Home&Real Estate
OPEN HOME GUIDE 70
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Home Front
TREE WALK ... Arborist Kevin Raftery will lead a free tree walk through the Greenmeadow neighborhood from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Oct. 13, beginning at the Greenmeadow Community Center, 303 Parkside Drive, Palo Alto. Featured trees include sugar maple, bigleaf maple, cork oak, Torrey pine, Brazilian pepper tree, Moraine ash, soapbark, tulip and holly oak. Information: Canopy at 650-9646110 or www.canopy.org NO FUSS, NO SMELL ... A free “Worm Your Way Into Composting” workshop will be offered from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Cubberley Community Center, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Preregistration is required because space is limited. Information: 650-496-5910 or www.reducewaste.org
HOLIDAY RED ... The 15th annual Holidays on a High Note, a benefit for the Peninsula Family Service’s Foothill Auxiliary, will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 15, at the Menlo Circus Club, 190 Park Lane, Atherton. With a theme of “Holiday Red: Unexpected Tableaus with the Season’s Favorite Hue,” the event features decorated tables and floral art, a marketplace, lunch and a silent auction. Tickets are $110 (only in advance). Information: Call Eileen Sullivan at 415-309-3412 or visit www. peninsulafamilyservice.org. PATCHWORK PLACEMATS ... Therese May will offer a “Basic Patchwork Placemat” workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13, at the FabMo center, 2423 Old Middlefield Way, Mountain View. Focus is on design, cutting and sewing techniques, using recycled materials to make the placemats. Cost is $30. Information: www. fabmo.org
Growing g sustainably, sustaina one seed at a time by Haiy Le rganic farming typically conjures up images of getting the compost right, avoiding manufactured pesticides or supporting local farms. But Mark House, assistant garden manager at Ecology Action in Willits, Calif., takes it back to basics: saving seeds. On Saturday, Oct. 13, House will be teaching the classes “Using Master Charts” and “Seed Collection and Saving” at Palo Alto’s Common Ground. The first is based on the book, “How to Grow More Vegetables,” written by John Jeavons, Ecology Action’s executive director. The second deals with its “grow biointensive” method, including threshing demonstrations of different plants and seed-saving techniques. The nonprofit was founded in 1971 with the mission to train people to better feed themselves while conserving resources. The book, published in 1974, was among the first to launch eco-friendly and sustainable-growing techniques and espoused the “grow biointensive” method — small-scale, highyield, all-organic gardening that uses minimal resources.
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PAIR OF CLASSES FOCUS ON THE FINE POINTS OF ORGANIC GARDENING
The method involves a fair amount of planning and math, but House assures those who may be intimidated. “John has compiled all the information and data from 40 years of research into the Master Charts (a section found in the book). If you want to plant tomatoes, you go to the Master Charts and then to the line of the tomatoes,” he said. The class will demonstrate to students how to use the charts to deduce the correct gardening procedure such as the amount of seed for their designated space, the number of flats needed or when to sow and transplant. “It looks like a lot of information and this class will be how to utilize this information to the best of your advantage,” House said. He will also be teaching Seed Collection and Saving, a class that will help “people feel more in control of their food supply by knowing where their food and seed comes from.” The first hour will be a discussion of the “grow biointensive” method and the second half will
Veronica Weber
FLOWER ARRANGING ... Carmen Pekelsma and Kathy Ladra will teach a class on “Flower Arranging the Gamble Way” from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesdays, Oct. 17, 24 and 31, in the Carriage House of Gamble Garden, 1431 Waverley St., Palo Alto. The three classes will deal with materials, mechanics and how to make arrangements last. Cost is $255 for nonmembers, $225 for members. Information: 650-329-1356 or www. gamblegarden.org
Veronica Weber
NATIVE PEOPLE AND PLANTS ... Frank Niccoli, horticulture educator and owner of The Village Gardener, will talk about “California Native People and Plants: A Symbiosis of Mutual Care” from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 14, at Gamble Garden, 1431 Waverley St., Palo Alto. Niccoli will talk about how plants were used as food, medicine and materials for everyday life before modern methods of cultivation and propagation. Cost is $35 for nonmembers, $25 for members. Information: 650-329-1356 or www. gamblegarden.org
Mark House, top, stands beside a bed of biobio quinoa, one of the crops he will be discussing in his upcoming class on seed cultivation at Common Ground. Above, House demonstrates how to extract seeds from biobio quinoa.
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