Visit us in the Garden on June 1!

We at Urban Sprouts are super excited to offer you the chance to get to know us a bit better and experience the school garden this June!

Please join Urban Sprouts for our ‘Coffee & Kale’ Garden Brunch!

When: Sunday, June 1st, 10:30am to 12 noon
Where: Ida B. Wells High School, 1099 Hayes St. at Pierce, San Francisco
What:

• Tour the Ida B. Wells school garden
• Enjoy garden activities like seed saving, seed sowing and herb harvesting.
• Taste dishes made with organic school garden-grown ingredients, prepared by local chefs from Nopa Restaurant!
• Support our work by bringing friends and neighbors, and bring your checkbook! You will be invited to give - no gift is too large or too small. Every donation helps urban youth learn to grow their own food at school.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO RSVP. If you can't make it to the event and you'd like to make a donation, click HERE.

Invitation (above and below) by Lisa Chen.

I hope to see you there!!

Urban Sprouts is Starting a Chicken Coop!

Urban Sprouts is starting a chicken coop in collaboration with June Jordan Small School for Equity! The coop is a wonderful way to learn about where eggs come from and how they are produced. It is also a wonderful opportunity to explore chicken diversity, biology and to understand how chickens fit into garden and farm ecology.

Just yesterday the chicks arrived! The Urban Sprouts Program Manager has a coop of her own and they chicks are being fostered at her urban farm in sunny Oakland until they are old enough to be moved to their new coop home. Some interesting notes to take on keeping chicks, straw is too difficult for them to walk on. Their tiny wings and feet get caught and they tend to fall over. Ground corn cob works better. Also, we located an excellent source for all things fowl: Concord Feed. They carry the exact feeders and water containers and other supplies needed for tiny babies. The staff there is also very knowledgeable about livestock. For now the little peeps will grow strong in their chick hut.

Worm Bench Inauguration

Several months back, a wonderful crew of volunteers from Skywire helped students at June Jordan to build an amazing worm bin-slash-garden bench (photo below). These worms need a wooden box to protect them from the elements — those plastic bins often aren't enough in the outdoors. We use red worms, also known as Eisenia foetida for worm-composting or vermiculture, in which the worms eat plant waste and turn it into compost.

Today, we introduced a "gaggle" of red worms to their new home (top photo). (what do you call a group of worms??) We inaugurated our worm bin-bench with its new resident worms, and by enjoying the view of the garden from our new perch. Que lindo!

You may be wondering, how can I start a worm bin at home? It's not hard, but it takes patience and persistence to help your worms feel at home and begin doing their job . . . eating your garbage! And turning it into nutrient-rich castings for your garden plants, of course! To learn more about worm composting, start HERE, and then check out Worm Woman!