8th Annual Edible Landscaping Tour

Common Ground's 8th ANNUAL EDIBLE LANDSCAPING TOUR 

is coming right up! 

Saturday, July 19th, 2014 10 am -4pm

Palo Alto, CA

Register Now

If you enjoy touring gardens or need clever ideas for your garden, then you don't want to miss this annual event! 

This is a critical fundraiser for my friends at Common Ground, a 501(c)3 nonprofit project of Ecology Action. Enjoy a memorable and educational day and show your support too!

Besides visiting ten beautiful gardens all with an edible landscape theme, you'll also see how these suburban residents practice organic and sustainable methods. 

For descriptions of the gardens on this year's tour go here

Veggies and flowers thrive together in this edible landscape

Tour Highlights

• Water saving and efficiency techniques, including "Laundry to Landscape" (gray water system) 
• Fruit trees, raised beds, and lots of vegetables
• Chickens & coops, bees and beehives
• Herb, flower & California native plantings, 
• Composting 
• Examples of edible front yard gardens
• Tour the Common Ground education garden

Common Ground's Patricia Becker (right) with a garden tour host

This year the Edible Landscaping Tour is featuring lots of front yard edible gardens.  Gone are the days when vegetable gardens were considered inappropriate for the front yard. Come see a variety of gardens demonstrating that growing food is not just practical, but beautiful!

Veggie harvest, complete with fresh artichokes

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Visit 11 Edible Gardens on the Edible Landscaping Tour

A lush front yard with squashes and watermelons among the flowers

The rampant abundance of delicious summer crops may have you daydreaming about how to add more vegetables and fruits to your home garden. Going on a local self-guided tour of unique and notable suburban edible landscapes is a fantastic way to get inspired with great ideas and a perfect opportunity to meet enthusiastic gardeners who love sharing their gardens. 

Here on the San Francisco Peninsula we are fortunate indeed to have Common Ground’s annual Edible Landscaping Tour coming up on July 20th, now in its 7th year. 

An apple espaliered on a fence is attractive and a good use of space

I've been on the organizing committee for several years now and I'm always delighted by the innovative ways that gardeners incorporate food plants, raising chickens, ducks, rabbits and bees on their suburban lots. Some take a decidedly urban farm approach, while others integrate fruit trees and vegetable gardens into their otherwise ornamental landscapes.

Keeping chickens and beehives is no longer rare in suburbia

Either way, each garden is beautiful, interesting and a reflection of the family's lifestyle and their quest to create a higher quality of life right at home.

Beans displayed on a teepee of bamboo poles

And it's a natural step to spread goodwill and delight by sharing extra fruit, eggs and beans with neighbors and friends. 
 

A young girl cuddling her chicken

From my perspective, gardening is not just a pleasant leisure-time activity, it’s critical for a healthy future. 

It's about:

•  building a supportive community around growing food organically and sustainably in our suburban neighborhoods.  
• understanding where our foods comes from and connecting with the Earth's processes that support this almost magical ability.

Grape vines on this pergola create an outdoor dining room

When I visit these gardens I see simple everyday acts that have deep meaning and far reaching consequences.

Vegetable beds decorated with children's tiles

When I reflect on all of the trouble in our world, these simple positive acts seem like a profound way to add much needed joy at a very basic level. 

That's why the Edible Landscape Tour is at the top of my "must do" list every summer!

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Gardeners Teaching Gardeners: Plan an Edible Gardens Tour

This is my third year as a volunteer organizer for the annual Edible Landscaping Tour organized by Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center (Saturday July 21, in the SF Bay Area - register here ). Seasoned gardeners know that besides getting your hands in the dirt, the best way to learn about gardening is from other gardeners.

This summer consider going on an edible gardens tour, even if you have to organize it yourself.

Can't Find an Edible Gardens Tour Near You? DIY

Summer is the perfect season to visit local gardens and get tips and ideas directly from the gardeners themselves. The goal is to see a diversity of approaches to landscaping with edibles, and to come away with great ideas that you can adapt to your situation.

But if you can’t find a tour in your area consider organizing an informal garden tour in your neighborhood. Most avid gardeners love to show their gardens and share their experiences. All you have to do is ask.

Edible Landscaping in this suburban front yard

Ten Tips for Organizing an Edible Gardens Tour

1. Decide what features the gardens should have to make the cut for your tour: organic practices only? examples of wise water use, composting, etc? edibles in both the front and backyards?

