Book Review: Edible Schoolyard A Universal Idea by Alice Waters

Since books are the second passion of our family (my lovely wife is studying to become a librarian), I have decided to start a semi-regular book review post.  So, here it goes.

The Edible Schoolyard was written by renowned chef Alice Waters with the help of Daniel Duane.  Waters is the co-owner and of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.  The book is the story of her founding of a garden and kitchen at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California and is quite an inspirational story.

The school was, and prehaps still is, on Waters route to and from work.  She drove by it everyday along with it's horrid land and concrete ground.  While giving an interview to a local paper about land management, Waters pointed out the school as a way not to manage land.  Little did she know the gravity of her claim, until she received a call from the school principle telling her to put her money where her mouth is, so to speak.  Waters walked the grounds with the principal and  began formulating a plan.  The book continues on about the involvement of faculty and parents and the methods used to get the project off the ground.

A year later, the school hired an Englishman (although that wasn't held against him), David Hawkins, to become the full time gardener for the school.  He began a summer program and employment of every cheap method of building he could muster to get the garden put together.

Year three saw the opening of the kitchen at the school, where students could cook the fruits of their labor.  It was also fascinating to read how the kitchen was used for teaching math and science, as well as humanities classes, where in one example, students learning about Neolithic times would hand grind berries in stone mortars as a type of living history.

Throughout the book, stories of getting kids involved abound.  It's also interesting to read how the adults adapted to life with inner-city school children in order to make the garden a place they could be a part of.

The book continues on in the first half with various stories about the happenings in the school, kitchen and garden, including a visit by the Prince of Wales himself.  The latter half of the book consists of photographs, writings of the children and various other illustrations regarding the garden.

I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I do love reading about passionate people doing remarkable things and Waters must be considered passionate to accomplish what she has during a time when her type of cooking was not considered mainstream.  The book is not at all preachy, either, saving only the last couple of pages to point out the benefits and obvious reasons projects like this need to occur.  Lastly, it's a quick read giving the reader just enough of a glimpse into the history without bogging down.  Well done.

April Bloom Day!

From our most recent visit to the Huntington Botanical Gardens.

Carol at May Dreams Gardens has Bloom Day on the 15th of each month.  This is my first month of participating.  Be sure to visit her site to see other participants.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Ladies and Gentleman, we interupt this program for some very important news.  Tottenham Hotspur 2, Arsenal 1.  What a glorious day this is!!  Now, go plant something.  Preferably in lillywhite and blue.

The Front, Stage 1, aka, "The North 40"

Alright.  Here it is.  The first part of the yard shown that does not consist of a single plant.  This is the first section of yard that we are tackling.  Now, as I have stated previously, our yard is not large by the standards of someone who lives in say Alaska.  Or Montana.  Or Siberia.  However, by the standards of the state of California, the yard is pretty decently sized.  Now, I haven't been able to muster the courage to show the entire yard.  I'm still compiling my list of caveats related to each possible picture I could show.  It's quite an ugly site.  In my defense, though, I did not have much to start with.  I believe that would be caveat one.  As a breach to that defense, and as my wife would quickly point out, I am the king of demolition.  I remove everything that could ever want to be removed.  However, I'm not nearly as diligent in the reconstruction process.  The yard, unfortunately, has suffered the brunt of this problem.

So, what we have decided is to tackle the yard in pieces.  That will limit the area we need to concentrate on.  Our plan is actually to create a series of rooms within the property, so dissecting the yard actually fits quite nicely into that plan.  This is what we decided to tackle first.  The front yard off the driveway.  On the sprinkler system we inherited this was labeled the "North 40".  I've decided to stick with that.

Prior to this, the area consisted of lawn.  Next to gophers, lawn is the one thing in this world I despise the most.  Dictators of third world nations who rule with an iron fist are a distant third to these two items.  Within the lawn, there was an ornamental plum tree and a Magnolia.  Now, I have nothing against either of those trees, there were two issues (one with each).  The plum was planted too close to the knee wall.  The magnolia tree was the free city tree that came with the newly constructed houses.  Meaning, every house all the way down the block has the same tree, in the same spot of the yard.  They're Stepford trees.  That wouldn't do.  So, they were the first two trees to come down.  The battle with those stumps is a story for a different occasion, while drinking a different cocktail then I am currently drinking.  And, yes, all bloggers drink when they blog.  Or, at least they should.

The new area consists of the Pigmy Date Palm to the left of the second picture, which is the only surviving item from the previous regime.  It's named Bob.  Different story.  We then have the olive, which is in previous posts.  The small slope is covered with lavender, fourteen in total along with three Italian Cypress.

Two types of Agapanthus are up against the neighbor, the Sprinkler Maven.  The two largest are Agapanthus 'Lily of the Nile' and the three smaller are Agapanthus 'Stormcloud', which are supposedly cobalt in bloom.  Looking at the picture, I'm not sure how that will look against the lavender.  I'm not fond of my blue suit with lavender pocket square nor lavender socks, but I digress.

The front of the yard is rimmed with Boxwood Green Beauty (buxus microphylla japonica).  Capped on two ends with Golf Ball Kohuhu's (pittosporum tenuifolium), which is better seen in the first picture scarred by the leg lifting neighborhood dog.  If anyone knows of a way of electrifying foliage, I would be willing to pay for the information.  We had a third Kohuhu; however, the Sprinkler Maven made sure one didn't survive the liquid onslaught.  Once they grow into a solid wall, I'm hoping it will look quite spectacular.  Sweet Jesus, I left the weeder in the picture.

