Recently planted with help from Common Vision, the twelve tree orchard will be incorporated into the New Leaf curriculum and help students learn about everything from history to sustainability to botany and art.  It is amazing how much curriculum can be centered on caring for some wonderful trees that will feed our community!

Living Labs Project has been working with New Leaf students through our Living Labs Design School pilot project since October 2010.  Students worked on site analysis and observation, design and presentation skills and now they get to work on care of their orchard.

Marina and Robin of Village Farm in Concord, CA are herbalists, trained at Ohlone Center for Herbal Studies in Berkeley, CA.  They have been working with the students to develop communities of plants that will help the orchard, help the local ecosystem, and help the students.  Today we planted some of those choices thanks to a generous donation from Home Depot.

The orchard and meditation garden are still in need of plants.  If you have ay, or know of anywhere that might donate to the New Leaf Living Lab, please reach out to Trey Farmer at (trey at livinglabs dot org).  Some of the herbs we would like to plant are :

Medicinal herbs and flowers
Echinacea – sun or part shade,
Yarrow – full sun or part shade, drought tolerant*/ also likes water if available
Lemon Balm – full sun or part shade,
Violet – shade
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) – drought tolerant*, sun
Coyote mint (Monardella sp.) – drought tolerant*/also likes water if available, sun to part
shade
Chamomile – sun, reseeding annual
Bee balm (Monarda sp.) – sun, some water
Mugwort – drought tolerant/ also prefers water if available, sun/shade
California poppy – sun, drought tolerant*
Clary sage – sun, low water
Comfrey
Motherwort
Calendula – reseeding annual, sun to part shade, some water
Claytonia sp. (miner’s lettuce and others) – reseeding native spring annuals for shade
with water
Plantain (Plantago sp.) – sun or shade
Dandelion
Bleeding heart

Shrubs
Lavender – full sun, low water
White sage – drought tolerant*
Black sage – drought tolerant*
California sagebrush – drought tolerant**
Gooseberry or flowering currant (Ribes spp.)

Culinary herbs (also medicinal and easy)
Oregano
Thyme
Sage
Rosemary
Parsley

More photos at our flickr site:

Local Natural Builder Sonya Binnewies, who works with Vertical Clay is working with students to design and build a shed.  Here she works with a student putting together a raised bed for some Veggies that will be grown by CONNECT Academy.

Thanks to generous grants and donations/discounts from The Altamont Settlement Grant, Urban Farmer, and The City of Albany.  Special thanks to Transition Albany for giving us some of their young plants and to all of our community volunteers who come over and helped us make things happen.

Below are some photos from the Arts and Green Fest.  The complete photo album is below them.

Some students were performing and gardening in the same morning!

Educator/Scientist/Performers Emmet and Brendon came up from San Jose to help us plant a Corylus cornuta var. californica (California Hazelnut), a Sambucus cerulea (or mexicana) (Blue Elderberry), and two Mimulus aurantiacus (Sticky Monkeyflower).  They also taught us about solar ovens, pollination and honeycomb, the life of a plant, and how to keep our new friends healthy.

Six classes from Brookfield got to come outside and learn about the life in their Living Lab.  Based on smile-rating, the day went well.

Check out the photos from a great day:

New Leaf Team Planting a Fruit Tree

On April 30th, 2011 hundreds of students, teachers, neighbors and families came to Martinez Adult School, home of New Leaf: A Sustainable Living Collaborative to plant an orchard.  After months of planning in Living Labs Design School, the New Leaf students laid out their master plan, met with the school district and were ready to get to work, luckily we had some friends pay us a visit.  Traveling entertainment/orchard planting/pomologist/boat-full of smiles team Common Vision rolled in to town with their buddies from the Sustainable Living Roadshow…

to give an educational performance about sustainable living

work with New Leaf students and students from other schools to plant a fruit tree orchard

host fun and educational fair games,

Sustainable Living Roadshow fun

and make beautiful signs for the orchard.

Making Signs

Check out our Flickr page for all the photos from a great day.