Benicia Sustainable Backyard

Food Forest Keepers: Wendy and John

Wendy grew up with a lot of fruit trees in her Southern California home, but it wasn’t until she moved to San Francisco that she got more involved with gardening. She took a semester long class through Garden for the Environment where she learned about all aspects of gardening including permaculture. This class inspired her to get a community garden plot in San Francisco. Friends of Wendy’s are still raising food in this plot. Four years ago their family moved to Benicia, partly so that we could have space to grow a garden. Our children have enjoyed growing their own food and getting fresh eggs from our chickens.

Wendy learned about the program through the banner that was at the Avant Garden.  She expected that she would learn about permaculture as they redid their front yard.

Site Details

Installation Date:

February 2016

Size:

2,000 square feet

Sun Exposure:

3-6 hours

Soil:

Clay

Number of Swales:

2

Secondary Water:

Rainwater

Laundry-to-Landscape Greywater System

Roofwater Diverted to Swales

Total annual water impact:

45,896 gallons

Design:

Designer: David Mudge

Plant List:

Installation:

We had a positive experience during the installation. It was wonderful to connect with so many other likeminded people who were willing to work together to learn more about permaculture. I learned more about permaculture through the process but I think the greatest benefit was how it brought our neighborhood and community together to learn.

Vision for the Future:

My vision for the future is that our garden continues to be a learning space both for my children and for our community. I hope that our yard will inspire people in our neighborhood and become a gathering place for information and conversation. As we begin to produce more food, I hope to set up a basket where people in the neighborhood can trade food.   I also hope to provide people with resources so that they can create their own food forest.

Benicia Sustainable Backyard

Food Forest Keepers: Sandy and Peter

My family has a legacy of loving dirt. Both my parents grew up under impoverished post war conditions and thus growing their own food was a necessity for survival. My mom jokes that back then all farming was “organic” because they didn’t have pesticides or herbicides. My father is an avid gardener with both ornamentals and edibles. He loves to grow food not only for himself but always to share with friends and family. After getting married, my husband and I also gained an interest in gardening. For many years, we lived in homes without much land until we moved to Kansas. There we owned a home on 1/3 of an acre, grew a lot of food in raised beds, started composting and learned a lot from local home farmers.

When we moved to Benicia in late 2013, I saw the Avant Garden while driving on 1st St. I inquired as to how to get a box and immediately filled out an application. Through my involvement with the BCG, I heard about this program. At that time, we did not own a home so I just tucked the information away in my mind for another day and visited some of the installations as I received news of them through the BCG emails. Once we bought our house, the opportunity was mine to seize!

I didn’t have too many expectations going into this program except that I knew I would receive a number of fruit trees and have a laundry to yard grey water system installed. That was enough to motivate me to apply for the program. It turned out to be much more than just that and even though our home wasn’t able to put in a grey water system, I got so much more out of the program than anticipated. In particular, I learned a lot about permaculture, both through the program leaders and my own research after hearing about it.

Site Details

Installation Date:

September 2016

Size:

1600 square feet

Sun Exposure:

6-8 hours

Soil:

Clay

Number of Swales:

2

Secondary Water:

Lawn Conversion

Rainwater

Roofwater Diverted to Swales

Total annual water impact:

102,973 gallons

Design:

Designer: David Mudge

Plant List:

Installation:

The experience of the installation was fast and furious. Our installation was done under specific circumstances with the first permaculture internship class and a limited time span so the pace of the whole process was faster than usual and involved a lot more people in the planning process than perhaps it normally would have, which lent to a unique experience.

The installation was done over a weekend and then another half day to finish the job. It was one of the hottest weekends of the fall which made it particularly challenging but everyone who came to work was a trooper and had great attitudes. We started around 9:30am, broke for lunch and enjoyed mini permaculture seminars here and there throughout the weekend during breaks.

Vision for the Future:

In the future we hope to continue to add to the food forest and maximize our food production as well as having a beautiful space to host guests for meals. We have already added in some aloe vera and cone flowers in various spots. This summer, we plan to put in a raised bed or two for additional space to grow food. Eventually we want to put in an arbor and raspberry trellis to add to the aesthetic value of the food forest. Ultimately, we hope to produce a lot of crops that we can share or barter with friends and the community.

Virtual Tour 2020

Benicia Sustainable Backyard

Food Forest Keepers: Kirsten and Nick

We moved to Benicia to find a home that would suit our outdoor interests as well as provide space for our energetic Australian Sheppard, Barley.  We quickly fell in love with the small town feel of our new community.  We appreciate the downtown events, the farmer’s markets, and beautiful community gardens.  Both of us grew up interested in growing food and spending time outdoors.  Kirsten spent time after college working on a farm in Hawaii.  Nick dabbled with some lettuce growing in a small San Francisco space.  After our move to Benicia we dreamed of turning our backyard from a concrete jungle into a food forest. We understood the balance that was at stake – the work to plan, maintain, and learn about backyard farming with the potential of a bountiful and serene place to spend time.

