Green Gal

This morning I had the pleasure of interviewing Lily Urmann, my dear friend and fellow UCSC sustainabilibuddy graduate. We spoke about one of her favorite favorite subjects: Biomimicry. The Biomimicry Institute describes biomimicry as "an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies. The goal is to create products, processes, and policies—new ways of living—that are well-adapted to life on earth over the long haul. The core idea is that nature has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. After billions of years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival." Lily is fully immersed in the study and development of programs related to biomimicry at Arizona State University. The work of the Biomimicry Center at ASU is at the forefront of biomimicry educati...

Nine months ago, I harvested my first vegetables from Green Gal's Garden. That initial harvest on May 20 consisted of nine heads of bok choy. Although the harvest that day was small and too early for my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, it was a momentous occasion. Planting the bok choy transplants  Momentous because, with a little bit of my help, some living beings had rooted themselves in the garden soil and gathered sunlight and nutrients and grown from tiny seeds in my small greenhouse to edible vegetables. The miracle of seeds growing into plants has been happening for a really long time on this planet, but observing and supporting this process continues to be magical and profound. The process of photosynthesis is intimately tied to the lives of every human on earth. Bok choy seedlings in the greenhouse Nine months later, I look back on all of the vegetables and herbs that I harvested in the garden from May 20 until November 8, 2018, and ...

Colorful chickens, roosters, and two curious goats make up the welcome party that greets visitors to River School Farm in Reno, Nevada. I had the pleasure of meeting these farm animals, as well as Farmer Tom, during a first Friday farm tour on February 1, 2019. It was my first behind-the-scenes introduction to Reno farming, and it left me feeling hopeful and inspired to get involved with the local food system and begin growing my own food here in the high desert. The River School Farm is nestled between the Truckee River and a business park west of downtown. It was established in 1992 and features an event space with a firepit and stage, outdoor kitchen, a nursery in spring/summer, greenhouses, spaces for workshops and classes, compost piles, chicken coops, and more. It's a community gathering place, home to a cohousing project, and an educational space. Learn more about all of the offerings and services River School Farm provides on their website here . During the to...

The weeks pass by so quickly here, each day filled with learning the "why" behind the "how," engaging in interesting discussions with new friends, working, and getting "schooled up" (as Orin Martin would say) in how to be effective and skilled technicians in the art of gardening and farming. Each day could become its own blog post with the story of what was learned, practiced, discovered, and enjoyed. Today's update is a series of quotes, thoughts, and tidbits, a somewhat brief glimpse into my daily life here.   The Cultivation of the Gardener Each week, we have readings due on Wednesday that relate to the topic of our class for that day. One of our readings recently was titled "The Cultivation of the Gardener," written by a few CASFS (Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems) staff a number of years ago. The article describes the biodynamic French Intensive horticulture system brought to UCSC by Alan Chadwick in 1967...

Woah, an entire week of the UC Santa Cruz Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture has already come and gone! It was a full week of meeting new people (40 apprentices plus the staff!), learning all of their names, getting used to group meals three times a day, enduring the cold of my tent cabin, and enjoying the beautiful view. Since last week was the first week and here in Santa Cruz we had rainy skies and saturated soils almost every day, we spent a lot of time inside the Village A3 building meeting everyone, learning about the program and policies, and getting trained on food safety and how to avoid ticks, mosquitos, bee stings, and black widow bites. Oh my! One of the many perks of living on a farm--abundant flowers to decorate your tent cabin! Early in the week, we prepared our spade and fork. They come with a plasticky shellac on the wood, which we removed and sanded down so that we could apply linseed oil instead. This should make the wood last longer than the sh...

A few weeks ago on March 11, I completed* a six-month Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course through Santa Cruz Permaculture , which is directed and taught by my good friend, co-mentor, and UCSC colleague David Shaw . He had strongly encouraged me to participate in the program after learning that I was applying to the UCSC Center for Agroecology & Sustainable Food Systems Apprenticeship in Ecological Horticulture , which I have since been accepted to and will begin on April 10! David shared with me that prior to his time as a CASFS apprentice in the early 2000s, he had completed his PDC and found that it provided him with a valuable whole systems design framework through which he could experience the CASFS apprenticeship. I am so grateful that David shared this advice and that I signed up for the course. I got to know some amazing people, learned some new methods for observing the world around me, found out about some really practical methods for designing systems that make...