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Grow it: Gardening tips and resources
Gardening is fun…and it's an important activity. What we grow in school, home and community gardens can improve our health, and the health of our families and communities. What we grow can increase the resiliency of food systems in our communities. And what we grow, ultimately, can connect us more closely with the earth that sustains us. There are valuable lessons in gardening…too many to list here.
Even if you live in a small apartment, you can grow food. If you have a yard, you can grow quite a lot of food. View the transformation of a front yard in an urban area…from lawn to lush, productive food garden in only 60 days. You'll love the progression photos, and the simple explanation about how the garden came together.
Need more inspiration? Roger Doiron, founder of SeedMoney, talks about his (subversive) garden plot in this remarkable TedX talk. Roger created and led the social media campaign that called for a garden at the White House. This campaign ultimately led First Lady Michelle Obama to plant a vegetable garden at the White House. (And it may have also inspired the People's Garden at the USDA, which broke ground on Abraham Lincoln's birthday 10 years ago. Lincoln referred to the USDA as the “People's Department,” so it makes sense that the USDA would refer to its garden as the “People's Garden.”)
Need practical advice? The UC Master Gardener program has more than 5,000 certified volunteers ready to assist if you live in California. UC has also created a California Garden Web portal that provides a treasure trove of gardening resources for all parts of the state. It's not too early to begin planning your Fall garden, and you'll find information about that, too.
If you're interested in school gardens, read this brief history, written by UC ANR's UC Food Observer.
Happy gardening!
Consejos para preparar, plantar y cultivar un huerto otoñal
La transición hacia el otoño está a la vuelta de la esquina y los jardineros están ocupados atendiendo sus cosechas de fin del verano, podando las plantas perennes, preparándose para las plantas de crecimiento más lento y más. Pero el otoño no significa que hay que poner fin a la temporada de cultivo. De hecho, la vida sigue germinando y nuevas plantas crecen con la promesa del otoño, invierno y cosechas de principios de primavera.
¿Deseas unirte a la locura del jardín de la temporada de frío? El Programa Jardineros Maestros de UC cuenta con talleres interesantes para informar e inspirar en este otoño. Los residentes del área de la bahía pueden revisar los talleres Cultivo de ajos y cebollas (Growing Garlic and Onions) en San José o Las diez principales verduras para su huerto invernal (Top 10 Vegetables for your Winter Garden) en Campbell, ambos presentados por el Programa Jardineros Maestros del condado de Santa Clara. Otro gran recurso es Guardando la cosecha (Saving the Harvest), una guía para el jardín y preservar (alimentos) y un calendario del 2019 creado por los programas Jardineros Maestros y Maestros para Preservar Alimentos de UC del condado de Sacramento. Busca las ofertas locales en tu área en el sitio del Programa Jardineros Maestros de UC en UC Master Gardener Program event.
Donde sea que te encuentres en tu viaje de jardinero, te ofrecemos una lista de actividades para tu jardín durante el mes de septiembre:
A principios de septiembre
- Mantén tu huerto de temporada cálida con chequeos y cosechas regulares. Poda los nuevos brotes, flores o cualquier fruta pequeña o muy inmadura de las plantas de tomates, berenjenas o chiles. Esta práctica motiva a las plantas a poner su energía en la maduración de frutos que ya han cuajado.
- Cosecha y guarda semillas para el huerto de temporada cálida del próximo año. Para guardar y usar las semillas en el futuro, asegúrate de contar con un lugar seco y frio donde mantenerlas. No te olvides de etiquetar y organizar las semillas para facilitar la plantación durante la primavera.
- Retira y haz compost o estiércol con las plantas que han llegado al final natural de sus vidas y producción.
- Disfruta de la cosecha regular de bayas de vara de temporada tardía como las zarzamoras y moras. Revisa las parras con regularidad en busca de frutos maduros y recoléctalos antes de que los pájaros se los lleven.
- Revisa y cosecha también las plantas comestibles del paisaje. El guayabo del Brasil, Acca sellowiana, es un fantástico arbusto de paisaje que además produce una fruta tropical. Cuando los frutos del guayabo del Brasil caen al piso es porque ya están maduros, recógelos y lávalos, rebánalos y come la parte blanca de adentro (como comerías un kiwi).
A finales de septiembre
Es tiempo de empezar a plantar un huerto de temporada fría a fin de mes. Prueba cultivar rábanos y lechugas a finales de otoño. Se maduran rápidamente y son magníficos acompañantes de las verduras rostizadas, quesos y nueces para la ensalada de una cena con el tema de la cosecha. El brócoli y coliflor son una adición genial para tu cosecha de invierno. Prueba rostizándolos o preparando con ellos una sopa cremosa para una cena caliente en una noche fría. Finalmente, las cebollas y chalotas deben ser parte de tu huerto de temporada fría. Tardan en madurar y estarán listas para su recolección a principios de primavera para darle brillo a tus platillos y marcar el cambio de estaciones.
- Cultiva rábanos, nabos, betabeles, cebollas y col rizada, plantando semillas.
- Elije plántulas de brócoli, coliflor, repollo y lechugas en tu vivero local.
- Mantén la tierra humada mientras que las plántulas echan raíces en la tierra de tu huerto.
- De ser necesario, provéeles sombra a las verduras de temporada fría para protegerlas del sol caliente de la tarde.
