Photos from Beach Flats Garden

A couple weeks ago my friend asked me to take some photos of the Beach Flats Community Garden in Santa Cruz which they can use for their upcoming blog. Some of them turned out pretty good.

From my Santa Cruz Indymedia post:

The weather is warming and this years summer crops at the Beach Flats Community Garden are coming up. It’s been over a year since the Garden was first threatened with closure by the overburdened and resource-strapped Community Center which oversees it. Since, members of the community have banded together not only that once, but again last December, to make sure the garden stays open, the second time in the face of city budget cuts. Despite the threats, gardeners continue to plant, tend and harvest.

Food Not Lawns House in Santa Cruz

I finally took a couple shots (with my camera phone, sorry for the quality) of the Food Not Lawns house in Santa Cruz. Over a year ago, maybe two years ago, the front lawn of this house was dug up and replaced with a space for growing food. Well-kept and gorgeous, the crops are always rotating with a mix of veggies and flowers. There is a drip watering system, too. Had I more gumption, I would have stopped by to talk to the residents of the house, but alas, I was hungry and on my way to eat Indian food. Anyway, back when it was first set up, this project was the first I’d heard of or seen of Food Not Lawns and prompted me to go to a session on it at the Eco Farm conference in January. It’s just the inspiration I needed to rip up my own (very small) patch of lawn behind my apartment and plant food there. The book, written by Heather Flores, is full of tips not just for gardening, but all kinds of permaculture projects. A friend of mine used the instructions in the book to set up a water system that takes gray water from the house and cycles it though the yard.

Sunny Sunday in Santa Cruz

It was unusually warm yesterday but super nice weather to get outside in. After all the rain we’ve been having on the Central Coast of California, the recent sunshine has been welcome. So my sweetie took me to a little section of cliff overlooking Monterey Bay and New Brighton Beach, just south of Capitola. There were so many people out, it felt like summer!

Check out the photo sideshow I made from the little adventure. Unfortunately the flora that i love so much is all invasive species! Note the eucalyptus, both fully grown trees and little baby shoots, the ice plant covering the ground and side of the cliff and the wild grass… you know that grass that you find all up and down Highway 1, what is it called?

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