Meet our new Veggie Farm Manager: Thanh Tran  Born in Saigon, Vietnam, the youngest of five children, Thanh Tran was six when her family was evacuated and flown to Oklahoma City. After college at Smith and OU, where she earned dual degrees in history and Information Systems, she moved to Denver and for 15 years, created a great career as an IT architect.
In 2010, she was ready for something else in her life. “We have a lifetime to learn and do,” she says, “and I was ready to learn and do something else. I decided to change my life. I took a 180-degree turn and spent two years traveling, renewing, re-orienting my awareness of what life means for me. It was necessary for me to start again with a clean slate of heart and mind.” Before she had determined her next career path, her father died and she moved home to Oklahoma City to be a full-time caregiver with her mother. “It felt good,” to be doing that, she says. Her mother died two years later, about the time her next-youngest sister was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Thanh had been learning about healthy living, self-care and food as medicine. She and her sister embarked on a plan to help her sister find a way to physically restore her metabolic processes and take the time to spiritually and emotionally deal with her life situation. After six months of a program of holistic immunotherapy, her sister began chemotherapy and responded so well that she was clear of cancer after a year, with no radiation or further chemo. At that point, a friend in upstate New York invited Thanh to consider working on Essex Farm. For the last two years, she has been involved in many aspects of vegetable farming there. But two considerations began pulling her back to Oklahoma City: two young great nieces who, she realized, will grow up fast and she’d like to spend more time with them. Too, there seemed to be something wrong about living in a rural setting working long hours on a farm to help supply food for people in the city. Back in Oklahoma City for the holidays, she began to explore the local food production here. Two weeks ago, she came to visit CommonWealth Urban Farms. It was exactly at the moment CommonWealth was interviewing people for the veggie farm manager position. Thanh applied, and began working in her new position late last week. “Growing food alone, or with a small group is difficult,” she says. “To have a community to do it together, like there is at CommonWealth, is important. This makes sense to me. It’s appealing to me to bring back our innate relationship with soil and food. We’ve lost that knowledge in urbanization. “We say the problem of growing food for people is solved. But it’s not solved. We need to bring balance back. We can’t segregate farm life from urban life. We have to open the conversation from a different perspective. It’s early in the proposition: Does urbanization work for humanity, for the Earth? We haven’t solved the food system situation. We don’t know if you can have 80 percent of a densely populated urban environment and 20 percent of the people growing the food in rural areas. “I like CommonWealth Urban Farms. This is where people live. Growing food as part of life needs to happen close to where we live. We don’t all have to be fully engaged, but we all need to be aware of how growing food works; also, farmers need to be in community and not isolated on the farm.” Already immersed in farm labor at CommonWealth, including working with volunteers, staff and a new group of apprentices, Thanh says she loves the physical work of farming. “It brings me joy. The work is at the heart of it. An extension of that is the passion to lead a meaningful life of service,” she says. “Besides, I love food!” Welcome, welcome, welcome, Thanh!—Pat | 
As a youngster, Becky Schaller and one of her brothers each had a flower bed in their family’s backyard, with Petunias in the front of the bed, Marigolds in the middle and Morning Glories trailing in the back. Their mom also had a garden, and a compost pile.
Cucumbers — We succession plant cucumbers every month thru the summer until early August, which gives us great production on cucumbers all summer long; it’s not too late to plant now! We have a fresh set of Armenian cucumber 
Mary King graduated Westminster School, Cassidy School, Boston University with a degree in International Relations, worked for a non-profit that paid the way for Latin Americans to go to grad school, then at New York University as an academic advisor for political science students. “I was well educated and operating in these intellectual circles and I realized I didn’t know anything! I’d never slept outside. I didn’t know how to grow anything (well, some houseplants.)”
At a point of transition, she noticed a small “house for rent” sign and followed the arrow pointing to a bungalow in the Central Park neighborhood. When she went around back, she saw what she had a hunch was true: the backyard backs up to CommonWealth Urban Farm. Mary and her daughter, who is now 5, moved in. They are a part of the CommonWealth community. Mary is the farm’s bookkeeper and continues to take on more and more tasks, including coordinating tours. She and her daughter have made it a practice to walk the gardens morning or evenings, noticing changes.
