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Garden School

Cover Crops: Feed Your Soil


Saturday, Oct. 13
11 am to noon
3310 N. Olie
What’s the easiest way to turn Oklahoma’s heavy red clay into rich, loamy soil? Cover crops! By planting cover crops every fall and/or summer, you can increase soil fertility and tilth, prevent soil erosion, suppress weeds and attract pollinating insects. Give back to your soil, and your soil will give back to you!

Our winter cover crop mix includes Austrian winter peas, hairy vetch, winter rye and crimson clover. Cover crop seed will be available for sale after class.
Instructor: Elia Woods, co-founder and farm manager of CommonWealth

$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

And Next: Our 2018 Harvest Celebration!

Saturday, Oct. 20
Noon to 2 p.m.
3310 N. Olie

Celebrate a year of growing food (and flowers) together! Bring a potluck dish to share, and join us for good food and good company. Also featuring farm tours, fun & games, and homegrown music by local musicians Clem and David Braden and Terry Craghead.

Thank you to all who made Basilmania a smashing success!

 

THANK YOU to everyone who made Basilmania an amazing event! Our planning crew put a lot of behind-the-scenes work into the event. Silent auction donors, chefs, sponsors and attendees all made a night of celebrating & supporting urban agriculture in OKC possible.

CommonWealth & Closer to Earth are one part of an amazing network of urban farming efforts in OKC and we couldn’t keep our farm going without this beautiful community. Thank you for your sustaining, on-going support.

CommonWealth is on the Paseo Farmers Market Urban Farm Crawl

Presenting: October 14—Paseo Farmers Market Beer Crawl and Farm Tour AND the option for dinner.
It’s all to benefit the growth and second year of operations of the popular Paseo Farmers Market.

Farm tour includes the gardens as Six Twelve and CommonWealth Urban Farms from 4 to 6 p.m. Suggested donation for the farm tour, which includes a Beer Crawl is $25.

From 6 to 8 p.m. is another tour and dinner. Suggested donation is $50. Tickets may be purchased beginning Sept. 22 from 9 to noon Saturday mornings at the Paseo Farmers Market, 612 NW 29th St.

What a fun way to support local agriculture. We hope to see you on the Crawl!

Tis the Season—Butterflies drink deeply!


All around town, there are reports of migrating Monarchs this week! We are happy to see them at CommonWealth too. Some of these glorious ones were born here!
To keep track of the Monarchs’ journey, to Mexico click here.

Our friend Edith talks about growing plants for pollinators!

Volunteer Spotlight: Debbie Baker
(CW’s FIRST volunteer!)

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

Debbie Baker was a career school librarian with a strong sense of curiosity, varied interests and many skills, including weaving. Her first weaving instructor was Lia Woods. Ten years after that first class, the friends were visiting and Lia mentioned a new endeavor, an urban farm in the heart of Oklahoma City, named CommonWealth.

As she did about so many things, Debbie expressed curiosity and interest and Lia asked if Debbie would like to come help. And so Debbie became the first volunteer at CommonWealth—helping out with the brand new CSA/Veggie Club.

That was 2012 and she’s been coming at 8 a.m. Saturdays ever since, to set up the table for CSA members to pick up their vegetables—weighing and dividing up the orders so that each member can take home their weekly produce selections.

“We always had a family garden,” says Debbie. “I worked in it from childhood through college, crawling in the dirt my whole life. I always loved playing in the dirt.”

As familiar a face as anyone at CommonWealth, Debbie greets veggie club members and explains the week’s harvest, assisting them in various ways. She keeps coming to help, she says, because “life is healthier because I do. I love plants. I love the outdoors. I love healthy food. I love the camaraderie with people who love Earth.”

Debbie still tends an herb garden, composts—and she still weaves: scarves, coverlets, bags, shawls, wall hangings…

For those attending Basilmania last week, Debbie and her husband Bruce were the ones pouring the wine for guests, in another generous gift of their time and support. “CommonWealth is an exciting place,” she says. “It’s a way to help people learn how to become responsible guardians of the planet.”

Thank you, Debbie. CommonWealth is what it is because of people like you!—Pat

Posted in Uncategorized

Saturday afternoon at CommonWealth, making Kittie Bouquets (of catnip, catmint) for the Cat Video Festival at Myriad Gardens.

“Beginning right now, each of us can choose to lead a materially simpler life, to conserve rather than consume, to own fewer things and give away what we don’t need; we can undertake fewer activities, and those we do undertake we can pursue with more care and delight. We can move around less, and pay closer attention to our home ground. We can draw more of our food and other necessities from local source…we can revel in nature and community.”

—Scott Russell Sanders
Garden School: What Fun!Bouquets From the Garden

Saturday, August 25
11 a.m. to noon
3310 N. Olie

Get ready for some serious beauty and fun! Lauren Palmer of The Wild Mother will demonstrate how to create an alluring arrangement from flowers grown at CommonWealth’s farm. Lauren is the creative genius behind the gorgeous, naturalistic arrangements that define The Wild Mother style.
Fall flower seedlings will be available for sale.

$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:
Saturday, September 8: Plant a Fall Salad Garden
11 am to noon

Lettuce & carrots & kale, oh my! Fall is a wonderful time to garden in Oklahoma. Vegetables and gardeners alike love the cooler weather, and we (usually!) get rain. Knowing what and when to plant is critical to success. We’ll focus on greens and roots that grow well at this time of year in Oklahoma and will provide you with delicious salads all through the fall.

Fall vegetable seedlings will be available for sale.
Instructor: Elia Woods, co-founder and farm manager of CommonWealth

It’s High CSA/Veggie Club Season

Seven-year-old Layla helped us set up last Saturday.

Who would have thought a box of Yardlong Beans would be a thrill for a four-year-old. But young Vera is delighted to help her grandmother Conna fill their bags with fresh veggies.

What an August we’re having! The farm is producing lovely vegetables and so it’s a joy for all every Saturday morning as members come pickup their veggies! If you want to be put on our waiting list for next year’s Veggie Club season, email pathoerth@gmail.com.

Volunteer Spotlight: Peter Rosier

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

When Peter Rosier returned to Oklahoma City from living in Alaska, his best friend from college invited him to come volunteer with him at CommonWealth. That was in October of 2016. “My friend has moved on,” says Peter. “I can’t leave. I’m stuck here.”

Peter, who lives nearby, volunteers in the composting operation. That means he is part of a Saturdaymorning team that sorts food waste from Whole Foods, piles it in windrows and adds wood chips, runs it through screens and carries buckets filled with it to the farm to be used on the beds.

“You can see quickly why composting is so important,” he says. “It helps you put food waste in this country in perspective. One in four children will have no meal today. There’s a lot to learn here.

“We get the waste produce in a trailer on Saturday morning. It takes three to four people working the good part of a morning to process that garbage. We do in one daymore composting than I can do at home in a year.”

