Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA)

The Seed Library of Los Angeles meeting of a few months ago, David King presides.

 

The Seed Library of Los Angeles has monthly meetings.  The membership has control over how we spend our money and makes all major decisions.  In addition to tending to this business, the Best Practices Committee presents a 15 minute lecture on saving seeds and answers questions on saving and storing seed for everyone, usually of a time sensitive nature, as in 'this is how you plant tomatoes to save seeds...' comes around right around the time one plants tomoatoes.

We are looking for some entertainment to present at each meeting - singer/songwriter or some folk/country music to add to the festivities!  Each meeting also has a seed swap among members and visitors. 

Our next meeting, April 17th, will be held at The Learning Garden, located on the campus of Venice High School at the corner of Venice Blvd and Walgrove Avenue (yes, you can search for an intersection on Google) - our entrance is on Walgrove Avenue, the east (away from the ocean) side of the street. 

Our meeting will begin at 2:30 and we hope to have a little seed swap or some kind of fun after we get the business out of our way.  Contact us for more information as needed.  

This is a very exciting opportunity for anyone concerned about the safety of our seed supply and our society's ability to feed everyone in the coming years. Please come and contribute your energy and creativity to launching this important initiative.

We schedule the following meeting at each meeting.  We haven't decided on a set day of the month to have our meetings. 

david, 

Chair

Victory Gardening Series At The Learning Garden

Thank you for your interest in the Victory Garden Classes at The Learning Garden. Below you will find the answers to most your questions. Please feel free to email me with questions if I failed to cover something of concern to you.

Don't delay registering! We need a deposit for each person. Spaces are not considered occupied until we have a deposit. If you don't use PayPal, email me and we'll work something out. And, besides, with the first class THIS SUNDAY, you'll need to hurry!

April 3^rd – 1 PM to 4 PM – Victory Garden Circle  Master Gardener volunteers will lead a low-cost Victory Garden Circle and teach the basics of gardening. The Learning Garden's gardening circle will meet beginning April 3^rd and the following two Sunday's plus the first Sunday in May. These classes of instruction and hands-on activities will introduce gardeners to the basics of growing your own food. You may attend only one or a few, but by attending all four classes, participants will become UC-certified Victory Gardeners.

DATE	WEEK	DETAIL
April 3rd	1	Seed starting, building raised beds, choosing containers, plant selection, including drought-tolerant plants (3 hours)
April 10th	2	Transplanting, soil preparation, irrigation, wise water use (3 hours)
April 17th	3	Pest management (weeds, diseases, insects), beneficial insects (3 hours)
May 1st	4	Composting, harvesting, seed saving, review, recipes, graduation event/certificates (3 hours)

$20 per workshop, $70 for 4 class series, partial scholarships may be available, Kids under 12 free if space permits. Class size limited. Reserve your space by with a PayPal deposit of $20, the rest will be paid at the Garden.

 

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=CNE3VEVV9P6G4

Checks will be made payable to The Learning Garden. Dress to actually do gardening, we will be doing practical gardening in every class! Seeds, plants and other goodies will be a part of every meeting – bring your own water and provide your own plate and utensils as we will share our harvest with you (and hope you'll bring munchies too!)

The Learning Garden is located on the grounds of Venice High School (13000 Venice Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90066) at the intersection of Venice Blvd. and Walgrove Avenue – the entrance is on Walgrove. 

The courses at The Learning Garden will be facilitated by David King, Gardenmaster, Betty Goldstein, Master Gardener and other Master Gardeners. This program is a part of UC Cooperative Extension in Los Angeles County,"Grow LA Victory Garden Initiative. " A series of courses for those who wish to grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables, this initiative will help new gardeners learn to start their own gardens quickly and easily in a container, in the backyard or at a community garden, bringing together local families and neighborhoods to share their experiences, skills and produce. Participants will be able to turn this new interest in gardening into successful, productive gardens that will generate positive changes in their homes by helping to lower grocery bills and enhance opportunities to eat healthy, nutritious foods.

For additional information on the initiative, please contact Yvonne Savio, Common Ground Garden program manager, at 323.260.3407, ydsavio@ucdavis.edu. 

For additional information about The Learning Garden's Offering of these classes, please contact David King, Gardenmaster, at 310.722.3656 or greenteach@gmail.com.

For information on the individual classes offered throughout the Los Angeles basin, please check the Calendar listings on Cooperative Extension's Web site celosangeles.ucdavis.edu/.

You will have a class garden at The Learning Garden where you will plant vegetables as a part of your class. Dress to be outside and gardening!

Thanks,

david

The March Garden

March. Baseball teams are in Spring Training in Florida and Arizona. Tomatoes are growing in a protected location with 'bottom heat' so they can be set out in the garden close to the end of April.

We've all heard the old saying about March coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion, or is it coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb? Whatever the exact saying, it correctly alludes to March as a more schizophrenic month; certainly a truism as far as gardening goes. On one hand, we are still tending our winter vegetables, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce, while on the other we need to be planning on what we will soon be eating in summer.

Those of us on the coast can continue to plant more winter vegetables if we haven't had our fill of all those cabbage family plants. I usually find I can grow winter vegetables right on into late May in most years. Some of the winter veggies will 'oversummer' for us; leeks, fennel, chard and kale will hold on in most summers although they can look downright ratty once our June Gloom has left us.

Royal Purple Pod beans can go in even in February, certainly by mid-March, I'll have a row growing. This is the only bean that will germinate in cold, wet soil. All other beans, in most years, will need to be planted no sooner than late March or early April.

