Eugene Permaculture Guild

The Eugene Farmer’s Market starts this Saturday, April 4th downtown at 8th and Oak.  Visit every Saturday from 9-4 and you will find wonderful plant and food vendors.  Fern Hill Nursery will be selling certified organic edible, medicinal, and native plants.  Stop by our booth to learn more about great plants for your pacific northwest permaculture garden! You can also visit our website at www.fernhillnursery.com to download a catalog or learn about special events.

Do you know of an older person, or couple, who live in the country near Alpine or Monroe, who would like to keep living on their farm but are getting too old to take care of everything alone and would like some help and companionship? My husband and I have been renting a house in Alpine for the past year+. We absolutely love it. We’ve made many friends here, and started a community garden in the Alpine park (see our blog: http://AlpineGarden.blogspot.com/). Due to the economy, it’s getting difficult to pay rent each month but we’d like to stay in the area.

We are both the kind of people who love to garden, and putz around, fixing things, and organizing things and “making do” with the materials at hand. We have many country skills such as canning, sewing and raising food. My husband is a yummy cook (and I’m pretty good too!) and we can help keep the house clean, and do errands and such.

We have a 24′travel trailer which we could live in this summer but ideally we’re looking for someone with a big old farm house with a spare room or two. My husband’s son Robin (17) comes to stay with us 2-3 weekends per month. It would be great to have access to a heated work-shop space to do projects in the winter too.We’re looking more for a “family” kind of feeling where we move (not so much like “hired hands”.) We don’t have a cat or a dog and prefer not to be around guns, tobacco, alcohol or bad-mannered dogs. We are quiet, spiritually oriented and basically vegetarian.

We are kind and generous people with a strong spirit of community service, and excellent references. We would prefer a work/trade situation but could afford a few hundred dollars a month if needed and would cover our share of the utilities.

If this sounds like a good fit for you, or someone you know, please be in touch. Llyn and Chris imaginalbuds@gmail.com

Event: 2009 Spring Propagation Fair
Venue: Lane Community College Cafeteria
Time: 10.00 a.m. - 4.00 p.m. Saturday, March 14

A free, volunteer-driven event designed to support
home orchardists and vegetable gardeners
in and around the S. Willamette Valley.

The 2009 Spring Propagation Fair consists of two parts: a free exchange of fruit-tree cuttings (called ‘scions’) and a free exchange of vegetable seed. You don’t have to bring any scion or seed to the event to be able to attend and share freely in the bounty. All are welcome.

The 2009 Fair marks the first occasion of a joint scion-exchange and seed-swap in our bioregion, and is co-sponsored by a broad array of local, non-profit and volunteer groups including: the Eugene Permaculture Guild, the Seed Ambassadors Project, Lane Community College Garden Club, Victory Gardens For All, the School Garden Project of Lane County, Huerto de la Famila, ECOS, the Springfield Transitions Garden, Food Not Lawns, the Gardens Program of Food for Lane County, the Urban Farm Program of the U of O, and the OSU Extension Service in Lane County.

A great variety of scions, and vegetable seed, will be provided free of charge by local fruit enthusiasts and seed-savers at the exchange. Rootstocks will be available for a nominal fee. Grafting assistance and workshops will be provided at and around the Propagation Fair.

For a brief description of what’s involved in designing your own fruit trees, and how a scion-exchange helps make this possible; or to learn more about how you may support this free, participant-driven event, please see notes attached below

Bus service to LCC is available from Eugene Station.
To car pool, call Julie at 541-762-1051
Free parking is available at LCC.

Spanish-language support will be offered.

www.eugenepermacultureguild.org

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Event update

Here’s a list of speaking engagements we will have at the event:

3.00 Incorporating native plants into food gardens. Why and how? Devon Bonady (Fernhill Nursery, Cottage Grove), Brian Basor (President, Emerald Valley Chapter, Native Plant Society of Oregon)
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Here are directions to LCC from I-5 (coming from the north):

Heading south on I-5, you will cross a bridge over the Willamette river. About 1-2 miles further on, take exit 189. Turn right at the light and go straight (past a bunch of gas stations, including Sequential biofuels) until the next intersection (a little less than a mile). Turn right at the intersection (I believe that is 30th street). Make a quick left turn on Eldon Shafer Drive. Once you get into the parking lots, the event should be signposted toward the Cafeteria. The journey from the I-5 exit to the LCC parking lot should take under two minutes.

