jueves, 8 de febrero de 2007

Directions!

The basics:
4602 Seminole Drive, 92115 (phone: 619 582 7583 - ask for Colin)

At the northwest corner of the intersection of Seminole Dr. and Acorn St. Come to Acorn St gate by the garage, not the front door!
Directions by:
Public Transit
There is a great walk from the trolley station through Baja canyon (it is down Campanile and then a left on Baja, and a right into the canyon). The walk from campus to 4602 Seminole takes about 30 minutes that way. The walk from campus along Rockford Dr. is only about 20 minutes.

Cycle from University Heights (Adams Ave and Park Blvd)

I recommend taking Adams, and then, if you want, after crossing the 805 you can cut south to Meade. Also, if you want, I'm pretty sure there's a pedestrian overpass across the 805, if you get on Madison (it is somewhere in there!)

You can also just stay on adams until you get across the 15, and then take a right no further east than 42nd st.

Go south to Meade,
Cross fairmount,
Left on 44th,
Right on Monroe,
(this is labeled Talmadge. . . another person is planning to bike from there!)
Once you go down the odd 1-way hill toward aldine, you can stay on Monroe, but I prefer a little less traffic either in the alley or on Madison street to the north.

Continue to Collwood.
Then at 54th, you'll probably want to get on the sidewalk and act like a pedestrian to cross collwood and get on 54th.

Go down the hill, then up, and get on adams again.

Take adams, turn right on El cerrito just before adams dead-ends,

Left on madison
Right on 59th (if you want a light to cross el cajon), or on esther if you don't --that is me usually--,

*Note that there is some very cool graffitti behind the old hot monkey love cafe adjacent to the African Alliance place off of esther*

Go left on el cajon. Cross college, turn right on the sidewalk. Bike through the vons shopping center past all the storefronts.

In the corner by the thai restaurant, cut through.

go towards the fire station.

acorn st. is to the right of it.

Get on acorn and take it to where it dead-ends on seminole.

To the north is 4602 Seminole. Come to the gate at acorn st (Not the Seminole st entrance).

(that route makes for the most pleasant biking in my mind--and has evolved over many trips back and forth. In fig season, the last part of the route on Adams goes by some enormously productive calimyrna and black mission fig trees. There is plenty of citrus near the last part of the route too.)

Car

By Car, coming from west of SDSU, you will probably get on the 8 going east and take the College Avenue exit going south (toward SDSU).

Pass SDSU, cross Montezuma, continue to the next major intersection (less than 0.5 mile) with El Cajon Blvd.

Cross El Cajon, and take the first left at the light onto Acorn.
Acorn continues straight past the firestation--don't curve to the left.

Acorn comes to a T at Seminole--the house is on the left.
Come in the Acorn St. gate next to the garage.

This is about two blocks southeast of the intersection of College Ave
and El Cajon Blvd, and east of the back of the Campus Plaza shopping
center (Vons/Woodstock Pizza/Starbucks) and the firestation.

Google Maps links and pictures





http://tinyurl.com/39kvoh



http://tinyurl.com/234h3b

The green arrow in bottom center points to the house. Come to the gate on Acorn street, not the front door. Acorn is the short E-W street. Seminole runs N-S and bends around clay park. Vons is the big box in the lower left.

lunes, 5 de febrero de 2007

Planting workshop this Friday, February 9th! 3 p.m. to ~6 p.m.

Come witness and participate in the bed preparation and planting of ~150 sq. ft. of previously barren (and succulent-covered) backyard ground. We will be guided by Paul Maschka, Lead Organic Gardener for the San Diego Zoo, and any other experienced gardeners who attend.

If you're able to do so, bring some food, compost, plants, seeds, (or something else) to share, and if you'd like to eat, consider bringing your own utensils. Square-bladed shovels and digging forks could also come in handy.

If you know you are planning to be there, please send me an email--cleath -at- j9k.org--But don't let anything get in the way of at least stopping by to see what the backyard looks like now, so you'll be able to see how it has changed when we have the next gathering here later in the year.

Find us at:

4602 Seminole Drive, (phone: 619 582 7583 - ask for Colin)

at the northwest corner of the intersection of Seminole Dr. and Acorn St.

This is about two blocks southeast of the intersection of College Ave and El Cajon Blvd, and east of the back of the Campus Plaza shopping center (Vons/Woodstock Pizza/Starbucks) and the firestation.

If you go east on El Cajon from College and pass all that, you can turn right on Seminole after passing Rite Aid/the post office, and Seminole will take you back to the southwest past Clay Park, and Acorn will be on your right in less than half a mile.

