Posts Tagged: Facebook

Suisun Community Garden

Are you an apartment dweller or an otherwise landless gardener who has been dreaming about having a little piece of earth to call your own?  Or maybe you are just someone who has a small yard and is looking for additional space to garden?  If so, consider checking out the Suisun Community Garden located on Lotz Way by the Marina Shopping Center off of Highway 12 in Suisun City.  For approximately $30 a year which is intended to cover the cost of water usage, you can lease a 10' x 10' plot at the Community Garden.

Almost all of the Community Garden's current members have built raised beds to grow vegetables which they are doing so successfully, as the site receives full sun daily, even in the winter.  At last check, the author of this post observed corn, tomatoes, squash, tomatillos, eggplants, strawberries, artichokes, beans, carrots, radishes, beets, sunflowers, cosmos, dahlias, nasturtiums, and more, growing at the Community Garden.

As an added benefit, most members of the Community Garden are generally friendly, and will happily exchange gardening war stories and tips with you while you are there weeding, watering, etc.  Although vandalism and theft can be an issue at the Community Garden from time to time (this is a common occurrence at ANY community garden), there is usually more than enough bounty for you in your plot to harvest and enjoy.  It is also not unusual for other Community Garden members to share their harvest with you. 

At last count, there were only a dozen or so plots left, so don't delay.  For further information, please contact the Joseph Nelson Community Center at (707) 421-7200 or check out the Community Garden's Facebook page.

Farmers tell their stories with social media

Frustration at being the targets of technologically savvy environmental and animal rights groups has inspired farmers to get involved with social media communications outlets like Facebook and Twitter, according to an Associated Press article by Julianna Barbassa.

"There is so much negative publicity out there, and no one was getting our message out," Denair dairy farmer Ray Prock Jr. told Barbassa. Prock writes blog posts and tweets regularly on everything from emergency drills for handling manure spills to lactose intolerance. On his blog, Prock said he took up the pen because he is tired of having someone else tell his story.

Besides giving them a voice, farmers are finding that social media can help them build community and share valuable information. One source of information is the Facebook and Twitter pages developed by UC viticulture specialist Matt Fidelibus and UC Cooperative Extension viticulture advisor Steve Vasquez. Last week, for example, Fidelibus' Twitter followers learned that swarms of small flying insects in a Parlier vineyard resembled leaf hoppers but turned out to be false chinch bugs.

The AP article said the duo started using social media as a way to get important information to grape growers quickly — if the risk of powdery mildew on grapevines was high for a particular region, farmers could react in time, for example. In fact, Fidelibus tweeted on July 1, "Parlier Grape Powdery Mildew RAI threshold on 07/01/10 is 70. For additional SJV locations visit http://ow.ly/2603J."

A tool like Facebook, Barbassa wrote, also allows farmers to share photos or video. They can post an image of something problematic and get advice from experts like Fidelibus or each other immediately.

A photo gallery on the San Joaquin Valley Viticulture Facebook page.

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