Meeting the Authors of "The Urban Homestead"

Last Tuesday, Nick and I were invited to attend a special evening at Project Butterfly in Los Angeles. Apparently, my wishing upon stars finally payed off! Guest speakers that night were Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, authors of The Urban Homestead. Being face to face with the authors of a book that inspired me to take life to the next level, left me feeling almost like a child in a candy store. :)

The evening topics included:
1. Sharing their home and homestead ideas along with photographs.
2. Building self irrigating containers for tomatoes and other large edibles.
3. Preparing sauerkraut! Yummy!

After their talk Nick and I told them all about www.mygreenriverside.com! We also invited them to come to the Growcology Learning Center. We hope to have them come by soon, and we have higher hopes that they will do an event for all of us to enjoy. We'll keep you posted on the idea. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at their blog site www.homegrownevolution.com.

Check out THIS Squash

Check out THIS Squash, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

We've got alot more where this came from. Actually, this Boston Marrow was picked TOO EARLY! Its supposed to be 5 pounds heavier and almost red... Oh well, its still delicious...

Growcology Reviews

Growcology Reviews:

One of the goals of Growcology is to offer our community valuable information that they can apply directly into their lives. Valuable information can be desceminated through our workshops, events, our even our online community (www.mygreenriverside.com). In addition to these options, Growcology plans to put "Green Products" to the test! We are beginning our side by side analysis and reviews of products companies are marketing to you daily. We expect to discover which products fulfill their promises, which companies are the most green, and furthermore which products are actually worth their cost. If there is something that you would like to have us test please send us an email at growcology@gmail.com. We'll do our best start a review on the products.

Review: ENERGY MONITORS & POWER STRIPS

This blog is written for anyone interested in making a inexpensive purchase and saving a lot of money almost immediately. I will be offering a review on the "Kill A Watt," "Watts Up," and the "Smart Strip." Little devices you can purchase for your home and save money. :)

Recently Nick and I had some folks over to the Growcology Center for a garden walk. I always love having these walks because they are so casual and we get to really connect with community members. One of our community members shared how he purchased a little device for under $30 and was able to save himself lots of money by learning what household devices were sucking up energy without he even knowing it.

ENERGY MONITORS

The "Kill A Watt" and the "Watts Up" are known as Energy Monitors. You plug the Energy Monitor into the wall and plug your appliances into the energy monitor. Immediately the devices will start counting how much energy your appliances are using and also provides calculations to determine how much money you are losing when keeping these devices plugged into the wall. Some users calculated that they save upwards of $15.00 per month! These are great tools to see just how much energy is being used by our refrigerators, microwaves, entertainment centers, etc.

So what is the difference between the two?
Cost: Kill A Watt $23.43, Watts Up $99.00
Conversions: Kill A Watt requires simple math (multiplication) to determine your energy cost. Watts Up calculates those numbers simply by punching them into the device.

Growcology believes that the Kill A Watt is the greatest return on investment. Granted it may not have all the high tech features offered by the Watts Up, but the deficiencies are really easy to remedy. Not to mention it is an investment that keeps giving. If you purchase one of these little devices you can lend it to your neighbors, family, friends, etc. Talk about stretching your money to have a greater environmental impact!

POWER STRIPS

Once you determine which household items are costing you the most it is recommended to use a power strip. Basically a power strip not only protects your devices from power surges but also is saves money with a flip of switch. You can purchase a power strip for around $10.00 at most appliance stores.

However, I want to discuss the hand dandy "Smart Strip." Unlike most power strips this devices offers a "Control Outlet." To better understand this function imagine plugging your computer into the Control Outlet and your printer, fax, speakers, into the other outlets on the strip. Or another example would be to plug your television into the control, and your cable, speakers, DVD, into the others strip outlets. When you turn on the devices plugged into the control the other devices will automatically turn on. Vice versa, when you turn off the device in the control outlet all the other devices will turn off as well. This will save you time in unplugging all your devices when not in use.