Here is a link to the location on google maps: http://tinyurl.com/z7csv

If you think you might like to walk from the SDSU trolley station (about 20-30 minutes depending on your route) let me know, and I can help you find the wonderful trail through Baja Canyon. You can also catch a bus to take you as far as El Cajon Blvd.

Further details about the planting and the garden space follow.

I hope you can make it!

Colin

---------------------

Attend especially if you're looking to start a garden and are not sure how to begin. That is almost my situation exactly--I am generally following John Jeavons' book _How to Grow More Vegetables_, the tips from the garden page in the Sunday Union Tribune, and some permaculture ideas. See bountifulgardens.org for Jeavons' store.

I do plan to do a soil test, but we won't have the results by Friday, and my 91-year-old grandma has said fifty million times it is impossible to grow anything but sunflowers and snails (and the succulent people call "apple") back there. However, there is a successful gardener next door--who uses fish oil, fish heads, and steer manure to fertilize his broccoli and cauliflower and fruit trees. You can peek at his garden over the low wall on the north.

I have a large amount (5'x4'x3') of not-quite-cured compost to add to the soil as we prepare the beds.

The bed layout will most likely be a large rectangle with rounded corners with paths forming a cross with keyhole beds at the south and north ends and leaving the garden to the east and west.

We will be planting the cool season seeds, and perhaps starting some warm season seeds. The cool season seeds might include: (I'm listing off plants from p. 74 of Jeavons' book and a few other sources. I will make a more detailed plan later)

asparagus (as root)
rhubarb (as root)
beet
broad bean
broccoli
brussels sprouts
cabbage (I do have 6 cabbage plants in pots to plant!)
chard (various kinds)
collard
horseradish
kale
kohrabi
parsnip
radish
rutabaga
sorrel
spinach
turnip
lettuce (various kinds)
artichoke
carrot
cauliflower
celery
chicory
bok choi
endive
fennel
mustard
parsley
*pea*
potato
chicory
chive
garlic
leek
onion
salsify
shallot

Flowers: poppies, marigolds (?), what else?

Now is also the time to plant bare-root trees. . . any good bare root nut trees? Macadamia? Hazel? Pine Nut?

Additional attractions include:

- a collection of dusty indoor hanging plastic plants.

- a large sheet-mulched bed (cardboard on top of apple succulent, covered with wet leaf debris and some soil, inoculated with some oyster mushroom (?) mycelium), courtesy of Mike Thayer, permaculturist. This is potentially endangered--my grandma is not too keen on it.

- a plastic bag filled with straw from which oyster mushrooms will eventually grow.

- I have the following seeds to share (thanks to Paul and Ellee of SD Food Not Lawns):

marigold
moonflower
red chard
red lettuce
mustard
poppy (iceland)
mizuma lettuce
green beans
corn (various)
fava
tepary bean (a good dryland bean)
amaranth
eggplant / aubergine
kambocha squash
passion vine (well- I don't have extras of these)
cilantro
watermelon (no extras)
lentils

This workshop is made possible by San Diego Food Not Lawns--because of the inspiration of gardeners I met there--in particular the garden at a house where members of the organic collective live and also the garden of Paul Maschka.

photos

Mike Thayer took these--and it was his idea to sheet mulch (and he volunteered to come help). We scavengened the cardboard from the nearby shopping center and apartment recycle bins. I'm wearing odd clothes because I had been biking. Thanks Mike!! Click each picture to zoom in. These were taken on Wednesday January 31st, I believe.


Above is a bed I'm not planning to plant in for a while, so I thought it would be fine to try sheet mulching this. . . but I'm not yet sure if my 91-year old grandma will tolerate it in the long term.

Above is the location I plan to plant the garden.

The compost pile.

Covering the apple succulent (what is the latin name?) with cardboard. Some is already wet because it had rained on some boxes that had been left outside behind Vons.

I've since added more mulch so not so much cardboard is showing.

We also inoculated the cardboard with some oyster (?) mushroom mycelium that Mike brought from the Earth Activist Training he had just attended.

So now the challenge is keeping the sheetmulched bed wet and making it look nice so my grandma won't fret about it. . . argh.

She tends to complain about every little thing that she thinks looks messy. Or any little thing that is a change (that is probably the main issue). And she is, generally, the embodiment of discouragment and negative thinking when it comes to my plan to grow a garden in the backyard (she claims her last husband Ed tried to grow things and failed miserably).

She is Bill Mollison's worst nightmare (He rails against people who seek neatness that is devoid of life and infertile).

But it is her house. . .

If I can avert some sort of standoff until good things start growing, then my hope is she won't give me such a hard time.

She does have a massive wall-paper picture of a tree by a lake with leaves on the ground under it. . .

Ok--enough about that.