Publication Date: Friday, January 21, 2005
Back-yard bounty
Back-yard bounty
(January 21, 2005) With the Grow Biointensive method, gardeners reap healthy portions
by Jamie Schuman
Instead of dashing to the supermarket for vegetables, herbs or fruit, participants in Common Ground's "Grow Biointensive" gardening workshop will have a closer option for fresh food: their back yard.
Common Ground, a non-profit garden supply and education center, is offering a series of five courses on "Grow Biointensive," a scientific and eco-friendly approach to small-scale farming. Participants will learn how to build back-yard gardens that yield bountiful crops, but use few natural and economic resources.
The workshop teacher, Los Altos resident Margaret Lloyd, is a bio-intensive expert who spent the past two years as an apprentice to the method's founder, John Jeavons. His Ecology Action is a Willits-based non-profit that researches and promotes bio-intensive techniques.
The series kicks off this Saturday, and lessons run every few weeks until mid-April. Participants will receive detailed instructions on the process -- from how to prepare a garden bed to how much of each type of seed to use -- through a mixture of demonstrations and classroom lessons. Between classes, students are supposed to create a garden using the knowledge gained in class.
While Common Ground previously has offered individual courses on bio-intensive gardening, it has never before offered a series on the method.
Common Ground director Patricia Becker said this new format will allow participants to swap stories and get help from each other.
"I think it's going to be more fun, more invigorating and more inspiring when you are all doing it together," Becker said. "The energy really builds and grows and sprouts and matures."
Common Ground proposes that participants will be able to transform their back yard into a "garden of eatin'." Lloyd's already is. She maintains a 150-square-foot garden in her parents' Los Altos backyard. Kale, rhubarb, fresh herbs, fava beans and rye are just a few of the healthy and tasty rewards for soil tilling.
In addition to culinary and health benefits, Lloyd says she enjoys gardening because it connects her to the large number of subsistence farmers past and present. "It's very human, very real and very down to earth," she said.
Farmers in China have used the principles behind Grow Biointensive methods for more than 4,000 years. Though sustainable agriculture has given way to large-scale commercial farming in the United States, people still rely on these techniques in many parts of Asia and in rural communities worldwide.
Jeavons formalized these ancient techniques and branded them as "Grow Biointensive." He defined eight steps to maintaining a successful, sustainable garden, and outlined them in "How to Grow More Vegetables," a book used in more than 100 countries. The method is ideal for back-yard gardens, such as those found in Palo Alto.
The bio-intensive garden plot is part petri dish, part canvas -- a fusion of science and art. Gardeners must follow the eight steps, but have leeway in how to interpret them.
Characteristics include using double-dug, raised soil beds and compost -- instead of fertilizers -- to foster healthy soil. Additionally, bio-intensive gardeners grow set percentages of grains and root crops, and plant seeds very close to each other. They also use "companion planting," placing different plants together that improve each other's growth, for example carrots and tomatoes.
These low-technology techniques give gardeners a space-saving way to grow healthy food, while helping the environment.
"There's order, but at the same time it's so chaotic and creative," Lloyd said.
The method may sound laborious, but maintenance is minimal after the initial set up. Lloyd said she only tends to her back-yard garden three to five days per month.
Lloyd honed her skills as an intern and apprentice at Ecology Action, the organization Jeavons founded to promote sustainable mini-farming, and the "Grow Biointensive" techniques, worldwide.
At the compound in Willits, Lloyd lived and worked with a small team of farmers from such countries as Afghanistan and Brazil. Together, they grew their own food and researched bio-intensive techniques.
Founded more than 30 years ago, Ecology Action was originally based in Palo Alto. Common Ground is a project of the organization. As such, it encourages gardeners to use Grow Biointensive methodology.
Palo Alto lends itself easily to planting bio-intensive gardens, because of the small back yards and temperate climate. "This is prime agriculture land," Lloyd said. "We should all be growing gardens."
Lloyd's interest in farming grew through a summer job at a Santa Cruz vineyard and through her studies in globalization at Tufts University. After college, Lloyd received a grant to research agrarian communities in Hawaii. The farmers she worked with on Hawaii's Big Island actually used some bio-intensive techniques, but she said she did not realize it at the time
Lloyd, who graduated from Sacred Heart Preparatory in Atherton, just started teaching global studies there last month -- a job that echoes her community farming approach to life.
"I just believe in doing things on the small scale," she said. "This is our situation in Palo Alto. What can we do to work to a better way of living and integrate ourselves with the land and each other?"
Editorial intern Jamie Schuman can be reached at jschuman@paweekly.com.
What: Grow Biointensive workshop series:
Jan. 22: Introduction to Grow Biointensive techniques
Feb. 12: Double Digging & Bed Preparation with demonstration
March 12: Seed Propagation and Transplanting with demonstration
April 2: Soil & Composting with demonstration
April 23: Nurturing Your Garden for Bountiful Harvests
When: Saturdays, 9:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Where: Common Ground, 559 College Ave., Palo Alto.
Cost: $125 for the series; pre-registration required.
Info: Call (650) 493-6072 or visit www.commongroundinpaloalto.org.
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