While exploring the city’s library we found a talk on permaculture in the community events message board and read further about the Benicia Community Garden.  We were both excited to learn about the garden events and work days.  Following that, we found out about the Benicia Sustainable Backyard program at a booth advertising the application process downtown on a farmer’s market night.

As we began to meet with the program leaders to plan our garden, we began to understand that the project was just as much about balancing our personal needs with our desire to grow food in the most sustainable manner possible.  We hoped to learn about the permaculture planning and development process.

Site Details

Installation Date:

May 2015

Size:

1700 square feet

Sun Exposure:

6-8 hours

Soil:

Clay

Number of Swales:

5

Secondary Water:

Rainwater

Laundry-to-Landscape Greywater System

Roofwater Diverted to Swales

Total annual water impact:

42,825 gallons

Design:

Designer: David Mudge

Plant List:

Installation:

We ended up removing 25 tons of concrete from our backyard prior to the installation!  This was a key to creating the food forest that we were really hoping for.  On the day of the installation we were gracious enough to have our families help prepare food for the close to 30 people that showed up to our home to learn, congregate, and work (very hard) together.

We thought that sharing a video would really explain all that we felt and captured throughout the day…

Vision for the Future:

We can’t wait to share the continued growth of our food forest with our friends and family.  Ideally, we will continue to connect with the other families that started their food forest in the same year we did.  It would be great to begin a crop swap within Benicia to share our bounty.  We think canning and preserving fruit it in our future as well!

Benicia Sustainable Backyard

Food Forest Keepers: Heather and Frank

In our household we have a long history of gardening.  Frank grew up on a dairy farm in Central California and his family had food gardens almost every year.  He remembers picking apricots, plums, and fava beans from their yard.  Heather has always gardened, from helping grandparents with their gardens to converting the parking spot of her studio apartment to a garden oasis.  Our children have always known gardening as part of life.  They have helped create raised vegetable beds, built and painted the chicken run and choose plants to grow every summer.  One year we grew an Atlantic Giant pumpkin just for fun.  By October the pumpkin was over 5 feet in diameter and large enough for an adult to use it as a chair.  Heather is entering the Landscape Architecture program at UC Davis and will be taking her love of small scale gardening and applying that energy to large scale projects.

Heather first learned of the Sustainable Backyard program at the Benicia Farmer’s Market last fall.  After reading through the literature, we decided to submit an application to host a site.

Truthfully, we didn’t know what to expect from the program.  Permaculture was not a new concept for us, but we didn’t consider ourselves permaculture adherents.  As we learned more about permaculture principles we realized that our garden and philosophy naturally fit the ideas of people care, earth care and fair share.  We already want to provide our children with healthy, home grown food.  We want to care for the earth as we do this, by constantly mulching and composting the waste produced by our garden.  We also have practiced our understanding of Fair Share by sharing our garden harvest with our neighbors and people passing by.  We hoped we would meet more people who shared our love of growing things and learn more about the Community Gardens network in our town.

Site Details

Installation Date

April 2015

Sun Exposure: 

8 hours

Soil Type:

Clay

Number of Swales:

3

Secondary Water:

Rainwater

Laundry-to-Landscape Greywater System

Roofwater Diverted to Swales

Shower-to-Landscape Branch Drain System

Total annual water impact:

38,927 gallons

Design:

Designer: David Mudge

Plant List:

Installation:

The installation was amazing.  We have thrown many parties at our house, but the garden installation day was probably the best party this yard has ever seen.  Before the installation we met with David Mudge to discuss our wants and needs for the space.  He spent quite a bit of time in the garden, learning about the existing space.  Heather had been making lists for weeks about yard tasks to be finished, food preparation and even art projects for the kids who might be at the event.  We had hired a friend to provide childcare so both Heather and Frank could participate all day.

The day of the event we had fresh coffee provided from Moschetti Coffee Roasters in Vallejo, fresh bagels from Safeway, muffins and fruit waiting for the participants.  Our four-year old daughter was in charge of placing the chairs and insisted that everyone would want to sit in one big circle.  She got over being wrong.  Around 8:45 volunteers began to arrive.  It soon became clear that this was going to be big.

David spent some time describing the rainwater diversion design and then Elena welcomed everyone.  Soon the pickaxes and shovels were flying and before long there was a swale.  The digging continued until about 11 AM when more snacks came out.  By noon everyone was ready for lunch.  Frank barbecued and Heather brought out all the sides.  It was a beautiful break in the day, to sit with people who had bonded over hard labor in our yard and talk about all the pressing issues of the day.  Talk of the drought dominated conversation and the entire group was so very passionate about educating the public on grey water use and rainwater storage and diversion.  We also celebrated Rick Beeson’s birthday and Heather and Frank’s Anniversary.

The afternoon was devoted to plumbing the downspout diverters, planting the trees and filling the swales with mulch.  More snacks were brought out and by around 4:30 we had a pitcher of sangria on the picnic table. By this time Frank and Heather were exhausted, even without doing all the digging themselves.  The volunteers had come and gone as the day went by and eventually it was just our little family.

