3/4 Class Notes

-Alan Chadwick: started UCSC gardens in 60’s, then Green Gulch-where he died and is buried.
-Not obeying teachers, but do listen to them.
-More people in prison than farming in US
-In Genium everything is species. In general everything is specific.
-Don’t grow crops, grow soil. Then don’t grow soil, grow farmers.
-In a garden everything is a relationship, a living system, need whole systems awareness. Link into the system, and you can taste the difference.
-Watch the wild, things grow places for a reason, then mimic this.
-Plants vs. stage props. Non-natives are just stage props.
-Soil is a living organism, like skin.
-Compost and cover crops, all the fertilizer you need.
-Photosynthesis: carbon and nitrogen out of the air and into sugar. Carbon sequestration by definition.
-Never have bare ground, should always be covered.
-Use edges for protection. Bugs hit that first.
-Bee’s go for one flower at a time, all or nothing.
-Need beneficials, need to feed the pollinators, so have some flowers.
-10 to 1 good insects to bad.
-Have a place for people in the garden so they are attracted to hang out. They should walk in and get overwhelmed/lost/in awe.
-Get random sometimes, random planting.
-Diversity is insurance
-No cultivar has come from the wild since industrial rev.

4 big steps to creating a healthy farm:
1) Cultivate the ground. Move it around, big stuff, tractors, reshape, etc.
2) Building fertility (life-death-life, death builds fertility). Build up existing content depth
3) Propagate plants.
4) Irrigation (tending the garden, weeding, pruning, mulching, pest management)

-Water was a god to ancient people. Overwatering is a problem. It rains so that it can dry out, it drys out so that it can rain.
-Spring and Fall equinoxes best times to open the ground and plant.

Homework: bring soil, write about your history/what brought you here, read about history of local ag.,