Super Garden Volunteer Weekend!

We're having a big work weekend getting One Tree Garden ready for planting next semester! Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm we'll be working, but if you can only show up for a few hours each day, that'd be fine. We'd love your help and there's plenty to do, so please stop by!

Wear comfortable clothes to work in and a water bottle, and we'll be sure to feed you for lunch :)

Thanks, you marvelous person, you!

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Date: Sat Dec 4 - Sun Dec 5

Time: 10 am - 5 pm

Place: One Tree Garden at the Udall Center (Euclid Ave and First St)

Cascabel and Cranes

Last Friday, 12 UA students piled into two vehicles and drove east of Tucson. The goal of the trip was to see how people outside of Tucson live sustainable lives and to gain inspiration from their examples.

The first destination for the eight members of Garden in the Desert, along with 4 other outdoor/permaculture enthusiasts, was Cascabel, Arizona. Cascabel rests within the San Pedro Valley east of Tucson along important biological corridors.

Above, André listens while David and Pearl explain their ingenious outdoor pantry.

David Omick and Pearl Mast live in a 128 square foot home within the Cascabel community. They decided to live a simple life, in terms of amenities, not enjoyment or passion. They welcomed us into their home with warmth and hospitality to show us how they live. Enough nice things cannot be said about David and Pearl.

David and Pearl built their house to maximize the amount of time they spend outside enjoying nature, hence the small indoor space. They have created some ingenious innovations to increase simplicity and reduce their impact on the environment.

To the right, Laura watches a solar oven bake an apple pie at around 400ºF. More can be found about their innovations at www.omick.net

What impressed me the most about David and Pearl was their respect for nature. Every decision and innovation was tackled with their ecological impact in mind. Not only did they live in a house made of reclaimed materials, they used water pumped from a solar pump. In order to become intimate with the amount of water used daily, they lift every drop of water they use.

All wastes are reused. Above, Pearl shows Annie some seedlings growing in a humanure garden. Human wastes are composted into workable soil full of nutrients that veggies love.

After a wonderful morning at David and Pearl's, we loaded up and headed to southwestern New Mexico. There we met with Guy McPherson, a champion of the idea that economic and industrial collapse will occur due to peak oil in the not-too-distant future. More of Guy's ideas can be found at guymcpherson.com. He built his house to also be off the grid, but with durability rather than environmental sustainability as his main focus.

Guy welcomed us to his home to enjoy his beautiful surroundings and some lovely company. Guy's house is larger and more technologically advanced than David and Pearl's house. It contains durable yet efficient electronic and appliances. He has secured himself many sources of food and water for a future without oil.

Guy has found himself a community that is based on a gorgeous piece of land. We were able to spend time exploring his property. We found the following birds along a perennial river, adjacent to his property: Belted Kingfishers, Peregrine Falcons, Bufflehead Ducks, Killdeer, and a healthy population of Sandhill Cranes.

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the two properties in a 24-hour period. The homes were an inspiration to a student who is interested in living off the land. As my professor and mentor stated, the two off-grid structures may appear very similar to an outsider, but a closer look will reveal much different purpose. The homes are in stark contrast to each other - one was built for the celebration of nature, the other built for the celebration of man.

November Planting Day

Last weekend, a handsome group of adventuresome gardeners woke up early to go plant some seedlings in the large sunken bed of One Tree Garden.

We planted some leguminous O'odham peas, snap peas, garbanzo beans; as well as lettuce and broccoli. The space around the plants was covered with chopped up corn stalk pieces as mulch to keep the soil temperature regulated and retain moisture.

As for the rest of the garden, the tepary beans are growing nicely, the sunflowers are still flowering, and the amaranth (over 8 feet tall!!) is ready to harvest!

When all is said and done for our summer crops, we are going to be having an all-hands-on-deck work weekend ***December 4th and 5th*** to dismantle the decomposing straw-bale raised bed and construct a series of sunken beds in its place. Everyone is encouraged to come by, grab a shovel, eat some delicious treats, and help us make our garden a beautiful winter veggie paradise!