Vision for the Future:

In the future we plan to be part of the twice yearly BCG Sustainable Backyard tour.  After hosting the installation date and the grey water program we know we can handle a large group.  Our back yard now seems like our space, as we have completely changed the landscape from what it was when we moved into the house over 5 years ago.  We plan to continue keeping chickens as they form an integral part of our backyard ecosystem.  We have a giant hugelkultur bed now that will probably be where the chicken coop and run move to next year.  The front yard now has the raised vegetable beds and will continue to be converted to a food producing and habitat creating space for pollinators.  Frank has grand ideas of rainwater diversion to the front yard upslope and possible plans for bath grey water use.  We would love to host more events and have our house become a demonstration area for many different aspects of gardening and permaculture.

Benicia Sustainable Backyard

Food Forest Keepers: Nam and Rob

Rob grew up in Massachusetts where his version of yards equaled grass, while Nam grew up in Southern California in a first generation Vietnamese family, where their version of yards equaled chickens, herb gardens, fruit trees, and lots of weeding (which Nam still has fond memories of).   Now married with two young children, Rob and Nam have made Benicia their home.  Rob’s view of a yard has evolved to include gardens and fruit trees and the whole family cherishes time in the garden.

As a young family with no other family members nearby, they would like to be more involved in the community. Their oldest son Perry has autism, and Rob and Nam have found that working on their garden helps to relieve stress from the demands of raising a child with special needs. They also find that Perry is more relaxed outside, in more natural settings, and he loves composting and turning the soil.

Nam is currently home to care for their children, and is interested in food systems and urban gardens from a personal and public health standpoint, having recently earned her Masters in Public Health.  Rob, a high school teacher, wants to teach the boys about good stewardship and give them the excitement he feels in growing something.

Rob and Nam chose to apply because they know given the start and the guidance, their food forest will grow into fruition with them and their family. It would be making their dreams a reality. They have been supported by so many in their community have no hesitation about a demonstration/teaching yard, especially since it would be easily accessible in the front yard. They envision children from Robert Semple walking over to learn about it, linking it to other organizations (such as Cooking for Kids, Loma Vista Farm) and using it as a springboard for urban farming.

Site Details

Installation Date:

March 2015

Size:

1,700 square feet

Sun Exposure:

10-12 hours

Soil Type:

Clay

Swales:

2

Secondary Water:

Lawn Conversion

Laundry-to-Landscape Greywater System

Roofwater Diverted to Swales

Total annual water impact:

122,637 gallons

Design:

Designer: David Mudge

Plant List:

Installation

As part of the Benicia Community Gardens grant, volunteers dug up our yard, installed swales (fancy word for big ditches filled in with mulch to retain water), and connected our laundry system to the landscape so that every time we wash a load, the washer pumps the water out to the yard.  I can’t recall exactly, but that’s about 40 gallons of water. The greywater folks ran piping and dug greywater basins to most of the fruit trees, and in these basins there is a spigot which rests in a PVC pipe that it empties into. On top of this contraption should be a covering of some sort so that stuff doesn’t fall in and clog up the pipe. After tossing around a few ideas (and yes, we could have just gotten a 4″ pipe cover), Rob and I settled on a tea theme.

Vision for the Future

When we thought of what to do to cap the pipes, we thought we’d paint ceramic pots and cups. Wouldn’t that be cute!  Then we remembered that we have two very young boys–who play hard. We’d be painting pots every week to replace the ones they’d break. And do we want shards everywhere? So then I thought, iron teapots–virtually unbreakable in little (or even big) hands, heavy enough that they won’t run too far with them, and quasi-weather resistant. And even if they do rust, we wouldn’t mind too much.

Iron teapots are a bit pricey. It’s a little bit overkill for pipe covers, but as we noted in our application essay–gardening is what takes our mind off of worrying when everything else is a little crazy. Over these past few weeks, as we look at Perry’s IEP, as we hired a lawyer, as we look at job options and crazy schedules, we look to the yard. Rob looks forward to the time after both boys are in bed and he gets to go outside and furtively water the avocado and Chilean guava tree. It’s his relaxing time. I like to peek around while the boys are wandering around in horse poop and scooping out dirt and report back that “Perry’s Easter corn is growing”, or that “There’s a berry on Newbury (We have two blueberry bushes–our first is named Blueberry, so our second is named Newbury)”, or “We have the teeniest, tiniest pink lady apples growing”.  It brings us a small measure of happiness.

Since iron pots are a bit pricey–at least for us, we decided to get one a month, since Rob gets paid once a month. At this rate we might have all the drains covered in half a year. This is our first month when we can “afford” to do it.  (That’s in quotes because we’re still steadily going into debt–just less so.) After looking through the designs and reading how some are supposed to bring strength or prosperity or luck, I went over to Rob and repeated the design symbols, asking him which thing he thought we needed most in our lives.  Without hesitation he said, “Luck.”

The point being that there is a little elephant-shaped teapot on its way to us. I hope it brings us, and the garden, good luck.