stubborn alfalfa & hoop house rejuvenation

The first real rain happened on November 1st or so. The final seed-sowing wasa supposed to happen at about that time - the day before, the College Eight class had prepared the last two milpa beds - beds 10b and 11b, the two most in shade. I wasn't planning on watering them because the clayey hardpan is pretty saturated with water, and because there is an irrigation leak somewhere over there. Steve says that he remembers the leak from a while ago - the soil was always saturated, even in the depths of summer with minimal watering.

The alfalfa in those beds did not diminish at all. In fact, they were kinda impossible to pull out. I had originally thought that the alfalfa might turn into a green manure - but hey, maybe their stubbornness means that the covercropping for the winter season's set in that area! ...Well, maybe not ...we did a number on the alfalfa with the efforts we had. Now I may regret it. Although the cover crop seeds have germinated, they are stunted - underdeveloped, perhaps, due to the lack of sunlight, the hard soils, and potential allelopathy caused by the huge bay-laurel tree that grows above it.

The hoop house is looking good. The PICA seminar swept through it one cold Thursday evening, patching the hole in the door, pulling out all the weeds, rearranging the tables, laying down weed cloth, and starting some winter-growing seeds. I watered them, but they were neglected over Thanksgiving Break. We could start new seeds, and potentially David Griese and Tony could water during the winter break. Especially since David is going to be the propagation manager, starting in winter quarter. :-)

I wonder what they're going to do here, all by themselves? It might get lonely for them. :-/ I remember what summer was like, initially. Amazing ...I was so lonely at first, I didn't know how I was going to survive it. Interestingly, I would not mind staying by myself here, anymore - the Garden worked its magic on me during the summer. I wonder if the next Garden coordinator(s) will have to go through it too? :-) There are worse things from living alone in heaven...

last workday of Fall 2006

This final Saturday workday, we had a beautiful multitude of people. Morning began in the Garden, with a group harvesting basil from the long-suffering bed 17, and two folks went to get soil from the Mines. We weeded and took everything out of the bed. Before we started double-digging, duty called us to the BRAND NEW COMPOSTING SYSTEM and we made the third pile, filling the first bin again, with dry matter, horse manure, food scraps, and partial compost. The horse manure very pleasantly fell on me a few times, much to everyone's glee.

Then we came back into the Garden and double-dug the now-softened bed, adding in two wheelbarrows' worth of decomposed leaf mould. Afterwards, Steve was waiting with food from the grill, and we ate a hearty lunch.

All of us - Sarah, Megan, Natasha, Richard, John, David Griese, David Saxton, Mike, Henry, Bee, Bart, Steve, and I - took a few moments to reflect on the amazing quarter, through the words of the kindly, honored gardener-mentor who had come to pay his respects and cook us his good food. Steve is coming to the garden workdays next quarter, while he is taking his sabbatical. I am so happy... He expressed the hope that this would be the start of an amazing PICA year - 2 quarters left, and then Short Course. Believe it or not, the actions and feats of fall will lay the grounds to be felt all the way into next summer. And, even more profoundly so, the actions of all past PICAns lead, up into this very moment... We have an amazing team, and an amazing legacy of past incredible teams to continue.

Now it is time to plant our seeds for tomorrow, pack up and prepare the grounds for more frosting, and make sure that all elements are present for their rebirth. I celebrate it, now. I celebrate the hibernations of the restful seasons.

*photos courtesy of David Saxton

the new composting system...

...is finished!

Go College Eight Garden Internship Class! Props to everyone involved!!

MIKE LANGAN RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

CLEI garden class visits

The College Eight garden class did some amazing work today. Steve set them to work in cleaning up the back areas 42 through 37 in front of B2 - the area with the three apple trees. They did general weeding and took away all the plants that were withering or weedy. We had a huge amount of green matter for the composting; Mike will be thrilled once the structure is finished. Steve had come on Saturday, spent the morning working on it with five students, and was very optimistic about its completion. While it hasn't reached it yet, I know it is close.

Six students helped Mike attach metal slats to the wood, so that we can put up wooden slats next. On Thursday, he'll probably get the seminar to turn the pile - one more solid turn, at least. The other part of seminar will be dedicated to covercropping the Admin. strip in front of A1 and doing the final covercropping for the GArden.

Once the weeding was complete, they sheetmulched the entire back area, taking infinite care to lay cardboard down around the chocolate mint, pineapple sage, pea plants, and other plants we wished to keep. We ran out of horse manure - that pile that Marley and I made all those months ago no longer exists - so they went to the Mines and brought back rich organic matter from broken down leafmould - the stuff we've been using on all the beds. They put it over the cardboard instead. That's a great thing; now, if we want to, we can covercrop on top of the sheetmulching and give it even more of a standing chance. But that won't be so imperative. Now, that huge area in the Garden is safe from compaction.

A couple of students spread straw around beds 14 and 16, the ones with collards and cabbage. Two more began double-digging the last bed, 2a - I think the moisture level was good. I'd been watering it over the last few days, through the remae. Kept some of the water from evaporating, very happily.

When they left, the Garden looked ...at peace, somehow. Like everything is going to be taken care of. Now ...all that remains are the two milpa beds.

PICA Orientation, Fall 2006

Orientation went so well. A small turnout of people showed up - only a few new folks came - there was Steve, Jose, Ali, Jim, John, Mike, Ryan, Megan, Ngoc, Christina, Richard, Tony, Jack, David Saxton, Balyn, and Bee Vadakan, the new coordinator. Once we had gathered in the Garden, John and Ryan led the opening activity: throw a ball of yarn around the circle and say what your interests are and what you hope from PICA this year. We had a lot in common beyond the string.