GROWCOLOGY STORE


To Purchase any of the reviewed devices visit the new Growcology Green Store:

Growcology has teamed up with Amazon. You spend the same exact amount if you were to make a traditional amazon purchase, the only difference is that Growcology makes a small commission when products are purchased out of our little store. Let us know if there is something you would like to see in our store, and we will do our best to make it available. We value every nickel and dime Growcology can make, and in return we provide services to our Riverside Community. Thanks for all your support!

For more reviews on the Kill A Watt and Watts Up please visit: Consumer Reports

New Website and Article

The local newspaper, the Press Enterprise, just put an article out on our non-profit. Check it out here at this link.

Bianca has been busting her butt getting our new website up, and it was just in time because we finished it last night and the article aired today! Its at www.Growcology.com. There is all kinds of information on there about what we're growing, the history of the property, and feedback forms for workshops.

We've been really hustling the past few weeks to keep our garden alive in these hot summer months. We had a huge break in June, as we were still planting up until the last week. Fortunately, Spring actually extended all the way until the summer solstice, so our seedlings got a break and were able to get strong roots developed before the harsh summer sun baked and killed them.

We've finished planting both of our three sisters demonstration gardens, the corn is growing fantastically and our melons and beans are peeking up. Our okra is growing strong, although there are alot of lamb's quarters and oats trying to grow in between them. We've also spotted some cheeseweed, filaree, and datura, and a volunteer tomato!

Our tabletops are transitioning from spring to summer crops. Almost all the greens have fried except for the montain spinach and amaranth, though the broccoli and chard are still doing ok. Our squash won't put out fruit for some reason, but our tomatoes and basil have taken over all the boxes except one, and we're going to be sundrying like crazy in a week. It was cool how we stacked the planting so that as soon as the spring crops dried up, the summer ones took over. We're going to keep playing around with that in the future...

Also, we have some sad news. Spencer and Sarah are moving back to LA, but they'll still be helping out on work weekends and harvesting their plot. Bianca and I will be moving onto the property to safeguard our little plant babies, and we're expanding Growcology's board with some exciting established and young leaders from the area. Stay tuned!

Growcology Takes To the Field

I am proud to present our latest milestone.  

The Growcology team headed out into a barren, sun baked, rock hard  field last week with the intent of making a fertile, productive, and long term drought tolerant garden to serve as our welcome area in front of the barn.  This evening we kick back with a few beers and enjoy the satisfaction of a day's end, having toiled together for a common cause.

What you see in the picture is the spirals halfway Lasagna Mulched.  

Following the recipe in Gaia's garden, we put down a thin layer of goat manure over the earth which we broke up with pick axes followed by a layer of newspaper about 5 sheets thick.  We then added another layer of goat manure followed by a foot thick layer of slightly decomposed horse bedding and manure.  The next step is to put down a good layer of compost and then a nice thick layer of straw over that.  

The principle of the lasagna mulch is not to have fertile soil right away.  It is actually to compost the way the forest builds soil, only in a highly expedited way.  The lasagna mulch will actually make nutrients like nitrogen unavailable for up to six months while it all breaks down, resulting in thick, rich, water retaining soil with a healthy microbial profile.  The way we plant it in the mean time is to carefully dig holes in through the mulch layers and fill them with finished compost or topsoil, plant our seeds or seedlings in them, and cover them back up with the straw layer.  

The lasagna mulch required quite a bit of water to get started.  We must have spent hours standing with hoses, hand watering every layer to make sure it was of the consistency of a damp, wrung out sponge.  Maintaining a proper moisture level is vital to the process, and it requires regular watering, especially in Riverside summer heat. Over the long run, however, the healthy soil with good mulch cover and shade from plant canopy will retain water extremely well and require much less than if done other ways.

I would like to take the chance to thank Frank and Lucy Heyming for allowing us this opportunity on the property, and providing us with most of our materials.  I would also like to acknowledge our rock star volunteer Twelve and his two children Ruby and Nova for showing up almost every day we've been in the field and putting in a few hours.  

Keep an eye out, as there is much more to come

A weekend in Paradise

Awesome Mizuna and Shungiku mustardy greens growing around some carrots, calendula, some really healthy tomatoes, some peppers, a forest of turnips, and some radishes.


