Comment

Comment by Greg Scott on November 21, 2010 at 11:22am

"Eating is the foundation of good life, good health..."

Beatrice Ross, midday prayer circle, MWBC Garden and Kitchen, Saturday, 20 November 2010.

"At this very minute we are jeopardizing the rights to food for a billion people, and the effects will be felt by us all through migration, dietary changes, and increased health risks, whether we believe it or not."

Professor Lindsay Falvey, University of Cambridge

"The food crisis is already a daily reality for one billion people."

Joachim von Braun, Director General, International Food Policy Research Institute

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A great day yesterday in the garden. A great call to action in the rain!

Happy Full Moon!

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Attendees:

Mission Way Baptist Church "team" - Marie, Ryan

South Bay Community Church "team" (Beatrice's Garden and Kitchen "team" ) -
Beatrice, Joyce, Rene, Halmina, James, and a visit by SOBCC Pastor Fewell.

LEAF "team" - Andre, Sarika, Shreeansh and Greg

If I neglected someone please let me know and accept my apology.

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Appreciations:

Many thanks to all attendees!

Many thank yous to the SOBCC team and their efforts!

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Accomplishments:

Beatrice cooked wonderful food for the lunch. Focused on "feeding". Feeding us and other people, feeding Earth Mother (e.g. compost), and feeding the soul (spirit).

Joyce cooked wonderful food for lunch and worked hard in the kitchen and on cleanup.

Rene worked in the garden weeding and helped in the kitchen.

Halmina worked in the kitchen

James helped put down and spread bark chips for paths, turned compost bin piles and fluffed and broke down straw bales.

Andre attended his gopher traps, weeded and did ground preparation in multiple beds. Had a plant specimen Greg could not identify (no surprise).

Sarika weeded and planted onion seeds in pots.

Shreeansh gave us general guidance on the future.

Marie cooked soup, kitchen help, opened the Church and general logistical help and planing. Worked with Michael Dutton on the compost bin building project. Marie is looking into some grants.

Ryan weeded, especially in the concrete planters next to church.

Greg helped spread bark for paths, moved wire cages, cleanup on west side of Church building and kitchen dish cleanup.

Pastor Fewell provided laughter and showed off his Alaska Tee-Shirt. It did seem just like a Summer day in rainy Southeast Alaska!

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To do:

Give thanks!

Have a general sense of wonder and inspiration of it all. Not something we can will to happen, but just let it happen on its own.

Look up at the hills and see the green of the sprouting grasses from underneath last year's dried out plant growth, which is turning darker shades of brown and gold (caramelizing to you compost geeks). In Chinese the idea is "shen", the word for "mountain" and "shui" the word for "water". Shen shui is thus "watershed" and we look to it for knowledge.

I wax philosophic!

Happy Thanksgiving all and happy gardening!

Greg

Comment by Greg Scott on November 18, 2010 at 7:51pm

I think getting the manure may be a bit problematic in the rain, but suit yourselves.
I would not bother with the feed bags. I would use rubber trash cans and put some in and be sure to not put too much in so that you all can carry it across the field and unload it in the truck. This is very time consuming, but yes a way to get manure. The other manure would be good too. We will deal with it.

I do not know if I am able to help. I have a suburban house that itself is composting and needs work. I have a relationship too .... you probably know the story.

Saturday it is expected to rain fairly hard.

Thanks to Bonnie for the flattery. Not to be affectedly humble or self depreciating, but my knowledge is not all that "vast".
Knowledge is only as good as what you can implement, so we shall see with the MWBC Garden!

The best to you all and the MWBC really has some wonderful land!

Greg

Comment by Sarika Rathi on November 16, 2010 at 2:15pm

Hi Marie,

I will be happy to help.

Sarika

Comment by Marie Rohner on November 16, 2010 at 10:53am

Cow manure is available at Ardenwood farm. I have been given permission to pick up cow pies in the cow field. The Farm Tech has offered the use of empty feed bags to collect the 'pies' in. They will provide a pitch fork to use. They also have a pile of mixed manure (rabbit, sheep, chickens, etc) we can take from. We just need to get over there and get it! If you are interested in participating in manure collection please let me know.
Marie

Comment by Bonnie Marzo on November 14, 2010 at 6:22am

Much appreciation to you, too, Greg, for all your hard work and for sharing your vast knowledge with us. It was a beautiful day yesterday, wasn't it?
Have a great week, everybody,
Bonnie

Comment by Greg Scott on November 14, 2010 at 2:17am

Our prayers and positive thoughts for the health and well being of Pastor Larry's father who is recovering from a stroke.

Our prayers and positive thoughts for Pastor Larry who was sick today. We missed him.

Welcome to our repeat newcomers Gorrett and Sam!

It was great to have Bonnie Marzo in the garden today. She has been instrumental in the MWBC Gardens' survival!

This was a great day for the MWBC Garden. The momentum and accomplishments were amazing!

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Appreciations:

Much appreciation to Jean for the great lunch.

Much appreciation to Jean and Marie for the manure from Ardenwood Farm. Jean's Ford Ranger with the bedliner worked well for this! ( I will refrain from prophylactic puns here!).

