General Meeting Tomorrow Wed, 6PM @ SFBC

On Saturday, quite of few folks showed up to begin the design of the front garden.  This is what we have so far.  Thank you Juaquin for guiding a lively discussion and Carmen for the beautiful drawing!


Next Garden Party
Wed. Feb 1  1:00-4:00pm


General Meeting
Wed. Feb 1  6:00-8:00pm
at SF Baking Co. 504 W. Cordova

General Meeting Wed. 2/1 - 6:00pm at SF Baking Co

Time to meet and plan our growing season

Time to look at the various tasks that are under way, or soon will be under way

Time to circle up and celebrate community

General Meeting 

Wed. Feb.1 

6:00pm 

SF Baking Co

504 W. Cordova

Note:  I Googled "community circle" to find an image for this post.  The first image that came up on the page was this picture... from the community garden project that Juaquin and I created in Mexico.  Google magic?

Soil Building, Herbs and Medicine

 

Two herbalists came to the garden party today-a dream coming true. Carmen Harris and Bella Cloude discussed incorporating medicinal herbs in the design of the Dandelion Ranch gardens.

They asked to post this message:

Herbs for the Front Garden
Design discussion Sat. 1/28  1:00pm sharp

We would like to invite you to reflect upon who your most important herbal allies or plant relations are-for your personal needs, family needs and community needs.

We can create themed areas within the new front garden and perhaps also pocketed throughout Dandelion Ranch.

Some ideas for these themed gardens are:

• Pregnancy and Birthing
• Young Family with Children
• Elders Needs
• Degenerative Conditions
• Plant Allies in General

We'd like to meet at 1:00pm sharp on Saturday, to begin the design of the front garden.

We hope you will join us, along with Juaquin, Poki, Giselle and Dan for a lively co-creative session.

Bella and Carmen

Carmen and Bella discussing potential crops in the arroyo

A new area is being prepared for cultivation around the yurt

The horse manure and straw in the new upper garden areas was watered and covered with black plastic today, the weather being warm enough to permit the use of hoses!

In a few days, the soil should be softened enough under the plastic that we'll be able to double dig these new areas.

Hoop houses were cleaned of dead plants and weeds, as well as watered since we had a warm afternoon.  Plants are not only hanging in there but growing, especially the lettuce and chard.

Want some? 

NEXT GARDEN PARTY

Sat. JAN 28

1:00-4:00PM

A Beautiful Flowing Afternoon at the Ranch

Yesterday was a getting-ready-for-Spring day; clearing the back garden area to make room for future structures (shed, shop, kitchen, bathroom), brainstorming on construction plans, consolidating wood piles and chopping old lumber for firewood.

Nicholas and Dan clearing an old wood pile

Thure moving compost to the front garden for top-dressing the area that we prepared last week

Giselle and Joan collecting leaves for our compost

Amy Hetager (in blue) from Homegrown New Mexico visiting Dandelion Ranch to evaluate its readiness to be on the Santa Fe Community Garden Tour in July.  Last year, over 400 people attended the Community Garden Tour.

Gary, Dan and Giselle reflecting on a new entrance for the garden and a location for the bicycle shed

Thure, celebrating a good day at the farm....

Building Soil and Muscles

What a better thing to do on a snowy day than shoveling horse shit...

The soil being frozen where our perennial herb garden will be located, we are covering it with straw and horse manure.  The area will be watered and covered with black plastic over the weekend.  The sun will then heat up the compost material and soften the soil underneath.  In a few days, we'll be ready to dig that area and turn the compost under.

We continued cultivating the front of the property, and area that was dry thus not frozen.

A garden is now ready to be designed in the front.  Once the new beds and paths are created, the beds will be top-dressed with our fine compost that we started six months ago.

Thanks for the hand Coleman!

 NEXT GARDEN PARTY
SAT.  JAN. 21
1:00-4:00PM

Centennial Garden Grant Application is in!

For details on application,  

see here

Baby Mice, Compost and Poetry

Digging through a compost pile can yield much joy, including finding sleepy baby mice.

A mighty crew of men showed up yesterday.

 

Under Juaquin's masterful direction, we started digging a new garden area in the front of the property by the driveway.  In just over 3 hours we moved 2 entire compost piles = 15 wheelbarrows = 1 ton of new soil.  

Thanks to our sustained effort of collecting food scraps from several restaurants and coffee shops (Body, SF Baking Co, Dulce and Ohori's), and the inexhaustible work of microorganisms-bacteria, actinomycetes, fungi, protozoa and rotifers (see details here), we are building beautiful soil for our upcoming growing season.

On that topic, start thinking about what you want to grow at Dandelion Ranch as we will soon be starting seed flats in a greenhouse.  Get your seed catalog and bring it to our next Dandelion meeting (date to be announced soon).

NEXT GARDEN PARTY

Sat. Jan. 14

1:00-4:00PM

Come ready to dig as we'll be finishing the front garden area started yesterday

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

― Wendell Berry. Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays 

Testimonials Needed for Community Garden Grant-Friday 1/13 Deadline

Dear Friends,

As some of you know, we are applying for the Centennial Garden Grant ($2,500-$10,000) and the deadline for applications is Friday.

The application requires the qualifications of participating garden coordinator and volunteers.  The grant stresses community, neighborhood, children and science.

I would like to include some garden participants' or blog readers' statements in this application.  Statements from children would be greatly appreciated as well.

If you have time to send me a short note about your experience with Dandelion, it would add some woomf to our application.

Wish us luck and many thanks for your support and involvement!

Poki

Garden Coordinator

505-796-6006

poki@nodilus.com

Bios of volunteers so far:

 

Poki Piottin - Garden Coordinator

Poki Piottin brings a life-long of experience building community environments (see full bio here).  For the past three years, he has been focused on urban farming, working with the EntreAmigos Community Center (San Pancho, Mexico), DragonFly School (Santa Fe), Synergia Ranch Organic Farm (Cerillos) and Dandelion Ranch Community Garden (Santa Fe).  He brings to each of these projects a keen sense of organization, promotion and leadership, as well as a love of sharing knowledge and building healthy child-centered community. For the past two years, he’s been actively working with Juaquin Lawrence Hershman, a master horticulturist and biodynamic gardener with 40 years of experience creating food gardens throughout North and Central America.

Lawrence Hershman – Master Horticulturist and bio-dynamic gardener

Lawrence Hershman aka “Juaquin,” has devoted the past 40 years to caring for the earth and her inhabitants by educating individuals and communities to grow healthful, organic foods. His expertise spans the entire spectrum of soil preparation, composting, recycling, garden design, seed production, and propagation. His greatest emphasis and interest is in educating and working with others, in particular children and adolescents. He’s currently involved in a variety of community gardens and design projects in Santa Fe, and in the past has offered his expertise widely throughout the Western hemisphere. He has received numerous grants and awards for his gardens, including Best Garden in Colorado from the prestigious National Landscaping Association, and in Santa Fe, where he won an award for the Best Garden in 2011 shown on Home and Garden TV.  (see Juaquin’s website)

Richard Bernard - Plant Breeder & Seeds Expert

Richard Bernard brings a strong professional experience in plant breeding and seeds through a fruitful career in the seed industry, mainly with Harris-Moran Seed Company in California, a subsidiary of the Limagrain Coop in France. He then became the Research & Development Manager for Seeds of Change, an organic seed company once located in Northern New Mexico. He has an educational background in plant biology and horticulture.  Through his travels in many parts of the world and exposure to different rural environments and cultures (see resume here), he brings a cross-cultural and creative, but still very structured approach to the local and educational projects, that have now become his main focus. He lives in Santa Fe county with his family

Joan Henderson – Volunteer science teacher

Joan Henderson is a science, math, and art educator and has worked at Monte del Sol Charter School for 10 years. She has also been involved in school gardens since she started working in education and has been Monte del Sol's garden club teacher since the inception of their school garden and club 5 years ago.  Joan is also an enthusiastic volunteer member of Dandelion Community Garden in Santa Fe and works on a number of its committees. 

Barbara Powell – Yoga teacher and volunteer

Barbara Powell, aka Yoga Ma Barbara, has been teaching and practicing yoga and meditation for the past thirty years via classes and retreats throughout the world.  Workshops that she has co-led with Juaquin Hershman are called Earth Journeys: Garden Yoga, and emphasize the importance of a sacred approach to honoring the bounty offered up through the earth, as well as a mindful attentiveness to working with our bodies in the garden (see Barbara's website)  

Bella Hecht Cloude – Herbalist and substitute teacher

Bella Hecht Cloude  spent many summers leading herb gathering classes for children and elder hostel at Malachite Farm School in Southern Colorado. Along with Dr Ting who know owns an herb farm and has a private practice in Sante Fe, New Mexico , she developed herbal formulas for patients at a rural family medicine clinic  called "La Clinica"  She later co founded a nationwide organic and wildcrafted herb tea company- Wahatoya Herb- whose blends were based on the formulas developed at the clinic. Bella has a certificate of Master Herbology and a substitute teachers license.

 

All Hands on (slippery) Deck!

Our five compost bins are now full and the two older piles are ready.  Thanks to three weekly pick-ups at Body, Dulce and Ohori's, we've been able to make a LOT of compost (thank you Giselle, Michele, Tia, and now Mishra, for taking care of the pick-ups!)
In order to accommodate more compost volume, we NOW need to empty the first two piles and create beds with the new soil.

We are backed up with coffee ground and need to make room for it...

Please come on Wednesday 1:00-4:00pm to give us a hand.  We'll be digging new beds to create our perennial garden behind the swing.

John and Sobia getting ready to hand water the beds (hoses are frozen!).

Sobia Sayeda came to us a couple months ago to inquire about our community garden.  An architect and mother of a two year-old, she was inspired to start a similar project in Pojoaque.  She's now launched her own blog and looks forward to collaborating with us on plants starts, building a greenhouse and sharing teachers.

John hand-watering the plants in the hoop houses

 
















Giselle, staining the wood on the arroyo fence

Coleman and Amelie building the arroyo fence

Poki, with his new pants, new hat and new cordless drill..

NEXT GARDEN PARTY

Wed. Jan 11

1:00-4:00PM

Survival of the Fittest

Freshly returned from a family visit to Seattle, WA, I couldn't wait to open the hoop houses to see how the plants survived the past couple weeks.  But first I had to deal with the 4 inches of ice that was now sealing the plastic to the ground...

Most plants are doing fine, not growing much but still alive.  The arugula suffered the most damage.  The soil inside the hoop houses looks beautiful.

Juaquin and Thure visiting for an inspection...

Several bags of lettuce, celery, kale and collard greens were harvested.  I had lettuce for breakfast and it was delicious.  Even though the leaves looked tired when picked, after being washed and refrigerated, they all perked up and looked vibrant.


SPECIAL REQUEST
We need someone to pick up coffee grounds at the 2 Ohori's Coffee locations 3 times/ week.
(1098 1/2 South St. Francis Drive (On Pen Road) and 507 Old Santa Fe Trail)
Tia has been doing this route for a couple months now .  Thank you Tia!

NEXT GARDEN PARTY

Sat. Jan. 7

1:00-4:00PM