SQUASH! Summer squash, or zucchini, the healthiest my mom has ever grown, with some volunteer onions popping up in between.


Spencer and Sarah's bed has a whole polyculture of spring and summer plants, with chard, mountain spinach, onions, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, yarrow, and arugula.


My nephew Owen and niece Addison helped plant the beans in this plot, which also has my transplanted tomatoes, tomatillos, purple mountain spinach, cucumbers (with their sweet bamboo pyramid), squash, and amaranth.


I designed a tree of life keyhole walkway in my mom's herb garden, where all different types of basil, thyme, oregano, marjoram, chamomile, lavender, agastache, savory, sorrel, geraniums, sage, rosemary, and more add spice to our garden and our meals.


Globe artichokes. Not quite as tender as the purple kind, but great producers!


Sarah designed this keyhole bed, where carrots share space with different chards, brussel sprouts, lettuce and mixed greens, arugula, tomatoes, and green onions.


Bianca pauses while she designs the three sisters' garden to take a breath and pose for the camera.


There is method to our madness. This will be the welcome area to our workshop space, with a variety of different warm and dry weather vegetable guilds as illustrated in Sarah's previous post.


Spencer irrigates.


Swinging a pickaxe all day in 100 degree weather is what my grandparents used to call a 'character building' experience.


Bianca and Rufus test out the new chicken tractor, as Sarah and Spencer attach the chicken wire. Our good friend Betty donated 5 more chickens to the flock, but when we introduced them to the old hens they nearly got pecked to death... hence, the new mobile chicken coop.


A finished three sisters garden bed. For now, the straw covered mounds have 4 corn seeds planted in each. Once the corn pops up, we'll plant the runner beans to climb up their natural 'trellis', and then we plant the squash in the other mounds to spread out and shade/protect the topsoil... All fertilized organically with goat and llama manure.

So thats what we were up to this past weekend at Growcology. We've also been developing an online resource that we'll mention in our upcoming newsletter, as well as some programs with the various community gardens in the city. More to come soon!

Stimulus Grant!

Great news! Growcology has been awarded a community stimulus check from BWB: here is the list of grant recipients. I'm so grateful and humbled to be among such great projects as Pisco Sin Fronteras, a group near and dear to my heart that arose from the rubble of the earthquake ravaged town in Pisco, Peru. There are fourteen total stimulus recipients, all of them are so inspirational.

We're going to be spending our grant on heirloom and organic seeds and materials for a localized plant guilds nursery and for building community gardens. We're working all tomorrow on our new welcome area for the learning center, hopefully we'll have all our planting done before it gets too hot...

We'll probably need to make a cooler structure for propagating our seedlings, as it can get ridiculously hot here in Riverside. Here is one of the designs we're looking at. We'd like to be able to grow more of all the great helper and useful plants already growing here and share them with the community.

Growcology spirals out of control!!!!

After much thought and deliberation, we would like to present our plans for the entryway of the Growcology site. The bottom of the design ends at the edge of the barn, to the right are the veggie garden plots, at the top is the solar panel, and to the left is a chain link fence and Spencer's and my driveway.

Revised irrigation plan

The spiral design and infinity symbol pathways were designed by Spencer, who, just the other night, reminded me how it was only a few months ago that he had so rudely scoffed at my suggestion that we make our gardens spiral shaped. * After everyone agreed that Spencer lays out a mean spiral**, I charted the veggie and groudcover layout/combinations, making sure to pair and group plants that benefit each other's growth and development (who knew that potatoes like to grow with watermelon?). Note that section A does not have little plant icons in it - simply due to my laziness. I think that section will be somewhat randomly planted (unlike, for instance, the Three Sisters area, which has a definite layout) so it seemed a bit of a waste of time to draw in little plants.

Finally, everyone decided on the irrigation layout, making sure to include both auto-sprinklers and standpipes for hoses (I love handwatering - I mean, who doesn't want to play with a hose in 100º weather), and now. . . now the fun part begins - digging trenches! WHEEEEEEEEEE!

*I would just like to point out that right here, I am using my amazing willpower to resist adding a pun about how Spencer came around to my way of thinking.

