California Rare Fruit Growers Annual Scion Exchange

My teacher, mentor, and friend Lawrence invited me to go with him to the CRFG scion exchange today, but first, we met at my house and spent some time swapping seeds. This has become a regular event for us; every packet has between 10-100 seeds (depending on the veg/fruit), and no one needs that many, so why not share? This way, everyone gets more variety and everything gets used. Lawrence has quite a collection, some of which are from his personal collection, and some of which are for the classes he teaches at Merritt. You can see the incredible imbalance here, as Lawrence brought three flats whilst I only have one or two little boxes of seed. We have a good time, looking up different varieties, and comparing notes, and our swapping is always capped off by a tour of the garden. Lawrence was particularly impressed with our brassica collection (I’ll share with you in the next week, it’s looking great!) and the alliums. He gives me good advice and we share experiences and I’m so lucky to have developed this friendship with such a learned plantsman (and all-around great guy).

Then we went off to the scion exchange. Holy Moly.

This particular exchange takes place at Diablo Valley College’s horticulture department, in Pleasant Hill. Their greenhouse space is just amazing, and today it was full of scions. This event is sponsored by the California Rare Fruit Growers, who began in 1966 to meet and learn about how to grow fruit in our coastal climate. The way it works is, you pay $5 to enter the event, and then you can pick up as many scions as you need or want, for free. The scions are donated by various growers (and you can bring your own to share), and there is an extremely wide selection.

There were scions from all kinds of fruit trees and canes - there must have been 200 varieties of apple here, and nearly as many of fig, but there were many of every kind of fruit tree you can imagine. The hardest thing about the exchange is figuring out how to mark them so you remember what you brought home. Lawrence spent a good deal of time teaching me how to pick a good scion, which will be helpful for the future.

Do you know what a scion is? It’s a cutting, basically of a young tender branch, which can then be grafted on to an appropriate rootstock and grown out to provide a fruit tree. All fruit trees are created this way; you can see the grafting point between rootstock and cultivar at the base of most of them, about six inches above soil level. This is how you get those monster trees where there are four different kind of apples growing on the same trunk. This can be handy if you have a small space and want a staggered harvest, however, they are difficult to maintain. But also regular fruit trees are grown this way, not from seed. This is why you buy bare-root or potted fruit trees to plant on in your garden. Seed rarely comes true, so they are grafted. This is also called ‘cloning.’

I have not yet learned how to graft, so I didn’t pick up any scions, but I enjoyed being Lawrence’s wing-man, bundling and tagging his choices for his classes. I loved hearing folks sharing information, exchanging ideas on how to grow certain fruits, or which variety was best, or how different varieties grew in different places. All ages filled the greenhouses, from babies in front-carriers to older folks with a lot of experience. It was a real gathering of kindred spirits. Lawrence seems to know everyone, and I even saw several folks I knew from different classes I’ve taken, as well as one of my previous bosses! On this sunny, chilly January day, everyone’s thoughts were tuned hopefully to Spring and Fruit!

Check out the CRFG webpage to see if there is a scion exchange coming up near you. Next year, I’d like to go again, and next time I’ll be more prepared to try out some grafting of my own.

Community Seed Library

The other day I picked up a copy of Edible East Bay magazine. There were lots of great articles, as usual, but one really stood out to me - a story about a man in Berkeley who had recently opened a Community Seed Library in front of his house. His drive to make this project a reality, and the possibilities about making this a true seed-sharing movement, really struck me. So I emailed the owner, Charlie, to see if I could come and visit his seed library and have a conversation about it.

Charlie responded with enthusiasm and invited me to come to his yearly tomato tasting. Charlie lives in an historic property (which is named MariLark) on the edge of Tilden Regional Park; what a location! My friend Nils, also a suburban farmer and beekeeper, came along with me. I brought four of my tomatoes to add to the tasting, and Nils and I enjoyed trying all the fruits on display. Lots of them had been grown by Charlie, but many had been grown by friends, family, and neighbors, and it was fun to see all the different varieties represented. There were no doubles - somehow everyone had brought different kinds!

It was a beautiful sunny day, but Charlie has growing challenges with the often-present cloud cover due to our local celebrity, Karl the Fog.  He still manages to have a really wonderful garden, filled with greens, tomatoes, flowers, and herbs, over a large terraced property. He also is growing an enormous pumpkin!

