Happy Long Days!
It’s sure nice to have those extra hours of daylight to get some work done in the garden. Of course the nights are still a little cold for our summer crops, but soon it is time to think about tomatoes, basil, peppers, squash and corn. The roses are about to go crazy here and thanks to IUH student and longtime volunteer Julia Dashe, we have a spot to grow out our collection of over 200 dahlia tubers. Thanks Julia! Here at Beegrrl Gardens we’ve got a lot of critters at the moment, including baby bunnies in 3 different sizes, small, medium, and large, 3 bantam hens, 2 mating pairs of white pigeons and a pair of mourning doves. We’ve got our 3 cats and our 5 ratting dogs, including one tiny puppy. Two beehives are thriving here on the property at the moment and others are strewn about including two in Oakland, one in Petaluma and one in Forestville. This includes a swarm that showed up in an abandoned hive just last week. Free bees—woo-hoo! Oh and let’s not forget the 3 betta fishes, just for fun.

At the Institute we are officially beginning our Spring season this weekend, with Organic Gardening 101 and the first event in our new “Tour and Tasting Series” way up at Jim Montgomery’s place in Boonville. If you’ve been missing having Jim, the goat guy, in our local community and want to make the drive we going to have a fun casual afternoon looking at animals, learning about bees and tasting some cheese. Coming up pretty soon is the first of our whole animal butchery series as well, The Whole Lamb. Learn about breaking down a whole animal and go home with some quality meat! The biggest news of the day is that we are announcing the sites for our 2016 Urban Farm Tours and tickets are going on sale—details below!

Yelp Review Raffle ~ And the Winner is……!
Congrats to JC of Antioch! Please contact us here to claim your free class. Big THANK YOU to the rest of you who took the time to submit your review!

Urban Farm Tours 2016
Vallejo-Benicia ~ Sunday, May 22 9am-3pm
The Best of Berkeley ~ Saturday, June 11 10am-4pm

Site descriptions are now online and day pass tickets on sale! I am really stoked about the sites this year, some really excellent and interesting examples of urban agriculture.
In Vallejo ~Benicia we are offering full day and half day passes. In Berkeley we’ll offer day passes and pay-as-you-go options. Details on HOW IT WORKS on our event page:

Please don’t forget that the farm tours are a benefit for IUH. We operate without any grants or outside funding…we do no mailings to beg you for support. This is the one chance in the year to show your financial appreciation for being one of the oldest and most consistent educational project offering classes in urban agriculture and other traditional skills. Purchase your Friend of the Farm Tour or Patron of the Farm Tour Ticket and get farm fresh perks as a thank you (eggs, honey or other value added goods from our farmers). Z

Just a few snaps of Urban Farm Tour sites. More pictures of all the farms on Facebook!

Spring in the Garden: Amendment Time!
For a great and productive summer garden it is time to fluff and improve your soil. Whether you have East Bay Clay or Alameda Sand the process is about the same, “When in doubt, just add compost.” I personally love our East Bay Clay. We are the recipient of fine clay particles with their excellent cation exchange which wash down from the entire Sierra watershed, bringing lots of nutrients and minerals. All our soil needs is a bit of air and organic matter. For at least a few years you will need to till your clay and right about now is the best time to start—when the clay is no longer waterlogged but still has some moisture in it. After weeding out the oxalis and whatever noxious weeds you have (put em in the green bin—not in your home compost) layer compost and animal manures on top the the soil and dig it in. How much? For the first couple years I usually add about a wheelbarrow full (2-3 cubic feet) for each 4 x 4 bed. This is more compost than you can probably make in your own home pile, so consider collecting the free compost at the Berkeley Marina or buying 1/2 yard or more at a place like Acapulco Soil or the Davis Street Transfer Stattion. As far as manures, we reccommend chicken, steer, rabbit or goat. Be very careful with horse manures. If the horses have been on pasture this is a good way to import noxious weeds, as the seeds in the manure are not always killed in the composting process. Adding compost is only one way to improve your soil….wanna know more? Attend one of our Organic Gardenng classes for a full primer on soil improvement.