You can buy tomato starts in March, but I wouldn't want to plant them out until later in the month. Tomatoes will survive cool soil, but they will thrive much better in warmer soil. If you want to grow tomatoes from seed, I usually sow mine in February. I start them in a sheltered location, but still in direct sun – I use a grow mat that warms the soil to about 70° so the tomatoes get off to a good start – I sow basil the same way at the same time. Other summer crops that I start in pots to be transplanted later, including peppers, eggplants and okra, need more heat and I don't even mess with those until after mid-March. They will be ready to sow out into the garden come the first of May (allow about 6 weeks to get them up, up and away).

This is one of the more busy months in the garden because I should be harvesting from the winter crops and I'm out there looking at those plants trying to figure out where I'll be able to plant the summer crops.

I'm awfully fond of lettuce. One of my Summer rituals is making a big production out of the first BLT of the year where I've grown the L and the T in my garden – if I'm lucky I'll have also baked the bread myself too. The hard part is getting the L and the T to cooperate. Tomatoes love heat, to really fruit they need temperatures above 84° while most lettuce is positively allergic to temperatures above 75°. There are some varieties of lettuce bred to be less heat sensitive – Jericho and Summertime are the two I'm most familiar with – look for them in seed catalogs and try planting lettuce plants North of taller plants to give them more shade.

In one fit of fanaticism, I once grew lettuce year round. I created a bed just for lettuce. I created a copper snail barrier to keep those salad lovers out, and set up a series of little misters to spray the plants twice a day with a cooling mist. But the most significant feature was an old window screen (frame and all), resting over the plants on four 18” wooden stakes (easily purchased at a local garden supply store). The screen proved to be the most effective part of the whole operation. I was able to grow lettuce right on into the middle of October, when a heat wave and an irrigation failure contrived together to completely fried the remaining plants. Fried lettuce has about the same appeal as month old bread. If you want lettuce all summer you might give this – or some of this – a spin in your garden.

March is a month filled with activity – daylight savings time now starts at the end of the second week and boy do gardeners need that extra hour! Look at what you have in the ground and begin to imagine full size tomato, pepper, eggplant and basil plants growing there. Try to contain yourself and get a reasonable view of what you can plant. Check out the suggested planting spaces on the plants you want; measure to see how many you can reasonably accommodate. No, don't multiply by four! (We all do it anyway, don't we?)

Warm Season Vegetables

...and varieties I suggest you try... 

Basil

Lettuce Leaf, Genovese,

Beans - drying

Black Turtle, Cannellini,

Beans – Lima

Christmas

Beans- snap

Roc d’Or, Romano, Royal Burgundy

Sweet Corn

Golden Bantam, Stowells Evergreen, County Gentleman

Popcorn

Cucumbers

Lemon, Mideast Prolific, Japanese, Armenian

Eggplant

Pingtung Long, Rosa Bianca

Melons

Jenny Lind, Ambrosia, Hales Best

Okra

Star of David, Clemson Spineless

Peppers (Sweet)

Banana, Pimento, Cubanelle,

Peppers (Hot)

Ancho, Corno di Toro, Anaheim, Jalapeno

Pumpkins

Small Sugar, Howden

Squash (Summer)

Zahra, Lebanese White

Squash (Winter)

Sweet Dumpling, Red Kuri, Queensland Blue

Tomatillo

Purple de Milpa

Tomatoes

Brandywine, Juane Flamme, San Marzano, Black Krim, Stupice, Sweet 100’s, Yellow Pear and thousands others!

BAKER CREEK HEIRLOOM SEEDS; 2278 Baker Creek Road Mansfield, MO 65704; 417.924.8917 What a catalog! Beautiful pictures of the produce – vegetable porn for sure. I have never ordered from them, but I have heard good things about them.

BOUNTIFUL GARDENS; 18001 Shafer Ranch Road; Willits, CA 95490; 707.459.6410 Organic seed; open-pollinated. A part of the work done by John Jeavons, a proud and active member of the population of organic and open-pollinated gardeners. If you see him, he owes me a laser pointer.


FEDCO; PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903 207.873.7333 They are rabidly anti-GMO, though they do carry hybrids in addition to open-pollinated seeds. A wonderful and extensive selection. (A lovely letter to customers can be found on their site, Sticker Shock Moves from the Oil Tank to the Seed Catalog. Someone who writes this beautiful deserves to get some of our money!)

PEACEFUL VALLEY FARM SUPPLY; PO Box 2209; Grass Valley, CA 95945; 916.272.4769 I have purchased many seeds (and other things!) from Peaceful Valley – I love their catalog. They have an excellent selection of cover crop seeds as well as a lot of organic gardening supplies and tools.

NATIVE SEED/SEARCH; 526 N. 4th Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705; 520.622.5561 (Fax 520.622.5591) Specializing in the seeds of south western United States, concentrating on the ancient seeds of the First Nations' Peoples from amaranth to watermelon. A worthy cause for your money. Please note, this entry does not appear on the handout distributed in class, that is my error.

PINETREE GARDEN SEEDS; PO Box 300, Rt. 100; New Gloucester, ME 04260; 207.926.3400 Probably the best for a home gardener – small packets of very current seed, a very good value. The smaller packets mean a smaller price so a person can order a lot more varieties and experiment. I have been a customer for many years.

SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE; Rt. 3 Box 239; Decorah, Iowa 52101; 563.382.5990 Membership fees $35. Free brochure. Some organic, but ALL open-pollinated. There are two ways to save seeds: one is to collect them all and keep them in a huge building that protects them from everything up to (and including) nuclear holocaust. The other way is to grow 'em. You can find the chance to grow them here.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SEED EXCHANGE; P.O. Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117, 540.894.9480 (Fax: 540.894.9481) A commercial venture that is somewhat similar to Seed Savers Exchange, but really isn't an exchange. They do carry seed saving supplies - nice to have if you are going to save seed.

david