Tomato Workshop coming soon!

13. May 2011 by admin.

 

Mark your calendar! Saturday, May 21 at 2:00 pm, I am hosting another tomato workshop. Please inquire at judyfrankel@gmail.com to reserve a space.

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Vegetables and Fruit, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Meet me at the Healthy Living Festival!

12. May 2011 by admin.

Peggy Curry, my friend and founder of Growing Great, is hosting a Healthy Living Festival this Sunday, May 15th at 12pm-4pm at the Metlox and 13th Street Plaza in Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

This is their 5^th year hosting the Festival, and I will be there along with Deep Roots’ owner Jon Bell to “edutain” children and adults about gardening the organic way, how to grow your own fruits and vegetables.

We have fun activities for the kids so they can get down and dirty. Come join us! See this link for more information: http://growinggreat.org/about-us/healthy-living-festival/

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

Passionate Letter

24. April 2011 by admin.

Sometimes, we just go for it, and sometimes good things happen. If the ideas in the letter I wrote to the Annenberg Foundation resonate with people here in Palos Verdes, it was meant to be. I’ve included the text here, so that people who find my blog through reading my Letter to the Editor in Palos Verdes Peninsula News can find out more.

Dear Ms. Annenberg:

 

I live in Rancho Palos Verdes and I am delighted that you want to bring a project to our beautiful coastline. I understand that some of our citizens are not completely on board with the construction, and I want to address that problem here.

 

Over a year ago, a few concerned parents began a Sustainability Task Force for the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District (PVPUSD). One of their missions was to begin some ambitious school gardens. They contacted me, a Master Gardener with a small organic farm of my own, asking me to spearhead two small orchards and a garden program at Cornerstone Elementary. Their ultimate goal was to grow enough food at 19 school sites to supply the lunch program with locally grown produce.

 

As you know, there is a strong movement in this country toward supporting locally produced food that is grown in a sustainable way. But I quickly pointed out that the most efficient way to grow food of the quantity desired was through farming one large contiguous plot.

 

This is where the Annenberg Foundation could help build bridges with the community of Rancho Palos Verdes. A portion of the Pointe Vicente area (8 ½ acres) used to be farmland, enough to eventually provide PVPUSD with fresh food for school lunches. In addition, it would be a natural location for educating the students where their vegetables come from, how it can be grown in an ecologically friendly way, and how they can become better stewards of the planet.

 

If you added not just a “garden” but a permaculture-based edible landscape to your plan, you would win the favor of many households in Rancho Palos Verdes while achieving your goals of sustainability and innovation. The farm at Lower Point Vicente could become an exemplary destination for people studying agriculture, much like the Findhorn Garden in Scotland, or Esalen’s garden in Big Sur. With the zeitgeist of the culture looking strongly at our food sources today, and with people concerned about our food security for the future, there is no better time to create an Eden than now.

 

I would be honored to help you create a project that dovetails into your original plans, so that the community can easily see how your dreams aid the welfare of their children and improve the health of everyone concerned. Teresa Mee, Director of Food Services and the woman in charge of procuring food for PVPUSD’s lunches has asked me to supply as much produce as I can. If I had a larger farm, a small staff of helpers, and a nursery, I could grow enough for the school district. With your vision, it would be the Annenberg Foundation giving children the education necessary to carry on a tradition of making a significant, lasting, tangible contribution to their community by growing their own food.

 

Please contact me at your convenience. I will be a wealth of information and could put together a business plan for the first five years of operation, or just brainstorm ideas on how to make Lower Point Vicente a truly unique, evolving educational center. For more information about me, you can visit my website and my blog at judyshomegrown.com.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

 

Judy Frankel

 

cc: Leonard Aube

 

Posted in Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

Tomato Workshop

20. March 2011 by admin.

Mark your calendar: Saturday, April 30 at 2 pm at my “farmette”. Please RSVP to: 310-750-6686 and receive address/directions. $5.00 per person admission.

Learn about:

indeterminate vs determinate
How to plant a “start”
How to remove suckers
How to tie/stake/cage tomatoes
How to store tomatoes after harvesting
How to combat snails, green worms
How to stretch out the tomato season

 

I will be selling the following tomato plant varieties at the workshop for $5 each: (to learn more about each variety, click here: http://www.judyshomegrown.com/2.html)

 

Black Plum
Chocolate Stripes
Berkeley Tie Dye Heart
Marianna’s Peace
Tri -L-Crop
Peacevine Cherry
Super Snow White
Black Zebra
Chocolate Cherry
Eva Purple Ball
Paul Robeson
Arkansas Traveler
Brandywine OTV
Clint Eastwood Rowdy Red
Sungold Cherry
Brandywine Yellow
Beam’s Yellow Pear
Isis Candy Cherry
Japanese Black Trifele
Box Car Willie
Amy’s Sugar Gem
Sunset Red Horizon

Persimmon

Sugar Sweetie Cherry

Mexico Midget

Carmello

San Marzano 2 Plum

Purple Cherokee

Jelly Bean Grape

Milano Plum

 

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

Winter’s Harvest

17. March 2011 by admin.

Posted in Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Field of Dreams

28. December 2010 by admin.

Build it and they will come…to the Farm!