I enjoyed chatting with Charlie about the design of the seed library and his mission to grow the movement and have a seed library in every neighborhood. I've wanted to have a seed library for quite some time now, but I have logistical concerns, especially in the very hot summers and direct sun experienced in my garden. Optimally, seeds are stored in dry, chilly temperatures. Our chilly weather is often wet, and our dry weather is often bloody hot. So I'm not sure how viable the seeds would be after six months in the sun, or four months of rainfall. Charlie and I discussed how to get around that issue - maybe make mine seasonal, or do some sort of finagling to make full-time shade in a certain spot in my garden. Ideally I'd like it to be right next to our Little Free Library, but that might not be the best place for it. Charlie would like to have a 'sister seed library' and is hoping I am game to provide it. It's going to take some thinking, first.

There's a lot to like about the library in Charlie's yard. My favorite thing is the pull-out writing table, so you have a place to sort and label your seeds. Charlie provides the envelopes and pens. He has gardening books inside, too. Other folks have left notes such as "free native plants to a good home" and an email address. The seeds themselves are on the bottom shelf, placed in boxes, far back in the shade, in an insulated area. We discussed how to make some sort of shade cover for them in there - special film? A removable cardboard cover? Nils suggested that we put these library boxes on pivots, so that you can pivot it toward the shade, with instructions how to pivot it around to get inside. All good ideas. Hey, you engineers out there, weigh in on this please.

After all this, I realized I had forgotten to bring seeds to share, so I'll have to go back. This is a really neat idea, and I want to visit often. 

Do you have a seed library that you visit? If so, please tell us all about it in the comments.

Seed Donation for the Beekeepers Association

I've started volunteering a little time with my local beekeeping association, with their community education team. We go to all sorts of events - pollinator days at local wildlife museums, farmers markets, garden clubs, and especially in to local schools to teach the kids about bees and how they can help them. 

I've done a couple of these events now, and it's highly enjoyable. I love kids; young kids especially are so openly curious about everything and so willing to learn. We were at a local elementary school last week where we talked with three different first-grade classes. First one of us gives a little presentation, and then there are the ubiquitous stations - one with honey tasting, one with beekeeping equipment available to try on and touch, one with age-appropriate books about bees and coloring pages, and one with an observation hive. This hive is made of glass, and the queen is marked so that the kids can find her easily. 

I was struck by something at this event. We were saying goodbye to the kids and telling them to 'plant flowers for the bees!' and the kids pointed to our seed packets that were there for viewing purposes only and said, "Can we have a seed packet?" And we had none to give them.

Well. I can't let something like that stand. So when I got home, I called down to Renee's Garden Seeds in Felton (sorta near Santa Cruz), and talked to them about a donation of last season's seeds. Almost immediately, they agreed to donate almost 2000 seed packets, as long as I was willing to pay the shipping. And yes I was. And I did. And yesterday I got the most glorious box on my front porch.

Not every packet is appropriate - there are some things like decorative gourds. Well, those actually could be for the bees, because they adore squash blossoms. But you know what I mean. However most are just right for kids to plant and watch grow, and hopefully, see a bee or two come visit them! Right away I packed up a box to take to the elementary school where we were last week and dropped them off with a note. Yay!

I want to send an enormous THANK YOU to Renee's for these seeds! What a generous local company! I do tend to buy an awful lot of my annual vegetable and flower seeds from Renee's. I know I've mentioned them before. 

Not the first grade class last week. This is Kate's first grade class on a field trip to a local orchard. Kate's focus is on something else entirely, which has never been unusual for her, but most of the class was pretty into it if I recall correctly. (It was 8 years ago!) 

Catching kids while they're young and curious is vital to keeping them engaged in the natural world. I really believe this and I think this sort of thing doesn't happen enough. When I'm at local parks with the beekeepers and the observation hive, older kids are also very interested; in the later years of elementary are studying metamorphosis and can understand what is happening in the capped brood cells of the hive. And I don't know about you, but I'm more likely to help an insect or bug if I can appreciate it. And in order to appreciate it, I need to know all about it. I'm looking at you, spiders.

As for the flowers in my own garden, well, I think we can call this the Spring of the Phacelia. I remember spreading a bunch of seed two years ago and pow, this year it all came up. Never give up on your seeds, ladies and gents.

In a similar vein, it's looking like it'll be the Summer of the Hollyhocks.