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Designing your own fruit tree

Most fruit trees are actually two-trees-joined-in-one - just above their root collars you will often notice a swollen union or ‘graft’ where a ‘scion’ (a cutting of a fruit variety such as a ‘Gravenstein’ apple or ‘Bing’ cherry) was originally joined or ‘grafted’ onto a type of tree called a rootstock. We use rootstocks because they help us determine, among other behaviors, the size of a mature tree growing on top of them - anything from 4’ to 50’ depending on the rootstock selected. A scion exchange provides an opportunity to design these two-in-one trees, by making a wide variety of common and rare fruit tree varieties and rootstocks available to mix-and-match with. Only the tiniest fraction of scion and rootstock combinations made available at this Propagation Fair are available from commercial fruit tree nurseries.

How can you join in supporting this free, participant-driven Propagation Fair?

Although devoted local fruit enthusiasts are already gathering scion to bring to the event to share freely with others, we are encouraging everyone able and willing to harvest scion to join the collection effort. The more, the merrier. Cutting and storing scion is a simple task. Here are a few pointers:

Be very careful with ID and labeling - collect from trees that have fruited already so the variety is known. Preferably, cut scion about the diameter of a lead pencil, to 12” lengths, although shorter pieces are fine. ’Pruning cuttings’ often fit the bill perfectly. Tightly tie or rubber-band a dozen or so healthy cuttings in a clearly-labeled bundle.
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Collecting scion is time-sensitive. Scion wood needs to be cut in the winter while it is dormant (before the buds have very visibly begun swelling), then kept cool until it is grafted onto rootstock in the spring, ‘when the sap is rising’. Late-January-early-February sees the end of our ‘dormancy collection window’ for stone-fruit such as plums and cherries. Asian and European pears quickly follow, then apples. Some varieties ‘bud out’ earlier than others.

Vigorous shoots are best but avoid collecting from suckers or water-sprouts (these shoots, which grow vertically from the base of the tree or vertically from lateral branches, are slowest to bear fruit). Collect first-year wood (last year’s growth) preferably from laterals. Next-favored are the terminal shoots at the top of the tree.

Once collected, don’t let the scion dry out. Experienced hands will tend to label each variety clearly, place it in a moist (not saturated) medium such as paper towels or old cloth, and wrap in plastic. (The plastic bags the newspaper comes in work well. Double the bag because one will often have a hole in it.) Place in the refrigerator at about 34° to 38° until grafting time: keeping the scion cool keeps it dormant; keeping it damp, keeps it fresh.

Further questions about scion collection? Google: “Penhallegon scion” or call Nick at 541-284-3703

Also, bring labeled cuttings and divisions of figs, grapes, berries and other fruits to share freely with others at the Propagation Fair; along with fresh seed, plants and divisions of food crops.

For updates, see www.eugenepermacultureguild.org

Chris Burns and Llyn Peabody are now facilitating a community garden in the park in downtown Alpine (across from the school). Alpine is about 6 miles west of Monroe, OR, on the way to Alsea Falls (50 minutes north of Eugene). Due to watering limitations, and the desire for a project that unites us as a community, this will be one large plot (instead of many individual plots). We will focus on growing crops that can be stored easily for the winter: potatoes and squash etc., and foods that can be canned: tomatoes and pickles etc. All work is being done by volunteers and materials are being donated. The harvest will be available to those who contribute to the garden. Any surplus will be donated to the food-bank or others in need.

We think of this as a Stone Soup Garden, where if each of us shares a little of what we have, whether that’s time or materials, that we’ll be able to grow food for all of us to enjoy.

Here is our wish list: (All donations are tax deductible)

- Fencing: T-posts/chicken wire (or better)

- Wooden fence posts

- Gates: small and large

- Lumber: cedar/redwood boards (nails OK)

- Garden shed: pre-fab or materials to build one

- Garden tools/gloves

- Nursery pots and flats

- Hoses: soaker and regular

- Sprinkler heads/hose nozzles

- Storage tank for water

- Drip irrigation lines

- PVC piping

- Wheelbarrows

- Rototiller

- Organic fertilizer

- Canning supplies: pressure canners, jars, lids etc

To visit our blog, click here: http:/www.AlpineGarden.blogspot.com/

Chris and Llyn

AlpineCoGarden@gmail.com