Much appreciation to Gorrett and Sam for weeding the Fava Bean bed and for a phenomenal effort in removing the tomatoes and tomato cages.

Much appreciation to Andre and Nadia for planting broccoli, radishes and beets in the old bok choi bed.

Nadia is also amazing in harvesting from the garden. She is showing us 'Old World' skills!

Andre attends to the trees, irrigates and keeps the gophers running scared for their lives! ( The 'fast' seems to be over, so I am not sure Andre got a gopher today).

Marie was working in the garden today, organizing away and helping us to 'figure it out'.

Sarika was avidly pulling old tomatoes out and weeding our beloved Bermuda Grass.

Shreeansh was a bit more in amazement of it all. There was some clever hiding in the tomato plants.
He is our future and we will teach him the best we can. A lot for such a little person!

Bonnie pulled tomatoes and bamboo poles and gave her masterful advice.

Greg worked on breaking down a straw bale for our Indore (India) Method of aerobic composting with the manure that Jean and Marie got. Greg dumped the barrels of debris in the dumpster. ( We do not compost this from fear of the threat of disease in the Nightshade Family (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, etc.). Greg also gave the Troy rototiller a 'trial' run since it is freshly back from the shop. Did Greg forget to cover the compost bins again?

Bonnie and Greg discussed Novella Carpenter and her website, along with City Slickers getting $4 million for their projects.

At lunch the group discussed soil testing, especially for lead, aerobic and anerobic (Boyashi) composting, relevant books, the garden plan and what else I cannot remember ( because of the lead on my brain!).

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To do:

Weed the former tomato beds of Bermuda Grass. (Ya, right!).

Continue planting! A week from tomorrow, the 21st, is full moon!

Irrigate!

Partake in Andre's gopher recipes!

Have fun gardening!

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Good health, good food and good gardening to you all!

Greg

Comment by Greg Scott on November 13, 2010 at 9:04am

Moon in First Quarter.

Good time to plant winter transplants and onion and leek starts.

Good time to till the ground and add manure and work it in.

Good time just to be in the garden and feel the sun on your face!

Book for Pastor Larry (and others); "Love God, Heal Earth: 21 Religious Voices Speak Out on Our Sacred Duty to Protect the Environment". Reverend Canon Sally G. Bingham, editor.

(Just to be clear - I am not religious).

See you at MWBC Garden!

Greg

Comment by Greg Scott on November 12, 2010 at 10:08am

Marie,

Much appreciation to you and Pastor Larry on the rototiller.

I am unable to use the truck I mentioned for the horse manure.
I have an idea on another truck, but I simply do not have the time to do
the run.

What about my questions from the previous communication? The questions
on the
irrigation, and the garden management structure and governance?

What is going on with the soil testing idea?

Greg

Comment by Marie Rohner on November 11, 2010 at 11:19am

FYI, the roto tiller is back from the repair shop.
Marie

Comment by Greg Scott on November 8, 2010 at 12:29am

Thank you Marie on the horse manure information.

On the horse manure.....

We need to plan for this.

First, we need to figure out how to get a large quantity of mulch and where we are going to put it. This mulch is to be applied over the spread manure to keep down the smells and to be as 'aesthetically' conscious as possible. The finer this mulch is ground the better. We do not want large wood chips.

Marie, I am thinking on this one. Perhaps I could get mulch in the truck mentioned below item four. This would cost some money however. I will check on this and see if I could get a truckload from Lyngso in Redwood City and see how much it costs. The bridge toll is $5 and then there is the price of gasoline, which should not be too bad in this little truck. Perhaps you all know a closer supply for mulch. Let me know. It needs to be of good quality and fine texture.

Second, we need a "staging" area to receive the manure at MWBC Garden. I would recommend the unpaved area by the corner of the parking lot against the fence by the railroad tracks as far away from the Church building as possible, but not on the fence.

Marie, please talk to Pastor Larry and get back to me on what you think on this second item above.

Third, we need a plan to receive a quantity of manure we can move and spread in a day. I do not think we want a pile of manure anywhere on the Church grounds on any Sunday.

Fourth, we need a truck to get the manure in.

Oh, I just thought of someone with an old truck that may do the job. I will buy his gas for the operation, but I cannot expect him to do any work because he has a very serious heart condition. I will see what I can do in this department.

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The snow shovels are a good idea, but I personally think the 'scooper' shovels used for construction cleanup would work better. They may just be a bit more commonly available in this area also.

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In the longer term we do not want too much horse manure. Again, it does not have a good carbon to nitrogen ratio as far as manures go. The carbon content is just too high and it does not have a good microorganism content given the incomplete digestion of horses. (Horses are not a ruminant like a cow that has four 'stomachs'. (Really a cow only has one 'true' stomach, but you get the idea)). I have known people who spread horse manure over their land excessively and ended up having to scrape their land with heavy equipment because nothing would grow with the horse manure.

We will use it for now because we need nitrogen! It is the 'fuel' for the microorganisms to 'burn' the carbon in the ground and in our compost operations.

We need to figure out how to get a large quantity of dairy cow manure to the MWBC Garden eventually. This would really be the best manure for us, even though chicken manure is better in a lot of ways, such as nitrogen content; I think it would just be too difficult for us to handle.

Greg

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