In the meantime, our young, healthy plants are still anxiously awaiting their move...

Sunday Fall Work Day

Oh man, oh man, did we have a great work day this past Sunday (October 24). Winter's coming along slowly but surely, which means we have to start getting the beds ready for the seedlings we have growing at Amy and Andre's! Also, the front end of the garden has been lacking attention, so we finally fleshed out the burms so that we can plant some lovely desert plants out there. Nothing says "come look at our awesome garden!" like a jojoba bush (but mostly because it's so much fun to say "jojoba")

The corn needed chopping down in the sunken bed:


Then we aerated the soil using an ancient technique of hopping on your shovel and giving it a wiggle:


We were going to bundle the corn stalks together for a fall festive feel, but they kept falling over with the wind. We ended up using them as mulch for our freshly aerated bed in order to keep in moisture and prevent wind erosion until the new seedlings go in.

We finished the burms out front. The idea is that water will pour down from the roof, onto the ground, then collect in the area where the plants will go before flowing down toward the street. We also tried to make them a bit symmetrical to keep the area pleasing to the eye:

Well now, isn't that pleasing to the eye?

All this really wasn't too much work, and we did it over the span of a few (very chill) hours, so it was a nice way to spend a Sunday. We also had pizza and bagels and tea, because everything is better with pizza and bagels and tea.

Thanks to all the wonderful people that we managed to bamboozle into helping out! We appreciate all the help we can get. And you there, reading this post! Feel free to join us next time, yeah?

How can you say "no" to these earnest faces?

All in all, our garden is looking marvelous, and I can't wait to get the winter crops in.

Our (Lunar) Planting extravaganza!

This last Monday night, a group of us got together for a winter crops planting party at Amy and André's house. Old friends, new friends and even a puppy! Despite mosquito attacks, it was a fan-tastic evening that ended with a deliciously warm bonfire.

Like any good garden work gathering, there was a ton of delicious food contributed by everyone. We ate, and ate, and ate some more, and just before the sun started to set we got to work planting seeds. Caleb and Corey set up the planters with some potting soil, Crop Chief André worked from his list to tell us what needed to be planted, and everyone got to plant seeds - from Native Seed SEARCH, Westwind Seeds (both Tucson local companies with desert adapted plants), seed collected last winter from crops in Amy and André's home garden, and Botanical Interests (organic but not local).

It's looking like our One Tree Garden at Udallwill have a fantastic winter garden: carrots, peas, snow peas, lima beans, pak choi, garbanzos, quinoa, turnips, radishes, beets, lettuce, chard, kohlrabi, chives, leeks, chual, broccoli, anise, catnip, chamomile, thyme, cilantro.

We chose to have our planting party on Oct. 4 because of where it fell in relation to the moon phases. Planting, and gardening, by the moon is a really powerful science of which we are only just beginning to experiment with. A few of us heard Tucson organic farmer Kim Fox explain about it briefly when GITD went to her workshop last spring.

According to John Jeavon's How to Grow More Vegetables*, short germinating seeds (most veggies and herbs) should be planted 2-3 days before the new moon. The new moon creates the strongest lunar forces (for example, ocean high tides would be at the highest point during the new moon). By planting several days earlier, the seeds have had the chance to absorb water and swell. The new moon creates a sort of mini tide out of the water within the seed itself, allowing the seed coat to burst and the baby plants to pop up soon after!

Similarly, we will transplant to One Tree Garden about three weeks later, after the full moon, because the moonlight will be decreasing and the lunar gravity will be decreasing also. The decreasing light causes less leaf growth while the weakening lunar pull allows for more root growth. Good root growth is necessary to transplant so the plant can survive the shock of moving and establish a good root system in it's permanent home.

For now, we will just have to wait and see what our seeds do....

*Information on lunar planting from:

Jeavons, John. How to Grow More Vegetables: And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine : a Primer on the Life-Giving Grow Biointensive Method of Sustainable Horticulture. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press, 2006. Print

Groundbreaking

Fall 2009
Groundbreaking Party!

"In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." - Margaret Atwood