Garden School
How to Grow a Vegetable Garden
Even Though You’ve Never Planted a Seed in Your Life
Saturday, March 25
11 am to noon, $5 payable on-site
3310 N. Olie
It’s actually pretty simple! Participants will help plant a container garden that can be scaled up or down, and is suitable for backyards, front yards, decks or patios. Elia Woods, co-founder and farm manager of CommonWealth, will cover the basics—soil, water, seed—that will help your first garden will be a delicious success.
At the Food Forest
It was a great day for our first workshop of the season! Paul Mays from SixTwelve talked about permaculture, the benefits food forests can bring to an area and guided workshop attendees through basic questions that help determine what direction a food forest will take.
Then we got to get our hands dirty! We planted two Asian Persimmons and a Weeping Mulberry—the first three trees of our food forest! 
We also planted strawberries, chives, thyme and other herbs around our trees. These plants will work with the tree to retain water and enrich the soil as the tree grows.
We’ll continue to plant more fruit trees, berry bushes, herbs and flowers in our food forest throughout April. —JoBeth
Join us for our next planting session: 11 a.m. to noon, Saturday, April 1st.
Customer Spotlight: Elemental Coffee
Elemental Coffee, now a mainstay of Midtown Oklahoma City, started roasting coffee in 2008 then opened a storefront—at 815 N. Hudson—and began serving food in 2010. Since then, they’ve developed a menu rooted in creativity, sustainability, being local, and meeting the needs of those with various dietary restrictions—whether vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free.
Elena Hughes, cafe manager, focuses the rotating specials on seasonal and local produce. Elena says of CommonWealth: “The people are wonderful and everything is grown in my neighborhood, which is way cool, and their products are beautiful.”
(CommonWealth pea shoots and greens pictured.)
If you’re a meat-eater and looking for a delicious meal using CommonWealth greens or root vegetables, you’re likely to find something at Elemental to suit your tastes—and your vegan and vegetarian friends will be satisfied too!—JoBeth
Veggie Spotlight: Ode to Carrots
Real carrots, that is! We are harvesting the sweetest of carrots from the garden right now. We seeded them in early October, when there was still enough day length to give us good growth. Once winter set in, their growth slowed way down, but that cold weather also sweetened them. Like adding antifreeze to your radiator, vegetables convert some of their starches to sugars, which keeps the water in their cells from freezing. Fertile soil, plenty of water, and harvesting them on the young side—all this also contributes to a truly delicious, sweet carrot.
Plant some carrot seed now for spring carrots. Here’s two tricks that I’ve learned for growing great carrots. Water them daily while they germinate (up to 2 weeks) because carrot seed is flat-out picky and doesn’t like drying out. And make sure your soil is loose; use a garden fork to loosen it up, and add plenty of compost. Then be sure to plant again in late September or the first of October to enjoy some early spring treats. Like candy from the garden! —Lia
Meet our Apprentices: Welcome Ann Malherbe
Before Ann Malherbe knew how to spell, she was gardening. “I still have a slip of paper where I wrote my gardening chores when I was about seven: ‘pull weeds, get seeds…'”
Ann was the first to commit to the new apprenticeship program at CommonWealth Urban Farms. She is one of six young people now learning about farming during their eight hours of volunteering each week. (Find out more here.)
Ann is drawn to the combination of gardening and community. As an au pere in northern California, she tended the family’s vegetable garden. During a stent In Boulder, Colorado, she had a garden, but not the community she was seeking. Returning to her hometown of Oklahoma City, she has found a gardening community, at CommonWealth. “So many people are involved; it’s really special,” she said. “And, it’s interesting to see the business aspect; something that supports itself.”
Currently an horticulture student at OSU-OKC, Ann says she loves food and thinks it is “Important to have skills to feed our selves with high quality vegetables, sustainably grown.
“I’m not sure where I’ll end up, but I want to continue trying to maintain community and keep on learning.”
We’re grateful Ann chose CommonWealth for the next part of her learning journey. Welcome to the community, Ann! —Pat