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.