Calendar

Join Alameda Backyard Growers as we work and learn at Farm2Market, one of our favorite Alameda places. Farm2Market (2600 Barbers Point Road) is a great place to learn innovative and sustainable techniques for growing fruit and vegetables. Lots of different tasks will be available – at least one should fit your interests and abilities! Have fun, gain some gardening know how and enjoy the company of other food growers while helping out a valuable Alameda non-profit.

Farm2Market is a small, diversified working urban farm and a social enterprise of Alameda Point Collaborative. The farm employs APC residents to work with staff and volunteers to produce delicious, nutritious fruits and veggies, raw honey and beautiful flowers. Proceeds from its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) membership program are used to help sustain APC’s supportive housing community.

COVID precautions: If you are fully vaccinated, you are not required to wear a mask. If you are not fully vaccinated, you must wear a mask whenever you are within six feet of another person.

Bring along your garden gloves, water bottle, sunscreen, your favorite hand tools, and whatever else you’d like to make your gardening work comfortable – knee pad, stool, kneeler, etc. Be sure to wear sturdy closed toe shoes!

Volunteers will help weed, sheet mulch, weed whack, compost, etc. After the work party tours of the farm and neighboring MakerFarm will be available.

After you get your ticket, we’ll contact you so you can sign the APC waiver, which is required in order for you to volunteer at this work party.

Questions? Email info@alamedabackyardgrowers.org and put WORK PARTY in the subject of your email.

Seed Saving Class
Sunday, November 14, 11am
Healing Gardens (Taylor/Webster) in West Alameda

Class Description: Civilization began when humans began to save and plant seeds. Come and learn about the seeds of common food plants we eat today. We will talk about the history of seeds, explore the different sizes and shapes of seeds and how to grow plants for seed, harvest for viable seeds and collect those seeds, focusing on five seeds that are easily saved by the home gardener. The talk will be followed by a hands-on exercise where participants will collect the seeds from different plant materials and package them up for both themselves and the seed library.

Birgitt BIO: 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. She has been on the board of Alameda Backyard Growers since its inception and is currently the Treasurer.

Kristen BIO:
Kristen Smeal (she/her) volunteers and serves on the Board of Alameda Backyard Growers. In her role as the Garden Science teacher at St. Philip Neri School in Alameda, she is passionate about teaching children how to grow food and to care for the Earth and each other.

Alameda Backyard Growers is excited to invite you to a very special field trip Sunday, June 26 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. We’ll be visiting and touring REAP, Alameda’s new Center for Regeneration, Education, Aquaculture, and Permaculture. Now about 40% complete, it’s a half-mile-long outdoor training and science center focused on biodiversity in soil. With a biomimicry-based focus, REAP’s staff and volunteers teach and demonstrate climate competence to empower the ability to grow food, practice urban forestry, and build resilience. The Center demonstrates how healthy microbes in soil enhance nutrition and carbon sequestration at scale, yielding cooler and healthier communities.

Truly a work in progress, REAP is becoming an edible park with a sculpture garden, interactive soil labs, community composting, a permaculture community garden with a free farmstand, and a maker space serving youth through Ph.D.- level curiosity. The exhibits, already underway, will provide materials and tools to green and restore the site and the region at large. REAP will also be whimsical with a Worm World, Fermentation Station, Fungi Hut, Microbe Mine, Biome Boutique, and Hydrology House. These elements, along with beehives, bioswales, and sheep will further maximize the greening of the 4.26 acres.

In its first year REAP created 200 tons of compost with vigorous green waste reclamation efforts. Additionally, the Center created or enhanced over 600 feet of bioswales, spillways, retention basins and water tanks, while managing over 1.5M gallons of water.

For more information about REAP go to: https://www.reapcenter.org/news/annual-update-2022

Tour space on June 26 is Limited, so REGISTER here NOW. REAP’s location, in Alameda, will be provided upon registration.

September 23, 2023 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Lake Merritt Trials Garden
666 Bellevue Avenue
Oakland, CA 94610
Contact: Aixa Gannon
Sponsor: UC Master Gardener Program of Alameda County

David Blood will be speaking about cover crops (green manure) that are planted in the fall and then cut down and turned into the soil in early spring. Advantages include weed suppression, adding nitrogen, improving soil, preventing erosion.

NOTE: There is a $5 Parking fee on weekends. Lines can be long to enter the park by car.

So many of us have citrus trees in our yards, but may not always know how to keep them at their best. Berkeley, like Alameda, is ‘Citrus Heaven’. And this is a chance to not only brush up on citrus-pruning skills (or learn the basics) in a workshop, but also tour a remarkable schoolyard orchard and garden in Berkeley.

