This is the time of year when those crazy beetles fly haphazardly around the garden.  They are very easy to catch and it is a natural source of protein for the ladies of the coop.  We urban farmers stand in as the leader of the flock, in that they are a bunch of spinsters with no rooster on the grounds, and bring them all kinds of garden treats.

The parkway has several pepper trees in an avenue style planting in desperate need of attention.  Some leaning on the fence, some diseased, some just need a little cleaning up.  Nursery stakes are now being removed as they no longer serve any positive purpose…quite the opposite.  Cleaned up and fertilized – these trees will be covered in new growth and pink peppercorns soon enough, adding to the overall beauty of the parkway.

Long Beach Community Action Partnership is launching the second phase of the Green Jobs-Green Initiatives project with drought tolerant demonstration gardens and small scale row farming for the hungry.  The first task is to update the landscaping on the perimeter of the campus and parking lot.  The interns are receiving instruction on topics such as: repairing and caring for the existing trees, replacing the irrigation, soil prep and plant selection.

The photos above show the flat, hard ground – 180 feet of it surrounds the parking lot.  The sidewalks are relatively new, but the contractors brushed the gravel and left over concrete bits in to the planting beds and topped it with a few inches of soil.  Not a great foundation for any type of landscape.  The first step is just breaking up the ground, chipping past the hard pan layer and bringing life back in to the soil.  There have been many yards of dirt, compost, and chicken manure added to the ground, during soil prep.  Water will activate the nutrients and begin to build healthy soil structure.  The extensive ground prep enables the plant material to have a safe landing and the lively soil makes the nutrients available to the plants for good root development and overall healthy plants!

This took many, many hours of hard shovel work by a contingent of Green Jobs Interns, Hire a Youth staff and Conservation Corps labor.  Thank goodness there was only one week in the 90’s!

Hughes Goes Green visited the Green Lab today for their after-school Green Team field trip.  We set up three stations:  Dr. Taylor, an ornithologist, was stationed in the coop to talk about and observe the baby chicks.  Cathy P, Green Team Leader ran the hyper-tufa table as the kids made garden containers out of portland cement, perlite and peat moss.  And the rest of us planted squash in temporary raised beds using bags of potting soil.

Earlier in the week Sasha Wrigley Garden took some video of the baby chicks while she and Adobo baby sat of day one for the first batch in the new coop.  You can watch it here:  Baby Chick Video

Check out upper right hand corner…the Buff Laced Polish looks like a 5th Avenue Socialite getting ready to do some shopping on the Upper East Side!!

Kim of Mrs. Doolittle’s thought Topaz might act as a surrogate.  The chicks immediately wanted to be under her.  She immediately hid behind Kim.

This little lady in the dish was walking around the coop a few minutes earlier and bam!  She went down on her side and started twitching.  We thought she was a goner.  Kim held her cozy for a few minutes, she suddenly started kicking, we gave her some grow gel and she was off and running!!  I think she is a Silver Crested Polish or a Crevecoeurs.  Both amazingly regal with their big poofy top hats!

They are really starting to get the hang of it!  The little feeder is borrowed from our handyman Scott who taught the workshop on Coop Building.  The Poultry Palace, as I call it, has an open beam ceiling, built in nursery with wind breaks, custom door with security feature and rain catchment system.  We almost camped there tonight to keep an eye on the chicks.  It’s like a New Orleans covered porch-summer bedroom, the chicks will be very comfortable there!

They really perked up after they got their initial watering and some gro gel.  We mixed it with the water and a little feed.  By the end of the day all the chicks were visibly bigger.  I watched them for 12 hours and they really did grow before my very eyes!!

Thanks to my early morning friend, Cathy-who I can count on to be wide awake and happy to chat at hours like 5 or 5:30a, my animal husband-ress Kim, and Urban Farmer, chef, homesteader Sasha – those chicks had someone watching over them (and watching over me too-thanks ladies!!) every second today.  Sometimes they looked splayed out, like they were down and on their last breath…so we’d roust them, but they were only sleeping.   And getting pretty tired of us waking them up, I’m guessing!!

They would take turns huddling in the corner – but pretty soon the nursery was filled with sunshine and they were tearing around with abandon.  They are an endless source of entertainment.  Chickens are fu-nny!!

Oh-there will be soooo much more on the subject of chickens!!

Long Beach Community Action Partners and their Green Lab Urban Farm along with local experts are preparing to launch our Native and Drought tolerant installation out at the LBCAP Campus with our Green Jobs Interns.  In order to educate ourselves, we attended a walk and talk Saturday April 17th the Rancho Los Alamitos with renowned Native Landscape expert Bob Perry.  He was really interesting, a great instructor and I can’t put down the book (Which I would highly recommend to everyone!).  The Rancho recently completed a Native Garden and we were able to stroll through and observe the assorted conditions and the plants associated with them right here in our zone.  We are so blessed to have such a wide variety from which to choose.  In Long Beach we can look at plants from Mediterranean Gardens, California Natives, Subtropicals, Southwestern, Woodland,and Coastal plant categories – all have amazing plants that we can consider for our project.

