Hi Pickers!
Please let us know if you can join our team in picking citrus this Sunday by fill in this form:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sHlMPrx31zNc5-0crH7-hoL0wHRVhkY1pcc_4E1MfhU
I will provide joining instructions and additional details when I receive your RSVP via this form.
Please bring a hat and gardening gloves if you have them.
Picking dates are subject to change and weather dependent. We will keep you posted if we change pick dates.
Thank you for all your help!
Jillian Saxty
Following on its 2019 success, Project Tree announces the return of its Tree Care Workshop and $25 off Tree Coupon Program.
This year’s workshops will be held Saturday, February 8 from 10 AM to 12 Noon and Sunday, March 1 from 2 PM to 4 PM at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Avenue, Alameda.
While anyone is welcome to attend this workshop, only residents of the City of Alameda with proof of residence may receive the coupon, which is worth $25 off any tree from Encinal Nursery, 2057 Encinal Avenue, or Ploughshares Nursery, 2701 Main Street in Alameda Point. The coupon will be redeemable from the day of receipt at the workshop until June 30, 2020.
Project Tree is a partnership between The Alameda Sun and Alameda Backyard Growers.
Join Alameda Backyard Growers speaker Birgitt Evans for an informative and hands-on seed starting workshop.
About this Event
Starting vegetables from seed can save money and will give you access to thousands of vegetable varieties not available as transplants. We discuss which seeds are best planted directly in the ground and how and when to start them. We will move on to seed that are best started indoors and how to plant them and considerations such as the importance of cleanliness, seed starting mixes, which containers you can use, how many seeds to plant and how deeply, seed viability and hybrid vs. open pollinated seeds, watering, fertilizing, providing light and heat for your seedlings and hardening off seedlings before transplanting them out into the garden. Students will then plant several 6-packs of seeds to take home with them. Resource lists will be provided to attendees.
About the Speaker: Birgitt Evans has grown her own food on a large scale for the past 30 years and created a successful garden and nursery business. She is passionate about growing and raising food and seeks to encourage and educate others so they can also share the benefits of fresh, healthy, homegrown food. She grows vegetables in four different Alameda County gardens and starts 90% of her plants from seed. She has been an Alameda County Master Gardener since 1999 and was on the advisory board for 14 years, including three terms as president. She has been on the board of Alameda Backyard Growers since its inception and is currently the Treasurer.
Space is limited for this event. Tickets available here.
Photo by Lori Eanes. Birgitt Evans demonstrates the delicate work of transplanting fall crops from the six packs where they germinate into larger containers or garden beds.
Following on its 2019 success, Project Tree announces the return of its Tree Care Workshop and $25 off Tree Coupon Program.
This year’s workshops will be held Saturday, February 8 from 10 AM to 12 Noon and Sunday, March 1 from 2 PM to 4 PM at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Avenue, Alameda.
While anyone is welcome to attend this workshop, only residents of the City of Alameda with proof of residence may receive the coupon, which is worth $25 off any tree from Encinal Nursery, 2057 Encinal Avenue, or Ploughshares Nursery, 2701 Main Street in Alameda Point. The coupon will be redeemable from the day of receipt at the workshop until June 30, 2020.
Project Tree is a partnership between The Alameda Sun and Alameda Backyard Growers.
Hi Pickers!
THIS PICK IS CANCELLED DUE TO THE RAIN FORECASTED ALL WEEKEND.
Please let us know if you can join our team in picking citrus this Sunday by fill in this form:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sHlMPrx31zNc5-0crH7-hoL0wHRVhkY1pcc_4E1MfhU
I will provide joining instructions and additional details when I receive your RSVP via this form.
Please bring a hat and gardening gloves if you have them.
Picking dates are subject to change and weather dependent. We will keep you posted if we change pick dates.
Thank you for all your help!
Jillian Saxty
ABG regrets to announce that the March 17, 7PM meeting at Rhythmix is CANCELLED.
In light of the new event restrictions and government mandates about maintaining at least 6ft of distance between event participants, Rhythmix has cancelled all Rhythmix activities, events, meetings and classes through the end of March, including our March 17th meeting.
Alameda Backyard Growers will be in touch regarding future events
Learn about the perils of pesticide use with Andrew Sutherland, SF Bay Area Urban IPM Advisor, University of California (Davis) Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Sadly, due to COVID-19, the City of Alameda has cancelled the Earth Day festival in Washington Park. Please celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day by supporting your favorite environmental organization, or participating in any of the many online events via many environmental non-profits.
Take care and stay healthy! Alameda Backyard Growers
Come and visit our booth at the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Earth Day! We’ll have tomato plants to buy, information to share (on growing food, going plastic free, planting trees, etc.).