Peter’s dad gardened on their land near Edmond when he was growing up. After studying chemical engineering at OU, Peter went to work in Alaska for an oil company. “Alaska is the most beautiful place in the world,” he says. “And the people are great.”

But, after three years, he returned to his home state and works for a small company. “Composting at CommonWealth has changed my life,” he says. A renter, nevertheless, he is composting and growing food at home. It hasn’t been easy. “I built a cold frame and started seeds last year, but it was too early. I have constant failure. It’s discouraging but I can’t stop trying.”

Peter’s dedication to growing food and growing it organically—always fraught with challenge—is inspiring. No less inspiring is his dedication to composting at CommonWealth. Every Saturday morning he comes to “sort garbage.” “There’s more to it than sorting food waste,” says Peter. “I come out of necessity. This is a good group of people. Seldom do you find projects that are good through and through. There is nothing bad about this project.”—Pat

Testimonial: Volunteers Shout Out!Jody Lesch’s curiosity and hunger for learning are a great contribution to the time we spend together at CommonWealth. Too, her hospitality with visitors and her eagerness to help them observe and learn about pollinators is a great gift for life here. 

“My name is Jody Lesch aka “the bug lady” and I have been a volunteer at CommonWealth for about four years, spending most Saturday mornings at this delightful oasis in the middle of the city.  It is a blessing to be a part of a community of people who share my passion of growing healthy food and protecting all of God’s creatures with whom we share this world. Allen and Lia have a wealth of knowledge they freely share and I learn so much, have so much fun and I hope I never have to give up the time I get to spend here.”
                              


We enjoy Jenna Moore’s sweet spirit and energetic enthusiasm for the work of CommonWealth Urban Farm. We appreciate greatly her contributions on the

marketing team, helping with creative ideas for marketing our flowers and vegetables; developing educational programs and fundraising projects.

“My name is Jenna Moore and I’ve been volunteering with CommonWealth for around 2 years now.  I continue to volunteer for a multitude of reasons, mainly because I feel that CommonWealth is a step in the right direction of where the world needs to be heading.  It is a place where community is created through the growing and sharing of nutritious food, in a way that promotes local economy and improves the environment.
It is rare for me to find a place that houses all of my passions under one “roof.”  It is also always encouraging to see how touched people are when they first experience CommonWealth, and how their interests continue to be piqued the more they learn about it.  There is such a wealth of knowledge at CommonWealth that is ripe for the sharing with the rest of the city.  It has been fun for me to help try to disseminate that knowledge in whatever way that I can!”

Of a Certain Nature…Sightings & Sounds at CommonWealth

Friends drop by the CommonWealth Urban Farm community off and on for a few moments of quiet and to breathe in nature. Volunteers tell us how lovely it is to enjoy nature as they work on the farm. They tell us we should celebrate the beauty and wonder of this place.  And so, we are!

Oh my gosh…CommonWealth is a virtual pollinator nursery these days, a witness to this adage: “Plant them and they will come”—pollinating plants, that is.

Check any Milkweed, Rue, Fennel, Parsley plant growing on the farm or our front yards and there are eggs, tiny or growing caterpillars. And the Monarchs, Queens, Emperors and Pipevines floating around are laying more! (In the photo below, Jody is showing a tiny caterpillar to our young CSA volunteer.)

We had brought a potted Rue in the house so that four Swallowtail caterpillars might make it through their transition. Now that they are chrysalises, I thought I didn’t have to watch their food supply anymore—only to discover that there are two new caterpillars from unseen eggs. I brought in more Rue for them—and discovered two more tiny caterpillars on it! Tis the season!—Pat

Posted in Uncategorized
Beans
They’re not like peaches or squash.
Plumpness isn’t for them. They like
being lean, as if for the narrow
path. The beans themselves sit qui-
etly inside their green pods. In-
stinctively one picks with care,
never tearing down the fine vine,
never not noticing their crisp bod-
ies, or feeling their willingness for
the pot, for the fire.

I have thought sometimes that
something—I can’t name it—
watches as I walk the rows, accept-
ing the gift of their lives to assist
mine.

I know what you think: this is fool-
ishness. They’re only vegetables.
Even the blossoms with which they
begin are small and pale, hardly sig-
nificant. Our hands, or minds, our
feet hold more intelligence. With
this I have no quarrel.

But, what about virtue?

—Mary Oliver
Garden School: Grill It!
Saturday, August 11
11 a.m. to noon
3310 N. Olie

Nothin’ beats fresh veggies from the garden that have been tossed on the grill. Learn tips & tricks from grillmaster Steph as she demonstrates how to grill a variety of vegetables—and take part in sampling the results!
Instructor: Stephanie Jordan
$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:
Saturday, August 25: Bouquets from the Garden
(NOTE DATE CHANGE)

Get ready for some serious beauty and fun! Lauren Palmer of The Wild Mother will demonstrate how to create an alluring arrangement from flowers grown at CommonWealth’s farm. Lauren is the creative genius behind the gorgeous, naturalistic arrangements that define The Wild Mother style.
Fall flower seedlings will be available for sale.

Apprentice!

Time to Apply for Fall Session

Our courageous—remember those 100-plus days!—summer apprentices did outstanding work on the farm. Emma and Nick, we thank you!!

Emma wanted to learn more about gardening, so she could raise healthy food for her children and create school gardens. Before heading off to Spain on a Fulbright scholarship to study sustainability, Nick wanted some hands-on, hands-in the dirt experience.

Apprentices come to CommonWealth for a variety of reasons: to become an urban farmer; ag or horticulture students looking for practical, hands-on learning; home gardeners ready to step up to the next level…

With Lia’s and Christopher’s wealth and depth of knowledge, a CommonWealth apprenticeship is a treasure. Deadline for applying for the fall class is August 25th. Apply here.

Team Spotlight: Allen Parleir

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

It was while in seminary that Allen Parleir was drawn to the idea of seeing the world from the point of view of those who don’t have access. He made the decision to stand with the marginalized but little did he know at the time exactly how that would play out.

Allen had gardened in college. In fact, the summer after his junior year, he and a friend grew an acre of okra, an acre of tomatoes and raised 12 pigs in northeast Oklahoma City. Later, when he and Lia moved to 32ndstreet, they began to garden in their backyard. It was not the kind of neighborhood—not yet—in which that they hoped to share life.

He and Lia decided they wanted to live in a place where they could look outside and see different colors of kids playing together, where they knew their neighbors and could share life with everyone on the block. At that time, there was diversity on 32nd street but a lot of crime and there wasn’t much sharing, everyone keeping to themselves. Then one day two Laotian girls and a Vietnamese girl across the street asked Allen and Lia to help them start a garden. There were no sunny spots left in Lia’s place, but the neighbor next door offered his front yard, “so I don’t have to mow.”

