As I did the final site clean up for the radicchio trail that was conducted on the Organic Farm in 2020, I was excited to find many of the radicchio plants that had died back to their roots had begun sprouting leaves in preparation for the coming season. Knowing that the entire field had to be spaded and then turned over, I pulled as many of the radicchio heads with their roots intact and will re-plant them in the community garden to see how they finish their life cycle!
As the days begin to get longer, and the sun agrees to share some of its warmth, it felt like a perfect time to get into the community garden space and take some preliminary observations of the state of things. Of course, it inevitably ended up being a wet and dreary but, with the added motivation of one of my peers, Sarah Dyer, we got out there and walked around.
As you may imagine, the garden in February was a soggy, rotted mess, with most of the foliage retreated and tucked in, waiting for that aforementioned sun light. Below are some photos of the space that were are hoping to adopt. Notice how the bed looks like it hasn’t been managed for a couple of years and is going to require a lot of tender love and care. (photo credit to Sarah Dyer)
I am excited and looking forward to connect with 3 different individuals that I know will have a lot of valuable advice and perspective that I hope to incorporate into my plans as I move ever forward.
#1 — This first meeting in my docket is with Lane Selman, the director of the Culinary Breeding Network (creators of NOVIC) and a professor at OSU. Lane has been working on expanding the Organic breeding efforts of PNW vegetable varieties and has been working with the primary plant breeder, Jim Meyers, at OSU. The work and connections that Lane has been a part of in the last few years has been hugely valuable through aiding in the implementation and dissemination of responsible plant breeding and seed saving practices.
We will be talking about seed varieties that I should focus on growing in this upcoming season’s variety trials; it makes a lot of sense to me to grow similar varieties that the Culinary Breeding Network are growing so that we can only expand the data and information that we have for a particular variety. I know that Lane will have boundless info and advice to give me.
#2 — The second person that I will be meeting with Heather Rudich who is the farm manager at Grub, a food cooperative in Olympia, WA that focuses on ag-education to younger students (k-12), while still providing large amounts of food for the greater Olympia community. Heather has been so kind as to offer some donatable seeds to us and is excited about the prospective work that I am planning.
#3 — And last, but not least, is Chris Nolte who was the previous Evergreen Community Garden coordinator. I have so many questions about how to effectively coordinate this space and Chris will undoubtedly have many of the tricks and beta used for running the CG as smoothly as possible, making my life a whole lot easier!
I will post details about these meetings as they take place so stay tuned!
The inundation of orders that seed distributors have been experiencing this season seems to be unprecedented! While this is incredibly exciting, it also means that the distributors and their workers are having to work very hard in the midst of our pandemic, and this has led to delays in shipping times and even delays in the consumer placing their orders. This is all to say that the system has been gummed up a bit, so I remain patient and will hopefully get my seed order in by the end of the weekend!
Good news though! In an effort to network with people and organizations in the field of Organic vegetable breeding and variety trials, I reached out to several companies and contacts that I have made in the past to tell them about the project and to ask for advice as I begin to move forward! Lane Selman of the Culinary Breeding Network and Linda Fenstemaker of Osborne Seed Company have both contributed huge amounts of support and advice and I owe them both huge amounts of gratitude!
I am just now getting this ePortfolio up and running, so there is a bunch to catch up on.
Wicked world
Plastic in my teeth
Wet garbage
