Urban Farming Externship - Week 9

This week I began volunteering for Vilardi Gardens! They specialize in growing organic, edible plant starts for gardens. Their plant starts are available for purchase at several farmer's markets in the Phoenix area. They also supply local nurseries and even the Desert Botanical Garden. A link to their Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vilardi-Gardens/148632058518894

Today I met with Alex to help out at their booth in the Roadrunner Farmers' Market in Phoenix. I spent the first few minutes learning what types of plants they had for sale. You wouldn't think that there would be that much to grow in August in Arizona, but Alex proved me wrong! Vegetables ready to plant included cauliflower, kale, rainbow chard, cabbage, and broccoli. They also had a few handy planting guides ready to help convince us Arizonians that you really could grow vegetables in August! :) 

I also learned about all the different varieties of mint and basil! Orange mint turned out to be one of my favorites, but they also had lime and even pineapple. There was an entire table dedicated to basil. I didn't realize how many different varieties there were! One of my favorite teas is lavender tulsi; little did I know that tulsi is a form of basil. Neat! 

I had a lot of fun volunteering at the market. It was neat to connect to so many different people who care about growing and the food they eat. One young man even showed me pictures of the raised bed he just built; it was really great to interact with so many people with like interests, even if it was only briefly. This is something I'd definitely like to do more of in the future. 

Alex and his neighbor, who was there helping him out, were able to share a few great gardening tips for me. One thing I realized is that I need much more shade than I have right now. I think our next project should definitely be some type of retractable shade for our garden. I also learned about a neat type of spinach called Red Malabar Spinach. It's a type of vine spinach that grows great in Arizona. It grows most of the year, then dies back and re-seeds itself! It's also very pretty, with deep red veins - something I'll be getting for my garden! 

Of course, I couldn't leave without bringing new plant babies home with me. I picked up some Graffiti Cauliflower (it's purple!), broccoli, rainbow chard, kale, White Rain Lily, and some I'itol Onions. The onions have an interesting back story; they almost went extinct, but were brought back about 25 years ago and are now available in many places across Arizona and online. This is one of the reasons why conventional agriculture makes no sense to me. Why would you grow one field of one type of onion and leave your crop more susceptible to disease (which you prevent by dousing your field with pesticides and fungicides) when you could just grow tons of different varieties organically? Something is wrong with that system. It goes beyond pesticides, GMOs, and the loss of heirloom vegetables. It has to do with respect. What's going to happen to a society that lacks respect for its nurturer, Earth? 

Lets take care of her and not find out! :)

Anyway, I planted my new veggies in random openings in my flowerbed, since my wicking bed has the cover crop in it right now. (No sprouts yet!) So I'm interested to see how they do. I think I also finally learned my lesson about gloves - wear them. I have blisters again! Arg! Now grow, baby, grow!