That simple act of sharing would eventuate in CommonWealth Urban Farm. “We had no idea what happens when you garden in front yards,” says Allen. “We discovered that it is a great way to get to know neighbors. The children would plant and the crack house people would garden together.

Eventually, gardening together, everyone got to know everyone. “Everybody speaks food,” says Allen. The Vietnamese grandparents across the street suddenly felt free to garden every inch of their yard!. When one of the girls’ grandpas came from Laos and showed up in the garden, he was pointing, speaking only Laotian. “We finally figured out he was telling us to chop the banana plant so it could grow back.”

There were block parties, Halloween celebrations. “Our yards felt safe,” Allen says. Allen began to wonder if maybe gardening would work to build community in the whole neighborhood, “so we started a community garden at 31st and Shartel. It helped that block and the whole neighborhood and more front yard gardens developed. People started getting outside to meet their neighbors.”

Collecting food waste from the Health Food Center began and the sharing and gardening and being community continued to evolve over the next 10 years until the next phase emerged: Whole Foods opened a store nearby and there was a mountain of food waste to be composted. Too, in hopes of teaching about gardening and developing an urban farm, the first beds for CommonWealth Urban Farms were built on a couple of adjoining empty lots.

Allen had founded Closer To Earth, a youth gardening program, and the youth helped with the composting and maintenance of neighborhood greenspaces. In addition to co-managing the composting operation, Allen took on the work of advocating with the city to allow for front yard gardening and the development of neighborhood farming right in the heart of a city neighborhood—“Some call it an agri-hood!” says Allen.

Currently, his role has shifted a bit—toward weaving the complex pieces together that continue to sustain this neighborhood farming community.

All through our interview, he kept an eye on the day’s activity on 32nd street, sometimes going to the window to take a closer look. Returning to the sofa, his gaze still out the window, toward a stand of cover crops, arugula, basil, native pollinating plants and the bamboo forest across the street, he grows quietly reflective.

“Living on this block,” he says, “I feel so rich.”—Pat

Testimonial: Volunteers Shout Out!
                              

We enjoy Jenna Moore’s sweet spirit and energetic enthusiasm for the work of CommonWealth Urban Farm. We appreciate greatly her contributions on the

marketing team, helping with creative ideas for marketing our flowers and vegetables; developing educational programs and fundraising projects.

“My name is Jenna Moore and I’ve been volunteering with CommonWealth for around 2 years now.  I continue to volunteer for a multitude of reasons, mainly because I feel that CommonWealth is a step in the right direction of where the world needs to be heading.  It is a place where community is created through the growing and sharing of nutritious food, in a way that promotes local economy and improves the environment.
It is rare for me to find a place that houses all of my passions under one “roof.”  It is also always encouraging to see how touched people are when they first experience CommonWealth, and how their interests continue to be piqued the more they learn about it.  There is such a wealth of knowledge at CommonWealth that is ripe for the sharing with the rest of the city.  It has been fun for me to help try to disseminate that knowledge in whatever way that I can!”

Of a Certain Nature…Sightings & Sounds at CommonWealth

Friends drop by the CommonWealth Urban Farm community off and on for a few moments of quiet and to breathe in nature. Volunteers tell us how lovely it is to enjoy nature as they work on the farm. They tell us we should celebrate the beauty and wonder of this place.  And so, we are!


A lone Monarch has been floating around the front yard gardens on 32nd street for the last week. Butterfly eggs and caterpillars have been spotted on Rue and Milkweed—and protected by our resident Butterfly Mama, Stephanie Jordan. We are eagerly keeping our eyes peeled for the butterflies’ release in the next few days.

A huge family of raccoons—five large adults—emerge from Doe Creek, via the drainage system, onto 32nd Street most nights around twilight.

The city is in nature too!—Pat

Posted in Uncategorized

“Money spent on food sends a signal that accelerates or redirects the changes that are going on all of the time in the food system. …We influence the future by the way we vote with our food dollars.“Of course it is not easy to vote wisely. To do so means that we must think about the consequences of how we eat. Because we do not want to vote for food systems that endanger tomorrow’s food supply, we must especially understand what is essential for growing food. We should eat today so that we can eat tomorrow. In other words, we should vote for a sustainable food system.”—Gary W. Fick

Garden School: Worms Make Me Happy!Composting and Vermi-Composting

Saturday, July 21
11 a.m. to noon
3310 N. Olie
Allen has been building compost piles, as well as composting with worms, for many years, and has a profound appreciation for rot! Allen will discuss the difference between a worm bed and a compost pile, and demonstrate how to build one successfully to make that beautiful, rich, black substance we call “gardener’s gold.”

Instructor: Allen Parleir, coordinator of Closer To Earth and co-founder of CommonWealth 
$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:
August 11: Grilling in the Garden with Stephanie Jordan

Happy, Beautiful Flowers!
Yours: 4 for $40  

                                                            
That’s FOUR beautiful bouquets,
redeemable anytime during this flower season.
Purchase the gift card online here.
Actually, you can buy single bouquets, or larger arrangements, from us, too. But you save 30% if you buy the gift card :)Email us to arrange pick-up ahead of time on Wednesdays or on Saturday mornings on the weeks of your choice. Pick-up of bouquets is at our farm at 3310 N. Olie, OKC.

We are harvesting loads of flowers from our flower field! They are crazy beautiful, they make us happy and we hope they’ll make you happy, too. We thank you for your support of our neighborhood farm.

Ode to Okra
A Photo Essay
For many of us, okra is synonymous with summer. Grilled okra, okra stewed with tomatoes, pickled okra, okra in gumbo, and – always – fried okra. But how does this vegetable, adored by some and abhored by others, actually become a vegetable? Let’s take a closer look…

Okra seeds. It is one of those everyday, almost unbelievable miracles that inside each seed is a tiny, partially developed young plant, or embryo, surrounded by a supply of food that it will need upon germination, and enclosed by a protective seed coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okra can be started indoors and transplanted as a seedling. Or direct seeded outside, like this baby seedling that’s pushing up through paper mulch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okra plants thrive in hot weather and grow rapidly in Oklahoma summers. The plants keep growing taller, even as they start producing, and can turn into mini-forests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okra is self-pollinating; each flower contains both male (anther) and female (stigma) parts. See the fuzzy yellow pollen coating the column in the center of the flower? It needs to fall onto the dark purple-red stigma at the top of the column if we’re going to have okra for supper next week. I often see bees visiting okra flowers, gathering pollen and spreading it around, giving a little extra boost in the pollination department.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okra flowers last for one day, then start falling off as the pods begin to form under them. Okra is in the same family as hibiscus; you can see the similarity in the flowers.

