Starting the Move

For those who don’t know, we are moving the Sebastopol Garden because we lost our lease, as the property was recently sold. We have found an amazing new site and are excited for the opportunities at the Sebastopol Charter School, our new location!

We’ve had a lot help getting the move started and have so many angels to acknowledge:

Ken Brandt (The Gentleman Farmer) did the initial tilling of the garden.  He also did the tilling for the original garden, and it was very sweet to have him be the person to start our new garden also.. His daughters were both involved with Ceres as volunteers.  

Lynmar Estate Winery has been a huge help.  I used to be a gardener there! They shared their tractor and a crew of their vineyard team for two days to move all the wooden raised beds and the soil from them.  The original raised beds were a donation from Sturgeon’s Mill.  They are really high-quality redwood, so even though the beds are 10 years old, we hope to get more years out of that beautiful wood. We chose to move the soil from the raised beds as we have built that soil for the last 10 years and did not want to start over. 

They also ripped the main area we will be doing vegetable production. Ripping the soil cracks open the soil at a deep level without inverting the soil layers, it increases water drainage and opens up the soil for the roots to go deeper.   They also ripped the main area we will be doing vegetable production. 

Atlas Tree, local arborists providing tree services in Sonoma County, donated 40 yards of wood chips. 

Soiland is donating compost and mulch (you might already be familiar with them, as they have supported Harvest of the Heart many times).  We are very grateful for our ongoing partnership with them!

The design support team

  • Kendall

  • Karmendra*

  • Eric

  • Caiti

  • Wendy

  • Will

  • Kellen

  • Ryan

  • Brock

  • Darryl

  • Joey

*Karmendra Rossi, of Nucleus Design has helped throughout our process in thinking through design and ideas.  We have now contracted with him to build an access road, dig some swales to increase water storage on the land, and also install the water system.  We are also going to take the large pile of branches and stumps and bury them to create something called “hugelkulture” – a mound system that utilizes all the carbon of the woody material to create a mounded planting area.  He is a master of thinking about water on the landscape and will be helping us think about how to store, sink and move water on the land. 

What else is happening?

  • A local Eagle Scout is building us a new set of worm bins.

  • An 8th grader at the Charter School is putting up an owl box as part of her 8th grade final project.  (We will be working with more youth as we will be integrating their 7th and 8th graders into the program.)

  • The new site already has blue birds and hawks  making their homes there.     

 What’s next?

We are looking for in-kind (donated) help from professionals to support some key work.  If you know anyone who might help with any of the following, please let us know. You could make an introduction, or contact me with the person’s information and I will reach out myself. Here is what we need help with: 

  • Move the shed and shade structure- take them apart and rebuild them at the new site. or a way to load the shed and move without taking it apart.

  • Tractor work to move soil, compost and raised beds. 

  • Dump trucks or trailers are needed to load some of the soil we are moving and compost over.

In Peas,

Sara McCamant, Garden Program Manager

Previous
Previous

Designing the New Garden

Next
Next

Mushroom Bisque Recipe