Welcome Monterey Community Garden WEST Gardeners!

It has happened at last, we have a whole new community garden filled with wonderful people right across the street from the first (East) garden.

West gardeners, welcome to the adventure. Feel free to stop by the East garden to meet some of us whenever it's convenient.

East gardeners, feel free to stop by the West garden to meet some of the terrific new participants, they're a delightful bunch.

Soon(ish, maybe after the holidays) we'll set up a get together so both gardens can meet each other and perhaps enjoy a nice potluck.

I hope the West gardeners will enjoy the experience as much as we Easterners have, it's a great joy to expand community gardening in Glendale.  Many thanks to the City of Glendale and the Kiwanis club!

Free Electronic Waste Recycling

News from Juan Gonzalez, the Glendale Neighborhood Services Supervisor:  The Committee for a Clean & Beautiful Glendale is partnering with Lexus of Glendale for a FREE electronic waste drive on November 14 at the Lexus Dealership, 1221 S. Brand Blvd., from 9:00 am - 3:00 PM. This is a great opportunity for gardeners to get rid of any unwanted electronic waste just taking up space in their storage rooms or garages at home. Lexus is very generously donating the proceeds of the collection to CCBG so that we may continue our community outreach, in-school education, graffiti removal and gardening programs.

Our garden from the sky! Neat!

Thanks, Jaixen!

LA Freestore Experiment - Sounds Crazy, Could Be Cool (Garden Produce Accepted)

The LAfreestore is a place where people can give and swap by donating and taking. Yes taking. We can take what we need. We give what we cannot use. Give freely. Take without guilt. Share with another. Simple.

At the LAfreestore we share goods for goods, goods for services, smiles for smiles, or any combination thereof. We give to those who may simply need a new sweater or jacket because they are cold or share our bountiful vegetables from our garden because it is a nice thing to do.

The L.A. Free Store's concepts are:
Rotation of goods, services, foods, skills, thoughts, handshakes and hugs, smiles, coffee, or even simple hello's!  Rotation of people coming, people going, and people who want to stay a while.  Rotation of volunteers who are interested in helping people who need it.  Rotation of EVERYTHING. Time. Things. Of yourself. In essence, to build community and to provide an alternative to mainstream capitalism.  This requires Volunteerism. Friendships. Swapping. Donations. Giving. Sharing. And lots of smiles!

We can take another step toward sustainability and eliminate a portion of our waste stream by sharing. We can be economically sustainable by providing an alternative means to obtaining goods.  In giving of your time and self, you help your community in becoming socially sustainable.

The first free store is scheduled to be in the NELA area - Highland Park/Eagle Rock, so spread the word.
November 13th @ Casa Princesa Cafe
4527 York Blvd.
10am-2pm

By providing our community with an alternative to the unlimited productions of the capitalistic “free market” we can support each other and the environment in a more collective way. Corporations are here to stay, but we can supplement it by sharing, giving, and trading with each other. Thus the LAfreestore experiment.

in short:
EVERYTHING IS FREE
Give some of your stuff
Take some stuff
Learn some stuff
Meet people who like what you like
Trade services/Time bank with someone.
Share food
Hear some music
Meet awesome people

LAfreestore: Building Community. Evoking social sustainability by gift giving to others who need it. Promoting environmental ideals through reuse. Creating alternatives to mainstream capitalism through free goods, services, and trade.

For more information, visit us on the web at http://lafreestore.weebly.com or on facebook- just search for LAfreestore. Via email: lafreestore@gmail.com.

(This experiment is a community exchange- LAfreestore is simply a means to organize such exchange. We are not a licensed non-profit and your donations are not tax deductible, but there is no monetary exchange of any sort; it is an event to share and give amongst like-minded individuals who can join together to create community in the city. And of course, all of the trades will be very much appreciated by the person who is need of your gift of goods and/or service.)

Thanks to Kimberly Greitzer for this info!