 

 

 

 

Okra produces plentiful amounts of seed! If these pods were left on the plant until brown and dry, the seed inside could be stored and planted for next years’ crop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


One of the best kept secrets in the okra culinary world is raw okra. Yes! It’s true! A friend cajoled me for two years before I reluctantly and suspiciously gave it a try. It was revelatory. Crunchy, juicy, mild, refreshing. But it has to be super fresh – don’t try this with grocery store okra that was picked a week ago in California. Now, my favorite way to eat okra is raw, munching on pods as I walk thru the garden. – Lia

Team Spotlight: David Braden

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

When David Braden moved from Oregon, Italy and Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Oklahoma in 1997 to teach fifth grade math at Casady School, he put in a garden in his back and front yards.

Sara, whom he had known since childhood when their parents taught in the same school and with whom he reconnected in Italy, where she worked as an assistant gardener while learning to make violins, had met Lia Woods, an Oklahoma City fiber artist. Lia, who was gardening a few blocks away in her front yard, would bike pass the other front yard garden in the area, and when she learned that’s where Sara lived, she stopped and asked David what he thought of her idea about building an urban farm.

David and Sara, Lia, Lia’s spouse Allen Parleir  and Terry Craghead became co-founders of CommonWealth Urban Farms in 2009.

“My family gardened a little when I was growing up, but I learned to love gardening in Italy. In Oklahoma, when we ran out of room in the backyard, we planted the asparagus in the front yard. We didn’t realize asparagus would look quite so dramatic. We also built a trellis with squash growing on it and one neighbor complained but since then the neighbors are fine with our gardens. One neighbor is gardening now in her backyard.”

From Lia’s vision, CommonWealth farm evolved. “The farm—where it would be, what size, who would do what—was very much up in the air,” says David. “We started with composting first thing, even before we knew what the farm would be. We started with beer grains, composting in windrows.”

Composting is key. And David is key to the composting operation. “It’s the foundation of natural food,” he says. “Ideally it would not take so much input from outside the farm.” While CommonWealth puts all waste back into the composting operation, the greatest input is from twice-weekly pickups of date-expired produce from Whole Foods.

David has learned about lacto bacteria from Korean natural farming systems and applied some of it to CommonWealth’s compost. “It aims to increase the microbacterial activity in the soil without anything from the outside.”

Red Wiggler worms also contribute to the composting process at CommonWealth. Strangely, they weren’t added to the compost piles, “they just showed up,” says David. “It was a happy accident. They must have been in worm beds in neighboring lots years before.” Strangely as well, because David lives a few blocks away, “at the same time they showed up in the composting bed at our house.”

While David teaches full-time and manages his own garden, he spends every Saturday and many of his days off in the summer at CommonWealth. He built the beds in the first half of CommonWealth eight years ago, is the farm’s primary Stump Grubber, works on the rain water collection, teaches in the Garden School, braids his abundant garlic crop which he shares with the CommonWealth Veggie Club and builds the stone walls. (He learned garlic braiding and stone wall building at that ancient farm in Italy.) A core member of the core CommonWealth team, he and Allen Parleir, founder and director of the youth program Closer To The Earth, have built the composting operation into a process that produces CommonWealth’s nutritious, delicious food.

“When we show people the compost and they pick up a handful and smell it, it speaks for itself, it’s so rich. I like to point out there’s no dirt in it. The compost rejuvenates the soil. Plants deplete it and the compost gives the nutrients right back.”

Long composting in his own garden, he says he has gravitated to learning about it, reading books, learning more, doing the work.

David’s life is consistent with his value of farming naturally. He doesn’t have a cell phone. He rides a bike everywhere, year-round. He likes to play guitar (one Sara made for him), sing folk music and play classical violin.

“I’m proud to be part of CommonWealth Urban Farm. It’s a remarkable project. I wish there were a way to make it magically profitable…we get closer every year. I like how unashamedly idealistic it is: sustainable food production in community.”—Pat

Of a Certain Nature…
Sightings & Sounds at CommonWealth

Arriving at CommonWealth on Saturday morning is to step into the community of life. And never was that more true than recently when farmers taking a moment from the summer heat and veggie club members who had come to pick up their tomatoes, cucumbers, chard, onions and yard-long beans suddenly noticed something floating about.

Neighbor and pollinator supporter extraordinaire Stephanie Jordan was walking by the farm then and confirmed the presence of a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly—black, with blue markings. She was fluttering from one flower to another leaf, always lowering her bum—to lay eggs, Stephanie told us.

We humans stood in wonder and awe.—Pat

Posted in Uncategorized
“What would happen if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship? In nature, that is of course precisely what eating has always been: relationships among species in systems we call food chains, or food webs, that reach all the way down to the soil…There develops a relationship of interdependence: I’ll feed you if you spread around my genes.“Health is, among other things, the product of being in these sorts of relationships in a food chain… It follows that when the health of one part of the food chain is disturbed, it can affect all the other creatures in it. If the soil is sick or in some way deficient, so will be the grasses that grow in that soil and the cattle that eat the grasses and the people who drink the milk from them… Our personal health cannot be divorced from the health of the entire food web.”—Michael Pollan

Crazy Beautiful Flowers!
Yours: 4 for $40  

                              
That’s FOUR beautiful bouquets,
redeemable anytime during this flower season.
Purchase the gift card online here.
Actually, you can buy single bouquets from us, too. But you save 30% if you buy the gift card 🙂
Email us to arrange pick-up ahead of time on Wednesdays or on Saturday mornings on the weeks of your choice. Pick-up of bouquets is at our farm at 3310 N. Olie.

We are swimming in flowers right now (thank you, rain!) They are crazy beautiful, they make us happy and we hope they’ll make you happy, too. We thank you for your support of our neighborhood farm.
Garden School: Worms Make Me Happy— Composting and VermicompostingSaturday, July 21
11 a.m. to noon
3310 N. Olie
July 21

Allen has been building compost piles, as well as composting with worms, for many years, and has a profound appreciation for rot! Allen will discuss the difference between a worm bed and a compost pile, and demonstrate how to build one successfully to make that beautiful, rich, black substance we call “gardener’s gold”.
Instructor: Allen Parleir, coordinator of Closer To Earth and co-founder of CommonWealth$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next: Plant-Based Cooking

Saturday, August 11 
11 am to noon

Armenian Cucumbers

A Photo Essay

Armenian cucumbers are a favorite vegetable at our farm; nourishing, prolific, resilient, and impressively long. Here’s a peek inside the story of these delightful fruits of the vine.

 

It all starts with a seed… From which, astonishingly, emerges a real live little plant. On this brand new seedling, you can see the cotyledon leaves; the first true leaf is just barely emerging between them.

Armenian cucumbers are fast-growing vines that covered this trellis in just a matter of weeks. The delicate appearance of cucumber tendrils belies their strength and tenacity in holding the vines to a trellis or support.

 

 

Male cucumber flowers have skinny, straight stems. Female cucumber flowers have a mini-fruit (ovary) under their flowers. Pollen from male flowers has to be carried to female flowers for pollination and successful fruiting to occur.

