to Successfully Grow Fruit in Willits
(or places similar to Willits that are not real close to the ocean.)

Saturday February 8th
10am-12pm @ the Little Lake Grange 
291 School Street, Willits

Sponsored by WELL (Willits Economic Localization)
Learn what to grow here and how to plant and care for your fruit tree with the goal of actually getting some delicious fruit to eat.

Donation Requested, $5

Presented by Richard Jeske
Richard is a home orchardist with over 30 years of experience as a pruner and a fruit consultant. For information call Richard at 459-5926

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Fruit Tree Pruning & Orchard Care Workshop

Sunday February 9th 
10:30am-4:00pm @ Ridgewood Ranch
6 Miles South of Willits

Learn from Experts how to:
- Plan and establish a new orchard
- Restore neglected fruit trees
- Prune for different species
- Diseas Management 
- and more...

The day will provide a mix of lecture and guided hands-on practice in a mixed aged orchard with a variety of fruit types.

$35 general public, $10 Grange members

Registration and Information:
http://californiagrange.org/agschool/events.html
farmdirector@californiagrange.org
1(866) 4-GRANGE (447-2643)

Seed, Scion & Cutting Exhange: Free Event on Saturday!

Mendocino Permaculture’s 31st Annual Winter Abundance Workshop
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Rain or shine 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fairgrounds in Boonville
Seed, Scion & Cutting Exchange with Hands-on Fruit Tree Grafting

Classes all day on fruit tree propagation, how to grow fruits & nuts, and how to do seed saving of all kinds of food plants. Learn the tricks of making your own fruit & nut bearing trees, shrubs and vines. You can make your own tree right at the event. Come spend the day with local green thumbs who understand the unique climate zones and soils of our bioregion.

This is a free public service learning event. There is no charge for admission, classes, seeds, cuttings, or scion wood.

Items that will be sold: Lunch, Beverages, Tree Rootstocks, Fruit Trees & Vines.
Free classes: grafting your own fruit trees, top-working and bud grafting, cutting propagation, choosing rootstocks; planting, training, pruning, the localized holistic management perspective, seed saving for vegetables, flowers, and trees.
Seed Exchange:  Seeds from local growers of vegetables, flowers, herbs and trees will be available all day, with local seed savers on hand to share local knowledge. Bring seeds to share. Labeled glass jars of bulk seed are preferable.  Please label varieties by name, place, harvest date, and any pertinent cultural information. We supply seed envelopes for you to take home seeds.
Scion Exchange: Scions will be available all day, with local experts on hand to answer questions and share “local how to” knowledge. Bring scions to share. We supply over 300 varieties of fruit tree scions.
Rootstock sales: Over 500 tree rootstocks of all major fruit types, for a few dollars each. We select the best rootstocks for our climate and soil so you can build your own high quality fruit trees inexpensively by grafting your chosen scion to the right rootstock. You can also take the scions home to graft on existing fruit trees.
Plant share: everyone is welcome to use our venue to give plants away.
Trees & plants for sale by local growers, selected for our climate zone
Food sales by local people: Lunch, beverages, and snacks
Boonville Winter Market: Relocated from it's normal location for this event - produce, meat, olive oil, value added food, crafts.

Schedule of Events
9:00-4:00 Open tables Scions, seeds, cuttings and selection advice—see workshop map when you arrive
9:30 - 10:30   Class   Mark Albert--Basics of Making Your Own Trees & Vines
10:30 - 12:00   Class  Tim Bates--Planting, Training, Pruning and Holistic Management of Fruit Plantings
12:00 - 1:00    Lunch Salsitas’ Organic Mexican Lunch  
1:00 - 2:15    Class  Patrick Schafer--Advanced Tree Grafting
2:15 - 3:30     Class Seedsaving Basics--Tom Melcher, an experienced seedsaver

Please bring your own plate, utensils, cups, and napkins to reduce our carbon footprint. Biodegradable sets will also be available for $1.50 each.

This workshop is co-sponsored by Anderson Valley Adult School. More info? Go to mendocinolocalfood.org or call Barbara/Rob Goodell 895-3897; Mark Albert 462-7843; or Richard Jeske 459-5926.

MLK Day Work Party @ Nokomis School Garden (1.20.14)

FoodCorps Service Member Keegan Niland is hosting a garden work party in tribute to Dr. King!

Where: Nokomis School Garden @ 495 Washington Avenue (Garden is located west of school on Helen Avenue).
When: Monday January 20, 2014. From 9am to 12:30pm.
What: Transferring soil to garden beds, creating a garden reading circle, and planting.
Why: "The Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service is a way to transform Dr. King's life and teachings into community service that helps empower and strengthen local communities."

* Snacks and beverage will be provided. Please wear closed toe shoes and bring garden gloves if preferred.

Give a Growing Gift!

Are you proud to be living in a county where healthy, garden-fresh produce is abundant and available? We sure are!

Join NCO’s Gardens Project in empowering community by making a tax deductable donation to support our efforts to build a healthy future, one garden at a time.

Your donation will go directly into the infrastructure needed to develop and sustain community and school gardens, as well as provide skill training and garden nutrition education.

Donate $25 or more before December, 31st and we’ll send you an awesome Gardens Project sticker you can sport on your water bottle, car bumper or notebook!

Donate $100 or more and we’ll send you a sticker PLUS a Gardens Project T-shirt! (We’ll contact you for your size and color choice).
      
      

      
See the network of 75 Mendocino county gardens on our interactive map!

You can also contribute by liking us on Facebook and subscribing to our Real Dirt Blog on our website.

Thank you for supporting community and school gardens in Mendocino and Lake Counties!

North County Garden Leaders Graduate!

Year Two of the Garden Leadership Training program concluded on November 18th with a celebration of photos, plans for the future and of course, cake!

15 Garden leaders from Willits, Laytonville, and Covelo spent the last ten months strengthening community, building leadership skills and sharing hopes, triumphs, tips, challenges and delicious meals with each other.

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 met every six weeks at the NCO Willits Action Group offices and each meeting focused on a different theme such as effective leadership, garden advocacy, market opportunities and growing community. Meetings were facilitated by Gardens Project coordinator Miles Gordon and other Gardens Project staff.

The group's final venture of the year was a PhotoVoice project in which Garden Leaders documented their experiences by taking photos of their community members at work in the gardens.  These photos, with their interpretations, are being compiled into a traveling exhibit so look for them around town or view them online now!

Now that year two has been brought to a close, Garden Leaders from the North County have chosen to continue meeting as a Garden Leadership Council next year without facilitation by the Gardens Project. The Gardens Project will be moving onto year three of this three year program by starting  the same training cycle with gardeners from the Mendocino County Coast this January. The training will be hosted by the Noyo Food Forest and facilitate by the Gardens Project of NCO.

To learn more about Year One and Two's journey through the Leadership Training Course, read all of the Leadership blogs.

Spring Ag Classes at Mendocino College!

Sign up now for the great courses being offered at Mendocino College at www.mendocino.edu.