Apple Pepper Plant by Dana

Our Apple Pepper plant has started growing the blossoms again. 

 

The blossoms are a beautiful small purple flower

 

Once they open and die the apple pepper will come from the flower

 

The apple pepper is a circular pepper that resembles an apple. 

 

 

It has a nice, mildly spicy flavor and thick, crunchy flesh.  The pepper is excellent for fresh salsa, pizza or a salad. the pepper start out a yellowish green when ripe it turns a reddish orange.

Urban Tilth Tomato Plant Sale by Dana

Yesterday Darnell and I went to a really cool tomato plant sale at Adams Crest Elementary school on Saturday 4/12/14.  The sale was sponsored by Urban Tilth a non profit organization, based in Richmond.

 Urban Tilth grow your own Food

 Darnell is holding different varieties of peppers and a tomato plant

 More varieties of tomatoes

 More varieties of tomatoes

Urban farming

Monica's garden by Dana

Today Darnell and I checked out Monica's garden.  She's a local Richmond dweller.  Here's pictures of her garden.  

 Tomatoes and Red onions

Strawberries

Different varieties of Lettuce

We also gave her some of our plants and seeds as well.  We gave her Wasbi Arugula, Chard, Chive seeds, Parsley seeds, Basil and Purple Basil

Grits and Greens by Dana

On Thursday March 27th, Darnell and I went to this event called Grits and Greens in Oakland.  Grits and Greens was an event that was a part of Impact Hub of Oakland Community which is Organizational Connection of different entrepreneurs trying to make network connections to affect change within different communities.  The idea behind the Hub is to co-learn and co-work.

There we also had food, we had,

1. Red Flint Polenta with Coconut Milk

2. Coconut Greens

3. English Peas and Asparagus

4  Roasted Strawberries with Rose Geranium

There was also 2 dance pieces that was shown that was based on real life events that happened in the news.  The first dance piece was about a young woman who was from Mexico who moved to America.  She got a job working in the field, she was pregnant and died because of not having enough water to drink.  The second dance piece was on hurricane Katrina. This older man was trying to swim to a safety boat and the woman rowing the boat told him it wasn't enough room, but the older man kept trying to get into the boat, the woman had to hit him to prevent him from drowning the boat.  Both dance pieces were sad. 

After everything was over Darnell and I met the executive director of a non profit called Urban Tilth based in Richmond.  They have different locations here in Richmond where they are teaching people about growing your own food.

My Garden by Dana

My Garden

As I stand in my garden and look around 

I see the rays of sun shinning through the veins of the leaves 

as life is pumping through 

 Life that will feed those longing to taste, 

longing to smell, longing to touch

 My Garden beautiful to the eyes, gentle to the ears 

waiting patiently for the sound of readiness 

 My Garden as water feeds the roots the system to 

life the plants drink satisfied with life  

My Garden beautiful to the eyes.

Dragon Fruit by Dana

In our garden we have many different types of plants from succulents to edibles.  One of our succulents I'm proud of the most is our Dragon Fruit on the left.  This plant was given to me from a coworker from a former employer. When I researched this plant I learned that in order for our Dragon fruit to produce fruit it needs to weigh 10 pounds, which means it needs to produce more of the green stems.  Also when I transplant this plant I need to transplant it in a pot just a little bigger than what it's in because the roots need to be compact which in turn more green stems would produce.

Compost by Dana

Darnell and I went to Ashby Community Gardens.  While we were there I helped with clearing out an area for the new composting bins.

This is a picture of what the area looked like before the compost bins were in placed

 We needed to clear this area and make new composting bins

Here's what the area looks like once it was cleared