Richmond Homestead: timeless skills for new times

Wildcat Garden, the school garden at East Bay Waldorf School, has been added to the tour.  Parent volunteers will show you around and tell you how the garden is used by the students.

The school is high in the El Sobrante hills, adjacent to Wildcat Canyon Park.  If you need a little wildlife break, take a jaunt up into the park for fabulous views and an encounter with nature (or cows).  I once saw a number of coyotes in daylight in the park near there.

Another garden, not quite officially its own site, will be available to visit in Martinez.  It is the Center Avenue Community Garden, and is the latest project of the Martinez Permaculture Center.

One of your fabulous hosts at the MPC, David and Teresa, will walk you down the street to visit the community garden if you have time.

While I was away camping, we reached our limit of 75 registered visitors!  Looking at the number of gardens, I decided to expand the number of available tickets to 100.  If you know someone who has been meaning to register, please urge them to do so now.

New things to check out:  New descriptions of Alison's Garden, and new description and pictures of the Martinez Permaculture Center.

I just spoke with Iyalode, who is a remarkable gardener, herbalist, medicine woman, and community leader.  She has been influential in the creation of many gardens in the Richmond area and is excited to open two community gardens for the Homestead Tour. 

Check out the Gaza Garden in North Richmond and the Peace Garden in the Iron Triangle.  If you're not familiar with these neighborhoods, or are only familiar with the negative publicity they have received, visiting these gardens is a great way to see for yourself the wonderful things happening everywhere in our community and to see the healing power of a garden.  Iyalode will be at one or the other of these two gardens during the Homestead Tour, and she is a wealth of information and wisdom.  I highly recommend visiting both these gardens!

I visited Verde Partnership Garden for the first time on Friday.  It's a fabulous community/school garden in North Richmond.  We're hoping to get it on the tour if the logistics of gate-keeping can be worked out.

Another school garden that will be on the tour is at Richmond High School, where Urban Tilth staff are working with the Urban Agriculture class to grow food for members of the school community.  Check back next week for a page about their garden.

I just posted some pictures of the HEAL Garden and of Bridget and David's backyard.  Have a look!

Check out Maria and Christopher's garden page--our latest addition to the tour. 

I've also added new pictures for Alison's garden, and additional description of Paula's garden.

Visit Marble Gardens and see a short photo essay from Anni and Carol about their garden.

Fifty people have registered for the tour so far! 

I just heard from some homesteaders in El Cerrito and will be posting their garden information shortly.  It would be great to get a few more gardens in El Cerrito.

I've set up discussion forums that anyone can participate in.  So far, we've got "Plants" and "Animals" and "Food."  Let me know what other forum you think we need.

I've also added a calendar.  Let me know what local events you would like to see on it.

As you can see if you've been here before, I chose a new layout for the website.  Let me know what you think.  I've also created more page hierarchy with the hope that it will reduce your need to scroll to see content.  If you have any suggestions/ideas about how to make the website easier to navigate, please let me know.

If you haven't looked at the gardens lately, please do.  I've posted more pictures and descriptions.  We now have 24 gardens on the tour.  Urban Tilth and CURME are going to host tour visitors at additional school and community gardens, so stay tuned for those.