 

 

How do cucumbers do it? With a little help from their friends…

 

 

Immature Armenian cucumber, with dried flower still attached to the end.

Two tiny Armenian cucumbers, still with their baby fuzz

 

An almost mature cucumber

 

The dreaded cucumber beetle! Besides damaging the plants, they also spread bacterial wilt  

 

The harvest! The striped ridges on Armenian cucumbers give the slices a decorative edge. Bon appetit!

Apprentice Spotlight: Emma Yeung

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

 As a child in England, when Emma Yeung ate something with a seed in it, she would go outside to the yard where her mother designated, dig a hole and plant the seed. Checking each day, she dreamed of apple trees and orange trees, but she never grew an apple or orange tree.

In college, she studied international business, including a stint in China, where she met her husband, an Oklahoman also studying there. Together, they came to Oklahoma on vacation—and decided to stay. They’ve been here 7 years, raising their 7-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 4 and 2. As it turned out, Emma has been working in early childhood development rather than international business. She runs a Waldorf School here.

And that’s how her childhood dreams are coming true. Children in Waldorf schools spend three hours a day outside each school day. With the children in her school, Emma is once again planting and growing seeds in her backyard. And this time, there’s food!

Growing up in England and then moving to the US, she was struck by the huge part junk food plays in the US diet. Food is more regulated in England, she says, where health care is also different—free. Knowing how what we eat affects our health, she says she wanted her children to eat healthily. So she wanted to grow food.

Which led her to an apprenticeship at CommonWealth Urban Farms. “I want to increase my knowledge, grow more food with the children. I want to be doing something worthy of imitation for them.”

Not only do the children in her school grow food, they chop, make soup and bake. Emma has new dreams as well. “When my daughter enters public school, I’d like to have a school garden club that meets weekly and takes care of a schoolyard garden.”—Pat

Of a Certain Nature…

Sightings & Sounds at CommonWealth

Friends drop by the CommonWealth Urban Farm community off and on for a few moments of quiet and to breath in nature. Volunteers tell us how lovely it is to enjoy nature as they work on the farm. They tell us we should celebrate the beauty of this place.  And so, we are.

Last Saturday, Debbie, Barb and I were tending the vegetables at the Veggie Club table when we heard a searing whistle, up high. We looked up to see a Kite sitting in the sun atop a power line pole.

Barb called out excitedly so everyone around could notice it. Then we heard the whistle again and realized it wasn’t coming from atop the pole; rather, somewhere a little ways away.

We watched the Kite preen a bit, listened to the distinctive whistle and it wasn’t long before the Kite flew off in the direction of the sound made by another Kite.

All sorts of nice surprises of nature await people in
CommonWealth’s Urban Farm.—Pat

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Members of Trinity DOC Church, Edmond, on Tour at CommonWealth Urban Farm last week

“As humans we come into being as an integral part of this millionfold diversity of life expression…From the moment of awakening our consciousness, the universe strikes wonder and fulfillment throughout our human mode of being. Humans and the universe were made for each other. Our experience of the universe finds festive expression in the great moments of seasonal transformation, such as the dark of winter, the exuberance of springtime, the warmth and brightness of summer, the lush abundance of autumn. These are the ever-renewing moments of celebration of the universe, moments when the universe in in some depth of communion with itself in the intimacy of all its components.”
—Thomas Berry
Flower Farm Open House!Thursday, June 21—6-8 p.m.

At the farm:
3310 N. Olie, OKC

 

Did you know Oklahoma City has an urban flower farm in the heart of the 
city? Come discover the freshest, most beautiful source of local flowers in OKC at our first-ever Flower Farm Open House. Zinnias, sunflowers, gladiolus and lisianthus are in full bloom right now. Never heard of lisianthus? Or Rudbeckia? Join us and learn ab
out these, and the other gorgeous flowers that fill us with happiness. If you’re interested in taking some flowers home with you, we’ll have a wide array of blooms available for purchase—plus free refreshments, and tours of the flower farm.
Garden School
Herbs: Identification & Healing Properties

Saturday, June 30
11 am to noon
3310 N. Olie
Reconnecting to Earth Medicine

 

In this session we will enter into the world of herbal healing by using all of our senses to identify different medicinal plants on an herb walk.

We will explore the basic healing properties of herbs that surround us; such as, yarrow, sage, rosemary, calendula, thyme, plantain, nettle, and dandelion.

This is an introductory course for anyone who is curious about re-connecting to the plants that surround us and learning about how they can teach us, guide us, and accompany us through our own healing journeys.

Instructor: Stephanie Holiman has recently returned to Oklahoma after living in Chile for twenty years, where she directed the organic gardening center Huerto Hada Verde.

$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:

Small Wonders – Microgreens & Shoots
Saturday, July 14
11 am to noon

Want to grow highly nutritious, tasty greens in a tiny space? Then microgreens are for you. Lia will demonstrate how to plant and grow pea shoots, plus kale, radish, dill and basil microgreens, and teach us how to avoid common problems. Each participant will have a chance to plant a mini tray of microgreens to take home.

Instructor: Elia Woods,  co-founder and farm manager of CommonWealth

Flower Spotlight:
Tips for Best Vase Life—Part II

In our last newsletter, we covered some basic practices that will extend the vase life of your flowers; keeping your tools and vases very clean, harvesting first thing in the morning, and changing the water in your vase every couple days (or at least making sure it stays full!)
You can also use flower food to keep those blooms looking good longer. In addition to commercially available flower food, there are lots of recipes for homemade flower food. But beware, many of them do not hold up under scrutiny! Floral food is made up of 3 components; sugar (to feed your flowers), an acidifier (lower pH means flower stems take up water more quickly), and a biocide (to kill bacteria.)
Also, keep your flowers away from ethylene. This gas is produced by ripening fruit as well as by the combustion of gasoline or propane. Some flowers are more sensitive than others, but even low levels of ethylene can shorten the life of certain cut flowers.
If you don’t have time or space to grow your own flowers, check out our Flower Coupons or memberships. By buying a membership or coupon, you get a hefty discount off our regular price for bouquets, not to mention a season’s worth of color and beauty!—Lia
Apprentice Spotlight: Nick Aguilera

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

As a student in city and regional planning, Nick Aguilera learned that urban farms make a neighborhood more healthy—remediating the soil and landscape, as well as building community. But in all his education, at University of Oklahoma and graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, he says “I never got my hands dirty.”

So, before heading off to Spain for a Fulbright Scholarship in city planning and teaching come September, he applied to be an apprentice at CommonWealth Urban Farm this summer! Already, in the first two weeks of the program, his hands have dug up potatoes, planted sweet potatoes. He’s been introduced to composting, food forests; learned about nitrogen-fixing plants as well as which tools to use and the layout of CommonWealth Urban Farm.

