Hey CommonWealth: How Does Your Garden Grow?
So glad you asked! Because the gardens—the whole farm—is gorgeous these days.
We’ve replanted all the vegetables that died in the Hoop House meltdown, and they have been growing steadily. In the photo, you can see the edamame and lima beans up front, and the rows of young cucumber plants on the back right.
To our amazement, most of the tomato plants did not completely die. After the meltdown, the plants looked like fried spinach, but with a heavy pruning, they sent out new suckers that are now reaching toward the ceiling. That we should all be so indomitable!
South of the hoop house, another four rows of tomatoes are coming along nicely. And at the big farm, tomatoes are prolific. (We picked six perfect ripe ones off one plant Saturday morning and there are twice that many green ones.)
There is a good variety of vegetables on the farm, including eggplant, peppers, yard long beans, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, basil, beets, purslane, arugula and mustard greens. Potatoes have been harvested and a cover crop of cow peas planted to add nitrogen to the soil. With the amazing rain, little seedlings are already poking their heads up through that rich CommonWealth compost.
Braden’s stonemasonry skills. Lia, Edith and apprentices have planted the entire lot now and rows and rows of flowers are abloom, with more to show soon.What a happy place it is these days! Thanks to the team of helpers who continue to dedicate many hours to CommonWealth!
Garden School: Composting
Saturday, July 8
11 am to noon
CommonWealth Urban Farms,
3310 N. Olie, OKC
$5, payable on siteAllen Parleir has been building compost piles, as well as composting with worms, for many years, and has a profound appreciation for rot! Participants will get an inside look into CommonWealth’s compost and worm bins, and learn the do’s and don’ts of building compost piles and worm bins to make that beautiful, rich, black substance we call “gardener’s gold.”
Instructor: Allen Parleir, co-founder of CommonWealth Urban Farms.
Thanks for your generosity!
And Welcome Farmer Christopher!
When Christopher Jennings started as an apprentice late last winter, he was terrified of harvesting spinach. Well, maybe not terrified, but intimidated. A neophyte gardener, he wasn’t sure how to go about cutting those tender leaves. Today, he is CommonWealth’s assistant farm manager! (That’s him in the hat.)With great enthusiasm, we welcome Christopher to his new work, seeing that the vegetable farm is planned, planted, picked, preserved and doing all that entails on a daily basis. Working under Lia’s tutelage, he’s come a long way from those first daunting days last winter in the hoop house!AND A BIG THANKS TO ALL who have donated to the CommonWealth Recovery Fund following that fateful day when the hoop house heated to 160 degrees and the lush plants inside died. The loss of income from those crops—and the dire need for help in replanting—required the community’s help. And you all have given generously.
Meet our Community Partners:
The Plant Shoppe
Beginners
Edith grew up working alongside her family in the vegetable fields of eastern Colorado, then alongside her husband growing vegetables near Holdenville, Ok. For 32 years, she worked as a horticulturist at the Oklahoma City Zoo, transforming grassy areas into native wildflower plantings. “There was no plant budget at first,” she says. “We went out and gathered seeds and transplanted plants from the area around the zoo.”
Well, the garden gods must have had a good chuckle Wednesday afternoon, when our hoop house was inadvertently left closed up for an hour or two. When I found it, the temperature inside was an impressive 160 degrees. The inhabitants did not fare well: cucumber, edamame, lima beans and some of our seedling flats were cooked through and through. Tomato plants were all but dead. 
Saturday, June 10
too. And weather. And timing. But soil quality is HUGE! Get it right with the soil and everything else gets a lot easier.I’ve recently been learning about the concept of remineralizing our soil, and how important that is for growing vibrantly healthy food. So I’m delighted to offer this workshop to other gardeners and farmers who want to improve their soil ecology, have fewer disease and insect problems, and grow foods with high levels of vitality and nutrition.It’s not just about having enough minerals in the soil; even more critical is bringing it all into balance. Admittedly, this can get a wee bit complicated! Jordan will focus on the practical side of how to take proper soil samples and send them off for analysis, and what to do with those results. He’ll walk us through the basic interaction of elements in the soil, and how to apply these principles to your own garden or farm.—LiaJordan has a degree in Plant and Soil Sciences from OSU, and recently returned from an internship in Missouri that focused on soil health and remineralizing soils. 
Last Saturday in Garden School, flower guru Edith Siemens taught what to plant in a garden to draw butterflies, bees, and other pollinators—and gave a tour of her splendid garden!
