The Organic Garden Club has a mission to inspire you to grow an Organic Food Garden where you live. Our Members Fruit and Veggie Garden Tour did just that! Thanks to our hosts Francis and Kim, Sue, Michael, and William! Twenty eight of us had a great day, each sharing tips and discoveries from our gardens. Plus our garden expert members gave us regenerative organic information that made it a real educational activity.

Francis and Kim Starr’s fabulous Garden was first on our Tour! They have a 350 square feet fenced raised bed vegetable garden, filled with picture perfect veggies. 

Our member, Tracy Kimes, a Garden Consultant, helped Francis and Kim with their veggie garden and was delighted to see its growth and offered new suggestions.

Francis and Kim are clients of Michael Wittman, his crew built the veggie garden, and he put Blue Sky Biochar over their entire landscape. 

Their home is surrounded with fruit trees: avocados, figs, apple, orange, peaches, plus blueberry bushes. Bill Brandt gave them pointers on several of them. 

Sue Byrne’s orchard was the second garden on our Tour with fruit trees in the front, side, and back yards: nectarine, apricot, Navel orange, Gorgon apple, Valencia orange, fig, plum, lemon, and loquat. One of her apple trees has 3 varieties, including Anna and Einshimer, grafted on one root stock! 

Her four grape vines are loaded with fruit, trellised on arches and structures. She suggested putting clamshell (grocery fruit) containers over our fruits to protect them from the birds and critters. 

Sue invited us to pick and try a delicious organic boysenberry right from the vine! What a delight! She has trained her vines to grow on wires fan shaped and espaliered! Plus she has blackberries and a volunteer passion fruit vine. Her summer organic vegetable container garden is just beginning to grow.

Michael Wittman’s garden was the third on our Members Garden Tour. He gave a wonderful talk on regenerative organic gardening with fruits and veggies in living organic soil.

Michael told us to use rock dust, worm castings, biochar, compost, and mycorrhizae for our raised beds and fruit trees. He has a veggie garden fortress (to keep out the critters) and a fabulous compost bin. He created a Food Forest of fruit trees, berry bushes, and perennial veggies interplanted with herbs, like lavender and rosemary. Perennial fruits and veggies save time, money, and effort as they can last for years with some pruning, mulching, and composting.

The last garden on our Members Garden Tour was William Avnon’s orchard, planted behind his home at the bottom of a hill.

William has raspberries, blackberries and a mulberry tree on the hill with a drip irrigation system. Below, he is growing apricots, oranges, lemons, peaches, figs, pomegranates, apples and mangos in his orchard that he enjoys hand watering. After a great tour, William served us pizza!