Zinnias come as single, semi-double and double flowering; singles are more like daisies, and doubles look more like dahlias. For cut flowers, we grow Benary’s Giant zinnias almost exclusively. Tall plants, big flowers, long, sturdy stems—thank you, Benary.
May 4
ur Sensory Herb Garden
9 am to noon
Salvias, or sage plants, come in a breathtaking number of varieties. Pictured here are three of my favorite salvias that are available as part of our seedling sale.
Fill your home with flowers all summer long! Learn about the easiest flowers to grow in central OKC, from old friends like zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds and snapdragons to lesser-known beauties such as Asiatic lilies, lisianthus and ammi. We’ll show you how to plan and prepare your garden bed, and discuss seeds vs. transplants, annuals vs. perennials, and the benefits of trellising and succession planting. Participants are invited to start some flower seedlings of their own with seeds and supplies provided by CommonWealth.
Learn how to make THE best appetizer ever! Fresh spinach leaves are wrapped around a mixture of peanuts, coconut, ginger and lime for a mouthful of flavor. Bethany Williams will demonstrate how to make this traditional Thai appetizer using spinach straight from the hoop house at CommonWealth. Come taste!
Though she grew up in Oklahoma, Ginger Sage has spent most of her life in Colorado. A year ago she and her family returned to Oklahoma, so that her children, ages two and four, could attend a special school for hearing impaired. It has been a wonderful turn of events, not only for the children but the entire family.
The first five years of her life (and summers after that,) Angela Renee Chase spent alongside her grandparents in Durant gardening vegetables, growing flowers, harvesting fruit, and fishing. It’s no wonder she can easily identify plants—“Show me a tomato plant and I can identify it by its smell.”
Last summer a family with out-of-state members in town came for a tour of CommonWealth. We learned during our time together that day that they are a family deeply committed to lifeways that support the planet.
March 16
11 a.m. to noon
When visitors come to CommonWealth Urban Farms, they are amazed at the composting operation and the rich quality of the worm compost that is used to feed the farm. Allen Parleir and David Braden work with countless volunteers, the youth of Closer to Earth—and untold numbers of Red Wiggler Worms!—to turn food and tree waste into a rich natural fertilizer. It is the secret to why CommonWealth veggies taste so good and are so nutritious.
There are a few more slots available for membership in our Veggie Club, also known as a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture.) Season begins the first Saturday in April and ends the Saturday before Thanksgiving. During that time, participants order weekly for 25 or 30 weeks of the growing season and pick up their food at the farm on Saturday mornings.
Seven years ago, a small team of people began a tiny urban farm. We had less than one-eighth of an acre, which we planted intensively, then took a deep breath and put out a call for our first Veggie Club members.
getting a greenhouse! And not just any greenhouse; this is a passive solar and compost-heated greenhouse. Our goal is to construct a growing space for our seedlings that stays warm all winter long without using fossil fuels. Key elements include a straw bale insulated north wall, a large compost bin in the center of the greenhouse to provide additional warmth, and insulating covers to help keep the heat in at night. Special thanks to David, Toby, Hashur, Yatar, Aaron, Lia and Allen for many hours of volunteer labor to bring this from future dream to actual reality.
Now in our 8th year, CommonWealth offers the opportunity to learn in a hands-on format, in the midst of a working urban farm, growing both vegetables and cut flowers. Our farm includes a hoop house, food forest, composting operation and rainwater harvesting system. We sell our vegetables and flowers to a 25-member CSA (subscription vegetable service), local restaurants and local florists. We also have a strong educational component, including Saturday “CommonWork” community volunteer times, farm tours and Garden School classes.
Apprentices make a 3-month commitment of 8 hours per week of volunteer time. Staff and apprentices meet together weekly to focus on the topic for the week, plus review homework. In addition to that time, each apprentice choose hours that work best for them.
Sssssso, let’sssss talk about one of the most infamousssss characterssssss in the garden; the beloved sssssnake! The garter snake, to be exact.