Grab a Shovel
If you have a spare hour on Thursday, March 20, volunteers from GRUB and the community will be helping to put in a school garden at Chapman Elementary School at 1071 East 16th Street.
Gardening will take place from 9 a.m. to noon, no experience necessary.
Speaking of gardening, I will be doing my part to rage against the machine by planting some heirloom veggies this spring. Heirlooms are among the thousands of seed varieties that are being "lost" as big agriculture chooses instead to focus on those small handful of fruit and vegetables that grow to a uniform size and shape, ripen all at the same time, and can be packed and shipped long distances without bruising or spoiling.
Genetic diversity is nature's way of hedging against diseases that might wipe out one variety but not another. By relying on only a few varieties of each plant (like fuji apples or burbank russet potatoes) and neglecting the other thousands of varieties out there by not planting them, we place our food system at risk.
Seeds will lose their viability over time. For example, if we don't plant a specific variety of heirloom squash every few years, then that variety will simply go extinct.
One of the plants I plan to try to grow his year is the Bidwell's Casaba, a melon. I purchased the seeds from Seed Saver's Exchange:
"This melon hails from Chico California, grown by John Bidwell (1819-1900), a Civil War General and U.S. Senator who procured his stock-seed from the USDA in 1869. An enormous melon, so big that you will not believe it is true! "
Surprisingly, I haven't heard of folks having much success with them these days, at least not in Chico, and I certainly haven't seen the fruits sold at the Farmers' Market.
But I'll give it a shot. With luck, I'll post some photos in August.