Down(town) on the Farm

Farmer Update: Marley's Report

The first week of September has given us plenty of hot sunny days that are great for the corn and other summer crops that grow fast in that type of weather.  If you have looked at the past entries and photos from this blog, you would really notice how much things have developed and grown.  Lots of students, staff and faculty have also noticed how fast things are changing as they walk by the Farm in their daily movements around campus.  It's fun to come look at the garden every once in a while and see how things grow!

As Adam said last week, we have moved into the Fall semester and the level of activity on campus as increased.  Our Farm work and volunteer days on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings have become more public as students, staff and faculty notice us, observe us, and engage us in conversation while we work.  People have been attracted to the Farm by the tantalizing aromas and beautiful colors and forms of the food that we prepare and eat.  That's correct; we don't only pull weeds in the sun, we also relax, talk, trade books, prepare cool foods and drinks and learn about crazy new stuff that we can eat.  (Some people like to hula hoop, too...)

Learning tool and refreshing view: Some instructors have already taken advantage of the great learning opportunity that the Farm represents by bringing their classes for a scheduled talk and tour or just for a look.  Whether it is a Biology class, a Chicano Studies class, or an English class, the Farm is well worth at least a quick visit.  If you are studying in the LRC and your eyes are all tired from staring at a book or computer screen, you can take a quick break outside and look down on the Farm from the concrete walkway.  The Farm provides a refreshing view between classes too.

Plants taking over:  Here's an update on what's growing.  The brightly colored, burgundy, purple and green amaranth plants remain one of the most visually impressive plants in the garden.  There are a lot more coming, too, as they sprout up everywhere!  Some of the ambitious squash in the milpa (three sisters) bed look like they are planning to take over the entire campus.  I'm predicting that they could cross the path into the Bermuda triangle in two weeks.  We might have to make a bridge over their sprawling, tentacle-like vines.

In case you were wondering about the bamboo teepees, they are trellises for climbing beans, not teepees for putting canvas around and camping out (sorry if you were getting excited about that possibility)!

The sweet potatoes have been growing marvelously in the bed that once was all Bermuda grass.  There are about 6 different varieties; it's like a sweet potato museum up in there!  What else?...Little cucumber fruit are starting to form, sunflowers are opening, winter squash and beans are in their final maturation stages, and delicately beautiful gourd flowers are unfurling their thin white petals.

Some new things that have been planted are two types of perennial kale, several sages, Aloe vera, more beans, and an heirloom tomato plant.  Check out our Flickr album for some great images.

The roof is alive!!!  On September 6, the living roof structure on top of the tool cabinet was finally finished and we added the soil (much props to all those whose sweat was involved).  Now we just need to add plants and water and watch it grow.  Soon you will look down from the concrete walkway and be surprised to see a lush mass of plants growing out of the shed roof!  What a way to innovate and creatively use space in a beautiful and productive way.  Once it is planted, we could even cackle madly and shout, "It's alive!" like Dr. Frankenstein, but without the lightning and brains in glass jars.

I'm not a math major, but I want to leave you with one last tidbit that happens to be an equation, a rather simple one, but extremely profound:

Farms = Food

The Three Rs

One might think that on a college campus we would be talking about Reading, (W)riting, and 'Rithmetic.  No, we're talking about the other ones, the one you have hopefully been hearing about more often lately: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

One could argue that simply growing some or most of your own food is one of the best ways to Reduce--it reduces packaging, food miles (the miles driven to get your food from the farm to the plate), use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides (if you garden sustainably), calories (have you ever spent an hour weeding?), and it reduces the mystery of where your food comes from and what's in it.  The list goes on and on.

Recycling is pretty simple and straightforward, right?  It's almost second nature in most homes and many offices now, to separate waste into separate bins.  There's no mystery there.  Or is there?  If you're not sure, check out the recycling page at Edco Disposal.  You might be surprised at what can't go into the blue bins.  Another way to recycle something that the City won't, is to reuse it!

Here on the Farm, we're really good at Reusing.  Nearly everything here had a former life as something else.  Even our soil--the compost and mulch we initially brought in--had a former life as green waste from yards all over the city.

Some more examples of our Reuse projects:

Wood Shipping Pallets + Monkey Cages + Cheap Paint = Compost Bins

Wood Outbuilding + a little skill with the circular saw = Tool Cabinet

Bedframe + Bike Wheel + Plywood Sign = Garden Cart

Wood Outbuilding + PVC Pipe scraps + Cast off air matress and carpet = Green Roof!

Mini-blinds + graphite pencil = weather proof plant markers

Plywood scraps + Moldy pile of bamboo = Charming Garden Bridge

And of course, more moldy bamboo puts the 'Pole' in Pole Bean

And we're just getting started!

Farmer Update: Adam's Report

Hey all you food lovers out there, this is Adam with the blog report for the first week of September.

