COVER CROPS

Fall is the prime planting time for cover crops, or crops that improve the soil quality of your garden. Legumes such as fava beans fix nitrogen, help suppress weeds, and reduce insect pests and diseases. Hairy vetch can be grown alongside fava beans in a symbiotic relationship as the bean poles act as trellises for the vetch to grow on and vetch helps keep favas from blowing over in the wind.

Harvest your favas in March when beans are 4-7” long, then prepare as you would prepare peas. Fava beans are great in soups, stews, sauces, salads, and spreads! Other examples of cover crops include alfalfa, lupines, clover, buckweat, canola, and cereal grains such as oats, rye, and wheat. These friendly plants provide organic matter to the soil system to reduce erosion, soil loss, and soil compaction. They enhance the nutrition of the soil for future plantings and provide carbon for composting. It is important to monitor your cover crops, though, so they do not become out-of-control weeds. Happy Planting!

Garden Locations

& Scheduled Volunteer Workdays:

Arroyo Viejo Garden Arthur Street and 79th Avenue Bella Vista Community Garden Second Sundays 9 AM

1025 E 28th Street Behind Bella Vista School Bushrod Community Garden First Saturdays 10 AM

584 59th Street Golden Gate Community Garden Third Saturdays 11 AM

1068 62nd Street Marston Campbell Garden

16th Street and Market Lakeside Park Kitchen Garden Fourth Saturdays 9 AM

666 Bellevue Avenue Temescal Community Garden Second Saturdays 10 AM

876 47th Street Verdese Carter Community Garden

Bancroft and 96th Avenue.

Come to the community garden workdays!

We have 100 lbs of fava beans to plant out!

Oakland--- Office of Parks & Recreation --- Community Gardening Program Fall 2006

COMPANION PLANTING By Aija Kanbergs Some plants just seem to grow better when certain other plants are nearby. Then again, some plants seem to "hate" each other. This fact has been noted by gardeners in different parts of the world for thousands of years. You too can take advantage of these special plant "relationships" to help your garden thrive. Sometimes, it's just a matter of planting something that repels harmful organisms - garlic to repel aphids, for example, or mari-golds to help control nematodes, tiny worms in the soil which eat plant roots. Sometimes, the plants are there to attract helpful insects: catnip or sunflowers to attract pollinating bees, or Bishop's Flower to attract ladybugs. Some plants can even act as a sacrificial decoy. Eggplants around the outside of a potato patch keep Colorado potato beetles from eating potato foliage, because the beetles love eggplant even more than potato. Often, the interrelationship between plants is more complex. A traditional example of several different types of "companionship" is the Native American "Three Sisters" garden: corn, squash and beans. The corn provides support for the bean vines, and also provides some shade for the beans and squash. The beans make nitrogen available for the corn through the nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live in nod-ules on their roots. The squash shades the ground and suppresses weeds. Adding a few sunflowers to this trio attracts bees, and looks pretty nice, too. Some plants, such as beans, make certain nutrients available in the soil. Others may have a more sub-tle effect with various enzymes. Strawberries and bush beans do well together, for example. Last fall, I planted fava beans in a large container in my backyard. In the planter were some forgotten farmer's market potatoes I'd stuck in when they sprouted. By mid-spring, I not only had great favas, but the best, most disease-free potato plants I'd ever had. I looked it up, and, indeed, potatoes are helped by broad beans. Sometimes, the relationship between plants is negative - sunflowers can stunt potatoes, and cu-

cumber grown near potatoes makes them more susceptible to fungal diseases. You can get very fancy with companion planting and craft-ing of home-made "teas" to fertilize your garden or to repel insects. This so-called "Bio-dynamic Method" is now fashion-able in some California vineyards. You don't need to become an expert - some simple companion plantings will be just fine. Want to learn more? The classic text is Helen Philbrick's Com-panion plants and how to use them (Old Greenwich, CT : Devin-Adair, 1966). It's out of print, but some libraries have it. Louise Riotte's Carrots love tomatoes : secrets of companion planting for successful gardening (Pownal, VT : Storey Pub., 1998) is in print. It takes a lot from Philbrick's book, and is padded with stuff you don't really need, but it's available.

Oakland--- Office of Parks & Recreation --- Community Gardening Program Fall 2006

Thanks to Chlorox for coming out and helping in the garden!

ADA Inclusion Statement: The City of Oakland Office of Parks & Recreation (OPR) is fully committed to compliance with the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Please make accommodation requests at least 10 days prior to an event. Direct all inquiries concerning program and disability accommodation to the OPR Inclusive Recreation Coordinator at (510) 615-5980 or smeans@oaklandnet.com. TYY call-ers please dial (510) 615-5883.Title VI Compliance Against Discrimination 43 CFR 17.6 (B): Federal and City of Oakland regulations strictly prohibit unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, age, disability, sexuality and orientation or AIDS & ARC. Auxiliary aids and services may be provided upon request. Contact the Director of the Office of Parks & Recreation at 250 Frank Ogawa Plaza, 3rd Fl. Oakland, CA 94612 or call (510) 238-3092.

Oakland--- Office of Parks & Recreation --- Community Gardening Program Fall 2006

Community Gardening Program 250 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Ste. 3330 Oakland, CA 94612 510.238.2197 www.oaklandnet.com/parks E-mail: jamaris@oaklandnet.com

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Good Farming PART II Good farming is farming that promotes a more just society. For a long time in America, the land was where most people expected to go for their start in life, where they hoped to find opportunity and secure a living. The land, always the land: if not in this place, then farther west. Our society’s thinking about fairness and democ-racy reflects even now a reliance on the land as an available, inexhaustible resource. Today however, we are telling the majority of rural people that there is not enough farm land for them, that they will have to go some-place else for their livelihood, although it is never precisely indicated where that “someplace else” is. If agricul-ture passes the buck, where will it stop? Does agriculture not have an obligation to the poor and landless in its midst? An obligation to pay decent wages to its laborers and to make room for new farmers rather than expect-ing the besieged, depressed cities to take the unwanted? Agriculture through both private and public agencies, can and should give assistance to struggling racial minorities across the country: to black farmers who are liv-ing as tenants on worn out land, to Indians farmers who need irrigation water, to small Hispanic growers who seek a fair share of attention from county extension agents, to Hawaiians who want land for taro and cultural survival. The agricultural community should work to lop the top off of the rural pyramid of wealth, which is reaching stratospheric heights; today a mere 5 percent of the nations landowners control almost half the farm acreage, while in the mountain west a miniscule 1 percent owns 38 percent of all agricultural land and in the pacific states the same percent owns 43 percent of the land. Agriculture, however, is not doing any of these things. On the contrary, it is everywhere retreating rapidly from a commitment to justice and democracy. Mean-while several other nations are managing despite the pressure of the world marketplace and industrialization, to hold onto the democratic principle; the Danes, for example, have long pursued the ideal of a rural world where few have too little and fewer have too much. When our own farm experts and leaders rediscover that moral value, American agriculture will be stronger and more successful than it is today.

This is Part II of a three part series on “Good Farming and the Public Good” from Meeting the Expectations of the Land by Donald Worster.

Oakland--- Office of Parks & Recreation --- Community Gardening Program Fall 2006