Steve spoke of the Quarry and its history. I'd known that the Quarry was mined for limestone to produce the streets of San Francisco; I hadn't known that the raptor group had actually raised peregrine falcons onsite, that they were one of the first ones in the country to do so. Steve had told me, a few days earlier, that the trailers were from the 9/10 construction project, when the builders had panicked, thinking that they were not going to finish in time, and bought the 21 trailers for temporary residence. They finished on time and tried to sell the trailers, discovering that the return on their investment would be terrible. So they moved them down to the Village, where Steve had already set up shop in old trailers from the Trailer Park. As Ali mentioned, they moved Steve and the agroecology department out of those trailers in place for Village residency. At first Steve was not too happy about it, but then he saw it as a good opportunity to implement something that he and others had for a while been incubating. Hence, came PICA. Steve was able to secure the A-Quad in compensation for the E- and F-Quads. Then Ali, Emel, and others lived in PICA for the first time - in the C-Quad. They tried growing things with little success due to the ravaging squirrels, so they came up with an idea. During the cold of winter and the glory of spring in 2003, they built the fence that surrounds the Garden and the hoop house atop the hill. Ali stayed on for two years, then Ryan took over. The rest, as they say, is history.

Jim introduced us to some of the Village's guidelines and expressed his hope that the Village and PICA would collaborate in many great ways.

After we had sat a spell, we broke up into three groups and went on a plant scavenger hunt. The teams had a list of clues that they used to identify plants, which were already labeled so that they would know their choices. Of course, each group had a different list, and there were 24 plants total labeled in the garden, of which each group only needed to find 8... Meanwhile, while that was happening, Balyn, Ryan, Mike, and John left to begin making dinner.

The Farmers donated three boxes of produce to us that kicked off our first community meal this year. Ryan and Balyn made roasted root vegetables using Dave Shaw's suggestion, plus some kale from the Garden in a wok, tons of brown rice, and the yellow squash softened in the oven, with herbs and butter. We broke up into a couple different groups to eat - Steve, Bee, Jim, and Jose had slipped away, and we had been joined by Seth (an apprentice who brought zebra tomatoes to contribute) and others.

What a phenomenal day!!

first garden workday, spring 2006

Katie, digging the canal alongside B2












Day of days...

A huge workcrew showed today! In the morning, Andrew, one of the College Eight garden interns, planted a salad mix. He and another student, Lisa, repotted eggplants and tomatoes and started marigold seeds - the spring species are here! Then Tony came to work with Marley up at the hoophouse...

In the afternoon was when things really heated up. Marley, Katie, John, Tony, myself, and some other folks were having a debate about the paths getting flooded and what was causing it (one area, in particular, has become a miniature wetland, complete with sedges and rushes). Katie and John decided that today was the day to change the poor drainage problem PICA's garden seems to have, particularly on the west side. With Tony's help, they dug a blue streak and created a drainage ditch alongside B2, which now empties out into a large pool dug in the ground. Meanwhile, Biseat and Marley were in the kitchen (recently christened 'the Asylum') making lunch, Kerby was outside taking photos, I was bringing mulch from the Farm, and Ali, Elias, and others were working in the soil. By the time we were all hungry, lunch was being brought outside. The meal was phenomenal.

Work resumed. A bunch of folks planted potatoes by the persimmon tree. Ali demonstrated the famous double-digging method of permaculture. Katie and Tony were now closing in on the finish of the trenching work. I looked for gravel for them, to no avail. Maybe later...

That evening, after putting Tanglefoot on the legs of the tables inside the hoophouse, bringing in the tomato transplants, and locking up the shed, Marley, Adam, and I sat in the kitchen, eating tortillas with ripe avocado, fiery Rooster sauce, and occasionally peanut butter. The setup: tortillas in a rice-cooker steamer top on 'warm'. Best tortillas ever.

What a day of days.

tubers & roots & bulbs - oh my!!

So tubers are a mass that grows off the roots, like a node but bigger. Potatoes are an example of a tuber. If you remove a potato but not the plant or the roots, then the plant will grow on. In mountainous terrains of Ireland, the potato plants can grow quite big, and you can undig and harvest potatoes for many seasons yet.

'Roots' in reference to vegetables, are vegetables where the edible part is the root itself; usually they are large masses growing underground. The stalk grows up from it, but is not a part of it in technical terminology. When you pull up the root, you pull up the whole plant. Beets are an example of roots.

Bulbs are extensions of the stalk, large masses that grow above ground, where the roots sprout beneath it. Although the roots can be a separate entity beginning lower than the bulb's terminus, often the roots sprout directly from the underside of the bulb. Pulling up the bulb would, in effect, kill the whole plant (unless it were for transplanting purposes). Garlic and onions are good examples of bulbs.

seed collection

Discovered something new at the bottom of the box of seeds. There was an inventory created on 31 March 2005 (almost a year to date ago), which lists not only the seeds and amounts remaining but also the year. I wonder if there is a time-sensitivity issue with seeds. Naturally, seeds accumulate in the seedback, but I wonder if it is different with these. Were they grown organically? Would that make them more or less susceptible to timing? I wonder. And it may be a good idea to make note of the years in which these seed packets were purchased and used, as well as their future successes upon cultivation.