Bay Area Butterfly Festival Lands May 19
By Annina Puccio, executive director of the Monarch Milkweed Project
The Monarch Milkweed Project and the Vallejo People’s Garden are hosting the inaugural Bay Area Butterfly Festival on May 19!
Join us and experience the beautiful view of the Carquinez Strait from the boardwalk on Mare Island while learning about the importance of protecting our pollinators. This is a family-friendly community festival!
On two stages, fantastic performers and live bands will delight you with their talents. Children’s free games and hands-on activities will entertain young ones throughout the day. Musical performances will fill the air — dancing is not required, but it is definitely recommended! Artisans and small businesses will sell their art, wares, and many fantastic sustainable goods.
On a third stage, community groups will lead pop-up workshops on a wide range of exciting topics, which will include a talk sponsored by Sustainable Solano by Heath Griffith of Grow With The Flow on how to turn your lawn into a native garden. Food vendors and food trucks will offer a variety of cuisines, including vegan and gluten-free options.
We will be hosting over 100 vendors/exhibitors from various organizations and nonprofits at the event. There will be a focus on sustainable living, clean water practices, and environmental education.
This festival is a low-to-no-waste event focusing on commemorating the historic monarch overwintering site on Mare island, as well as the importance of sustainable practices and saving our pollinators — especially the iconic monarch butterfly and our various native bee species.
Learn more about attending here
On Facebook: https://fb.me/e/3uncrnQqk
Register on Eventbrite: www.bit.ly/BABF2024
Volunteer here
All volunteers get the following: free food and drink, a volunteer festival T-shirt and two free classes at the Vallejo People’s Garden.
Sign up here: https://forms.gle/o3Bx27kFusyriu2P6
Mature front yard food forest has mostly fruit trees and native plants that attract pollinators year-round. It has a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.
A 4-year-old food forest and pollinator garden installed in 2020 that includes a swale that captures roof water and mediterranean trees and plants mixed with native pollinating and nectar plants to attract bees and butterflies. This site is home to a Monarch Waystation that grows a variety of plants to support Western Monarch Butterflies.
A 9-year-old established food forest with two swales that are dug out and refreshed every 2-3 years, laundry-to-landscape greywater to fruit trees, and chickens. The drip irrigation system was removed four years ago and the garden is thriving! Annual beds are hand-watered once a week during the growing season. Greyhawk Grove is a “high-traffic-survival-of-the-fittest-have-three-young-children garden”. There may be lemonade and baked goods for sale by children, as well as products from the garden to give away (dried calendula, lavender, herbs, eggs, fruit, etc.).
Southern slope food forest focused on pollinators, shrubs and native plants. It also includes fruit trees, perennial and edible plants, swales and a laundry-to-landscape greywater system.
An evolving food forest garden and greywater system installed as part of Sustainable Solano’s 2022-23 
This homeowner attended our tours and was inspired to transform his yard! This garden, designed by Michael Wedgley of 
This front yard lawn was replaced in 
Two separate gardens, one is a peace garden with mostly flowers, cactus and trees and the other is the vegetable garden, called Johnson Ranch. The vegetable garden was revived through the 
Morningside Botanical Bounty food forest was created as part of the 
Pollinator food forest garden filled with a variety of California native plants that support the habitat of butterflies, bees, moths, wasps, hummingbirds and so much more. This garden was installed in February 2023 as a collaboration with a variety of organizations including Vallejo People’s Garden, Vallejo Project, Solano Resource Conservation District and Monarch Milkweed Project. Alanna Mirror wrote three songs inspired by the installation, featured in her 
Vallejo Project’s Unity Garden initiative restored an abandoned lot that was once filled with sand and garbage and turned it into a multi-level food forest with internationally influenced farming techniques, a mealworm farm and chickens. This garden is focused on urban agriculture.
Soil health is a big focus for Sustainable Solano this year. This March through May, we’ll be offering classes for all levels of composting to build healthy soil. This series will consist of three classes, with a beginners composting class in March, an intermediate class in April and an advanced composting class in May. You are invited to attend the class of your choice or join us for all three to build your composting knowledge and connect with the different gardens where each class will be held.
Composting 101 will be followed by Intermediate Compost Skills – An Introduction to Worm Composting, also taught by Lori Caldwell. This class will go over compost mishaps and how to troubleshoot bin repair, pests, etc. The time will also be used to introduce worm composting, discussing the benefits of worms, worm castings, and this compost method that is very friendly for those who want to compost but have less space to work with. The Vallejo Project Unity Garden will be hosting this class, with a worm bin and a three-bin compost system that has been paused due to pest issues and repair needs. This class will be interactive and potentially hands on, as we hope to show examples of bin repairs and give their compost system a bit of TLC.