Farm2Market Assistant Manager Sarah Miller and fellow Alameda Backyard Growers volunteer Marla Koss will demonstrate citrus pruning on two of the garden’s Meyer lemon trees and assist attendees to go hands-on with pruning. The Edible Schoolyard’s Garden Manager Jess Bloomer will supervise the tour.

For this workshop, please bring the following:

• bypass pruning shears
• gardening/work gloves
• other pruning equipment such as a pruning saw or loppers

Wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes (preferably hiking or work boots). Bring a sun hat and/or sunscreen and a water bottle. Also helpful: eye protection (clear safety goggles/glasses).

This event is for adults only. Registration is required. Please be sure to register with a valid email address that you are able to check. The workshop location will be announced 48 hours prior to the event via email reminder to those who have registered. We know that interest will exceed the space available and will keep a waiting list.

If you register and are unable to attend, we need you to cancel at least 3 days in advance so that we can offer your space to someone else. Please cancel by emailing abg.grow.food@gmail.com.

Are you interested in learning how to prune an apple or pear tree, or in refining those skills? Join us for this hands-on workshop, as we discuss and demonstrate the best ways to shape semi-dwarfed pome fruit trees for better fruiting, summer sun penetration and access to the tree come harvest time!

NOTE: The orchard grounds where this workshop will be held are slightly uneven, and during the winter may be cold and/or damp. Attendees must be able to traverse the area on foot.

WHAT TO BRING:

• Please wear sturdy shoes, galoshes, hiking boots or work boots.
• Bypass pruning shears
• Gardening/work gloves
• Other pruning equipment such as a pruning saw and/or loppers
• Protect your eyes from errant twigs and branches by bringing clear safety goggles or safety glasses if you have them (sunglasses will also work, in a pinch).
• Even in February you can work up a thirst while pruning, so you may want to bring a water bottle.

This event is adults only, please. We know that interest will exceed the space available and will keep a waiting list. If you register and are unable to attend, we need you to cancel at least 3 days in advance so that we can offer your space to someone else. Please cancel by emailing info@alamedabackyardgrowers.org.

Farm2Market is a social enterprise that is part of Alameda Point Collaborative. APC works to end homelessness by providing housing and services to create communities where formerly homeless families and individuals can flourish.

Please NOTE:  If rain is forecast for the morning of the workshop, attendees will be notified of cancellation via email the day before (Friday, February 9).  The pruning workshop will be rescheduled for the next possible Saturday morning where rain is not forecast (2/17, 24 or 3/2).  We will email attendees by the Thursday before the rescheduled workshop. 

Register here.

Hands-On Vegetable Seed Starting Workshop

Presenters: Kristen Smeal and Birgitt Evans

Saturday, March 9th, 2 – 3:30PM at the Community Room at the Alameda Free Library, 1550 Oak Street, Alameda

Starting vegetables from seed can save money and will give you access to thousands of vegetable varieties not available as transplants. In this hands-on workshop, we will begin with a brief discussion about seeds, reviewing which seeds are best planted directly in the ground and which should be started in containers for transplant into pots or the ground. Then we will move on to the basics of starting seeds, including the importance of cleanliness, seed starting mixes, what containers you can use, how many seeds to plant and how deeply, feeding and watering of seedlings and providing light and heat for your seedlings.

We will then break into groups for a demonstration of how to plant seeds and participants will plant up several 6-packs with seeds to take home.

No registration is necessary. However, space is limited and people will be let in on a first come, first served basis.

Kristen Smeal is a Master Gardener and Garden Science teacher at St. Philip Neri in Alameda.

Birgitt Evans has grown her own food on a large scale for the past 40 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 served on the board of Alameda Backyard Growers for 10 years.

As you know, 2023 was another big year for ABG’s five Free Seed Libraries. With the help of our volunteers, we packed and gave out about 15,000 packets of seeds to gardeners all across the island. From the feedback many people had fun and learned from growing the seeds.

In February, we held our first seed packing party of 2024 which supplied all the seeds for spring 2024 planting. Now it is time to pack up the seeds for summer planting. We will be hosting our next Seed Packing Party on March 24th from noon – 2PM at a covered garden location on the East End.

The Seed Packing Parties give ABG volunteers the opportunity to socialize while doing something meaningful for a finite amount of time. This party will allow us to stock the libraries through August. Volunteers are welcome to take seeds to plant at the end of the party.

We will have beverages and light snacks.

Please join us to keep the Alameda Free Seed Libraries going through the summer of 2024. Reply to this email to let us know if you will be able to attend.