Paradise Garden Project- Tilling

     

Jimmy

Related articles

• Proper tiller can make the difference (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Growing Onions in Hay (shantara.wordpress.com)
• Gardening Tips for Busy People! (mainstreethomes.wordpress.com)

Paradise Garden Project- Indoor Cultivation Part 1

HAPPY ARBOR DAY!

I started the indoor grow room about one month ago. My main objective at the moment is to keep as many plants as I can growing indoors all year round and using what we grow to plant in our garden and exchange for plants we do not have with other growers. We broke ground on the first garden plot this week. Mattes and I bought a few plants and a yard of good compost soil from The Highland Garden Center in Upland and some stuff from the Home depot. There is still much tilling and fertilization to be done and we plan on completing those tasks this week, so we have plenty of space to plant from seed and sprouts.

I am not sure exactly how many different types of vegetables, legumes, melons, squashes and everything else we have growing right now. I kind of lost track but it is somewhere around 30-40 varieties. In the last month I have had more people helping me. I have been pretty busy doing this and going to school full time so I am glad people are starting to get on board with the project, there is till much to be done. 

Related articles

• Indoor Vertical Gardens - Danielle Trofe's Live Screen Conveniently Waters Itself (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Resistance is Fertile (thepopulistfarmer.wordpress.com)
• Best Plants to Choose When Starting a Container Vegetable Garden (brighthub.com)
• Save Some Green in Your Vegetable Garden (couponshoebox.com)
• Different Types Of Vegetable Gardens (juicingforhealth.wordpress.com)
• Tips for Growing Indoor Corn Plants to Harvest (brighthub.com)

Paradise Garden Project Online Member Application

Membership in Paradise Gardening Project is free but we're only looking for people who are serious about making a commitment right now. We have about two acres of land at our co-op located in the middle of Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. In exchange we're offering free personal garden plots and an opportunity to be a part of the business as we grow. We're not only interested in growing food but also many varieties of flowers, ground cover and rare, exotic and landscaping plants. Our main focus is to reach out to the community and build an outdoor virtual gardening classroom and have weekly sustainable living work-shops, art/music shows and Vegan Potlucks. One of our goals is to grow enough food and plants to sell for a small profit at local farmer's markets and nurseries. This way, we hope to create a few jobs and support non-profit food and homeless programs like Food Not Bombs!  

Paradise Garden Project Weekend Update- Week 1

The weather this week was perfect to begin working on the garden. I started clearing out weeds and general clean-up on Monday.Spent about two hours a day getting things ready, trying to get a jump on this seasons planting. Wednesday I picked up about a hundred packs of seeds from the 99 cent store, around 30 different varieties of vegetables, snap-dragons and sunflowers. They have several varieties of vegetable and flower seeds. This year we're growing flowers too. I'll probably go back to the store today to pick up more seeds, they're only 9 cents a pack and they sell quick so it's good to buy up as much as possible. I don't want to limit the garden to just vegetables, we can grow everything. I'm looking forward to eventually trading some of what we grow for stuff we don't have with local gardeners and nurseries. I found out that it's more effective to cultivate seedlings before planting. What we need right now is more small pots to start seedlings in. On Friday I took some plastic soda bottles I had saved up and cut them in half and poked a few holes for drainage on the bottom  to make some seedling pots. 

Paradise Garden Project Tools Wish List

John Deere Tractor 

First we need about 10 to 15 tractors to start. Preferably John Deere Tractors. I'm sure some people out there have a few lying around collecting dust. Actually, I've been thinking about how much better it is to use only hand tools in a garden, there's a lot of reasons. It might be quick and easy to use a gas or electric tiller, lawn mower, weed eater, etc. but those things are expensive and breakdown, it's a trade off for momentary convenience. 

Dirt First Community Garden Collective- Dana Point, California

Dirt First Community Garden in Dana Point, California started in 2008. Sadly, I haven't made it out there yet but pretty soon I'm going to start visiting and writing about other community garden projects in Southern California. Dirt First will be one of the first places. They have no upcoming events at the moment but will probably start having some shows and pot-lucks around February. Also they're in a pretty sweet location just south of Dana Point, one of the best beaches. For more information or questions contact Scott Brown on  Dirt First's facebook page: 

Community Garden Websites

This is the first article in a series about the best websites for information about anything related to community gardens. I've been doing a lot of research about gardening lately, to get ready for growing this year. So I thought I should share some clips and links to useful websites I found. 

American Community Garden Association

http://www.communitygarden.org/index.php

The ACGA website has a great guide to starting a community garden. 

http://www.communitygarden.org/learn/starting-a-community-garden.php

PDF Guide:

http://communitygarden.org/docs/starting_a_community_garden7-06.pdf

Ten Tools 

Ten Steps

Rebel Tomato is part of ACGA's youth outreach program. It's has a basic step-by-step menu that has links to resources for educators or gardening enthusiasts

REBEL TOMATO:

http://www.communitygarden.org/rebeltomato/index.php

Paradise Garden Project

I started Punk Not Profit! Here two years ago in the hopes that I would be able to provide a place for people to do shows, DIY workshops and gardening. We did do a lot of shows and they were great but honestly I was hoping for more people to come forward expressing interests in workshops and gardening. A few people came out of the woodwork and those few would've been enough to start something then but I have to admit with everything going on I was under a bit of stress and sort of lost focus on how important Punk Not Profit! and this project is to me. 

We have the land you have the heart, let's make this happen this year. We have 10x10 gardening plots available for free in exchange for a little work on the garden. All I ask is that people stay committed to tending the garden and sharing what is grown with the rest of the collective.  Also looking for people to teach DIY workshops on the weekend. Please spread the word.

