Strawberry Picking by Dana

Yesterday I was in our garden to manicure it and I picked some of our strawberries.  We have 5 strawberry plants in pots.  They are so sweet.

The Color Purple by Dana

Elegant and delicate is the color purple

Lovely in vain yet powerful to the eye drawn by the scent of gracefulness the color purple is elegant and delicate

As a flower is wrapped with the royal color of purple

 it's elegance is derived by the need of growth, sun and water

  The color purple elegant and delicate yet strong willed

 to survive the naturalness of natures pest

How lovely it is to be purple

Showoff your Garden by Dana

Plant, Grow, Share

Showoff  Your Edible Garden

 

JOIN THE PLAYNDIRT COMMUNITY

Are you growing your own food in raised beds, your front yard and/or backyard, in pots, in a window container, at a community school or roof garden? If so, Playndirt.com is for you!

Joining the Playndirt community will keep you abreast with new and established residential food producing gardens in the Bay Area as well as keep you up to date with upcoming crop swapping events. 

How to show off your garden:

•  Register on Playndirt.com
•  Add your garden location.  (street, city, state ,exact address not required)
• Upload pictures of your garden
• Describe what you’re growing
• Share your produce with fellow gardeners and neighbors at your         local crop swap and on Playndirt.com

For any questions please contact:

Darnell Stewart

Founder and CEO

510-255-7905

Come join Playndirt's first Crop Swap

Plant, Grow, Share

JOIN US At  PLAYNDIRT’S CROPS SWAP

DATE:                             JUNE 28, 2014

LOCATION:              ADAMS CREST URBAN FARM

                                5000 Patterson Circle

                                Richmond, CA 94805

                                OPERATED BY URBANTILTH.ORG

TIME:                         2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

What is a Crop Swap?  It’s just that, a swapping of our produce with fellow neighbors and gardeners.  With an increase of edible landscapes in the Eastbay, no doubt there will be an increase of produce to share at a crop swap.  Here are some benefits of sharing your produce at Playndirt Crop Swap.

•  See what other gardeners are growing in our Mediterranean  climate.
•  Taste different varieties of your favorite fruits & vegetables.
• Exchange of gardening ideas and techniques.

 Ideal items to swap: fruits, vegetables, herbs, fresh eggs, honey and fresh cut flowers.

By participating all will enjoy eating what was locally grown and no food would will go to waste.

For additional questions please contact:

Darnell Stewart

Founder and CEO

510-255-7905 

** All produce must be grown from legal crops, cleaned and grown without the use of synthetic pesticides**

Bring Back the Natives by Dana

On Sunday May 4th Darnell and I went to a tour called Bringing Back the Natives.  It was really cool. The tour consisted of different businesses and residential houses that added or completely landscaped their yards with all native plants.  

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour

Lime Thyme (non native)

Penstemon 'Blue Springs'

Mimulus Jelly Bean Orange

Residential before and after photos

Manzanita

Buck Eye Tree.  

This tree has a cluster of small white flowers that was so fragrant that all I wanted to do was stand there and smell the flowers and not look at anything else. Lol

White Mimulus Bifidus

Petaluma Bounty Farm by Dana

On Thursday the 24th Darnell went on a field trip which was apart of his class he's taking.  They went to this farm called Petaluma Bounty.

Darnell brought these strawberries home and they were so sweet and yummy

Green house

Petaluma Bounty Farm

Oregano by Dana

Hello all, so with all of our herbs we have in our garden I figured I could dry them out and replace what was missing in our herb rack in the cabinet.  So I decided to start with the Greek Oregano

Missing Herbs

 Fresh Greek Oregano

I soaked leaves in a little soap and water to get tiny bugs off

I let the leaves dry on a towel

I put them in a bowl so they can dry

The leaves were cut on the 22nd.  They we somewhat dried on the 24th.  At the end of the week they were completely dried

Ready to separate the leaves from the stems.

I rubbed the leaves in the palm of my hands to separate the leaves from the stems.  By the way my hands smelled like Oregano which smell so good.

I didn't have an herb grinder so I used the bottom of the glass container to crush a little more

I bent the paper plate and used it like a funnel to put the herbs in the jar

Walla a finished process