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

Sad news

The New Geneva Garden!

It's up, it's running and it's full of plants!

Great job everybody who helped make this magic happen

and welcome new gardeners to the Monterey-Geneva

eco-community garden group!  Glad you're here.