Hi,

Again, thanks for coming out on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Vancouver.

Using a 16oz. plastic cup as a measure and the ratio of 5 parts clay, 3 parts soil, 1 part seed, 1 - 2 parts water, 13 guerrilla gardeners made seven batches of seed ball mixture, which in turn made hundreds of seed balls which you can see in the posted photos of the event.

It takes about one hour for two or three people to finish one batch, so the next time we do this, bringing double the amount of material will ensure we can make as much as the time will allow. Playing with dirt means a mess is inevitable, so you need about 30 minutes for cleanup after everyone else has left.

Pizza boxes are good a way to take them home but they need to be a heavy cardboard as the dampness of the seed balls makes the bottom weak.

The clay is called Red Art Clay and is available from Greenbarn Potters Supply Ltd., 9548 - 192nd
Street, Surrey, B.C. Canada V4N 3R9 CALL: (604)888-3411 FAX: (604)888-4247.

During the workshop, the idea was discussed to share in the cost of purchasing a bag of clay for individuals to use on their own. My personal view is to keep it part of the community because I liked what happened today. Somebody mentioned that it was like a quilting bee.

As of 20 October 2006, the catalogue price for a 50lb/22.5Kg bag is $20.76. This is approx. $1.10/Kg. I'll check their current price on Monday.

I go out to Langley once a month and see that Green Barn's location is about 10 minutes from my destination. Anyone want to get in on this?

Someone asked: Do the seed balls work as promised? Take a look. This is where the seed balls we made today will be put.

People asked me about plants that are perennial, edible and drought tolerant and I referred them to the Plants for a Future website. You can find it in the VGG Link collection #1 message, but here is a direct link to their Top 20 Plants page which includes a lot more.

There are many plants that are real candidates for guerrilla gardening activities. Keep your eyes open for a place to put them.

Information about Monkey Puzzle trees can be found here and here

Finally, we talked about the VGG event meeting with Devorah Khan and the 2,010...Garden Plots By 2010 initiative. It is unclear where we, as a group, want to go with this.

I related a conversation I had with Devorah after the meeting [I did not attend] where she suggests that what is needed is a Vancouver Public [Food] Gardening Alliance to speak for all community gardeners in the City, so when parks come up for redevelopment, they speak/lobby/organize the Parks Board for community garden space.

We missed you Oren. Hope you are feeling better soon.

Cheers,

Al

P.S. Hi to Rosie who is not yet part of the Meetup Group but heard about the event elsewhere and came today.

I'd be interested in throwing in the money for a whole bag of clay and donating half of it to the communal seed-ball making, especially if it's only 20 or so bucks a bag... Also, i'm doing a test-control photo journal of one seedball in a pot...when it starts to sprout i'll post the photos and the conditions...

--rhyd : )

The VGG now owns one 50lb bag of Red Art Clay.

Lost and found: a water bottle with Webnames.ca on the side.