Already, he says, “I’ve learned how special this place is. I like how this community is taking care of the Earth. It’s inspiring to begin to learn how this could be done in other places. I’d like to take this ethic and this example and see it applied elsewhere.”

It’s equally inspiring for the CW staff and volunteers to imagine Nick out in the larger world following his dream: “I’d like to see cities doing a larger and better job of taking care of the Earth, with gardens, green spaces, urban sustainability: addressing energy dependency, mitigating climate change, reducing reliance on automobiles, rehabilitating the landscape, offering healthy recreational opportunities for people. Instead of being stuck in an office, I already know I want to be in places like CommonWealth, doing grass roots work.”—Pat

Of a Certain Nature…The Sounds of CommonWealth

Friends drop by the CommonWealth Urban Farm community off and on for a few moments of quiet and to breath in nature. Volunteers tell us how lovely it is to enjoy nature as they work on the farm. They tell us we should celebrate the beauty of this place.  And so, we are!

When I first set foot on 32nd Street, some eight years ago on my first visit, there was something about the air that made me immediately feel right at home. I was living about 80 miles north of Oklahoma City, out on the prairie, where there are plenty of plants, though of another kind (think miles and miles of prairie grass!) I think what I noticed as I stepped from my car, parked in front of Allen’s bamboo forest, was clean air—thanks to that bamboo, and all the other plant life on the block.

So there’s that. And then the other Saturday morning, as I walked up the street to the farm to get ready for the CSA pickups, I couldn’t help noticing the cacophony of sound: The cathedral bells on the quarter-hour, a Cardinal singing “Rightcheer, Rightcheer, Rightcheer,” all those sweet sparrows chattering away, some unidentified birds making calls back and forth—“Wheat, Wheat, Wheat, Wheat”—the coo of the Ring-Necked Doves and my personal favorite, Mockingbird, singing everyone’s song!

Already, come evening, the crickets and cicadeas and perhaps little frogs have started their summer serenade, especially well-timed because the Grackles seem to have flown elsewhere to raise their nightly ruckus.

I listen well to the 32nd Street Symphony, grateful for all the plant life—habitat for city birds!—Pat

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Garden School:
Pocket Gardens

Saturday, May 26
11 am to noon
3310 N. Olie

If you have room for a pot on the patio, you can grow a pocket garden. Whether it’s a handful of herbs, a snacking garden, or a pollinator way station, pocket gardens are an easy way to get started with gardening. Elia will show examples of plants that can be tucked into the smallest of spaces, and participants will get to help plant several on-site pocket gardens.

Instructor: Elia Woods,  co-founder and farm manager of CommonWealth.$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:

Saturday, June 9, 11 am to noon: The Other Bees: Native Bees in Oklahoma
Instructor: Jody Lesch, Garden School coordinator and CommonWealth “Bug Lady”

Applications Due for Next Apprenticeships!

Do you want to grow some of your own food and spend more time outside? Are you a horticulture student looking for practical, hands-on learning? Or a home gardener ready to step up to the next level?

Then CommonWealth’s apprenticeship program might be just the ticket for you! Apprentices volunteer for 8 hours per week for three months, and have the opportunity for hands-on learning in the midst of a working urban farm. Our farm includes vegetables, herbs & cut flowers, a hoop house, food forest, composting operation, and a rainwater harvesting system. Plus, we have a lot of fun together!

Our next apprenticeship season is June 4th through August 31st.
Applications are due this Friday, May 25th. 
Click here for more information or to apply.

Here’s what one of the spring apprentices (in photo, at a weekly meeting with staff) wanted to share about her CommonWealth experience:“This apprenticeship has helped me grow as a gardener; it was an immersive experience that enabled me to learn a lot.”—Kelly Garrett

Apprentice Spotlight: Olivia Hanson

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

As a little girl, Olivia gardened with her grandmother, who gardened organically, composting and applying smart plans like planting tomatoes in rows of corn for shade. Olivia’s first vegetable garden was a failure, but she has always grown herbs, and, for the last 18 years, many flowers.

Six years ago she began growing tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, green beans, lettuces, radishes, chard in three 10 x2.5-foot raised beds—much of which she shares with friends. For several years she has been a member of the CSA/Veggie Club because she prefers local, fresh vegetables. She loves to cook and try new recipes.

Retired from her professional career, (the list of her accomplishments is long: research biochemist, professor of biochemistry, geological technician, editor and technical writer…) Olivia applied to be an apprentice this season “mostly for the fun of it.” She adds: “And to learn.”

She’s learned more about taking care of herbs, rotating crops, the dreaded thinning process, how to time crops for multiple harvestings. She finds the food forest interesting.

“I like Lia and the crew and the other apprentices; they are interesting and dedicated people,” she says. “CommonWealth is something that should be the wave of the future. I grew up in a small town…people shared work in the garden, and our food, even our meat and poultry, came from close-by. Locally grown food tastes better and is more nutritious. I like digging in the dirt—it reminds me of my grandmother.”—Pat

Veggie Spotlight: The Carrot

The carrot—likes it sunny and loose and sandy. Comes in a variety of colors; orange, red, white, purple, yellow—any range within—even blue. Rich in sugar; fun fact: the sugars are stored in the core so when selecting carrots the larger diameter usually indicates a sweeter root. Carrots also tend to pick up a more sweet and crispy quality when grown in the cooler parts of the season, with over-wintered carrots being just about any root aficionado’s favorite.Carrots are quite a space and time investment, with maturation dates taking anywhere from 2 to 4 months. A good beginning is half the work: keep carrot seedlings moist after direct seeding as they are prone to drying out, cleverly leaving you with a bed full of weeds rather than crispy, crunchy, dirt horns. Keep those babies wet: daily watering until emergence is recommended. Light mulching or fabric covers are also good ideas.

Harvest carrots at your whim and leisure, depending on your level of desired maturity. It would seem pretty simple—just brush away dirt from the base of the stem to check on the diameter of the crowning root. But they can be tricky—long, short, branched—so harvest with attention and care as they are easily damaged. First, loosen the soil around the roots you will be harvesting to allow easier root removal. We have found that a nice deep rain the day or two before harvest provides an almost ideal condition for harvesting carrots. Seriously, like night and day. So, barring any supernatural powers over creation that you may have, perhaps a deep soaking with the hose a day before harvest would serve you well.Post-harvest, wash off dirt, remove the tops, dry, and store in a sealed bag or container in the refrigerator. To preserve the abundant nutritional qualities of carrots we recommend consuming fresh, or a simple light steaming.—Christopher

Festival of Greens!

 

NE OKC Farmers Market Festival of Greens

The NE Farmer’s Market will hold its first annual Festival of Greens Saturday, May 26, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., 3815 N. Kelly Ave., at the NE Community & Cultural Center

Now that’s something to celebrate!
+ Greens Cookoff Competition + Live entertainment
+ Wellness screening + Educational activities
And the farmer’s market!

