Saturday, December 31, 2011

Garden Club!

The Garden, after the second Garden Club meeting during winter!

Emily, our garden coordinator, (but you probably already knew that!) and Mrs. Arigi have been holding the Garden Club. The Garden Club meets every Wednesday during lunch. If you haven't already, you should stop by! We plant, harvest, or you can just come to hang out and eat. Hope to see you there!

Getting ready to plant the woolly's and in the green house, after some winter rain!

Meet Emily!


Hey guys! Gabby here—just wanted to tell you a few things about our new garden coordinator, Emily Buskirk who started on November 1st. Most of you (if you’re a student) know her by Ms. B! Actually Emily was a former student, here, at our very own Miller Creek.  She then went to TL; then UCSB and majored in Geography. She also studied a year abroad at UC (University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ). In 2008, Emily did a year of post graduate study at Victoria University (Wellington, NZ) in Environmental Studies, so that means that before she came back to Miller Creek, Emily had been living in New Zealand!

So far, she has been taking both Mr. Arigi’s and Mrs. Stavropoulos’s classes into the garden. In our interview Emily talked about the work the classes were doing in the greenhouse. It goes like this: Different seeds are planted in different types of soil and one of the plants has soil like the stuff we use in the garden, that one is called the control. The point of the experiment is what soil is the best type of soil to grow the seeds. I also asked Emily about which out of her previous jobs she liked the best! It was a hard choice but we came down to a few like the Rothbury Festival in New Zealand. Emily said there were lots of people and popular bands and singers like Michael Franti and the Spearhead got to play!

Thursday, December 8, 2011

More pictures from summer harvest nights

It is almost winter now but I had a few more pictures to share with you of what the summer garden looked like just as school was starting  in September to remind us of warmer days to come next year!

Summer harvest nights happend every Wednesday night and were open to the surrounding community to come in, enjoy the garden and help harvest our vegetables and fruits. A few families came to harvest our garden vegetables and flowers when they saw us working. Here is a glimpse of the garden at the end of summer.

that is a giant zucchini!

red lettuce
harvest line
our squash  are really huge
an inquistive look

sunflowers

flower
another flower




Fall garden days!

In case you have not noticed, fall has arrived at Miller Creek. We had a long summer harvest period and even now some of the herbs and beneficial flowers in the garden are doing fine.

Now it is time to weed, take out the old summer beds and get ready for the winter plantings. The woolly pockets are also in need of new soil and compost.

Take a look at these mushrooms!

Friday, September 2, 2011

How to make school lunches better!


I was thinking about school lunches and what if...

...all students could be offered a really healthy, organic and beautiful school lunch.
It would be local, sustainable, waste free and organic.
Quality of ingredients, waste free packaging, beautiful preparation, and a fun dining experience
would grow a healthy community!


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Summer 2011 Wednesday Harvest Nights

Harvest nights in the garden
Every Wednesday this summer we had harvest night from 6 - 8 pm at the garden. We have one more on 8.17.11 if you haven't come yet to particpate. Anyone can come help! It is lots of fun and you get to take home what you picked. Check out our summer harvest....

relaxing

the zucchini is enormous!
The garden looks beautiful and was amazing all summer

The sunflowers are over 8 -9' tall

The three sisters - corn, beans and squash - are almost ready to harvest
  
the sweetpeas are pretty




Thursday, June 16, 2011

Chef Seann and the amazing grilled pizza

Chef Seann getting ready to serve the grilled pizza
Well, if you didn't come to our first guest chef event in our outdoor kitchen you really blew it. Chef Seann Pridmore of the Epicurean Group did a fantastic job showing us how to grill veggies that kids would really like to eat (and they WERE really good!). He also showed us how to make a healthy pizza on the grill. YUM!

Chef Seann with artichokes in our outdoor kitchen. We had a huge amount of organically grown veggies donated by Whole Foods Market for Chef Seann to cook besides some veggies and herbs form our very own Miller Creek garden.
We had cheeses dontaed by Nicasio Valley Cheese and Cowgirl Creamery


the audience was very intent


looking at the crops we are growing

Our raffle donors were from our local Marinwood Community Farmers Market. We had a certifcate from The Backyard CSA, organic soaps and lotions from the Rubber Ducky Soap Co., specialty Olive Oil from the Olive Press, and organic plants for the garden from Jim Fenton. Please thank them all next time you go to the Saturday farmers market!

We set up tents in case it rained but it never did

enjoying the action


having fun decorating our rain harvesting cistern


Helping Chef Seann with peeling fava beans

everyone had fun

Friday, May 27, 2011

June 5 - Guest Chef Event at the Garden!

I am so excited to announce that our first guest Chef in our outdoor kitchen is Chef Seann Pridmore of the Epicurean Group. Chef Seann rocks! See you there! Admission is free but donations are welcome.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Our Orchard and Spring Volunteer Workday

Peyton and I making garden houses

morning weeding and mulching
The garden is all good! Last week we had another volunteer workday and we got a lot done. We took out some over-grown plants and put new ones, and moved ALL the mulch to the sides. My dad worked on perfecting the irrigation so we didn’t have to lug the hose around everywhere. (Finally!) But it wasn’t up that day so we had to water the garden the old fashiond way. The good news is, is that all the rain made the plants grown huge and it was very sunny when we were working. On the down side, I forgot sunscreen.


What did they find?
Dads moving the mulch
Moi, Gabby,  moving mulch the fun way!
veggies ready to harvest
It was a very sunny day and hot
our little orchard

adding organic fertlizers to woolly pockets
more weeding





Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Sunday April 3 Garden Workday!!!

butterfly time
Please come help us on Sunday April 3 anytime between 10 am and 4 pm to mulch, weed, plant our orchard trees and connect the cistern. Everyone is welcome  - bring your whole family. Bring rakes, shovels and wheelbarrows - remember to put your name on them. Snacks will be available.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Rainy days in March

our winter harvest!
I am so glad the sun came out today! We have had 24 days out of 26 days this month with rain!!  The good news is the garden is happy! Here are some pictures of our garden in between the rain storms this super duper rainy March.

Closeup of our greens

our greenhouse


Closeup of wooly pocket wall