Conéctate con nosotros
Los voluntarios de Jardineros Maestros de UC están listos para ayudarte con todas tus necesidades para el huerto. El Programa Jardineros Maestros de UC puede trabajar con los maestros y voluntarios comunitarios para proveerles información y consultas sobre jardinería en apoyo de huertos escolares. Con programas locales con base en más de 50 condados de todo California, de seguro encontrarás un taller o clase cerca de ti. Visita nuestro sitio Web para encontrar tu programa local de Jardineros Maestros, mg.ucanr.edu.
Planting the seeds for garden-based education
Each school day, teachers must carefully plan and account for their instructional minutes. For each grade level has specific time recommendations for math and English language arts, so teachers often feel they do not have the time to include extra activities in their already packed schedules. When UC CalFresh gave a brief survey to teachers a Santa Maria school last year, teachers identified the following barriers to using their school garden for instruction:
- Lack of instructional time or preparation time
- Lack of curriculum and learning activities
- Too many students to manage in the outdoor setting
These concerns reflected comments that UC CalFresh nutrition educators frequently heard from teachers who were invited to bring their students to the school garden.
Taking these concerns into consideration, UC CalFresh developed innovative strategies to meet the needs of school teachers, showing how instructional minutes in the garden don't have to be “extra” and can include hands-on learning for English language arts and math, with a focus on nutrition. The strategies include:
- Clearly aligning garden-based nutrition education with common core lessons
- Providing garden-based curriculum and materials for learning activities in the garden
- Hosting Garden Open House Days, during which teachers can bring their students to the garden when UC CalFresh Educators are present to increase educator-to-student ratios.
The first No-Prep Garden-Based Nutrition Education Kit was piloted in October and featured pumpkins. The No-Prep Kit became fondly known as the Pumpkin Kit. The Pumpkin Kit encouraged teachers to take the lesson out to the garden, increasing students' physical activity time while providing opportunities for students to practice common core skills. The kit focuses on nutrition and cooking while reinforcing math, science and language arts. The kit includes books, worksheets, an oven, and several different pumpkins for measuring, cooking, estimating, and tasting. This kit requires no teacher prep time, is adaptable to any primary grade level, and is an easy introduction to garden-based lesson delivery.
During a Garden Open House Day hosted by UC CalFresh in October, kindergarten students and their fifth-grade buddies came out to the garden. The fifth-grade buddies worked with the kindergarten students to use observation skills (five senses), learn adjectives, and draw the pumpkin life cycle. The older buddies gained teaching and language arts skills while working with their little buddies in the garden. Students got to dissect the pumpkins in teams and used the seeds for counting. Each kindergartener took 20 seeds home to practice counting with their parents, which also served as a budding connection for students' families and the school garden.
"If we had something like this every month, we would be able to go out into the garden more and maybe we could get more teachers to come. This is what we need, curriculum that can be used in the garden," said kindergarten teacher Mrs. Joaquin.
“The program has been awesome," said one fourth-grade teacher. "[UC CalFresh] incorporated math, science, social studies into lessons. Students were excited and engaged. Many tried new vegetables they'd never had before and liked them! Kids learned responsibility and pride in designing, choosing plants, maintaining and harvesting in school garden.”
For more on UC CalFresh of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties see the Facebook page at facebook.com/uccalfreshslosb
UC CalFresh nutrition education is offered in schools jointly by UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and USDA.
Grow, Teach, Donate - Our Garden
Through education, Master Gardener volunteers have inspired hundreds of gardeners to begin successfully growing vegetables in their own backyards. One award-winning project by Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County is Our Garden, an ongoing collaborative edible demonstration garden managed by dedicated Master Gardener volunteers.
UC Master Gardeners partnered with the Contra Costa Times and founded Our Garden in 2009. All food produced by Our Garden is donated to the Monument Crisis Center - which offers nutritious food, quality resources and referrals to low-income individuals and families in the community.
“The mission of the Monument Crisis Center is to serve low income families and individuals in Contra Costa County through dynamic service programs focused on providing nutritious food, education, general assistance and referrals. We believe that healthy families help create overall community wellness. The 6.5 tons of produce that the UC Master Gardeners donated have gone on to help provide 15,000 low income households in Contra Costa County fresh, straight from the earth nutrition.” -Sandra Scherer, Executive Director Monument Crisis Center
Our Garden has become an important meeting place for like-minded community members to make new friends, share resources and learn together. Since its inception, more than 12,000 pounds of fresh organic fruits and vegetables have been donated to the Monument Crisis Center.
Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County even have home gardeners coming back with a new found confidence, success stories and sometimes produce to share!
About us
The University of California Master Gardener Program provides the public with UC research-based information about home horticulture, sustainable landscape and pest management practices. It is administered by local University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) county offices that are the principal outreach and public service arms of the university's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. For more information, visit camastergardeners.ucanr.edu.
UC helps Davis Farm-to-School find success for over a decade
A secret to success, says UC SAREP’s program assistant Jeri Ohmart, “is patience and persistence. Keep your eye on the prize — increasing fresh, local, seasonal products in the school meal program; and creating an environment that teaches the full cycle from garden to cafeteria to compost and back to garden.”
Ohmart, who conducts the annual evaluation says the biggest lesson learned over the last 12 years of evaluations is not how to get the freshest produce or the healthiest meal. The lessons are much more salient. “To meet the goals of the farm-to-school program requires developing solid relationships based on mutual respect and trust — with food service directors, staff, maintenance and operations, school board members, teachers, and parents. Engage the larger community in any way possible. These are the principles that have kept our program moving in positive directions despite budget setbacks and the vagaries of funding and personnel shifts.”
To learn more about Davis Farm-to-School, visit their website. Read the full Davis Farm-to-School Evaluation or the Summary and Recommendations. Learn about more of SAREP's farm-to-school work on the SAREP web site.
