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Showing posts from August, 2007

Collecting seeds at the Peralta Community Garden

Monkeyflower capsule The Peralta Community Gardens is one of three gardens in the Westbrae neighborhood. Berkeley Daily Planet reporter, Marilyn Claessens, dubbed the area "an ecological neighborhood" in a 2000 article on the coastal prairie habitat planted along the Ohlone Greenway by CHIA (California Habitat Indigenous Activists). On the last Saturday in May of this year I volunteered at a CHIA work party. I will write about the May work day as well as the history of the CHIA habitat project at a future date. I met an incredible group of people and keep in touch via a CHIA email list. Yesterday, I worked with the group again, this time in the garden and not along the Ohlone Greenway. I helped to collect seeds from the showy milkweed ( Asclepidaceae speciosa ), the soap plant ( Chlorogalum pomeridianum ), and monkeyflower (genus Diplacus , I think). The soap plant seed was the easiest to collect; large, hard seeds held in a dehiscent* fruit that easily fell into

A summer of garden tours

I have garden tour envy. This summer several cities hosted annual tours (Berkeley's Bringing Back the Natives garden tour was held in May). GardenWalk Buffalo was held on July 27 and 28. The tour was the subject of a SF Chronicle article . Writer and gardener, Amy Stewart, also wrote about garden tours in Chicago (Sheffield Garden Walk) and Seattle (Georgetown Garden Walk), both held in July. The Detroit Agricultural Network also hosted an urban food garden tour on August 1. The gardens were the topic of a recent Detroit Free Press article . The Dirt, the ASLA blog, has written about urban gardening in Detroit comparing the DFP article to Rebecca Solnit's "Detroit Arcadia" piece in July's Harper's Magazine . Gardeners using some of Detroit's 20,000 vacant lots are earning money by selling their locally grown produce, but according to The Dirt, Solnit's assessment of the city's micro farmers has been criticized for its optimism. What do

News gleaner: planning for water, the arts, and retail

One corner of my kitchen table is stacked with a week's worth of newspapers and magazines. I read most of them this weekend. Below is a list of articles (and related *local ecologist* posts) about water and district planning in Berkeley. Water - Does Not Drain to Bay Lisa Owens Viani, Terrain (published by The Ecology Center) - Backwater Berkeley Lisa Owens Viani, Terrain Related posts : - Designing with water in mind - Egret: shorebird and stewards District planning - Change in the air for art district Carolyn Jones, SF Chronicle - First Person: Telegraph 2007: Making It Work Judith Scherr, Berkeley Daily Planet Related posts : - They closed?! Oh wow! - Filling the gap

Berkeley's green calendar*

With sunny skies and 70-degree weather predicted for the next 10 days or so, this Saturday is one of many clement days to celebrate Berkeley's parks and watershed. Beginning at 10 a.m. tomorrow, join Robert Hass, US Poet Laureate 1995-97, Poetry Flash, EcoCity Builders, Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market for the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival. A Strawberry Creek Walk will begin at Oxford and Center Streets. The festival portion of the celebration will begin at noon at the MLK, Jr. Civic Center Park. For more details, visit the Poetry Flash website . In preparation for the event, the meander of the culverted creek on Center Street has been outlined in blue tape. I plan to walk with Berkeley Path Wanderers member, Susan Schwartz, on her tour of Berkeley's natural parks (natural parks - in Berkeley and elsewhere - will be the subject of future posts). The tour will begin at 10 a.m. at Live Oak Park, Berkeley's first natural park. For more detail

Iron works at Claremont and Vicente

Designing with water in mind

"So Where's the Drought Rage?" ( SF Chronicle headline , August 9, 2007) "Downpour, Flash Floods Precede State's Declaration of Drought Watch" ( Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline , August 7, 2007) "Potential Water Shortage in the Hetch Hetchy Service Area" (Bay Area Water Supply and Conservation Agency press statement , May, 4, 2007) My copy of the "Customer Pipeline" arrived in my EBMUD bill this afternoon. I enjoy reading the newsletter. The well-written, brief notices and the graphic design compels me to read each issue. The headline for the first notice - "It's a Very Dry Year" - inspired this post. As part of its water quality toolkit, Pittsburgh's Nine Mile Run Watershed Association offers rain barrels to area residents. Nine Mile Run is a 6.5-acre watershed linking the municipalities of Pittsburgh, Swissvale, Edgewood, and Wilkinsburgh. According to the NMRWA website , there are several benefits of rain

Art Deco Berkeley

Before I begin the body of this post, I must offer a disclaimer. I did not participate in this past weekend's Art Deco Tour led by the Art Deco Society. I am currently unemployed and practicing frugality (the tour fee was ten dollars). Fortunately, the Daily Planet listed of some of the tour sites .I created my own tour which is the subject of this post. I am not an architect so the post does not contain professional architectural analysis for any of the buildings. However, I do provide information about the buildings from Berkeley Landmarks: An Illustrated Guide to Berkeley, California's Architectural Heritage (2001) by Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny. The first building on my tour was the Center for Buddhist Education on Durant and Fulton. The Center occupies the former Howard Automobile Company. I like this building a lot. The colors and facade details are well executed. The building is the best feature of this intersection otherwise occupied by a gas station, parking lot

Stepping out

The Berkeley Path Wanderers Association, a dedicated group of public walks advocates , plays a central role in improving the city's walkability. On August 5, the Path Wanderers celebrated the opening of Berkeley's newest path, Glendale Path at Glendale and Campus.    En route to the Quarry Picnic Area in Tilden Park, I passed by the new path and noticed a sign - to the left of the existing path - marking the location for steps. Does anyone know if the Path Wanderers are planning new steps on Campus/Glendale? I also observed a man stepping up the path; he had walked up Glendale Avenue. It was a perfect afternoon for a walk.

Spilling the beans

Yesterday afternoon I set out to find another edible estate in my neighborhood. I received a tip about a food garden on Ward near Ellsworth from Jen at Walking Berkeley (thanks Jen!). The garden is planted with tomotoes, corn, squash, and sunflowers among other things. On my walk home, the trees in the sideyard at Carleton and Ellsworth caught my eye. I walk by this home quite often but never paid much attention to the side yard. My search for the Ward Street garden enabled me "to see" the food in this yard. Apple. Fig. Pomegranate? There's also fennel which is a food source for swallowtails.   right: Caterpillars at a local butterfly expert's home   While we are on the subject of gardens, I photographed a medicinal herbal garden in Philadelphia. It is maintained by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Each herb is labeled with its common and Latin names as well as its medicinal uses. The garden was founded as a source "to rep