Workday + workshop coming this Sunday! Workday 9:30 - 11:30 at Geneva, workshop right afterward.

October Newsletter

Garden work day this Saturday Sept 21!

September Newsletter

Demonstrating Gardens

Let's think about ways to demonstrate low water use in awesome and appealing gardens.  We have three demo gardens attached to our community gardens and if you have thoughts about directions for redoing them we're listening.  This picture is an area on Brand blvd near the Monterey sites.

August Newsletter!

Great workday, everyone who contributed!

Great job, gardeners of the July 2013 workday:  Julia Orr (not pictured), Elena Caballero, Shane Mulholland, Dale Jaques, Melissa Wall, Karen Gee, Bronwen Mauldin, Lucy Wang, Tom Halpern, Alex Knight, and Jean Waked!

They weeded Geneva, they weeded West

and the gardens are better because of them.   

Workday coming this Sunday!

July newsletter

Hose holders!

Bam!  They exist!

 That's because Martin (west) bravely drilled, measured
and screwed together the holders in crazy heat

and Lyndsey (west), Julia (east), Paul (west) and Mike

(east) showed up at the garden to do the big job of painting

and planting them. This one has a duck on it.

In over 100 degree heat our group spent a few hours 

planting these little gems. Here are three of the super 

Hoover High Key Club teens who helped us out 

the whole time. They helped us because former 

gardener Sue Jekarl alerted them about the 

volunteer opportunity -- she's a wonder.

 I think this was the second holder we got planted.

Yea for Hoover Key Club!

Then heatstroke was approaching so we headed to 

Geneva for some quick and delightful soaking. 

That was heaven.

And look!  11 cute hose holders installed!  

Thank you so much to everyone who helped:  

Martin, Julia, Mike, Linus, Paul, Joan, Lindsey, 

Sue, the Hoover Key Club and Home Depot!

Update:  Geneva's hose holders are in!  Whoo hoo!

Hose holder workday preparation in process

Here's Martin from garden west picking out only the best buckets for our snazz new hose holders.  Also shown is Home Depot's Addie who gave us a great deal, making it possible to get some other needed implements!  Thank you Addie!

Hose holder workday this Saturday, June 29th, starting in the East garden and moving to the others afterward.  Hope to see you there!

Composting guide!

New Google Group! It's up!

Hey gardeners!  All current members of the Monterey Eco Community community are invited to our new google group!  Ask questions!  Give answers!  Join discussions!  It's all happening, email Hannah if you haven't received an invitation yet.

Geneva Garden Gracefully Glides On

The newest of the Monterey gardens is Geneva and 

it's looking terrific.

Like for instance Janet's spectacular cabbage

and Alek's kaleidoscopic artichoke

put the sun behind Jean and Magy's chard

and you have vividness you wouldn't believe

and Elena and Rigoberto's zucchini flowers are blazing

into fruitiness

 What a gorgeous garden.  

Slowly the Vegetables - May 2013 web newsletter

Click on it to see it bigger.

The LA river! Starting May 27th Paddle It! And/or help clean it up May 18th with thousands of fellow awesome people.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority is excited to announce the launch of the new L.A. River Pilot Recreation Zone. From Memorial Day to Labor Day this summer, for the first time ever, any member of the public will be able to take their kayak down to the L.A. River in Elysian Valley—on a 2.5 mile stretch from Fletcher downstream to Steelhead Park. MRCA rangers will be watching out for safety, and anyone can come on down to that stretch of the river every day during daylight hours to walk, kayak or fish. Find out more at www.lariverrecreation.org.  I paddled the river last year with the Army Corps of Engineers' pilot program and it was just the best thing ever.

And you can volunteer for La Gran Limpieza: The Great LA River Clean Up!

Saturday, May 18, 2013 9am - Noon

More info at http://folar.org/?p=1376

These are all pictures I took at La Gran Limpieza a few years ago. 

The river, she is so beautiful.

We begin again

Hey everybody, great to see most of you at the annual meeting!  Our new steering committee is up and running and soon you'll see email updates with helpful information, what we're up to and easy things all gardeners can do to contribute to bettering our gardens and community.

For now let's look at some pictures of the bugs that have been moving in to garden East--Armstrong's Garden Center sells thousands of ladybugs and praying mantises and if there's a more fun activity than releasing them into your plot I don't know what it is. They control pests in the most organic and cute way possible. Here are some newborn praying mantises moments after their big release.

Got any pictures and/or stories of what's going on in the garden? Please send them to Hannah or anyone else on the steering committee and we'll blog 'em up.  

A few east garden flowers

Poppies!  Popping up all over.

Lavenderland had a visit from this butterfly

And the colors on the poppies are thrilling

Nora's peas reach for the sky

Hope your garden is coming up rainbows too