Of a Certain Nature…

Friends drop by the CommonWealth Urban Farm community off and on for a few moments of quiet and to breath in nature. Volunteers tell us how lovely it is to enjoy nature as they work on the farm. They tell us we should celebrate the beauty of this place. And so, we are!
Fourth graders from Spero Elementary School arrived at CommonWealth Urban Farms in a big yellow school bus. Touring the vegetable farm, the flower farm,

food forest, the composting operation, they had close encounters with some of nature’s crawling things and got very closeups of Larkspur.Two Yellowtail Butterfly caterpillars were discovered on a Fennel plant (upper photo.) To their delight, Allen introduced them to Red Wiggler Worms and, viewing Larkspur through jeweler’s loupes, they got to see the orchid-like center with its tiny antennaed yellow flowers—invisible to the naked eye.

Posted in Uncategorized
Garden School: How to Start Growing Food
Saturday, April 28
11 am to noon
3310 N. Olie
We’re delighted to welcome Dale Spoonemore of From Seed to Spoon. Dale has an inspiring story of how he turned his backyard into an urban farm, benefiting his family with healthy food and time outdoors, and helping him to treat anxiety and depression. You’ll learn all about how to plant, grow, harvest, and prepare your own food using Dale’s free iOS and Android mobile app. This will also be a hands-on demonstration showing how you can use Smart Pots, raised beds, and other strategies to simplify the amount of work and effort required to get started.
Highly recommended for new gardeners!
Instructor: Dale Spoonemore, founder of From Seed to Spoon

$10 per class; $15 per couple/pair; free to volunteers. See full schedule and season rates HERE.

Coming Up Next:

Saturday, May 5: RESCHEDULED: Food Forest II, with permaculturist Paul Mays, of SixTwelve.

“Hands in the Soil” – Clergy at CommonWealth

Clergy participating in our program “Hands in the Soil, Clergy atCommonWealth,” have now created the Clergy Garden and the Clergy Compost Pile here!

They come for a day once a month and learn about gardening by working in the garden and taking instruction with Lia. After a common meal eating CommonWealth veggies, they spend time together with Pat for spiritual nourishment and conversation around how to bring the values of gardening to their churches. 
It was a thrill to see them harvest in April the beautiful lettuce they planted in March and to watch them excitedly plant their own garden in Smart Pots.

Bug Spotlight: The (Ravenous) Black Cutworm

Black Cutworm, also known as Agrotis ipsilon, is one of the most common cutworms. The larvae of several species of night-flying moths in the family, Noctuidae, the female lays her eggs in the fall and after over-wintering, caterpillars emerge in early spring. You won’t see these guys during the day; they come out at night and feed on young plants. Ravenous butchers, they slice off young plants right at the base, destroying entire plants. When daylight returns, they descend back into the soil and curl up, not wanting to be disturbed.
There are a couple of things you can do to discourage the destruction. Make plant collars out of cardboard and place them around each plant, or encircle the plants with Diatomaceous Earth. Both techniques keep the hungry caterpillars from reaching the plant stems. Also, clean up debris left near the garden; that’s where female moths like to lay their eggs. Another technique with a double benefit: Encourage fireflies in your garden—they are natural predators of the cutworm.—Tesa
Farm update…

Freezing temps the last couple weekends have delayed us from planting our field tomatoes, but the tomato plants in our hoop house are already starting to flower! We planted these tomato seedlings inside the hoop house in March, and covered them with frost blankets on cold nights. Using no supplemental heat, just the hoop house plastic and frost blanket (rated at 6-8 degrees of freeze protection), the tomato seedlings came through a 24-degree night without a whimper!Cheers to Thunder player Kyle Singler for funding our hoop house, and to our tremendous community who helped us build it and keep it going!  -Lia
Apprentice Spotlight: Kelly Garrett

Living in the Mississippi Delta of Arkansas, Kelly Garrett taught Title One fifth graders in the Teach for America program. She saw food security issues first-hand. “While some children were independent and lived on farms, others were eating Hot Cheetos which were what they could afford in the local quick shop. That was their local market and there was no produce there.”

That experience caused Kelly to want to learn to garden, and garden well.

In California, she learned about CSAs, where she saw giant boxes of fresh produce. By the time she and her husband moved to Oklahoma City, she was a stay-at-home mom with two boys under three years old. And, needing some break-time from parenting, she decided the time was right to learn to garden. She Googled “CSA Oklahoma” and stumbled on CommonWealth Urban Farms.

As a current apprentice, Kelly says she’s learning that she was doing some things wrong and there are lots of things she didn’t know: amending the soil bed; certain techniques, including removing tomato suckers and laying tomato seedlings on their sides when planting so the roots and lower stem are buried, which increases the root systems.

Kelly is not gardening yet at home because the soil there has been treated. She plans to garden in raised bed boxes and containers. And she’s looking toward other gardening as well: “I’d love to plug in to a school garden with kids when my children are in school,” she says.

While Kelly’s work at CommonWealth offers her parenting breaks, and learning how to farm, it’s also an opportunity to get to know the community. “I love the CommonWealth community and the experience here.”

Well, Kelly, it’s mutual. On days of apprenticeship meetings, we get to see Kelly’s little boys and they are a welcome part of the community.—Pat

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Garden School:
Plant your own Pollinator Garden

Saturday, March 17
11 am to noon
3310 N. Olie
Fee is $10 per person, $15 per couple, or free if you volunteer with us. (Pay on site.)

We’ll tour CommonWealth’s own pollinator garden where Jody Lesch, our resident “Bug Lady,” introduces participants to the native plants providing food and habitat for the bees, beetles and butterflies that pollinate and beautify our world. We’ll provide seeds, soil, containers and coaching for each person to start some seedlings of their own to take and plant at home.
Instructor: Jody Lesch, Garden School coordinator and resident “Bug Lady”

 

February at the Farm

Spring IS around the corner, regardless of what the weather has been this last week! And we’re getting ready. Shown here are 30 of the 100+ flats of seedlings in our nursery. These kale, lettuce and flower seedlings are under low hoops, covered with plastic or a frost blanket on chilly nights. The rest are

tucked away in borrowed greenhouse space. When it’s cold and icy outside, there is something deeply comforting about tending to our jillions of little green babies, just waiting for a sunny spring day when we can slip them into the warm, dark soil that is their future home.
Starting in late winter, we succession-plant leafy greens and root crops, to lengthen the harvest period. This photo shows the very first leaves of spinach seedlings appearing above the ground, from seed planted outside three weeks ago. We’ll harvest spinach from this bed in April, about the time the fall-planted spinach in the hoop house calls it quits. This week, we’ll plant onion seedlings and potatoes, and then it’s fling-the-doors-open on planting season!—Lia

 

 

2018 CommonWealth Apprenticeships

Do you want to be an urban farmer?
Are you a horticulture student looking for practical, hands-on learning? Or a home gardener ready to step up to the next level?

