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.
Alameda Backyard Growers invites you to attend a
Self-guided Tour of Italo’s Garden
Tuesday, June 23 2020
Italo’s Garden (ABGC)1900 3rd Street, Alameda, CA, 94501
6:30-7:15pm 20 people/tickets
7:15-8:00pm 20 people/tickets
More information on the ABGC Garden
In 2012 the Alameda Boys & Girls Club had a vision to transform a neighboring ¼ acre urban lot into a thriving healthy foods and habitat garden that would support the nutritional health and develop the ecological literacy of Club youth. In summer of 2013 the Club hired its first Seed to Table Director, Kristen Getler. Italo Calpestri, together with other Board Members and ABGC staff, began fundraising and reaching out to community partners like GoDaddy to enlist in help with projects such as building and filling the raised beds. His background as an architect and experience on the board was instrumental to the garden’s successful and accessible installation. A keystone of the Club’s Health and Wellness Initiative, the garden provides a living, outdoor classroom where youth steward the garden using organic practices to grow annual and perennial food crops. A complementary culinary education program teaches our youth how to prepare the garden-fresh produce into healthy-foods recipes they are able to share with their families. Current Seed to Table Director Gretchen Doering took over in March 2015 and continued the installation of fifteen additional planter beds, a bioswale, greenhouse and outdoor classroom. The garden continues to grow with support from local Eagle Scout projects, the Alameda Garden Club, Alameda Backyard Growers, invaluable volunteers, and other generous donors.
Click here for a downloadable map of the garden tour.
Click here for the downloadable Alameda Boys & Girls Club – Italo’s Garden Master Plant Descriptions
Click here for a downloadable list of plants in Italo’s Garden.
Join us Tuesday, August 18 at 7:00 pm for a virtual potluck on Zoom in the comfort of your own home. This August ABG meeting will be a “Garden Show/Tell and Ask” where we all get to relax, enjoy our own snacks and compare notes with friends.
If you wish, please email us a photo by August 16 of one of your garden successes or challenges that you’d like to talk about. Send it to abg.grow.food@gmail.com.
Then, during the meeting we’ll invite you to share a gardening story, a photo, ask some gardening questions and enjoy visiting with fellow Alameda backyard gardeners.
Our next virtual meeting is: Alameda: An Agricultural History, with Eric J. Kos on September 15 at 7:00 pm. We asked Eric to put together a presentation for us about Alameda’s original settlers’ primary occupation: agriculture. It promises to be full of intriguing photos, informative glimpses into our food-growing past and really entertaining narrative. Join us!
Our speaker: Eric J. Kos, owner of the Alameda Sun newspaper for the past two decades, has collected a vast amount of historical Island City images and information to share with the public. Eric has written, helped publish or contributed to countless publishing efforts, most notably, San Francisco Then & Now and locally Bay Farm Island: A Hidden History of Alameda.
Registration is required, and the audience is limited to 100. Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEqcuuqrjkpG9Ky282kIjKrCAAOweCazFMN . After registering, you’ll receive your individual link for the meeting.
Thank you to those who joined us on Tuesday, October 20 at 7:00 p.m. on Zoom for our presentation: Carbon Farming for Home Gardeners, with Trevor Probert of StopWaste.
Trevor explained how home gardeners can make use of carbon farming practices to build healthy soil and protect the health of the climate. He will share lessons learned from local urban farms, resources for residents to make sense of soil health and carbon farming at home, and tips for how residents can support carbon farming in their cities.
Trevor Probert is an outreach coordinator for composting and carbon farming at StopWaste. He manages StopWaste’s partnerships with urban farms and tests their soil to measure carbon sequestration and soil health. He is a garden educator, a home gardener, and a resident of Alameda.
Click here for a link to Trevor’s presentation (PDF) which includes his speaker’s notes.
Here’s a link to information from StopWaste on building healthy soil.
Or view the presentation below:
October Plant Swap
Sunday, October 25, 2020
Alameda Backyard Growers is inviting you to a socially-distanced, outdoor plant swap.
Please arrive at 1pm.
- Masks must be worn and a distance of 6ft or more maintained.
- Everyone must use provided hand sanitizer prior to entering the plant swap area.
- Attendees must bring at least one plant to donate to the swap.
- Make sure plants are clearly labeled. Plants should be in good health and in healthy soil, to minimize the possible spread of garden pathogens.
The location for this event is in West Alameda and will be announced 48 hours prior via email reminder. Please be sure to register with a valid email address that you are able to check.
You may also bring other garden related items: books, magazines, tools (no broken tools), and seeds to place on our FREE table.
Tickets for this event are limited. Click here to register.
Please join us for a presentation on
‘The Politics of Food and Agriculture‘
with Twilight Greenaway
Thursday, December 3 at 7:00 pm
Register by clicking here.
Please bring your questions on food systems, organics, climate and food, agricultural labor and technology, food safety and seafood.
Twilight Greenaway is a writer and editor focused on food and agriculture, and the senior editor of Civil Eats. Her work has appeared in a number of media outlets including the New York Times, The Salt (NPR’s food blog), the Guardian, Food & Wine, Slate, Mother Jones, Eater, and on Grist.org, where she served as food editor. She lives in Oakland.
Container Gardening Presentation, January 15 at 1:00pm via Zoom
Are you interested in learning more about container gardening? With limited space, container gardening gives you the opportunity for cost-effective, manageable gardening. Jeff Bridge, Ploughshares Nursery Manager, will be discussing container gardening in a meeting hosted by the Alameda Branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Jeff’s presentation, followed by questions and answers, is expected to last one hour.
Happy New Gardening Year!
January 19 at 7:00 pm on Zoom
Meeting Details:
Thinking about starting a garden for the first time or just want to see some friendly faces? Please join Alameda Backyard Growers for Happy New Gardening Year. In this hour-long Zoom meeting we will talk about how to prepare for the new gardening year.
We will discuss some of our favorite tools as well as how to clean, store, and sharpen them. Wondering when to prune fruit trees? We’ll tell you. Wondering how to take care of your most important asset – your soil – in January? We’ll discuss that too. Whether you’re a new gardener or a seasoned expert, there will be something for everyone in this meeting.
Please pre-submit any gardening questions to info@alamedabackyardgrowers.org prior to January 15.
Speakers: ABG Board Members Alison Limoges, Marla Koss, Birgitt Evans, and Kristen Smeal
To register in advance for this meeting click here.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. You will also receive a follow-up email closer to the event.