** I apologize for any images of Spencer pooping that I may have conjured in your head with that phrase. I do not, however, apologize for any images conjured as you read the sentence preceding this one.

Cool Website

I just was emailed a link to the Veggie Trader, a website for people with excess veggies so they can barter them with gardeners in their area. Its a nifty idea, hopefully more people will start using it so that we can all fill up our plates.

We've been really busy in the Growcology garden, we've planted all the rest of our bean and tomato seedlings in the solarized bed, and today we're looking to finish the "Three Sisters" guild bed as well. We'll be using the layout recommended by Renee's Garden for our first attempt at recreating North America's first polyculture guild, and as we finish our welcome area we'll try some variations on it.

Speaking of which, we're completely remodeling the welcome area to the workshop space in the barn. We're incorporating permeable walkways made from wood chips, spiral planting areas irrigated with well-water, and planting a variety of summer crops and herbs that will illustrate various symbiotic relationships between plants. The melons, squash, pumpkins, cucumber, tomatoes, corn, eggplants, and other veggies we plant will be ready throughout the summer and fall, while our spring garden is already providing us with more veggies than we know what to do with.

May is Afoot, What do I do in the Garden?

Here is an awesome link from Vegetable Gardens 101 that talks about the chores to do in May in your garden. I'd reprint it here, but the author expressly asked that we get her permission prior to publishing her material, so why not just click the link and read all about it?

Follow up on Earth Day how to guides

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the booth on Saturday. We had a great turnout and really were impressed by all of the enthusiasm.

I had quite a few people ask me for some further information or possibly a guide on how to make the recycled water bottle self watering planters we were demonstrating. I considered making a quick guide with some steps and some photographs, and came across some other guides that are just as good as anything I would make, so I'll just link to the following guide:

Instructables.com - Self watering recycled plant pot for growing herbs.

Stay tuned, as we have alot in the works right now with announcements coming soon.

Earth Day

We're going to be making our first foray into booth jockeying at green events: Saturday, from 11-4, we'll be at White Park in Riverside for the Earth Day festival. Its hosted by Habitat for Humanity of Riverside, and will feature all kinds of exciting booths and workshops.

We'll be bringing our tabletop gardens, to show the kids what they can do at home with a minimum of time and money invested. We'll also be showing how to grow using different reused cups, bowls, and pitchers, as well as newspaper pots and more painting and crafting activities.

So Saturday, if you're in the I.E. come by our booth and say hi. We'd love to see you, and we'll probably be going back to the property afterwards for some lemonade.

Community Garden!

Nova shows us his squash

Well, there have been some pretty exciting developments at the Growcology Learning Garden. Our first family plot is up and running, with our friend Twelve and his adorable children coming by and planting their tomatoes, squash, carrots, and other veggies this past weekend.

Twelve and his kids get plantin'

We've also been fortunate to have a soil scientist and landscape designer working with us. We met Sean Roulan at Oscar Clarke's house at the UCR botanic gardens, far from Sean's home on the coast of Massachusetts. He has been helping us in the garden for the past few weeks, sharing his knowledge about propagation and site design and getting dirt under his fingernails. We've been so blessed here at Growcology to have so many wonderful volunteers, our projects are really gaining momentum.

Sean spreads fresh compost in the herb garden

Now seems like a good time to introduce the Growcology team. We've written about some of our friends and volunteers, but I don't think we've written about our core founders. Here is me:

My nickname on the farm is the PoopSmythe. Can you guess why?

I'm Nick, the Chief Composting Officer for Growcology. My focus around the garden is making sure all the 'waste' stays put and the nutrients continue to cycle through our ecosystem (instead of sending them to the dump). I've been writing most of the posts on our blog so far, but hopefully the rest of the crew will be contributing their words in the coming weeks and months. My background is in Disaster Relief and food distribution. These days I'm trying to get as many people into gardening as possible, for lots of reasons.

Another one of our founders is Chief Money Officer and secretary Sarah.

Sarah has been designing websites for years, and we're lucky to have her attention to detail and impeccable editing skills. She's also a graphic artist and fire performer, and you can spot her in the garden by her fiery orange hair. She's also an excellent chef, and makes sure that all the delicious pot-herbs in the garden make it into our bellies.