 

This time, the farm will be bigger and better. I am interested in growing enough food for the PVPUSD’s school lunches and running a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. Below are pictures of Esalen, in Big Sur to show the kind of farm that would be needed to support a locavore school program. All I need is the land and a little help from my friends. It’s just a dream now, but wait and see…

 

 

 

 

Posted in Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit, Blogroll | No Comments »

Cornerstone Elementary learns seed starting!

30. November 2010 by admin.

With the help of Sharona Byrnes, I assisted two classes of 5th grader volunteers in putting together a dozen flats for seed starting yesterday! Then we took the trays to the classrooms to plant winter crops. The kids had so much fun that they wanted to know if I were coming back every week. Here’s a poem I wrote to summarize the day’s learning experience:

We planted seeds to watch them sprout

The Master Gardener helped us out.

We started with seed starting soil and “flats”

And capillary action mats.

 

Because water molecules have an attraction

To each other, they cause capillary action.

 

So taking advantage of this natural phenomenon,

We placed wicking mats with the notch on

The side opposite the one where the mat flopped over

Into the tray below with the water.

 

We stirred seed starting soil with cottonseed meal

Then poured lots of water into the bucket to feel

The sponge-like clumps when kneaded well:

A mixture which filled each of 40 cells.

 

Placing one seed in each space with labels announcing

What veggies inside would soon be bouncing

Out of their seed coats, declaring their survival

And Cornerstone School Garden’s arrival!

 

How far the seed needs to go under

The blanket of soil is any wonder

Follow this rule and you can not miss:

How thick is the seed? The depth is this.

 

We learned some cool things, like how to promote

A parsley seed to burst its seed coat

With boiling water, then a soak overnight

To scarify and set it right.

 

We wanted to plant watermelons and such

We could not wait; we like them so much

But learned that with seed starting, the plan to uphold

Was to plant hot crops in hot weather, cold ones in cold.

 

So we planted our broccoli, Swiss chard, and kale

Our lettuces, dill, sage, cilantro without fail.

We planted collards, cauliflower, lavender too.

Artichokes, cabbage, and broccoli rabe for you.

 

What I wanted to know, but never asked

What the heck is Swiss Chard, please tell me fast!

I need to learn how to cook this weird thing

With foods like these, what does my future bring?

 

Chamomile tea dilution keeps away fungus

Called “damping off” which lives among us

And kills my sprouts, doing me no favor

Wherefore then I can’t taste the fruits of my labor.

 

There’s so much to know; so much more to learn

I can’t wait, so please Master Gardener, return!

I want to check the greenhouse and find out

What happened in my flat; did my sprouts sprout?

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Everyday life, Vegetables and Fruit | 1 Comment »

Time to prune apricot and apple trees

26. October 2010 by admin.

I’ve been waiting for the rain and fog to stop, for some sunshine and wah-lah: finally! Now it’s time to get out the loppers and go after those apricot trees that haven’t been fruiting properly. Here’s an example of the “Before” picture of an apricot that has only been giving maybe 10 fruits on a good year. Just let me at it…

Before:

After:

Posted in Vegetables and Fruit, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Order your fruit trees/brambles/bushes now!

8. October 2010 by admin.

Contact me immediately 310-750-6686 if you want to purchase the following fruit trees, vines, bushes:

Blueberries
Raspberries & Blackberries
Pome fruits: Apples, Pears, Asian Pears, Quince (but not loquat)
Stone fruits: Peaches, Nectarines, Plums, Prunes, Apricots, Cherries
Unusual varieties: Apriums, Pluots, Plumcots, Cherry-Plums, Nectaplums, Peacotum (order quickly for this new variety, which is a peach/apricot/plum cross with rich tropical and apricot flavors)
Pomegranates
Figs
Nuts: Almonds, Pecans, or Walnuts only
Cherries (I know I’m repeating myself, but did you know you can grow cherries here?)
Grapes (both wine and table grapes)
Jujubes
Kiwifruits
Roses
Ornamental flowering trees/shrubs

I will offer my expertise for free, provided you live within a 10-mile radius from me. You need to know what type of rootstock to get for your soil type, how tall you want the tree to get, and how much fruit you want it to produce. Also, you have to make sure to have the proper pollinators near your desired fruit. To space out your fruiting season, it helps to buy different varieties that ripen at different times. I can help you with all of that.

I’m placing my order no later than October 30th. If you want unusual varieties, something really special or new introductions, you need to have your order in by October 15th.

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Vegetables and Fruit | No Comments »

Peach/nectarine tree pruning workshop

14. September 2010 by admin.

On Sunday, September 26 at 3 pm, I will be holding a workshop to show how to prune a peach or nectarine tree. The best way to keep a tree small and manageable is to do an aggressive pruning in the summer months, after the fruit is gone but while the tree is still covered with leaves. For more information, email me at judyfrankel@gmail.com. The workshop costs $12 per person, and I am limiting the class size, so hurry and sign up now by emailing me your interest. I will give out my address to those who RSVP.

Posted in Gardening classes and opportunities to learn, Vegetables and Fruit | No Comments »