Since the last post, a lot has been going on!  For starters, the 'three sisters' garden has really started to take off.  After cutting back some of the tightly grouped together corn and feeding the plants with some organic fertilizers, it is all starting to grow very large and healthy looking.

A large section of the area with Bermuda grass popping up has been meticulously hand-weeded due in large part to our new intern, Marley.  That freshly de-grassed soil was mixed with a good amount of compost and made into a very nice, soft bed for sweet potatoes.

In the back, Ben and Paul have been working hard at getting our living roof for the shed set up.  With the sides all built and some of the drainage materials in place, it is almost ready to be mounted.

The hillside up against the wall has been planted with some beans and thoroughly covered in mulch to keep the soil fertile for our fruit trees that may be coming soon.  Keep posted to find out; we might be getting a large number of trees rather quickly.

With so much growth going on at the Farm, and so much activity, we have re-instituted our path and made a couple of off-shoot paths to make sure our young plants aren't getting trampled.  It is looking more official every day!

The Fall semester is now in full swing, and things have really started to pick up at the Farm.  We have been getting a lot of support from students and faculty who are both really excited about the new Farm that sprouted up this Summer.  We have even gotten some volunteers as people walk by and want to help out.

Thanks to everyone that has been giving their support and don't be shy to come out and ask us questions, or just say hello!

August on the Farm

While most gardens traditionally are at their peak and even winding down in some areas, ours is really just getting started.  Making the most of our long long growing season, we're still encouraging the growth of things that are usually started in the early Spring, like corn, gourds, winter squash, beans for drying, and even tomatoes!

What's growing?  Here's a quick photo tour for you, of the Farm and the work we did in August.

While we lost one of our four interns, Sara, early on in the Summer (and perhaps we'll see her apply again in the future!) our remaining three interns, Adam, Ben and Kim, have been working hard.  They all signed on for another internship for the Fall Semester, and we gained another, Marley (stay tuned for more about Marley!).  So in addition to their Farm duties, and their classwork, they will also be blogging here!

Next up, an update from Adam!

Whole Lotta Plantin' Goin' On!

We started doing a little bit of planting in June, but during July the Farm really started to look like more than just a field of dirt.

Maintaining healthy plants means maintaining healthy soil, so we spent some time learning various methods for preparing a garden for planting.

In early July, the interns spent a day doing some hard labor, double digging a small vegetable bed.  Double digging is a fairly labor-intensive method of preparing a new area for planting.  There is a great little write-up here.  Once the bed was dug, they planted some radishes and greens from seed.  These plants are getting a lot of sun and not a lot of water, but they appear to be doing fine, even in the recent heat wave.  Fast-growing radishes are certainly the Farm's first crop!

In the large area to the right of the herb bed, we also seeded some cover crops.  Planting cover crops is another way of improving the soil prior to planting the main crop, or to feed the soil after taking out a spent crop.  You can read more about cover crops and their benefits here.  The plants we are using will add nitrogen to the soil and their deep roots will break up the clay-ish soil under the compost.  And once the plants die back or get cut down, the plants will add more organic matter to the soil as they break down.  These were slow in sprouting, but they seem to be taking off now.

To the left of the path, toward the rear of the Farm, we planted some bush beans.  Like cover crops, beans are another crop that feed the soil by fixing nitrogen.  These were planted simply by making a hole in the mulch and soil, and dropping in seeds.  Despite a few bug holes, they seem happy:

The largest area planted in July is the Three Sisters Bed.  The three sisters are corn, beans and squash, traditionally planted together by some Native American peoples.  The three plants form a simple plant community, a technique widely employed in Permaculture-style gardens; each plant benefits the others, requiring less of the gardener.  The Three Sisters bed on our Farm was prepared by tilling the soil first with a motor-powered tiller.  Then corn and squash were planted in rows.  When the corn has grown about six inches, we'll be planting the beans.  This particular bed was also the first to incorporate an irrigation system, but more on that later!

We've also had a few miscellaneous plants added to the Farm; donated seedlings and some fruit trees.  The upper and lower slopes adjacent to the main garden area are destined to become orchards.  In July, on the upper slope, we planted a beautiful striped Panache Fig underplanted with some dogbane that is just starting to bloom.  Also on the upper slope, a Santa Rose plum was added.  On the lower slope, some donated squash and tomatoes were planted.

We're making the most of the space we have, and the automatic irrigation system, while we can.  And while traditionally, most gardens are already reaching their peak right about now, we are taking advantage of San Diego's incredibly long growing season.  It's almost never too late to start your garden!

Adding Structure

July was a busy month at the Farm!  Last month we began multi-tasking.  Each week, Julia, Paul, the interns and several of us volunteers worked on various projects, including building garden structures, planting, trimming and disposing of brush, and installing irrigation!  Sounds like a farm, no?

