Center Avenue Community Garden Update: November 12th 2011

The new Fruitless Mulberry, or Morus alba (white mulberry) trimmings have begun to arrive. This means that we can start weaving wattle panels with the fresh, supple new crop. Willow would be ideal yet the locally available crop is Mulberry.  Take a look at these beautiful images on Yahoo's Wattle Image Page.

We have thinned some of the row plantings of chard and brassica crops planted back in August. The transplants have been used to fill in after removing Sesame, Tomato, and squash plants. The recent rain and cooler daytime temperatures give the young starts a very good chance of success.

We also removed the section of fence boards on the corner of Center Avenue and Flame Drive.  This panel was originally positioned to give us a visual to help with the planning of an official looking Garden Gate. It also acted as a marker for the alignment of the rustic fences.
 
The Grand Entrance has yet to evolve, and it will be a Faux Entrance anyway as for most pedestrians entering or exiting the garden area. Not greatly practical, yet an opportunity to create identity and make a beautiful statement on the corner. The plan is for this portal to anchor one end of a diagonal pathway that connects this corner to the white arch at the parking lot end of the garden.
 
Next Saturday we plan to position two 6 foot redwood logs as gate posts. Passers by will then be able to look into the Lobby area of the garden. The first thing they will see beyond the gate posts is the newly constructed Herb Spiral. 

Sunchoke Harvest 2011: 
Jerusalem Artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus), also known as Sunroot, is part of the Sunflower family.
More information and useful links can be found at Wikipedia's Jerusalem Artichoke page.

We lifted a few more Sunchoke tubers on Saturday. Next Saturday November 19th we will be lifting more to share amongst the community and with the Food Bank through the current Cub Scouts Food Drive.

 Sunchokes growing in one of our raised beds in September.

First Sunchokes harvested this year. Looks like a good crop!

Typical clump of tubers under one stalk.

What do you do with a Sunchoke?

They can be eaten raw after cleaning. It is not neccessary to remove the skin. They can also be stir fried or steamed as a root vegetable.

They are best eaten fresh and will keep in the soil until about late January.

They can also be stored in buckets of soil in the garden shed or some cool spot.

They only last about a week in the refridgerator before becoming flacid.

As a perennial (comes back every year) vegetable they are low maintaince. You can just leave a couple of tubers in the ground when harvesting and so plant your crop for next year. As the soil warms in late winter the tuber buds begin to break open and the cycle begins again. Because the new leaves do not break through the soil until April I find it useful to mark the places where tubers are lying dormant least I forget their location and plant over them.

Hope you get a chance to visit CACG this week.  We would be delighted to see you next Saturday if your schedule allows.

Center Avenue Community Garden Update: October, 15 and 22, 2011

October 15th, we built an Herb Spiral in what I call the Lobby area of CACG. The various sized tree rounds are circled to form a mound that by next year will be a mound of medicinal and culinary herbs. The filling is horse manure and tree chips with a little soil on top. A layer of cardboard separates weeds below from this new growing medium above. We have not planted any herbs here yet. Probably better to wait for the mixture to settle and a little rain would most certainly help to break it down into beautiful soil.

Playing by the completed Herb Spiral on another day.

There are actually several herbs already growing around the garden’s perimeter. There you will find Rosemary, Lavender, Oregano and Sage. In the raised beds you will see Basil, Comfrey and Spearmint.

We also planted out some Broccoli starts from 6 packs, the usual weeding, and deadheading.

We are currently harvesting: Collards, 3 types of Kale, Spring Onions, Cucumbers, Peppers, Tomatoes, Eggplant, Swiss Chard, Carrots, Squash and Pumpkins. Actually we would have liked to keep the pumpkins as decorations for Halloween, but they disappeared! We would better have put up a Please Leave sign, given that we had so few. No worries.  Next year there will be an in-ground planting and many more pumpkins to share with the community.

The re-purposed white arch that was originally a feature at the JFK University Garden in Pleasant Hill was securely anchored at the parking lot end of the garden. It will form the official entrance from the First Baptist Church’s parking lot direction. There will be a diagonal path dissecting the entire CACG area and leading to the almost faux entrance at the intersection of Flame Drive and Center Avenue.  This is designed to give ease of accessibility and an open invitation to newcomers exploring the many components of the garden. We want these entrances to say Welcome and Come on in and look around, sit for a while.

Just a Note:  the white dimensional lumber appearance of the arch might draw a raised eyebrow from Permaculture purists . . . perhaps not the first choice of a low carbon footprint system. However, it was free and only one day away from a dumpster when rescued. Also we need to constantly be aware of the generosity of the First Baptist Church of Pacheco in loaning us the land. In this we need to graciously transition from the mainstream architecture of the church property to the more earthy features of our garden. The plan is to adorn (or engulf) the arch and the picket fence (requested by the church) with grapes and kiwi fruit.