Here is the line up of boxwoods, along with our drip system.  Yes, I understand that is should be buried, but do keep in mind, I have the memory of a gnat.  Ask my wife.  If I bury it now, it is guaranteed that I will slice through it each and every time I dig a hole for a new plant.  And, in this space, we imagine there will be at least another twenty plants.  That's twenty repair jobs.

Also, note the boxwoods are set back away from the sidewalk.  We're going to put a ground cover between it and the sidewalk.  We have decided the mulch is ugly.

Lastly, we have three mirror bushes, two Coprosma Repens Marble Queens:

And, one Coprosma Rainbow Surprise:

Lastly, my God this is long, I need to go get another drink.................lastly, you will notice all these plants are small.  This is a very, very, very, very young garden.  The lavender and cypress are a year old and everything else (olive in June of '09) has been put in during the last couple of months.  We have a lot of plants that need to be acquired and a surprising amount of patience to wait for them to grow.  I'm actually going to attempt plants from seed soon as a way to fill the space while still being able to afford food.

They're Alive!!

We're back from our fun in the sun in beautiful Hawaii.  Good news to report...all the potted plants lived!  We even had higher then normal temperatures, and they all came through unscathed.  Of course, we returned to cold and rain.  Go figure.  Now, that we're back, the garden (and of course the long list of things my lovely wife has planned for me) is at the forefront.  Stay tuned.

Vacation Prep!

Finally, we will be off on a vacation, shortly.  We will be visiting our great state of Hawaii.  It will be a pleasure to get away from the freezing sleet and piled high snow here in Southern California.  Oh, wait.  Scratch that last bit.  What is sleet, anyway?

We found out the hard way a few year's back when we went to London that moving your potted plants onto the lawn, we did have one of those then, and allowing the lawn sprinklers to water them has disastrous results.  For our last vacation, and now this one, we purchased a pot watering system.

This particular kit we purchased from The Drip Store.  It comes with quarter inch tubing, stakes, connectors and various types of drippers.  It worked like a charm, as all of our plants survived in tact.  It wasn't until later we killed them.

Now, mind you, it is not the most attractive set up once in place.

You can make it permanent; however, we still do like hand watering, as different plants have different requirements, and we tend to move the pots with some frequency as certain victims are replaced with future ones.

The programmer can be set to go off multiple time per day for various lengths of time.  One drawback is that the time starts when you first turn it on.  There is no setting it to go at a specific time, say 5 am.  If you want it to go off at 5 am, you need to walk outside in your unmentionables at that hour and start it for the first time.  Needless to say, our watering will occur in the evening, as that is when I walked out in my unmentionables to start it.

The system has worked flawlessly.  It came with plenty of hose and connectors.  There are a couple of things, though, that could be changed.  First, as with any kit, the mix of items usually is not what you need.  The kit contains foggers and drippers that are 1 gallon per hour and 1/2 gallon per hour.  The 1/2 gallon per hour drippers are useless unless you encircle the plant with them as if you were laying siege to a castle.

Luckily, I had extra 1 gallon per hour drippers, so the day was saved.

Second, this is not the first time we have used this system and there are quite a few more plants now then we had before.  I didn't show the other batch as I couldn't figure out how to get the picture without capturing the lawn/dirt, which is not something anyone wishes to see.  We have about 13 plants on this system.  Reconfiguring the system is a little difficult as the connectors and drippers cannot be undone from the hose once set.  One must cut the hose and insert more connectors.  It looks a bit Frankensteinish after all is said and done.

Either way, it is a small nuisance, as coming home to mass plant extinction is a far bigger nuisance.  Also, we have finally planted some tomatoes and strawberries and it would be heartbreaking to lose our first go at vegetables.  That's for a future post.  Not the loss, but the vegetables.  Keep up.

P.S.  Very bad, bad morning today as it was too early for a pint due to my being on kid duty today and my beloved Tottenham Hotspur fell to Sunderland 3-1.  We were simply outclassed, although we had every opportunity at the end for at least a draw.  As of now, still in fourth.  I'm afraid, though, in an hour we won't be.  Bar maid, where's my cocktail???

April Food Day

http://www.aprilfoodday.blogspot.com/

Today is April Food Day.  Millions of people will be hungry today just in our country alone.  Tens of millions will be hungry around the world.  The Elengantologist at Easy and Elegant Life has asked, along with April Food Day, for bloggers around the world to bring hunger to the forefront on this day.

As gardeners we hold, I believe, a special place in the fight against hunger.  We all have the knowledge, if not the skill, to feed ourselves and our families by growing our own food.  In addition, we all have the ability and for many probably the reality of growing more food then we can possibly consume ourselves.  We also have the ability to teach others how to grow their own food and be somewhat self sustaining no matter their economic or geographic limitations.  I have visited and continue to visit many bloggers whom grow fruits and vegetables on their balconies in major industrialized cities, Sue at the The Balcony Garden I'm looking at you.  In spaces probably smaller then our downstairs bathroom.

I'm not asking for money, although if you are so inclined the link above (I still haven't figured out this blogging thing to get a link to be imbedded into a picture) will take you to April Food Day where you can make a donation.  I am asking that you try.  Give advice to a fellow blogger (myself and the The Idiot Gardener can use all the help we can get), volunteer at a school, donate some excess to a food bank or send some seeds to the multitude of inner city gardens in order to stamp out hunger in the world.  Thank you for your time.