If you are interested in having a garden plot, doing a DIY workshop or helping in anyway, contact me anytime, thanks. --Dusty Dirt

dustydirthouse@gmail.com

(909) 276-4648

Paradise Garden Project

Promote Your Page Too

Dirt! The Movie Trailer

This is a documentary film coming out soon called "Dirt!The Movie". It is based on a book by William Bryant Logan called "Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth". I haven't read it and probably won't because I don't have that kind of attention span but this movie looks pretty cool so I'll probably watch it a few times.

First Pick: Radishes, Atmospheric Nitrogen Chart, Sharedearth.com

We just picked these Radishes yesterday. It's the first to finish growing in the garden. 

That shit grew fast only took about a month. I hadn't made anything with radishes, 

ever so we found a simple recipe where you just fry them for a minute in butter and 

put it on bread, I didn't know radishes could taste so good.

A lot more stuff is growing and almost ready to pick. Today and this weekend
we'll be working on our mulch pit system and planting mostly Legumes so we
can get some nitrogen flowing through the soil.

I found this cool little thing about Nitrogen...

This is a new social networking site for gardeners offering to share land for people
to grow food or people looking for a place to grow. I haven't signed up yet
but probably will.

http://sharedearth.com

It's actually kind of sad. there is a lot of people on this site but when you look
at Socal there's only a few spots in LA. Kinda shows how many people don't
give a fuck about growing food.

“Establishing a Food Forest (the Permaculture Way series)"

A few months back I was researching about gardening and I stumbled on a blog somewhere that had a link to this documentary  film by Permaculturist Geoff Lawton. I had never heard of Permaculture before but the other part of the title was "Establishing a Food Forrest" and that sounded interesting. So I watched it and at first it was a little boring because it was about 20 minutes of lecturing. In the last 10 minutes or so of the lecture it starts to pick up when he talks about layering systems in a food forest.

Then it get's really cool when he takes you out into his food forest and explains what it's really all about. I was glued to the screen the whole time. It actually made the idea of having a garden way more exciting to me. So I give this film a 10 out of 10. It is very informative and I think anyone who likes gardening should see it.

Punk Not Profit! DIY Permaculture Gardening Jornal Part 1

Welcome to part 1 of the Punk Not Profit! Permaculture Gardening Journal 

We tilled and started planting about 3 weeks ago. Since then a few sprouts have come up, mostly beets and lettuce. Here's a list of what's been planted so Far:

Carrots

Romaine Lettuce

Broccoli

Turnips

Radish

Kale

Flowering Kale

Cauliflower

Parsley

Cucumber

Pickle Cucumber

Beets

Kohlrabi

Rainbow Bell Pepper

Arugula 

Zucchini

Summer Squash

Cantaloupe

Water Melon

Eggplant (Black Beauty)

Large Cherry Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Basil

Rosemary

Thyme

Chives 

Dill

Green Onion

When you sow your seed you have to have the soil at least tilled a few inches down and if possible get a few truck loads of mulch and spread it over the soil so when you till it mixes in. 

This time around we weren't able to get a lot of mulch in before tilling but that's okay because the soil around the house is very nutrient rich already. 

Once we had our first plot of land tilled up, we were ready to start sowing seed. This is a process that takes very little time and effort, and it's fun because there are many ways to lay out and design a Permaculture garden.

Here's an example of one way to plant tomatoes...

In a nutshell, the difference between plain old gardening and Permaculture is that with Permaculture you're creating a self-sustaining ecosystem by naturally manipulating grow cycles.

The trick is to have nitrogen rich soil and of course good irrigation. Using chickens and growing legumes are the two best ways to naturally enrich the earth with nitrogen. If you can't have any chickens, the legumes would be enough but using chickens is the fastest way to establish a Permaculture system. 

I'm going to write more later about how awesome chickens are for growing food but I can't have chickens right now so I'm just using Legumes.

   

These are just a few different types of legumes you can use. I've heard that cow peas have a very high amount of nitrogen in them so they're one of the best to plant. The legumes live in die in different cycles, some plants die and reseed every year, others wont die for up to 15 years. The goal is to have legumes constantly growing inside and around your Permaculture garden. The way I'm doing this is by making large mounds about 3 feet wide and 10 or more feet long. These mounds will be inside and all around the garden as it expands. 

After the first grow cycle you'll start seeing the benefits of Permaculture. The soil will be enriched with nitrogen and other essential naturally occurring nutrients. You'll start noticing a higher yield in less time with less effort.

"Chop and Drop"

First off one of the problems with gardening or farming the old fashioned way is the misconception that everything needs to be planted in rows by itself. Secondly, it's not true that weeds are always a bad thing as long as they're kept under control they too can benefit a Permaculture system as part of what's called "Chop and Drop" 

 

When a PS is ready for harvest you do not have to remove dead or unused foliage, you simply chop out what you grew and drop the remains on the ground. This not only refertilizes the soil but also takes a lot of  time and labor out of Harvesting.

After about ten years an established PS will be completely sustainable and regrow by itself with very little effort on the grower's part after harvest. 

SEEDS

I get most of my seeds from the .99 cents store up the street. They sell for .11 cents a pack, they usually have about 50 or so varieties. Seeds can go for up to 3.00 a pack other places so this is a really good deal, a cheap way to get a ton of seeds.

 

 There are organisations online that will send you free packs of seeds if you pay for the shipping, I have yet to take advantage of that.

If you get food stamps (like me sometimes), you can use them to buy seeds or even sometimes potted plants, maybe that way you can grow your own food and get off the stamps.