Growing Home: Agriculture in the City

Growing Home: Agriculture in the City

Saturday, Nov 13 8:30am to 5:30pm at the Huntington Botanical Gardens

A day of useful talks, tours and demonstrations about DIY gardening

Register through Brown Paper Tickets (brownpapertickets.com or 800-838-3006)

by Nov 5th.  $25 and includes lunch.

Thank you Kimberly Greitzer for the tip!

Garden Work Day!

Toolshed being built!  By former gardener Thom and garden founder Alek.  Men of steel.

Here they are at work.

Here's Elena helping out

Raphael's daisies were there and who can help but photograph them?  Not me.

Julia! She bravely wrangled the Mexican Tree Tobacco out of her plot. Turns out it's a poisonous invasive weed.

Carolyn grows beets the size of footballs. But how does she feel about them?

Pretty good!

That's a happy gardener.

This preying mantis was loitering in my plot this afternoon

And turned to face me!  It was very exciting, especially with the backlighting going on.

Here's Kimberly and Karen coming to check out Kimberly's zucchinis

Uh oh--Kimberly could whomp someone with one of them

but she probably won't, don't worry.

Karen!  Busy glowing.

Karen took this picture of me hiding in lavender

Chipper shredder at work!  Magic right before your eyes.

Sue (Purple) cut back the big tree so the first few plots can get as much sun as they need.

And here's Carl, one of the nicest people you could meet and a gardener in the new garden across the street.  Wonderful work, everybody!  Thanks for coming!

Part Time Job Opportunity for a Gardener

Hey everybody, Kimberly Greitzer learned of this opportunity and asked that the word be spread among our community.  Contact info is at the end if you're interested.

Job Opportunity

Job Title – School Garden Coordinator Assistant  

Agency –  Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District

Location – District Schools in Santa Monica

Pay Rate – $12.00 hr x 15 hours week

Responsibilities –

• Assist in management of Santa Monica High School  9 raised beds and one 12’x16’ greenhouse to make it a source of produce, primarily lettuce for school use in organic salads sold at lunchtime.  Coordinate student workers as well as independent work. 
• Manage Olympic High School vegetable garden to make it a source of produce for the Farmers’ Market Salad Bar Program.  Includes bed preparation, planting and maintenance of garden in cooperation with Science Class.   
• Provide technical support for all school gardens as required
• Report harvests to Nutrition Specialist; take pictures whenever possible.
• Assist in planning workshop at beginning of year for gardening angels, teachers, parents, etc.  Deliver flyers for workshop to teachers and gardening angels promoting attendance.
• Submit summary of school activities for garden newsletter. Due November 15th, February 1st and May 15th.
• Coordinate activites with SMMUSD School Garden Coordinator

Required Skills – Proven experience with vegetable production; ability to communicate and work effectively with teachers and high school students. 

Desired Skills – Composting

Application Mode – Submit Resume to Dona Richwine

Application Deadline – September 30th, 2010

Contact for Further Information – Dona Richwine, Nutrition Specialist, SMMUSD, 1651 16th Street, Santa Monica, California 90404, 310-450-8338 ext 70259,drichwine@smmusd.org

Fence destruction noted

Someone has run over and destroyed part of the fence surrounding the West garden, the one that doesn't have any active plots yet.  Joan has asked me to let everyone know that the police have been notified and steps are being taken to resolve the situation.

Chipper-shredder magic + bonus preying mantis

Why is Alek so happy?  

Looks like he has some sort of device that's doing something interesting

It's a magical chipper shredder!  Alek reports that when we chip/shred the dried compost it takes up a third as much space as it does unchipped & unshredded.  Tom Brady from Glendale Waste Management has donated it to us!  What a capital guy.  

Here's Alek's report: "IT DOES MAGIC.  Oh my god.  Its very basic... but wow, it does the trick!  I emptied one of the compost bins entirely, Sue harvested the mature compost, and we put more than a whole wheel barrow's worth of compost into the shredder, and now its only taken less than 1/3 of the compost bin!  The shredder is a hazard and may be dangerous so people shouldn't touch it without someone trained on it being present. We'll use it again on our community service day."

Photos taken by the terrific and colorfully coiffed new gardener Sue Jekarl.  Thanks, Sue!

