Soil+Water 2.0

Last night, March 5, 2015 @ 6:30pm (Thursday) was the first community meeting for input on 771 Rengstorff park design.  Thank you to everyone that came to the community meeting and expressed your support for shared gardens.  

It was really amazing to hear so much support for creating a wonderful space open to the public that preserves and maintains the existing elements such as the trees and garden.  There were many thoughts shared from residents and seemed to echo a vision of a space that is natural with paths and benches, a shared community or demonstration garden likely where the existing garden is, and historical features like the immigrant house and highlighting our agrarian past.  People really wanted it to be bicycle and pedestrian friendly for access (yay!), and a learning space for kids (and everyone) to explore and learn about their natural world and food.  Hopefully the bee hives that are there can stay as they too are an important part of the ecosystem.

Some features that make a garden a great fit for this space:

• Already has existing fruit bearing trees (100+).  Last night an arborist counted 161 trees and 60 are of heritage size.
• It would create a community gathering space focused around food and growing food.
• It already has bee hives on the property which make a garden better.
• So much potential for creating a garden program for the community that includes people of all ages, kids, cooking classes, gardening classes, weekly volunteering opportunities.
• Soil&Water has funding to create the garden and has support from the Kiwanis Club of Mountain View and the Los Altos Community Foundation.
• This is our first opportunity for more garden in Mountain View; if this succeeds, there will be more gardens in the city.

I have been starting seeds both for my own garden and the Soil&Water volunteer garden.  I wanted to stay as organic as possible and wanted to find a source that I can trust.  It was important to me that the seeds are non-GMO and hopefully not owned by Monsanto (Seminis).  I did a lot of research and found a number of resources but the information out there is extremely confusing.  If you start digging, many organic gardening resources are actually owned by Seminis.  

After a lot of research, I was relieved to learn that a local nursery, Summerwinds, appears to have only non-GMO seeds from two companies, Lake Valley Organics and Botanical Interests.  Both of which appear to not be owned by Monsanto or Seminis.  Lake Valley Organics also has taken the safe seed pledge.   I also visited Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com) in Petaluma, CA.   That experience was awesome.  They are located in this old historic building and have more seeds than you can imagine along with books and gardening tools.  I was definitely inspired and walked away with a bunch of great seeds and a book on fermentation.

We were so lucky to be invited to the Google teaching kitchen for a gardener’s harvest event. We have wanted to create a cooking demonstration component using our garden’s vegetables and this event was great inspiration. 

Wonder what Soil&Water has been up to this summer?  We have been gardening!  Our temporary site, Viola’s garden, went from barren flat to a lush garden using all organic techniques and as little water as possible (including some greywater use from collected shower warm-up water).

We were so lucky to meet a very generous and special family that allowed us to use their unused garden space in the interim until we get a permanent site.  We started in May 2014.  Volunteers came every week to participate.  We designed the garden, amended the soil, set up drip irrigation, and of course, planted.  The harvests were shared among the volunteers and with the family.

Check out some of our photos from this summer.   

We have learned a lot from our first garden using this volunteer-run model but most importantly that this model can work depending on how it is structured.  We have had lots of very dedicated volunteers and enjoyed a lot of yummy garden-fresh organic veggies.  We continue into the fall with a winter garden.  

We made a lot of new friend’s excited about this project but only captured a few photos.

To the new friends: I hope you will stay involved and help to convey your support of community gardens to the City of Mountain View so we can demonstrate just how important this project is to the community.

This little guy has taken up residence at Viola’s garden.  

This weekend, Sunday, October 12, 2014, is Family Day at the Lazy Foot Chicken Ranch. Soil&Water will be helping to support Living Classroom and all the great work they do. They are helping us to share our story and what we are trying to do by inviting us to have a booth at the event too. 

Lazy Foot Chicken Ranch
160 West Portola Ave
Sunday, October 12, 10am-3pm

This event is just in time for all the halloween pumpkin patch fun that you seek for your kids. There will be all sorts of activities………garden tours, a pumpkin patch, visit the chickens, local chicken and bee experts, pumpkin painting and other activities for kids. 

There will also be live music and homemade Vietnamese Pho made on the premises. 

This should be a great event you don’t want to miss. 

If you go to this event, stop by and say ‘hello’

The Living Classroom inspires our children to learn and value our natural world through garden-based education.  Funds raised will help to grow their already amazing education curriculum to other local school districts!  www.Living-Classroom.org

Check it out for more information: 
http://www.living-classroom.org/images/stories/events/2014_10_FamilyDayChickenRanch_V3.pdf

The Trailblazer is a morning of fun, healthful activities for the whole family with 10K and 5K races and a trail walk that begins at 8:30am.  Soil&Water will have a public interest booth at the race to help spread the word about our organization.  Please stop by and say hello.  We’ll definitely have a fun garden-related activity.  (Also, we need volunteers too!)

The Friends of Stevens Creek Trail is an organization dedicated to extending Stevens Creek Trail and wildlife corridor from San Francisco Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Stevens Creek Trail was started in 1993 and currently extends 4.5 miles from Shoreline Park to Sleeper Ave in Mountain View.  Cupertino opened its first section of trail last summer.  Los Altos and Sunnyvale are studying possible routes. 

All events start and finish alongside Stevens Creek Trail at 1065 La Avenida Avenue, the Mountain View campus of Microsoft Corporation, the host and presenting sponsor.  If you are interested in helping out or finding out more about our organization, please find the Soil&Water booth at the Microsoft campus (1065 La Avenida Avenue, Mountain View) between 7:30am & 10:30am.

http://www.stevenscreektrail.com/wordpress/trailblazer/

 

We recently moved to a new house and I inherited some fruit trees – peaches, figs and pears. I am so lucky.  Once I saw the green peaches, I needed to figure out when to pick them. What I’ve learnt is that you need to pick peaches when they are yellow and red and smell oh so sweet.

They will not ripen off the tree if you pick them green (learnt the hard way). Also keep your eye out and once you see a bunch of peaches half eaten around you will know you need to get ready and grab them before someone else(squirrels, neighbors :)) does.

What do I do with so many peaches ?  Cook them of course.

Here is a recipe for some peach, banana and oatmeal bread (no sugar added) which is super easy to make not to mention delicious.. Stay tuned for more recipes – peach popsicles, pork chops with a peach sauce, peach jam, peach cobbler, grilled peaches …. If you think of something great please let me know.

Peach, Banana and Oatmeal Bread

Ingredients:

11/4 cup all-purpose flour                                                                                                  

1/2 tsp salt                                                                                                                                    

1/2 tsp baking soda                                                                                                                      

1/4 tsp baking powder                                                                                                                      

3 tsp canola oil                                                                                                                                      1

1 cup old fashioned oats                                                                                                                          

2 eggs beaten                                                                                                                                        

2 ripe bananas                                                                                                                                          

2 ripe peaches

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. 

In a bowl stir together the dry ingredients – flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder. Add oil and eggs and mix well.

Mash the bananas and peaches together using a blender.

Add the pureed banana and peaches to the batter along with the oats and mix. Pour in the loaf pan and bake for 45-55 mms (or till cake springs back up when you press it). Allow to cool in pan for 10mns. Using a spatula looses the cake from the pan and allow cake to cool on a wire rack for 10 mns

Note: I will try it with whole wheat flour next time.

 

 

 

 

 

In my winter garden last season, I planted some green onions.  They were plentiful and definitely more than I could use.  I was really curious to see what an onion flower looks like as I have never seen one….. so I let one bunch flower and go to seed.  I thought you may find it interesting as well so I took some photos.

Anyone know if I can plant these?