Our Chief Buildin' Officer and resident carpenter and percussionist is Spencer.

Spencer fashions a fence around the community garden

Spencer spent many of the formative years of his life remodeling and building homes with his dad, a general contractor from Alabama. He's also a sound engineer, as well as an avid gardener and drummer. He and Sarah recently relocated from downtown LA to our garden in Riverside so they can stay on top of all the food we've got growing.

Our last founder, but certainly not least, is Chief Inspiration Officer Bianca.

Here Bianca chomps down on a stalk of Swiss Chard thats taller than she is!

When Bianca isn't chasing the chickens down so that she can hug them, you can find her tending the seedlings or pruning the orchard. She comes from a family of farmers and herbalists in New Mexico, and has studied and grown Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Native American herbs. She also is the founder of an inspirational media company, Words for the Many, and organizes motivational speaking engagements and backcountry retreats.

So thats our Growcology crew! We're few, but passionate, and we're lucky to have dozens of amazing volunteers helping us out. We've already profiled a few of them, and we'll continue to as the food keeps growing and experts and newbies find their way to our farm. We hope to see you there soon...

Permaculture in LA

This weekend the whole Growcology team is traveling out to downtown LA to learn from Larry Santoyo and Scott Pittman of the Permaculture Institute. Larry's company, Earthflow, is teaching their Permaculture Design Course at Project Butterfly, an awesome workshop space in the warehouse district.

So far, we've learned alot about the design principles and ethics that make permaculture such a versatile approach to problem solving. Both the instructors have great senses of humor, and they were keen on conveying to the students not to go out and preach before they've implemented aspects of the class into their lives. The last thing the environmental movement needs is half-informed, in-experienced, yet still preachy hippies.

Personally, I really respect it when people are opinionated, but not dogmatic. Larry Santoyo has been presenting the information in a very accessible way, but doesn't insist that we do things like he does. He and Scott Pittman both backed up their ideas with stories from their combined 50 or so years of experience, but they refused to give any "one size fits all" solutions. I can't wait until we implement permaculture design principles at our workshop location, and hope that we're able to bring these instructors out to teach a full certification course in the fall...

Tower of Vegetables

Tower of Vegetables, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

Today we planted almost a hundred little vegetables and herbs. We'll be transferring them to larger, re-purposed containers. We used all different types of soil, from commercial seed starter to mixes of soil and compost. In a couple weeks we'll know which work best.

A Datsun?!!?

So up in Oregon there is a man driving one of the most unbelievable cars on Earth. The White Zombie is an electric powered Datsun whose owner has a penchant for drag-racing. See for yourself: Electric Drag Racing.

While an electric car that can beat a GTO off the line and set world records is noteworthy, there are a few things that concern me about it. It says that the White Zombie needs to be charged for 12-25 minutes after each quarter mile race. That means that its basically unloading all of its batteries to go 110 mph. Sure, its faster than the gas powered cars, but they can drive home afterwards on the same tank of gas, while the Datsun in plugged into the grid for a half hour.

What really impressed me about this video was how the owner converted an existing car. That technology seems to be what is going to revolutionize the auto industry. Bailouts aren't going to do much, there are already more cars on the road than our highways can handle. We need to start converting the cars we already own to run on electricity, then find ways to get that electricity from something other than fossil fuels.

Stay tuned for a workshop on exactly that...

(suprisingly) Our Hats Off To Lowe's Paint Dept

Spencer here,

So as Sarah and I prepare for our move to Riverside to start work on the Growcology project, we are sprucing up the place we are moving into in a few different ways. One of which is to paint the house. Determining which paint to use, factoring in our budget and environmental sensibilities, proved to be almost as much of a headache as breathing in the fumes of it in a poorly ventilated area.

That said, we have found ourselves on the other side of this conundrum with a bit of relief.

For those of you with a limited understanding of why most paint is the devil, here is a brief explanation of things to consider about paint:

Paint consists of three primary components. Binding agents, Pigment, and Solvents. All three of which can contain VOCs.