And now, the bloggy bonus:

Would you look at that preying mantis!  Bronwyn took these pictures of him/her while he/she fiddled around in her okra.  

He or she is huge.

This is probably the one I saw the other day in my plot--as I was staring at it from close range he or she grabbed a bee out of the air and stared eating it while the bee flailed helplessly.  I heard the crunches as the mantis ate it, bite by bite.  Gross!  Ah, nature.

More garden pictures! Why not.

Here's a little butterfly buddy on our lavender.

Maria's sunflower!  That's a flower with the right name all right.

Bees are so photogenic.  Supermodels of the insect world. This one is in Natasha's onions.

June bug!  I love these bugs, they're such little minivans. I took this picture right before s/he buried his or her little head in the dirt.

Raphael's cactus

I don't know who this is but s/he is in Carolyn's plot.

Can you believe it?  A shed is arriving!  Compliments of Alek and Thom Deason.

In other news we have two new gardeners in the garden:  Laura Derderyan in plot #7 and Sue Jekarl in plot #2!  Welcome, Laura and Sue!  Sue is easy to spot because she has purple hair.

These two replace the Deasons who ran out of time to keep up their plot and Scott and Martin who sold their house and are moving far away to the north. We wish them the best in their future endeavors.

Magic Beetle

Here's a cuteness picture from fellow gardener Julia (plot 15) of what she calls "one of those VW bugs having fun with my fennel." When I was a kid we called them June Bugs.  Aren't they spectacular?

MRECG on Your Garden Show Site

There we are, listed on this website called Your Garden Show.  Take a look if you like:

http://www.yourgardenshow.com/users/MontereyCommunityGardenGal/monterey-eco-community-garden

it's a pretty useful site and it's free.  You can look up plants, see other gardens, check out the almanac, etc.

There's a section where you tell them your USDA hardiness zone and ours is 9b.

Here are a few tips from the 9b August almanac:

Seed starting for those plants which need a long, warm growing season: Gain time by soaking all but the tiniest seeds. A simple method: scatter the seeds on a damp paper towel, roll it up, put it in a plastic bag. Unroll daily to see if dormancy has broken.


Summer's here and the time is right for planting warm weather veggies: corn, beans, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, squash, and pumpkins. Get these in the ground ASAP.  You can also plant broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts now to harvest next winter.


Pick fruit and veggies the minute they're ripe.

Pruning Tomatoes

Here's an article from the LA Times about pruning tomatoes that could be helpful:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/07/tomato-pruning-techniques.html

New Garden Pictures

Hey everybody, this is your buddy Hannah who has just been given access to the Garden Blog (thanks Joan and Anthony!). For this premier contribution here are a bunch of garden pictures I took yesterday.

Joan's poppies with a nice little bee

I think these are Scott and Martin's daisies

omg Karen's magic ten bazillion cherry tomatoes! She attributes her tremendous yield to our own homemade compost from our own compost bins.

A few plots in the morning mistiness

Bronwyn and Melissa's Gigantor sunflower

Here's a little cutie for scale--Gigantor is in the upper left.

Have you noticed the new plaques on Joan's plot?  It's #1, right by the road. The steering committee made these to thank the generous groups and individuals who contributed money and resources toward making our garden happen.  

Here's our tiny strawberry plant tipped with dew

Okra!  By Bronwyn and Melissa

I think these are the Bass family's brussels sprouts

Elena's peppers!

Melanie's onion doing its spirited impression of a firework

Melanie onions in repose

Compost bins!  Please, no crazy weirdness in the bins.  Karen and I harvested one the other day and found plastic things and some odd insulation-like black foam.  No good.  If you'd like to harvest a bin too here's how:  Check the bottom for earthy soilness (just look through the slits), and if you see it take the cover off, remove the top third of the bin and set it next to the full one and start shoveling the bin contents into the empty shell.  Then move the next bin layer on top of the formerly empty one, keep shoveling, and at the bottom you'll hopefully see composty magical goodness.  Put the magic on your plot, put the lid on the bin and watch life bloom.

Adios, everybody!  Next post coming soon!