When Christopher Jennings began his apprenticeship at CommonWealth Urban Farms, even harvesting spinach seemed daunting to him. Here were rows of lush spinach inside the hoop house… How do you get down between the rows and take that knife and cut those beautiful green leaves? Individually? As a bunch? For Christopher, who had studied chemical engineering at OU, somehow he couldn’t wrap his mind around how to harvest the spinach.
Almost six years old, Fertile Ground started from its first day with similar goals as CommonWealth: to build more environmentally and financially sustainable communities. Born from a group of CommonWealth volunteers, Fertile Ground is a Worker Cooperative offering multiple services to help regular people to reduce their environmental impact: residential compost service, zero-emission lawn service, raised garden beds; zero-waste event recycling and composting as well commercial recycling and composting for businesses. Incorporating as a Worker Cooperative means that each worker has a share in the company and a vote in organizational decision-making. All workers share both responsibility and profits.
I’ll share my secret. Years ago, I learned that many cold hardy crops, like spinach, kale, carrots and green onions could be planted outside in the fall and would overwinter for an early spring harvest—especially if given some protection. Turns out the same is true of flowers!
myself, these flowers are AMAZING! Golly gee whiz, I didn’t know we could grow flowers like this! And the sweet peas…already sweetly blooming. If I plant sweet pea transplants outside in late February, they don’t hit their peak until May/June and they get hot and unhappy almost as soon as they start flowering. Add to that snapdragons, Canterbury bells, dianthus and ammi…I’m a total convert.
On the theme of fall planting… We started onion seed in August in pots, transplanted them outside in early October, and are now harvesting the most beautiful green onions! They sailed through the cold temps last winter without blinking, and then began to grow with enthusiasm. We’re harvesting the last of them this week, before they get too big.
Wow! An entire new front yard garden went in during – and after – Garden School last week. Thanks to all who helped! After weeding and weeding and weeding, we planted a fruit tree and herb circle, built two raised beds, and installed steps covered by an arch for vining flowers. 
The film Tomorrow is an exciting and hope-filled documentary showing projects that people around the globe are doing to create sustainable, alternative systems in their local communities. Stories include permaculture farms, urban ag projects, community-owned renewable initiatives and other efforts that highlight people making a positive difference.
Our CSA, affectionately called the Veggie Club, is supported by loyal and enthusiastic members, staff and volunteers. Our thanks go out to each of you! Although we’re full for this year, we’ve finally made our way through a long waiting list, and are now taking names for the 2018 season. Click 
Have you always dreamed of having bouquets from your garden all summer long? We can help you do that! Lia grows thousands of stems of cut flowers every year, and will share her list of favorite, easy-to-grow flowers for our climate. Learn about old friends such as zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds and snapdragons, plus lesser-known beauties like Asiatic lilies, lisianthus and ammi.
Join us for a hands-on workshop on transforming your front yard into an edible haven of vegetables, fruits and herbs. Front yards are often the sunniest spot for a garden, and they offer common ground for neighbors to meet and for community to blossom. (Photos show the “before and after” of a front yard transformed from grass to edible .)
d garden. Jody will lead kids in gardening activities, including planting seeds to take home and grow.
Oklahoma City Park Commissioner Christine Patton has published her first novel, Seed. It is set in the “Garden District” in Oklahoma City. Because Christine is a long-time friend and supporter of CommonWealth Urban Farms, we just had to ask if the fictional garden district was in any way related to CommonWealth. Yes, said Christine, on a visit to our community recently.
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.
Have you ever tasted a pawpaw, the native fruit with a flavor of mango-meets-banana custard? How about sweet, tiny kiwi berries? Or melt-in-your-mouth asian persimmons? These unusual fruits — along with figs, gooseberries, mulberries and goumi berries — are part of the design of a new food forest at CommonWealth that we’ll begin planting on Saturday, March 18th. Local permaculturist Paul Mays from SixTwelve will
sustainable and productive garden of fruit and nut trees, shrubs, berries, herbs, mushrooms and perennial vegetables, based on the natural systems found in forests. Food forests are probably the world’s oldest form of land use and amongst the most resilient of agroecosystems.
Our tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings are now snug as a bug in a rug in their new little greenhouse. Completed this past week by our friend Tom Temple (
Pictured here are 3-week-old spinach seedlings in our hoop house.
ings in plug trays. The photo shows some of our 40 flats of snapdragon, false queen anne’s lace, lisianthus, and other flower seedlings that are hardening off under a low tunnel; we’ll transplant them outside in March. It’s not too early to seed kale, spinach, lettuce, arugula, carrots & beets outside, as long as you have some row cover to give them protection on freezing nights.—Elia Woods