You may also have the opportunity to plant trees around Washington Park.
We’ll be sharing our booth with StopWaste – so you can learn more about stopping food waste, urban carbon farming and much more!
If you’d like to volunteer at our booth, please email us: info@alamedabackyardgrowers.org
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Our first Virtual Monthly Education Meeting!
Backyard Permaculture: Regenerative design for food and herbal medicine production
April 21, 7 to 8:30 pm Via Zoom.
Click here to view their presentation.
Program
7:00-7:10 People get oriented on Zoom
7:10-8:00 Presentation
8:00-8:30 We answer questions from the audience (and of course folks can sign off at 8 if the are feeling complete)
We will introduce Permaculture, and then dive deeper into applying Permaculture principles into regenerative backyard design and local food production. We hope to inspire a dialogue about these topics in the context of COVID-19 and the climate crisis. We will cover topics such as veggies beds, water (re)use, fruit trees, chickens, backyard herbal medicines and more! The Backyard Permaculture Guild is a select group of Permaculture experts that collaborate to design, implement, and maintain permaculture inspired backyards.
Professional bios
Nina Gordon-Kirsch believes that building community around shared local resources and tending to the earth are some of the most effective tools for climate resiliency. She earned her Permaculture Design Certificate at Occidental Arts and Ecology center, after which she envisioned the Backyard Permaculture Guild (BPG)! Nina is the BPG water woman – installing Laundry-to-Landscape (L2L) greywater systems and envisioning rainwater catchment designs. She apprenticed with Greywater Action in Oakland for 3 years before becoming trained as a CA Professional Greywater Installer. When not installing greywater systems, she spends her time educating folks on where their water comes from and how to restore human relationships with the land, waters, and other humans. Moving forward, she’ll be following the call of the Waters and backpacking her way from Oakland to the Headwaters of the Mokelumne River, where EBMUD sources our East Bay tap water from. Sign up here to follow her journey!
Helen Cowart grew up on a Christmas tree farm in central Vermont and has been chopping firewood and pruning trees since she was a kid. After graduating with a BA in Environmental Studies from Vassar College she found herself continually wanting to be working hard in the dirt outdoors (not in an office!). She worked on small, organic, vegetable and flower farms for several years and then founded a few farm projects. Finding herself drawn to the synthesis of design aesthetics and outdoor work with plants she founded Solscape Ecological Design in 2015. Helen has been designing and tending native plant gardens, veggie gardens, pruning fruit trees ever since. She joined the Backyard Permaculture Guild in 2019 to share knowledge and inspiration with a group of like-minded earth tenders. She is also studying forestry and land management and has a passion for returning healthy fire to local landscapes. In her spare time Helen is a primitive skills enthusiast, mythologist and artist.
Alejandra Vargas-Johnson (Ale) completed her permaculture design course in Chile in 2010. She lived in Brazil between 2014-2018 where she helped organize agroecological events for rural, working class communities. She currently works for a non-profit health care reform think-tank and gardens in Alameda and Oakland with Nina and her mom Holly Johnson, ABG Board Member.
ABG Announces Our 2020 Earth Day (Spacial Distancing) Plant Sale!
10AM – 1PM Saturday April 25th. Location will be emailed to attendees.
Every year at Earth Day, we sell hundreds of tomato plants and people come back for them year after year. This year, with more gardeners and fewer seedlings, we have added basil, squash, cucumbers and a few greens to the mix, moved the sale to a private residence and added spacial distancing in the form of time slots to keep the crowds down. But we still have our wonderful tomato plants and other veggies to get you through the summer!
How it Works:
1) Click on this Eventbrite link and select a time slot. The earliest slots will have the best selection, so fill those first. We will email you the location when you sign up.
2) Send one (healthy) person per household, wash hands first and wear a mask.
3) Check out the LIST OF PLANTS we have available and note what you want (with second choices), so you can just pick them up and pay when you get to the sale. (Note: there are limits on how many of each plant you can buy so everyone can have some.)
4) Bring either exact change or a check made out to Alameda Backyard Growers along with a pen so you can fill in the final amount. Any cash you leave in excess of your plant total is a tax deductible contribution to ABG and we promise to use it wisely!
Container Gardening with Natives
with Jeff Bridge, General Manager of Ploughshares Nursery
Tuesday, May 19, 6:30 to 7:30 pm (note change in time)
Via Zoom. To attend, register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/container-gardening-with-natives-a-virtual-meeting-with-jeff-bridge-tickets-104498225004
Once you register, you’ll be emailed the Zoom link and instructions. Limited to 100 participants.
Live from Ploughshares Nursery, Jeff Bridge will discuss what various native plants need when in a container and their role in the environment. He’ll demonstrate how fun and attractive native plants in containers can be.