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