We’re now accepting applications for spring 2018 apprentices! We had a very successful first year in 2017 with some stellar apprentices. We’ve made a few changes and look forward to an even stronger program this year. Click here for more information on this hand-on learning experience. The spring program begins March 2nd. Applications are due by Feb. 25th.

 

 

 

 

Team Spotlight: LaNita Austin

 

LaNita Austin’s grandparents—both sets—were farmers, in Alabama and Arkansas. Her grandmother in Arkansas grew flowers and vegetables all around her yard and also went weekly to the community garden next to the library in her town, to work alongside friends and neighbors. As a young girl, LaNita went with her to work in the garden. She would ask her grandmother why she worked in the community garden since she already had lots of vegetables at home.

It wasn’t just about the vegetables; working in the community garden, LaNita says, “was a social thing, a community thing” for her grandmother.

So when LaNIta moved from New Orleans back to Oklahoma in 1999 and heard about “the organic district,” she searched out the gardens on 32nd Street and Lia and Allen. Since then, she’s worked as part of the community that has evolved into CommonWealth Urban Farms.

“There’s so much to learn,” she says. In fact, she is applying for the third class of apprentices at CommonWealth. “Lia has a wealth of knowledge and I want to understand from her and others how they do what they do.”

Perhaps LaNita has found at CommonWealth what her grandmother found in her food-growing community in Arkansas.

“CommonWealth is like family. It’s like an outdoor community center. It’s about growth and development, stewardship. And growing food is therapeutic.”—Pat

Of a Certain Nature…

On the tiny dab of soil in my front yard next to the fire hydrant at 32nd and Olie, my neighbor Stephanie planted a small but tall pollinator garden last summer. Even in that tiny space she left a little path for city workers to get to the fire hydrant. And still there was room for milkweed and sunflowers, that grew seven-foot tall, and produced giant-headed pods. As fall came, she sawed off their heads and hung them upside down in her greenhouse. On Valentine’s Day she brought four of them to my door, “for the birds.”

We both feed and water the birds. And on our lush block, there are a glorious variety and number of birds. I water them in the front yard, and feed them in the side yard, where I can watch them through my living room window—and, watch the squirrels. I’ve given up trying to protect birdseed from the squirrels. But I wanted the birds to get at least some of the sunflower seeds in these beautiful dried pods.

I set one pod on the ground out front near their water dishes, hoping the birds would find it first. But a squirrel, guzzling water out of a saucer on the front porch, spotted the pod and made quick work of emptying it of seeds.

I hung the next one in the side yard, where I thought the squirrel might not reach. But I don’t think there’s anyplace a squirrel can’t reach. And when I saw it stretched full out munching away, well, that was that. Except! It can’t reach the bottom-most seeds in the pod. Unfortunately, neither can the birds; they need someplace to stand and get to the seeds.

So, I’m trying to figure out how to help the birds get a taste. I have two more pods to share.—Pat

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Need a last minute gift?

Gourmet & super-nutritious, our micro greens and pea shoots are a great gift for that plant lover in your life! We have the following unique gifts available to reserve for pick up on Saturday, December 23rd between 9am-noon, or by appt. Reserve here: https://goo.gl/njCXoD

$10—microgreens or pea shoots in a compostable coir pot (Pictured on right)
$20—micro greens or pea shoots in a 10” tray with free potpourri sachet of oranges, apples, cinnamon & cloves (left photo)
$5 – cat grass in a recycled pot (middle). Many cats enjoy nibbling on live green plants, and cat grass is ideal for indoor cats. It provides a safe alternative for cats who munch on house plants!
Limited quantities.

Clergy in the Garden

Hands in the Soil: Clergy Renewal Through Environmental Awareness

Beginning March 2, 2018, a small group (6-8) of clergy will attend a day-long program once a month, in which they spend three morning hours working in the vegetable fields at CommonWealth.
Following lunch together, the cohort will process with a spiritual director and environmental educator from Turtle Rock Farm In Town, around their spiritual and emotional experiences working in nature; explore the value for themselves and their faith community of growing food; study theological themes in ecospirituality, and how they might move congregants into creation care—through worship experience, community gardens, environmental justice.

At the end of the nine-month program, the participants will schedule with CommonWealth Urban Farms a Saturday morning tour for three of their faith community members.

CEUs are available. DEADLINE to register is February 1, 2018. To learn more and register, go to the Clergy at CommonWealth page on our website: http://commonwealthurbanfarms.com/clergy-at-commonwealth/

A Photo Review of the Year

 

Bountiful winter harvest of greens in our new hoop house. A grant from Tater Tats (check out their delightful temporary vegetable tattoos) funded the irrigation system in our new hoop house.

Our new food forest! We planted persimmon, mulberry & fig tree seedlings in the backyard next to the hoop house, and surrounded them with a polyculture of herbs, berries and flowers.

David used the masonry skills he learned years ago in Italy to build a handsome rock retaining wall that shows off our new flower garden.

Terry set us up with compost socks from Fertile Ground for a secondary retaining wall that can become a living wall this coming year. 

 

Flowers, flowers everywhere! After two years of building the soil and bio-remediating for chlordane and lead, we planted a cut flower garden in this lot facing NW 32nd Street.

CSA members, florists, local restaurants and other flower-lovers were our enthusiastic customers.


Our first class of apprentices, shown here with CommonWealth staff.

Big thanks to everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe Campaign! We lost a summer’s worth of income when our hoop house was accidentally left closed one afternoon & temps reached 160 degrees in less than an hour. But the financial loss was erased by so many generous donations, and we were able to replant and get back on our feet.

Veggies for CSA and restaurants.

Christopher started as an apprentice and is now vegetable farm manager!


Garden School

52 weeks of composting, rain or shine! Photo shows Isaias helping to sift compost.

We expanded our Pollinator Garden to provide more food and habitat for visiting butterflies, bees and beetles


Fall Harvest Potluck and Celebration


The latest: new plantings in the north hedgerow

Thanks Sara! Co-founder and “retiring” CSA manager.

Our amazing team of volunteers, whose enthusiasm, creativity and hard work make CommonWealth shine!

 

Our amazing team of volunteers, whose enthusiasm, creativity and hard work make CommonWealth shine!

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Updates…

  • 2025: New Beginnings at CommonWealth Urban Farms!

    2025: New Beginnings at CommonWealth Urban Farms!

    2025 Partner Farmers Lia’s Garden at CommonWealthI took a bit of time-off over the winter to recharge my batteries, including lots of long walks in the woods. Now I’m starting hundred of seeds every week, and our compost-heated greenhouse is keeping my baby plants warm and happy through these up and down temperatures. Even after […]Read More »

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