2013 07 12 paw section2

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Home&Real Estate Home Front

MANAGE WATER ... The City of Palo Alto Utilities and ZeroWaste Palo Alto are offering a free workshop on “Whole House Sustainable Water Management� from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, July 13, at the Lucie Stern Community Center, Community Room, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Information: www.cityofpaloalto.org/ workshops or 650-329-2241

OPEN HOME GUIDE 52

Also online at PaloAltoOnline.com

Growing their own

TREE WALK ... An arborist will lead a free tree walk through the Greenmeadow neighborhood on Saturday, July 13, 10 a.m. to noon, meeting at the Greenmeadow Community Center, 303 Parkside Drive, Palo Alto. Expect to see sugar maple, bigleaf maple, cork oak, Torrey pine, Brazilian pepper tree, Moraine ash, soapbark tree, tulip tree and holly oak. Information: www.canopy.org. FOCUS ON FLOWERS ... UC Master Gardeners will offer a free, drop-in plant clinic with a focus on growing healthy flowers and planning flower-cutting gardens from 9 to 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 13, at Gamble Garden, 1431 Waverley St., Palo Alto. Topics range from growing perfect roses and hydrangeas to soil types, plant nutrition to organic sprays. Information: Master Gardeners at 408-282-3105, between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday or http:// mastergardeners.org GARDEN SHARE ... Do you have extra homegrown fruit, veggies, eggs, herbs, honey or flowers? Swap them for other varieties you don’t have at the monthly garden share event at 11 a.m. on Sunday, July 14, at Common Ground, 559 College Ave., Palo Alto. Information: www.commongroundinpaloalto.org SAUSAGE MAKING ... Charcuterie chef Quentin Levy will demonstrate how to make fresh Italian chicken sausage (with fennel, anise and pepper flakes) as well as cured Sopressa salami (with pork, tellicherry peppercorns and Utah pink mineral salt) from 3 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, July 14, at Hidden Villa, 26870 Moody Road, Los Altos Hills. Cost is $65. Information: 650-949-8650 or www.hiddenvilla. org FREE FABRIC ... The next FabMo free fabric distribution event is Thursday, July 18, 4 to 8 p.m.; Friday, July 19, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday, July 20, 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Appointments are re(continued on page 41) Send notices of news and events related to real estate, interior design, home improvement and gardening to Home Front, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302, or email cblitzer@paweekly.com. Deadline is one week before publication.

Above: A greenhouse casts morning shadows in Sharon Erickson’s Barron Park garden. Right: Homegrown tomatoes in hand, Erickson peruses her garden, which supplies everything from blueberries to basil, while picking vegetables for lunch. Below: Two of Erickson’s chickens stand in their cage at the corner of her garden; their manure is used as plant fertilizer after being mixed with other compost.

Landscaping tour showcases sustainable, edible gardens by Rye Druzin Photography by Christophe Haubursin

W

hen Sharon Erickson moved back to her childhood home in 1993, the garden that she had grown up with was in disrepair. But over the last 20 years Erickson has rebuilt and expanded the garden until today, where it now occupies almost the entirety of her large backyard. “My kids kept kidding me because the lawn kept getting smaller and the patio would get smaller and (the garden) just expanded,� Erickson said. “I recently took out the rest of the lawn, it had gotten so small.� Erickson’s garden will be among 10 in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and Mountain View included in the seventh annual Edible Landscaping

Tour on Saturday, July 20. Back in 1958 Erickson’s dad began converting a corner of the backyard into a vegetable garden. Years of digging the ground has turned what used to be hard adobe clay into a workable and healthy soil. “I think (my dad) convinced us that we should build underground forts,� Erickson said. “So all summer long we would dig big holes in the ground and we would crawl. And I swear those holes must have been 3, 4 feet deep. ... And then in the fall he would fill them up with the leaves from the trees. So over time we broke through the hard pan in the backyard.� Erickson’s garden hosts a variety of plants that produce large amounts of fruit and vegetables all year long. The (continued on page 39)

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