It has been a while since we have had a new blog post here, but that doesn't mean the garden hasnt been active.

We have 19 fruit trees planted now, the favas are bumpin, and some diversity is happening. We have lots of strawberries now, calendula, comfrey, a potato tower, and more.

The ivy hill finally got sheetmulched, that was a big project and it's good to have it done. Soon we will be able to plant there.

So far, it has only been me, David Cody who has updated this blog. Now, we are going to try something different. Tree has been very kind to help me out and make a blog post for me including pictures.  I will attach this below. In addition, we will have a full class of Permaculture learners who will be contributing here as the weeks go on. So I encourgae any readers who have been bored with the lack of content lately to continue and check back though the coming weeks and see all the great changes.

And now, for something special by Tree:

(this if from Friday the 6th)

On Friday we had a great turnout for our workday at 18^th and Rhode Island garden. In the morning, Bay View Green Waste Management delivered 20 cubic yards of steamy finely ground woodchips and leaves, what they call compost. I picked up two bales of cardboard from Whole Foods down the street (each bale weighing 1,000 lbs, and it takes three people to push it out of the van). At first I thought this is going to take two days to move all this, plus there was more preparation work to do before we could move it and spread it. I was wrong to worry though it was all spread out at the end of the day. Here is how we sheet mulched the entire rocky hill: We had 10 energetic volunteers who showed up. All hands were on deck as they moved the cardboard to the hill where it was spread over the remaining bare earth where ivy, oxalis, and fennel grew. Then the cardboard was watered down. Somehow there was a pile of mushroom blocks from Far West Fungi that was there when I arrived. The blocks were crumbled up and then spread over the cardboard and mulch. The mushrooms will help break down the mulch. We also had some aged horse manure that was spread at the same time over the cardboard. Then the mulch, ground up wood chips and brush that has been ground up really fine, was dumped on top of the cardboard.

I also noticed that more of the trees are leafing out. I also harvested more fava bean leaves for the Free Farm Stand and the first two lettuces were picked too.

We are proud to anounce the first Permaculture course to be taught at the 18th & Rhode Island garden. The class will be held on Saturdays at the garden, and Wednesday evenings at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House. I will post the announcement below, you can also see it at the Permaculture SF website and you can go there to apply.

If you know anyone you think this course would be good for, please forward the info to them, we would appreciate it very much.

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

Urban centers like San Francisco need innovative solutions for the persistent problems of the built environment. We feel that Permaculture holds many of the answers needed to build a truly sustainable city and we would like to invite you to join us for a new and exciting Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with a specific focus on the urban setting.

While the general content of the PDC will be maintained to the original standards set forth in, "Permaculture: A Designers Manual" by Bill Mollison, we will be modifying and adding content to specifically address the particulars of the urban environment. All the principles still apply, but how and where and why we apply them may be different in some cases.

Many permaculture courses are very expensive and rightfully so, it does take a lot to create a meaningful and effective course. However, we have developed a few strategies to reduce our costs and so would like to extend that to you. We will be offering the course for $600 which is roughly half of some other courses. Each student will also be supplied with the Designers Manual, a $100 value. This decision does not come lightly and what we ask for in return is an additional commitment of your time and effort towards furthering the permaculture projects here in the city (or starting your own).

We would like to emphasize a very local focus for this course and place the highest priority on learners who live in San Francisco. We wish to build a strong coalition of permaculture designers here in San Francisco. We need your help, the whole world does, but we must start with where we live. To further this intention, we will offer a $100 discount for Potrero Hill residents.

We think this is very fair. If for some reason our reduced rate is more than you can afford, please apply to us explaining why you need a scholarship and what you can offer in return and we will be more than happy to consider this.  Our primary goal is to get more trained designers on the ground right here in San Francisco, not to make a buck.

The standard PDC runs 72 hours, while ours comes in at 82 hours to accommodate our additional urban spin. On top of that, we request that you participate in one of the many exciting projects we already have, or start your own, for a total time commitment of 100 hours which includes the time you spend in the course and at San Francisco Permaculture Guild meetings.

Learners will be committed to presenting a final design project to receive their certification. This design requirement will be focused on actual projects here in San Francisco and learners are expected to apply professional level effort on these projects. All the essential tools and methods for design will be provided. The goal is to equip each learner with the skills they need to produce quality designs.

We will be covering a wide variety of topics in the course. While the PDC does cover a lot of material about interacting with vegetation, if what you are seeking is an in-depth gardening training, this is probably not for you. We will employ a mix of learning methods, including lecture, hands on, and multimedia/video. We will also be experimenting with various forms of project documentation: learners will be trained and expected to document their projects using video, audio, blogging, or other digital media. We feel that getting the word out about our work is one critical key to achieving success in the global digital era.

Class days and times will be:

Wednesday evenings from 6pm to 9pm

Saturdays from 9am to 4pm

A specific starting date has yet to be locked down, we are looking at the third week of March. We are working to get the best possible guest speakers and will set concrete dates around their schedules. Feel free to apply anyway, and we will announce here and via email to those who apply the permanent dates.

Januray has brought us so many new opportunities and new connections.We planted 13 trees and managed to share the method of Urban Orchard Culture with around 35 people over the 2 day planting workshop. We had the Califronia Rare Fruit Growers scion exchange also, and it was wonderful to see all the people sharing and teaching about trees, grafting, and fruit!

The little legumes and their other planty friends are enjoying this sunny weather and are growing nicely. Even with the shortage of rain, the mulchy material of the berms is holding an incredible amount of water and we have managed to not water since before the last rainy spell. This is particularly encouraging to me, less water means the garden will cost less to maintain in the long run, both in valuable water and the precious time that it takes to apply the water.

If you look closely at the picture above, you will see some nitrogen nodule fixed along the roots of that fava plant. Its already working and obviously the roots systems are healthy travellers through the light "compost" material. More nitrogen now means happier plants come spring when we plant the more dexpansive list of species.

We have two galleries here imported from Tree's PIcasa galleries below.

Favas and clover by seed. Chards and kale seedlings. Garlic cloves and a lettuce lawn. These all went into the beds at 18^th & Rhode Island, truly a landmark for the project. Congratulations are due to all, those who pushed out the sheet mulch and everyone else who supported the effort.

This is the birthing stage of the site, new formations and new life begin to grace the slope. Seeds have been planted, with their ancient plans of growth toward the sun. We care for it with gentle expectancy of what it will one day be. How timely, for this garden to be born in the midst of such transformational times.

Saturday, November 29 2008, we planted our first plants during a significant astrological alignment. A rare alignment of Venus and Jupiter in the presence of the crescent moon has been visible from the south-western skies.

According to Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium,

The three celestial objects come together from time to time, but often they are too close to the sun or unite at a time when they aren’t so visible. The next time the three will be as close and visible as this week will be Nov. 18, 2052

I took this shot from McLaren Park on 11.30.08 at about 5:30 pm

In addition to that, there are two important astrological events taking place right now: Uranus has turned direct and pluto has moved into the house of Capricorn. The astrological implications of these events are noted at Astrology.com:

Rocking rolling times are ahead as two noteworthy astrological events happen within hours of each other. Pluto, the planet of transformation, regeneration and rebirth, enters Capricorn, the sign of the builder, on November 26. This is a much-heralded astrological event, since Pluto takes between 12 to 31 years to pass through a sign. It will remain in Capricorn until 2024. Talk about the need to transform and rebuild infrastructures will abound. In our personal lives, we will find transformation and change taking place as well.

Uranus turns direct on November 27. It’s not everyday that a planet turns direct on the same day as a new Moon, which adds to the intensity of this time. Astrologically, Uranus liberates you from the shackles of convention and applies pressure to change whatever is stagnant in your life. Uranus rules electromagnetic energy and is like a lightning storm that creates chaos as it cleans the air, revealing a fresh new world once the storm has cleared. It is a new day, almost a new year and the road ahead needs you to help pave it.

To know exactly what to expect with Uranus turning direct, review the placement of Uranus in your birth chart. If Uranus is direct in a chart, intuitive and inventive impulses flow on a regular basis. However, when Uranus is retrograde in a birth chart, rebellious urges tend to bottle up and then burst forth, seemingly out of nowhere.

The events of Pluto and Uranus happening at the same time as these other planetary and lunar alignments seems like a momentous time to plant a garden for the future. We have said that we are not just planting plants, but planting ecosystems. In fact, we are not just designing a garden, we are also designing strategies for people to feed themselves in the future. During times of great change, those who build the new way will do so using the tools at hand. Its now time to design the best tools we can imagine.

The massive sheet of mulch is now covering most of the site. The northern edge, abovethe ivy and rubble, remains to be sheet mulched. However, in the next weeks we can shift gears and focus on amending and prepping the soon-to-be soil. We will be bringing the rock dust this week and we can spread that first thing Friday. We can also do some planting, clovers and favas. In he mean-while, odds and ends around the site can be worked on such as the retaining wall and the ivy.

We were out on Friday and Saturday this week. Turnout on Friday was amazing, at times we had as many as 15 people. Saturday produced a few "hard-cores" and we managed to move MOST of the rest of the compost pile. Between both days I am sure we moved record amounts of material for this project. Good work everyone! To all of you who sweated on those days with us, you rock!

We found a few mushrooms growing on Saturday morning. These little guys dont last more than a cople hours in the sun, soon they had melted back into the mulch. I get these same mushrooms in the sheet mulch in my garden at home, I notice them usually in the spot where i last dumped the water dish the quails use.