VOCs are Volatile Organic Compounds. They occur in all paint to some degree. They occur primarily in the binding agents. There is lots of reading to find on the internets about the stuff. In a nutshell, they are really really bad for you at best.

In addition to VOCs, another concern in paint can be different toxic pigmenting metals for colors such as yellow and red.

To be a green seal certified paint, a paint must have at less than 50 grams per litre VOCs. To be considered VOC free, it must contain less than 5 grams per litre.

Looking around at different brands of paint and trying to stay under 20 dollars a gallon for paint, without putting something on our walls that might be slowly poisoning us, here is what I have concluded.

There are lots of companies out there that offer a sliding scale: If you want environmentally friendly paint, you had better be ready to pay an upward of 30 to 50 dollars a gallon for something that may be a little runny and hard to apply.

After researching, the only company that I have found so far with a paint that is low voc and cheap is Olympic at Lowes. Olympic premium is rated at zero voc and we paid 15 dollars a gallon for flat and 20 for gloss, semi gloss, satin and egshell.

With that, I say to Lowe's: you may feel and smell like a Target as well as function like a Home Depot. But that said, you are the only one out there that didn't make me choose between affordability and eco-friendliness.

Chickens!

The chicken tractor is now fully operational and has four beautiful lady chickens living in it. We even got our first egg today! A couple Auracana hens and a Golden Lace and Heinz 59 custom varieties are busy tilling up the soil, eating grubs, and fertilizing the orchard around our fig tree.

Two of our most dedicated volunteers, Betty Wayford and Dan, helped us to procure the chickens and put them into our tractor. They've been indispensable in our garden, watering and planting the spring vegetables and sharing their energy and wisdom in building our community garden. Betty, a Master Gardener and caretaker of several community gardens in and around Norco, is also raising another 6 chicks for us at her home to put into the tractor once they're old enough.

Today we also visited another pillar of the Inland Empire gardening community, Oscar Clarke, at his home next to the UCR botanical gardens. He was the founder of the university's herbarium, and worked there for almost half a century. A walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge, Oscar showed us at least a dozen delicious, edible 'weeds' that grow up in the cracks of his driveway, as well as countless rare plant specimens from around the world.

Oscar gave us some great inspiration and leads for future workshops, from propagation and cuttings to recognizing valuable 'weeds' all around us. The century and a half of wisdom that Oscar and Betty bring to gardening is a perfect example of our mission at Growcology. We feel that too few Americans know how to cultivate and grow their food in this era, so it is imperative for us to learn from those who have kept the tradition alive while we still can.

Community Worksite

Things are humming along at Growcology. We picked up a load of goat manure last week, and are busy spreading it and our finished compost throughout the community garden. Over half of the plots are planted for Spring, as we finalize our plans for opening the site to the neighborhood.

The solar system is up and running, and despite recent rains we're generating much more electricity than we're consuming. The property is almost entirely running on solar pumped well water, and the four season's garden is blooming beautifully.

We're busy finding the best teachers in Southern California so that we can invite them to share their knowledge and help you to implement it in your home. The empty field in the foreground of the above picture will be a blank slate for the participants in our workshops, a perfect environment to put shovel to soil and get dirt under your fingers. If you know of any superb instructors, or have any topics you wish to learn more about, email us at Growcology@gmail.com .

Spring Planting

Over the next few weeks we're going to be doing most of our Spring planting. Consulting the old Farmer's Almanac, you can see that its time to plant alot of different veggies here in Southern California. We're gonna need to get barley, beans, beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, collard greens, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, endive, kale, leeks, lettuce, onion, parsley, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, radishes, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, swiss chard, tomoatoes, watermelons, and maybe some wheat in the ground by the end of the month. And thats just the stuff from the Almanac's planting guide, we've got plenty of other seeds aside from these we're going to be planting.

On top of that, we're finishing up preparing 5 different 12 X 12 community plots, and hopefully will get some cold frames up in the next week or two for our seedlings. The barn space needs some remodeling to prepare for our workshops later this spring, and we're soaking the roots of our fruit trees in aerobic compost tea to strengthen them for summer.

If you have any ideas for interesting things to grow, or live in Riverside and are interested in a garden plot of your own, give us an email at growcology@gmail.com and we'll get right back to you.