It's starting to look like one, too!

There has been more than digging and composting going on--we've been hammering and sawing!  Our pallet-turned-composter turned out to be the first of many structures to be built on the Farm.

The first structure we built in July was a small bridge to span the drainage grate at the center of the garden, which keeps soil and mulch from clogging the drain.  We used some recycled plywood and some bamboo which had been lying around molding and waiting for a higher purpose.

We spent a morning taking turns splitting, cleaning and generally getting to know bamboo very well.  By the end of that day, this little beauty was completed.  Surrounded by happy herbs and a stone border, it makes a beautiful centerpiece and adds some visual interest to the plot while we wait for some plants to grow in.

The second structure to go up in July was a tool cabinet.  Built from repurposed materials, as is just about everything on the Farm, and built in stages over several weeks, the cabinet was completed by the beginning of August.

The wood for the cabinet had a former life as a shed at an elementary school.  With a simple plan and some basic power tools, this went together fairly easily.  It took a little bit of work to level the site, but the finished cabinet looks fantastic!  Building this structure has its obvious advantages, such as securing our tools, but it was also a wonderful lesson in basic carpentry.  The interns and volunteers are each given a chance to work on each task and build some valuable skills.

Greening the Garden

This last Saturday was an exciting day at the Farm for two reasons--it was the first day we planted something, and the first day we began composting!

When we arrived, we discovered what the interns had worked on during the week prior: a completed compost bin sitting on a level area that looks like it's been bramble-free for months!

Ain't she purdy?

They had also worked on the area around the drain.  Near the middle of the Farm, there is a 2 foot square drain that allows any runoff from the sprinkers or rain to escape, rather than sit on the grassy level.  The fact that a drain was necessary seems to point to the fact that a grassy lawn, no matter how thirsty, is not the most efficient way to handle runoff.  Now that the grass is gone, there's a potential for the dirt and compost to clog the drain.  We've covered it temporarily with some landscapers burlap, but a better solution is to let some ground-covering plants do what they do best--absorb and filter water and keep dirt where it needs to be.

A circular area around the drain was dug and turned, which aerated the soil and loosened it for planting.  Any clumps of that tenacious sod that still had not broken down were hauled away to the compost pile.  The work went pretty quickly, especially with Julia leading us in song!  "Our roots go down, down in the ground..."

Once the soil was ready, we brought in the plants.  We chose low-growing perennial herbs that will quickly fill the area.  Of course by quickly, we mean by late Fall, but in the long run, that's quick enough.  We planted thyme, sage, peppermint, Chocolate mint, pennyroyal, yarrow, oregano, lemon balm, and a red-veined sorrel.  We then mulched our new herb bed with our Eucalyptus bark mulch and watered it well.

Of course the risk of planting anything in the city, as many urban home gardeners can tell you, is that it may not be there the next day.  Vandalism is the bane of every big city, even America's Finest.  We have been holding off planting much at this point, because we are waiting for the installation of the perimeter fence.  But I'm happy to report, that as of the following Monday morning, our herbs were where we planted them and they looked very content!

Next up: compost!  Paul brought a truckload of a variety of green plant materials to add to what we had from clearing the Farm site.   To read more about how compost is made, and why it is so important for organic gardening, this wikipedia entry is a good start.

So we had a big pile of green stuff--what to do with it?

Actually, the first thing we did was pull the sugar cane out of there!  The sugar cane (what looks sort of like bamboo in the lower left corner of the pile up there) grows in Paul's yard.  We have to count ourselves lucky to be living in a city where we can grow almost anything, nearly year 'round.  So we had ourselves a little local meal of oranges, grapefruit and sugar cane.  Paul showed us how gorillas peel the cane with their canine teeth, and we all embraced our inner gorilla. 

Some of us also embraced our inner 10-year-old--maybe it was the raw cane juice?

Then it was back to work.  We all gathered together for a fantastic lecture by Paul on compost (preceeded by an interesting lecture on the robber fly, after finding one hitching a ride on Ben's leg).  By the time I left, the remaining folks were using shovels to break up all the greenery, and by Monday morning, it looked like this:

Clearing the Way

On the first day of summer, we arrived to find that the interns had cleared away some of the area at the back of the Farm which will be the future compost/storage area.  Writing it that way makes it sound like it was an easy job. 

But what started out as a thick bramble of roses and bougainvillea (thorny!):

Eventually started to look like a clearing:

And then, miraculously, like this:

So part of our work that morning was to take care of the brushpile, which was unfortunately more than we could compost here at this point, so it will get composted by the City:

We now have an intense dislike new appreciation for bougainvillea I think.  It took a while to fill up the dumpster twice, with Paul's occasional help.

