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?