Compost Tea and Chicken Tractor

Today we put another coat of paint on the chicken tractor. It is now a beautiful light green, and we're ready to toss some chickens in it.

We also made a batch of aerobic compost tea. First we put a few cups of compost and well water into a barrel, then added a solar powered air pump to aerate it. After a couple days of brewing, we sprayed the tea on many of the plants that had been pruned recently. We've also been soaking the roots of the trees in the orchard.

We still need to get feedback about potential workshops that people would be interested in attending. Please email us at growcology@gmail.com and we'll get right back to you.

Thanks for coming out!

We had a fun stroll through the garden today, most everyone who came out left with a bag of fresh picked citrus and a belly full of delicious tacos. It was a pleasure seeing so many gardeners from across Riverside and Southern California. We hope you'll stick around as the garden and Growcology.com grow into resources for all of us to learn from, build, and grow.

We're creating a calendar to communicate the projects, events, and workshops we'll be scheduling. We'll also be creating tutorials for ongoing projects that will be accessible at Growcology.com. Please feel free to contact growcology@gmail.com with your ideas for classes, any questions you might have, or just your contact information so we can keep you updated.

Garden Tour

Growcology will be hosting its first event tomorrow, Sunday the 22nd of February, from 11-2. We'll be entertaining various community members that have expressed an interest in learning more about sustainability, volunteering at our community garden, teaching workshops, or just checking out our location.

The event will be held at 3555 Crowell Ave., Riverside, CA 92504. It is free to all, RSVP at growcology@gmail.com .

Workshops

Growcology has been making some exciting progress. Tonight we attended a class on edible landscaping by Darren Butler. There were dozens of attendees, ranging in age from 18 to 80. Many were Master Gardeners.

Darren, founder of Eco Workshops.com, spoke about edible forests, permaculture, and addressed many detailed questions from an engaged audience. He gave pointers on issues from observing and planning your garden to getting rid of gophers and crabgrass (unfortunately, neither is easy).

We're planning on having hands-on workshops with Darren and inspiring instructors like him at our center in Riverside, CA over the next few months. We'll learn along with you as they demonstrate concepts like double-digging, sheet mulching, companion planting, permaculture species guilds, vegetable farming, tabletop gardening and propagation, organically rooting cuttings, chop and drop composting, and more. We'll be documenting as we're learning, and sharing all the information on Growcology.com.

Stay tuned!

Planting

When do I plant?

What can I plant?

How do I plant?

These questions plague all gardeners, especially beginners. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources to help you out. We just found an amazing guide, the old farmer's almanac.

"Big Deal!" you might say. That thing has been around forever. Its not called the OLD farmer's almanac without reason.

True, but check out their website. Sure, having a nice, soil encrusted copy of your own is worth it, but we had no idea they'd blasted into the 21st century with a slick website chock full of customizable information. Aside from the planting guides, they've got phases of the moon, weather, recipes, and more. And if you put in your zip code, they'll make sure the info is accurate for the place and time that you find yourself in.

How cool is that?

Freedom Gardens and other tools for the Aspiring Gardener

There is a cool website called FreedomGardens.org that has a ton of resources for people looking at getting into gardening. Aside from regular potlucks at the Path to Freedom homestead in Pasadena, they have forums where you can get lots of questions about gardening answered by your peers.

There are lots of other great resources out there for gardeners. One of the best is the Master Gardener system. This nationwide network of volunteer gardening experts can answer just about any question you have, as its members are required to provide their knowledge free of charge. Not only do they usually have a hotline you can call for free, but they'll have locals who have been gardening longer than you can imagine in your climate and hardiness zone, so you're not getting a generic answer.

Another great resource is the California Integrated Pest Management Program. Created at UC Davis, they have a complete rundown of EVERY pest you could possibly run into, and how to control it without resorting to pesticides. Consider it like a triage for your garden. Hopefully you won't have to go there, but its nice to know the UC system has your back.

There are other great resources too, like the Helpful Gardener. They focus on articles around organic and heirloom plants, as well as projects like container gardens. If you're more focused on vegetables, then Veggie Gardening Tips may be your cup of tea. There are dozens more resources if you do a quick web search.