Meanwhile, we were also working on the new clearing to level it enough for our future compost bin.  The composter will eventually look something like this set-up:

Making the most of recycled materials, those are wood pallets and galvanized wire mesh that had a former life as a monkey cage at the Zoo!

It was time for a work break when we had a few visitors stop by the Farm: Karon Klipple, chair of the City College Environmental Stewardship Committee, and idea-woman behind the Farm, and two City College Graphic Design students, Sara and Desiree.  Sara and Desiree were brought to the project to give the Farm a visible 'identity' with signage, branding, and a design for a perimeter fence.  We all sat in the shade and had a brainstorming session, discussing potential names, fence design, and a general future vision for the Farm.

We got back to work, feeling a little more inspired, I think.  Although by the time most of us left, Julia, Paul, Kim and Ben were still working at this:

Future Farmers

This summer on the Farm, we are happy to have four hard-working interns.  While there are usually several extra volunteers working with them on Saturdays, our interns also work two days a week with Julia and Paul.  At the end of the summer their reward will be, in addition to a wealth of gardening knowledge and a fine tan, a $400 stipend.

We'll let them introduce themselves!

"My name is Adam Taylor and I am an Environmental Science major expecting to transfer to either UCSD or SDSU in the Fall/Winter 2009. Basically since High School I have been traveling and taking a broad range of classes from computer science, photography, EMT and finally finding my passion in the sciences.  I am especially interested in learning more about sustainablity and the idea of an Urban Farm fits that perfectly.  I am excited to get my hands dirty and learn as much as possible about farming and sustainability from this internship and I hope that it creates a similar interest in the local community."

"I am Kimberly Lopez and I am currently studying Food and Nutrition at City College and plan to continue at SDSU. I would like to further my knowledge and study Botany, as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine and Homeopathic Medicine. I am hoping to gain more than adequate skills during this program, so that I may pass on the knowledge and help many start their own organic garden amidst this concrete city. In a time where food is becoming less and less naturally cultivated and available, I believe the ability to grow food efficiently and sustainably will soon become a necessity, and force many to become more aware of the earth we reside upon."


"I am Sara Medina and I am only 17.  I'm a student at Garfield High School right behind City College.  I was interested in the garden simply because I want to find new ways of getting my food on the table.  At school we are also planning to start our own garden, so by me getting my hands on this will help me to be more involved with the High School garden.  I also just want it to be part of something different.  I hadn't heard of urban gardening 'til this year.  So it's definitely a whole new experience."


"My name is Ben Lowrey.  I am 25 and for about 4 years now I have been a vegan.  I decided to go back to school to learn about organic farming because as a vegan I felt knowing how to grow food would be the most important skill I could learn. I really wanted to be apart of something that would benefit the community and teach me about organic farming and this project is doing both."

If you see these folks on campus, or working on the Farm, stop and say hello and tell them what a great job they are doing!

If you are a City College student or a student at Garfield High or San Diego High and you think you'd would like to become an intern during the Fall semester, contact Karon Klipple or Terry Wilson (see top left sidebar for contact info.) for application information.  Or visit the San Diego City College Environmental Stewardship website for details and an application.

Laying Down (on) a Path

We're pretty excited about this project at the Farm.  Really excited.  Ask anyone of us involved and we'll go on about it until compost is coming out of your ears (oh, don't we wish it was!).  It's what keeps us coming back here every weekend, breaking our backs to shovel mulch and wrestle bougainvillea thorns.

One reason we stay excited is Julia Dashe. No one is more enthusiastic about this project than Julia and it's contagious.

Julia Dashe is our Gardening Coordinator.  Her background is with the Edible Schoolyard Project started in Berkeley, and she now works with San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project and with the Terra Nova Garden at Morse High School.  Karon Klipple, the Chair of the Environmental Stewardship Committee here at City, invited Julia to head our own garden project, and then they brought in Paul.  We are extremely lucky to have these two folks direct our work on the Farm!

And work it is!  Last Saturday we laid down a garden path, and began work on clearing out a bit of the bougainvillea at the back end of the Farm for a future storage/composting area.

When we first arrived, we could see some of the grass in spots, looking lush and thoroughly enjoying the compost.

We were happy to see it looking pretty anemic underneath, however, when we began to build the path:

Using rakes, and following the general lines laid out by Paul and Julia, we cleared the layers of compost and mulch away to make a meandering path roughly 3 feet wide (this allows space for the largest wheelbarrow, and for two people to walk abreast), with a larger area at the back tip of the Farm.  We used the displaced compost/mulch to spot target the areas where evil happy grass was poking through.

We then distributed roughly six inches of eucalyptus bark mulch on the path areas:

Until it looked like this:

And because Julia has us so excited about our new fluffy bed of mulch, we decided to try it out:

We encourage you to try this at home!

For larger and more photos, check out our Flickr Album!