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