So where do you start?

PLANT SOMETHING! Grab a pot, or a storage bin, find a guide that appeals to you, and toss some potting soil in there. Buy some seeds that are in season, or if you lack patience, seedlings from a nursery. You could even buy or make a selfwatering pot if you're really worried your green thumb is black. The best thing you can do is start, even if its just some herbs, a tomato, or a mesclun salad mix.

What are you waiting for?

Gardening in America

Back in the 1940s, during WWII and the homefront effort to support the troops, Americans did a really amazing thing.

They grew their own food. They killed their lawns. They pulled together, sacrificed, and made themselves sustainable.

They called this effort the Victory Gardens. Over a third of all wartime vegetables grown in America came from small scale victory gardens. Can you imagine a third of Americans growing their own food? Tilling their lawn, composting, sowing seed and harvesting the fruits and vegetables of their labor, the 1940s citizens were much more connected to their food than contemporary gringos.

Could we ever get back to a point where so many of us took responsibility for our own nourishment? In a nation with more people in prison than there are farming the land, it seems an unattainable goal. But with rising food costs, gas prices threatening to make long distance distribution unfeasible, and more and more Americans out of work in a service economy that isn't manufacturing or growing anything worth buying (weapons and genetically modified monoculture notwithstanding), its conceivable that in my lifetime more than 1% of Americans will be growing something useful or edible.

Unfortunately, the falling number of farmers threatens the loss of the age-old growing techniques of our grandparents. The last 50 years has shown an enormous population shift from the rural heartland of America to cities on the coast. Many of these farms and homesteads have gone been sold from their citizen owners to new corporate industrial farms. But can we trust corporations to manage the future of our food?

I'd say no. Try to grow it yourself. Check out the Freedom Gardeners for a community of modern Victory Gardeners dedicated to doing just that. And we'll keep you posted at growcology on ways to live more sustainably, now.

Tabletop Gardens

Check out this video on tabletop gardens. Bianca Chavez of WordsfortheMany.com made it with Nick Heyming and his parents Lucy and Frank, to show people how to grow their own vegetables at home.

You don't have to spend hours weeding it.
You don't have to spend more than a few seconds watering it.
You don't have to bend over.
You don't have to buy vegetables grown hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Sarah and Bianca in the Orchard

Sara and Spencer in the Orchard, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

Under the instruction of master gardener Lucy Heyming of Riverside, CA, Sarah and Bianca prune up dozens of different fruit trees before the spring buds come in. The culled wood will be mulched under the same trees that it was cut from, and the living branches are sprayed with a fortifying anti-pest oil. They'll be much stronger next year.

Chicken Tractor Trailer

Chicken Tractor Trailer, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

Who wants to reach far into a dark, poop-filled, dank cubby for their eggs? With the sloped grating Spencer installed in our chicken tractor, the eggs will just roll down to a rubber bumper in front of a locked door, so we can scoop out enough eggs each morning to feed my parents, myself, and anyone who cares to visit and grab some. On top of that, the mobile chicken coop will eradicate grubs and larvae for fruit eating pests, till the soil, fertilize it, and keep our birds from escaping and damaging fragile veggies.

Tabletop Garden

Tabletop Garden, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

With just a few bucks in bins and soil, you can grow all your own vegetables. Better yet, because its on a table, you don't have to bend over, and there's no weeding or maintenance. All you have to do is water it for 30 seconds a day (we fill a bucket in our shower with the cold water that we used to waste while it heated up and use that), thin out greens for salads and dishes, and the sun and soil do the rest.

Joe and the Compost

Joe and the Compost, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

Worms eat my garbage.

Turning Compost

Turning Compost, originally uploaded by Mr. Nicolás.

One of the main reasons we at Growcology have gotten into permaculture was to find out how to restore soil. Aside from conventional aerobic composting, we're investigating the effectiveness of chop and drop mulching, biodynamic preparations, compost tea, barrel compost, sheet mulching, and store bought alternatives to DIY soil. We're going to share our findings with anyone interested in growing their own useful and edible plants.