Follow us as we investigate the existing irrigation, identify the pipe locations, remove inappropriate plant material, repair trees and install satellite sensors for the watering system.

Our parkway garden in an urban setting will be filled with drought tolerant ornamentals and edibles.  Fragrant when you brush past, attractive to hummingbirds, bees and butterflies!  Urban gardens will help to bring a lively habitat back to the inhospitable concrete environment.

Mr. Perry starts and ends his talk with the importance of plants on earth, a very appropriate topic this Earth Week!  More on the plants and the scientific process next time.

I finally saw our hawk!  I think it might be a young raptor, maybe a Cooper’s Hawk.  Small, light tan with white specks.  He was amazingly beautiful, and I think really has helped with our above ground gophers.  I’ll try to get some photos…he flew off right when I got the camera out.  Best time in the garden in dusk, lots of activity.  It’s nice to just sit a spell before packing it in for the day.

Berry dilemmas-Strawberries laying in the dirt, big ugly humps of plastic, straw turning in to grass…terra cotta pots drying out too quickly…here is an experimental wall o’ berries!  We have created a 4 tier 10′ x  12 inch deep planter.  40 feet of berries in a 10′ x 2′ foot print.  I think it will be amazing.

Los Cerritos Elementary Roots & Shoots service club, and the Hughes Goes Green service club, joined us in the garden yesterday for an afternoon of art, worms, chickens, & vegetables.  It was great fun!  Big huge thanks to Lisa for giving the vermi-posting lesson, Dramatic Results for sharing those drills, and Cathy from Hughes Goes Green for sharing her chickens!  It was great to see the coop in action, test run the wheat boxes and watch the chickens scratch in the rich clean mulch!

Here are a few actions shots-

Goodie Baskets included 1 strawberry plant,

lobelia plant, and space for u-pick veggies!

Michelle, our Green Jobs Intern is showing the

kids around the garden, beets, broccoli, chives,

peas, lavender, chard, strawberries, spinach &

rosemary are on the menu today!  Kids loaded

up baskets and arms full of produce to try now

and take home for later!!

Picking beets

Hughes Goes Green picking peas…

A little bit of sun was just right, the borrowed

birds love the coop!

Chicken talk with the boys…aphid riddled

broccoli was a big hit with the ladies.

Coop roost with green wall, mint and bacopa.

Chickens in the wheat boxes.

I think Kim (Hughes Goes Green) wants

something from Lisa (City of LB).

Could it be worm bins, worm lectures,

composting lessons, castings, tea or bin resources

advice, support?  Lisa is the provider of all

those things!!  Thanks Lisa – we love our bins

and all things recycled, reused and reduced.

I probably should have passed out the recycled

rulers as they were leaving…

The Dramatic Results tent was popular the

entire time!  Kids using drills made by the

Jordan Ace Academy students in the design of

the California Native Tongva Indians.

The kids drilled sea shells and made pendants.

Hughes Goes Green Service Club-Ms. Daley, Hughes Principal, Cathy Precopio & Kim Peterson, Hughes Goes Green Gurus, Aaron Borja, Hughes 8th grade Learning Director and the Kids!  Thanks to all the adults at Hughes who made an off-campus, after-school field trip possible.  It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to walk/bus to a local garden/farm…it is always great when parents, teachers, kids, administrators, & volunteers say yes…great things happen when you put determination together with the word yes.  Thanks to the Salvation Army for saying yes, you can put a garden on our empty lot!  Thanks to Long Beach Community Action Partnership for saying yes, we can find a way to garden, educate and beautify this empty lot!  Thanks to the City of Long Beach Sustainability Office for putting us together with reclaimed building materials, mulch, and their continued support! Thanks to Lisa for coming out and sharing her knowledge and a couple of bins.  Thanks to Jenny, for her interest in Long Beach gardening, farming and what we’re doing at the Green Lab and local schools.  Thanks to Maeve, the real force behind this entire project, and her tireless energy, ideas and efforts.  Maeve’s yes is the driving yes.  And a big huge thanks to all the young people who said yes, they would like work in the hot sun, on cold rainy days, or long dusty afternoons- to be a part of creating something where the was nothing.  We have all learned so much together!

I just ordered one day old baby chicks.  All female, all layers, several different breeds!  They will arrive on May 4th, which gives me some time to prepare the nursery.  Lots of chicken research going on…Here are a few pictures of what we have coming!!

Black Australorp

Black Giant

Buff Orpington

Buttercup

Phoenix

White Rock

Golden Campines

In addition to those pictured above there is an assortment of rarest of rare and top hat!  Pictures coming!!