2. Location and scope: will it be restricted to walking or biking distance only? carpooling? Who will attend?

3. Send out a call for gardens through your neighborhood newsletter or community bulletin boards (both virtual and actual) and social media. Do a walk-around or bike ride to spot gardens with edibles in the front yard. Chances are good that they have more in the backyard.

4. When you've found eligible gardens and willing hosts, visit each garden to make sure it fits your expectations for your tour.

5. Be clear on what the garden hosts are expected to do, such as answering questions and explaining their approach to growing food. Of course, they must be willing to have a certain number of people traipsing though their garden on the appointed day, and commit to being available at the time of the tour.

 Thompson Seedless grapes in abundance on our grape arbor

 6. Organize your tour as far in advance as possible. Enthusiastic gardeners will want to showcase their gardens in the best possible manner so having lead-time to plan is appreciated, plus you'll need time to get the word out to recruit attendees.

7.  For an informal tour you can visit the gardens as a group within a neighborhood, one garden at a time. Make sure everyone knows ahead of time how much time will be allotted at each stop.  It’s easy to get carried away and spend too much time at one garden and not have enough left for the others!

8. If your tour is larger in scope and you have lots of attendees planned, arrange to have a pre-tour in advance for the gardeners showing their gardens, so that they’ll have a chance to visit each other’s gardens.

9. For a neighborhood tour a potluck or tomato tasting is the perfect way to end the event and have more time to socialize.

10. Plan for next's year's tour: keep a list of the current participants and another list for gardens for the following years' tour. Gardeners who couldn't participate this time may be willing and ready next year. Create an online photo album to share and encourage the participants to post their photos and comments.

The 6th annual Edible Landscaping Tour organized by Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center takes place on Saturday July 21st,  from 11am to 4pm.

You can register now online.

This tour is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and is a  fantastic one day tour of ten local gardens that feature landscaping with edibles and gardening by sustainable methods, including: composting, wise water use, and even raising chickens for eggs and manure. This popular event attracts hundreds of attendees each year.

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Gathering: A Life Spent Saving Our Seeds From Extinction

Gathering, Memoir of a Seed Saver, by Diane Ott Whealy

As we fret over the increasing loss of biodiversity through extinction, we can be thankful for the dedication of a few individuals who spent almost every waking moment devoted to saving it. And they haven't stopped yet. Gathering, Memoir of a Seed Saver, is the autobiography of Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange.  It is the story about a life committed to saving the seeds of thousands of plants, most of them edible, to ensure they would not disappear, all while homesteading and raising five children.

A Flower Sparked a Movement

What is now the largest seed saving organization in the country (perhaps the world?) had humble and innocent beginnings: homesteading newlyweds who wished to continue the bride’s family tradition of growing the morning glory that her great-grandparents brought from Bavaria in their new home in Iowa. From this sparked a life-changing passion to rescue seeds from plant varieties that had very limited distribution: some were grown only by families or individuals, and some had been dropped by seed companies who no longer distributed them.

Ott Whealy tells the engaging and unpretentious story of Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization with a grassroots movement to propagate, save, and share seeds from mostly food plants that are either heirlooms, or just plain rare. Ott Whealy and her former husband Kent Whealy, started the organization in the 1970’s, never imagining that it would become the lead organized effort for preventing the extinction of thousands of useful plants in North America.

From 1 to Nearly 14,000 Saved

Over 35 years later, the current 2011 yearbook boasts an astonishing 13,876 types of open pollinated (non-hybrid) plants to be shared with anyone who requests them. As the Whealys got the word out about their undertaking, other seed saving individuals contacted them and they joined forces in this gargantuan effort. Seed Savers Exchange was entrusted with large collections from other passionate gardeners who feared that their seeds could be lost, and as a result the scope and responsibility of the organization grew.

Saving Our Heritage

The tasks involved are not trivial- seeds must be not only be grown, collected and saved properly to remain viable, but  fresh seed is needed periodically, and care must be taken to protect each particular cultivar from accidental crossbreeding. Additionally, detailed records are kept. The rewards are no less than the preservation of our agricultural heritage and genetic diversity.

Today Seed Savers Exchange headquarters is located at Heritage Farm, the Whealy’s former home, in Decorah Iowa. The garden areas have been expanded and now include a heritage apple orchard. The book is an enjoyable read, and among the many charming stories is a description of how Amish carpenters restored the huge historic barn at Heritage Farm, badly in need of repair.

Diane Ott Whealy will be speaking at Common Ground Organic Garden Supply and Education Center on January 28, 2:30pm.

You can check here for Ott Whealy's book tour and lecture schedule.

This post was published also on Eat Drink Better