\t\t\t\tGlobal Gals Gathering<\/p>\n
Gardening May 14, 2015<\/p>\n
Attendees: \u00a0Janice, Sandra, Jen, Sharon, Heather, Beth, Orchidea, Alexis, Megan<\/p>\n
Guest speaker:\u00a0 Sommer Cartier, San Diego Community Garden Network\u00a0 (Sommer.cartier@gmail.com)<\/p>\n
Sommer received her Masters in International Development with emphasis on Food Security.\u00a0 Graduate work at Clark University back East.\u00a0 Focus on cultivating food in Haiti.<\/p>\n
Gardening can be intimidating.\u00a0 Experiment, start growing what you want to grow. You will learn in the process, learn from mistakes.\u00a0 Keeping a journal is helpful.\u00a0 Become an expert on 2 or 3 favorites and become an expert on those first.\u00a0 Can also grow a theme such as salsa, pizza, salad, three sister \u2013 focus on those 4-5 ingredients.<\/p>\n
Three Sisters are the corns, beans, squash.\u00a0 Beans add nitrogen to soil and corn and squash absorb it.\u00a0 Beans grow up the corn stalk.\u00a0 Squash is low lying.<\/p>\n
Heather has visited Walter Anderson Nursery who has helpful staff to answer questions. (Chuck has his Masters in Botany)<\/p>\n
Mico-climate can make a difference.<\/p>\n
Solution to powdery mildew on squash, cucumbers.\u00a0 Key to prevent is to keep plant healthy and water properly then its less prone to mildew.\u00a0 If you get it, treat it immediately, if not, tear out the plant and discard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Treat with Neem Oil, natural oil, spray on the infected plant, it will kill a lot.\u00a0 Spray in the evening when bees are not active.\u00a0 Use it sparingly because it can kill other plants.<\/p>\n
What about caterpillars?\u00a0 Kill them.\u00a0 Remove them from the plants by hand.\u00a0 Captain Jacks is a spray that you can use.\u00a0 Can use for munching bugs.<\/p>\n
Oils may work such as peppermint oil, geranium, chrysanthemum.\u00a0 You can get organic ideas online.<\/p>\n
Avocado trees like a lot of water then let it dry it out.<\/p>\n
Tips for white fly?\u00a0 Neem oil.\u00a0 Earth friendly type dish soap, water it down, spray it.<\/p>\n
Tips for squirrels?\u00a0 Cotton balls soaked in peppermint oil placed where squirrels seem to go.\u00a0 But, that doesn\u2019t consistently work. You can also put cages around the plants, but you have to let pollinators in.<\/p>\n
Tips for gophers?\u00a0 Trap and discard.<\/p>\n
Male could pee in the yard to scare away small mammals such as opossum, raccoons.<\/p>\n
How do you begin to garden?\u00a0 Take a soil sample to City Farmers (Home & Euclid) and Farmer Bill will test it for you then sell you all the products to improve the soil.\u00a0 Can used raised beds.\u00a0 Start small with a\u00a0 1\u2019x1\u2019 box with just a few things.\u00a0 Can buy high producing and disease resistant seeds.\u00a0 Can start with seedlings instead of seeds.\u00a0 Research and know a bit about your soil health.\u00a0 Soil, Water, and Sun are the first things to learn about.\u00a0 Soil is clay and sand.\u00a0 Find level ground.\u00a0 Once you determine location, do your soil test.<\/p>\n
If you have too much sun and plants are burning, use shade cloth.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t water the leaves.\u00a0 Wet leaves can get mold, mildew.\u00a0 If you are watering, do it early morning or late afternoon when the sun is not intense.\u00a0 Its better to do a drip system.\u00a0 The plants should reach for the moisture.\u00a0 Don\u2019t water at the base, water in a circular area around the plant so that the roots can reach for the water.\u00a0 As the plant matures, it needs less water.<\/p>\n
French Dwarf Marigolds deter nematode (microscopic worm that you can\u2019t see).\u00a0 Nematodes stunt growth, doesn\u2019t look healthy during the day.\u00a0 If you see balls on the roots when you pull out the plant, then you have nematodes. To get rid of nematodes, let it go feral for a few seasons, turn the soil once a week.\u00a0 Add a pollinator such as African blue basil, it gets very large and attracts a lot of bees.\u00a0 Another pollinator is Borage but it drops seeds. The flowers are edible.<\/p>\n
Can the same soil be used the following year?\u00a0 You will add compost and other things that you need to amend your soil each year.\u00a0 Can consider crop rotation.<\/p>\n
Medicinal plants:\u00a0 lemon balm, stinging nettle, fever few, blue hyssop, mint, chamomile,<\/p>\n
Grow mint in a pot, it will overtake your garden.<\/p>\n
Thyme has to be cut, harvest it.\u00a0 Start cutting back your basil, cut above the 2 new leaves.<\/p>\n
Container Garden.\u00a0 Summer teaches for Victory Garden on how to do the container garden.\u00a0 Ideally teach 5-15 people.\u00a0 During the class, participants actually plant in the containers.<\/p>\n
Peppers don\u2019t need a lot of water.\u00a0 Eggplant doesn\u2019t need much water.\u00a0 Once kale is established, it doesn\u2019t need much water.<\/p>\n
Community Garden Network<\/span><\/p>\n Sdcgn.org<\/p>\n Connect people to various resources in town around gardening.\u00a0 Wild Willows Farm is an educational farm.\u00a0 Altadena Community Garden somebody owns the land (32nd<\/sup> & Thorn).<\/p>\n Nextdoor.com could put a message to look for someone to garden my back yard hillside.<\/p>\n Good Neighbor Gardens.\u00a0 Install, maintain garden.\u00a0 Owner can harvest what they want but every Friday the gardener will harvest to give to CSA.\u00a0 There is a fee for them to plant and maintain the garden.\u00a0 Goodneighborgardens.com\u00a0 (talk to Mia)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Global Affects<\/span><\/p>\n Western developed countries are destroying the ability for developing countries to farm themselves.\u00a0 Western developed countries pay subsidies to the farmers.\u00a0 Developing country land is owned by wealthy people.<\/p>\n Books to Read<\/span><\/p>\n Paul Farmer, Harvard PhD wrote Mountains Beyond Mountains.<\/span><\/p>\n Frances Moore Lappe wrote Diet for a Small Planet<\/span><\/p>\n Pat Welsh wrote Southern California Organic Gardening<\/span><\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Global Gals Gathering Gardening May 14, 2015 Attendees: \u00a0Janice, Sandra, Jen, Sharon, Heather, Beth, Orchidea, Alexis, Megan Guest speaker:\u00a0 Sommer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ggg","category-home-improvement","category-san-diego-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/global-gals.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}