Beneficial Bike BLOB MOB

For her final project my classmate Linette organized a beneficial bike blob mob; a group of us biked around as a blob visiting gardens in Berkeley.

Our first stop was to Christopher Shein's Wildheart Gardens. Christopher Shein is the permaculture teacher at Merritt and has an impressive food jungle of a backyard.

He has a small nursery in his yard for his landscaping business; beneath the tables of starts he keeps recycled mushroom blocks gleaned from Far West Fungi. These blocks stay wet from the frequent watering of the starts, producing pounds of mushrooms for Christopher and his family.

Christopher has chickens in the back that consume much of his green waste and provide manure for the garden.

In this picture you can see the bamboo dome structure that is the structural center of the garden; this was made with bamboo harvested from local Oakland gardens. There is a kiwi vine climbing up one side, with some kale tucked in beneath it. In the background you can see his recycled material, local clay and straw bale studio/guest house:

Below you can see a massive tree collard, which is behaving like a vine, climbing on the bamboo structure:

Next stop was Redbeard's place. Along with a very compact and tidy garden, he collaborates with fellow housemate Todd on rotating their chickens and crops. The picture below shows Redbeard telling it as it is with Todd holding Trainwreck, the rooster, on the left hand side:

Redbeard uses plastic cold frames to grow zucchini and peppers in the cool East Bay summer.

The blob helped to start renovation of the fountain area in preparation for creating a pond there. We removed the cement pedestal to allow for the installation of a pond liner.

After Redbeard's we went to Jeremy's. Along with a vegetable plot Jeremy has an old jacuzzi that has been transformed into a pond, a mushroom garden, two ducks, and plans for using grey water from the house for a marsh and creek set-up.

Here are Linette and Seth enjoying a peaceful spot under the redwoods:

Redbeard climbed the redwoods to camouflage and do some trimming to allow in more light.

Seth demonstrates how to use the outdoor urinal:

At the last stop, Seth's place, we worked on setting up a worm bin for him to utilize kitchen scraps gleaned from his work, Three Stone Hearth.

We had three plastic bins which stacked on top of each other. We poked holes in the bottoms of the top two and added shredded paper, kitchen scraps and worms (donated by Redbeard) in the bottom tub. Fresh scraps can be added to the next bin up as the bottom layer breaks down; the worms will climb up into the fresh food, leaving the bottom layer of compost to be harvested.

The lovely organizer of our blob poses with one of Seth's magnificent succulent trees: