Nice article in the Palo Alto weekly about a Transition-tinged giveaway hosted by TPA-er Romola Georgia:

Trading ‘the stuff of life’
Barron Park FreeSale is hub for exchanging ideas and belongings

by Helen Carefoot

On a small Barron Park street lined with patches of wildflowers and dandelions, rows of tables were piled high with items ranging from shawls as delicate as spider webs to stacks of vintage records and weathered books.

Neighbors at the Tippewango Court home of Romola Georgia pored over the myriad items Satuday, June 16, donating their own and taking another in return. But it wasn’t a garage sale; it was a “FreeSale.”

A FreeSale is a pseudo-yard sale in which participants exchange gently used items with their friends for free. Georgia said she hopes to use the event to promote sharing and re-purposing the “stuff of life.”

The tables in front of Georgia’s white picket fence created an appealing aisle of goods. Boxes of blooming sunflowers and fennel plants lured plant enthusiasts to the gardening table; a heap of X-Men trading cards from someone’s childhood was pile upon another. An elaborate six-CD changer stood out among the electronic offerings.

Many items displayed carried personal significance to their previous owners and elicited stories and nostalgia.

More at PA Weekly

Interested in gardening in the Palo Alto area? Get timely hints from the TPA Garden Notes compiled by Master Gardener Romola Georgia.   To get the newsletter and join the Garden Group contact transitionpaloalto AT gmail DOT com .

Below is the latest Garden Notes from Romola.   

-Bart

Transition Palo Alto Garden Notes for May

I’ve been thinking this month about the gardener’s role in protecting and nurturing the soil ecosystem. In addition to the visible earthworms and sowbugs that decompose and shred, we must be mindful of the bacteria, fungi, and nematodes that we do not see, but are also hard at work improving the soil texture and nutrient availability. For growing vegetables in our area:

1. Use compost to improve the soil structure and increase the availability of nutrients and water
2. Use organic fertilizer to provide essential plant nutrients. Our gardens usually need nitrogen. Examples are alfalfa meal or pellets or composted manures which are mixed into the soil at planting time.
3. Use mulch on your vegetable bedsto conserve water, suppress weeds, and encourage that biotic life in the soil as it heats up this month. Straw or unsifted compost works well to protect the soil from the hot sun.

May is heaven for gardeners in the Bay Area

1. Plant out seedlingsof those summer crops you’ve been waiting for:tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. You can nip the lower leaves from your tomato seedlings and set the plant deeply into the soil. It will respond by developing a stronger root system and a healthier structure. Don’t forget to remove all the little buds and flowers from your peppers for the first 3 or 4 weeks. The pepper needs to develop a strong structure and good root system to support the fruits. I also remove any tomato flowers I see at planting time.
2. Squash, beans, cucumbers and melons can be seeded directly in May. Think about the space they will need and any support structure you will offer.
3. You can still directly seed arugula, carrots, beets, radishes, and chard.
4. Flowers and herbs are wonderful for your cooking and also for the beneficial insects they sustain. This year try some basil, dill, parsley, borage, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums, sunflowers, or zinnias.

Fruit trees: Don’t forget to thin your fruit. Thinning is an important aspect of fruit tree care, promoting not only healthier fruit, but also avoiding alternate bearing syndrome (a lot of fruit one year and very little fruit the following year.) Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots will benefit from reducing to one fruit per cluster or making sure that no two fruits touch each other. Stone fruit can be twisted off, but pome fruit should be clipped with your pruners. If you expect a large harvest or cannot use all your fruit, consider contacting Village Harvest http://www.villageharvest.org/ They will harvest your trees and donate a portion to the needy. They also have tips on managing your trees.

It’s feedback time. Transition Palo Alto has been sending this garden note for several months to the “garden interest” group. Please send me some feedback. What has been useful? What has been interesting? What would you like more of? What else would you like to see in the garden note Please send comments to:

Romola Georgia  (c/o transitionpaloalto@gmail.com )

The purpose of this group is to share information, resources, questions, and events about vegetable gardening. Our wonderful Mediterranean climate permits us to grow and eat from our own gardens in every month of the year.

To get the newsletter and join the Garden Group contact transitionpaloalto AT gmail DOT com .

MOTHER’S DAY GARDEN-CRAFT-BIKE-MUSIC SHARE

Neighbors sharing food, exchanging crafts, repairing bikes, and making music

Sunday, May 13 11am – noon FREE !
Common Ground Organic Garden Supply & Education Center
559 College Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94306

Hop on your bikes with your favorite mother for this 4 Event Mother’s Day Share. Join us to share your garden and kitchen bounty, your extra arts and crafts supplies. Bring what you have to share; take home something you don’t. You’ll also learn to make homemade musical instruments and get a (or learn to do your own) bike tunup. Bring your bikes, homegrown fruit, vegetables, eggs, herbs, honey, flowers, paints, markers, fabric, yarn, paper, patterns, books, garden/craft tools, kits and more. Be sure to bring a bag to take home the bounty!

Local Garden Share – Bring extra bounty from the garden (produce, fruit, herbs, eggs, honey, flowers, plants in pots), things made in the kitchen from the things from the garden, seeds, seedlings, tools, utensils, books, magazines. Anything garden and food-related is welcome.

Craft Share – Bring your arts and crafts supplies and tools, and even artistic creations to share. At 11:30, we’ll have demos on rose beads and packaging, homemade supplies and envelopes, and more, along with wind chimes and musical instruments (see Scrapaphony below).

Bicycle workshop – Let’s work together to do minor maintenance and make minor adjustments to improve your bike for efficiency, safety and comfort, with Tom Kabat. He’ll help you with: Tire pressure, Oiling squeaky chains, Seat ergonomics, Adjusting bar position for good wristernomics, Adjusting gears, brakes and headsets. He can also coach you through fixing a flat tire!

Scrapaphony – Fun with Fun Sounds – a workshop in making musical instruments from scraps with Herb Moore. He’ll be sharing examples of simple homemade “instruments,” wind chimes from spare keys, a canning jar “water drum.” He’ll also share an approach to exploring sound with found objects.

Throughout the Bay Area, neighbors are coming together for sharing locally grown, fresh produce, as well as arts and crafts supplies, and other household items. Our Palo Alto sharing event is supported by a coalition of community ecological organizations and neighborhood groups including: Acterra, Barron Park Green Team, Midtown Green Team, Barron Park Garden Network, Barron Park Assn, Common Ground, City of Palo Alto Community Gardens, Slow Food South Bay, Transition Palo Alto and Transition Silicon Valley.

The Common Ground store is open during the event, so plan to stop in to get any supplies you need to continue your garden bounty or more. Also, the event is located only 3 blocks from the California Ave Farmers’ Market, which is open from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. You will have time to shop or have lunch at the market after the event.

The Palo Alto Weekly ran a nice article about garden circles in its latest issue (May 4) on the front page of the Home & Real Estate section, page 45.
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=25237

Several Transition people are mentioned, including Paul Heft, Debbie Mytels and Annette Isaacson. Several other Transitioners are past members of the circle.

Garden Circles combine several themes of Transtion — communtiy, good and DIY. And as the article makes clear, they are a lot of fun.

If you are interested in joining an existing garden circle or starting a new one, contact one of the members or transitionpaloalto AT gmail DOT com. There’s another garden circle that is centered in Barron Park.

They do know beans
Midtown gardeners share knowledge and bounty

Dexter Girton knows the best way to defend his hard-earned backyard bounty from even the craftiest squirrel.

“Loose netting, with no holes,” he said. “If the netting is too tight, the squirrels will crawl under the netting. Believe me; I’ve seen them do it.”

He should know; he’s been growing fruit and vegetables in his yard for 30 years and can offer invaluable advice ranging from fending off various pests to spacing one’s plants inside their gardens.

Girton now shares his knowledge and experience with the community through the Midtown Garden Circle.

“I was part of the California Rare Fruit Growers that meets in San Jose for many years, but I wanted to make contact with gardeners closer to home in Palo Alto. I also wanted to make additional gardener friends; that’s what it was really about,” he said.

…
“My partner Paul and I wanted to start growing our own food, but we didn’t have any prior experience,” member Annette Isaacson said. “Paul had done some research, but we thought it would be really nice to have some practical knowledge. The members of the circle were so supportive and nice, even though we were just beginners.”

…
Debbie Mytels originally came up with the idea of a support group in hopes of spurring a “movement” for local home food gardeners back in 2005.

“Small groups were the best way to reinforce new learning and behavior, and they also provided an outlet for new social connections within the community,” she said.

“The people and the friendships are the most important to me about the group,” Girton said. “I have developed many gardening friends through the group.”

Members also said that they would like to develop food sources closer to home. “Getting closer to the food supply is becoming even more beneficial for everyone due to the rising costs of gas,” Isaacson said. “People have also developed an interest in where their food is being grown.”

MORE TEXT AND PHOTOS AT ORIGINAL ARTICLE.

Local newspapers cover Transition

This month, the San Jose Mercury News and the Palo Alto Weekly both published nice articles on Transition. See excerpts from the articles below.

Continue reading →

3 Folded and stapled

Transition Palo Alto offers a downloadable coloring book “What is Peak Oil and Why Should I Care?

In an easy to understand storyline and through great illustrations,  it describes where oil comes from, how dependent we have become on oil, how oil has gotten more and more difficult to collect, what exactly peak oil is, and what we can do to use less oil.

Annette Isaacson, member of Transition Palo Alto’s original steering committee, and her sister-in-law, Mimi Heft, wrote and illustrated the book based on Annette’s  travels up and down California between 1957 and 2010.

The book was  inspired by Rob Hopkins’ Transition Handbook.  It was written for 305.org’s 10/10/10 celebration.

The book is free for downloading (printing instructions).