The old saying “Don’t miss the water ‘till the well runs dry” couldn’t be more apt in this year’s unprecedented drought. Wells and reservoirs are drying up around the county, the CA State Water Resources Control Board is implementing restrictions throughout the Russian River watershed, and neighboring small farms have been forced to cancel their […]
Pictured above: Doug Gosling, Mother Garden Biodiversity Program Director, in the OAEC seed vault with the new Kent Whealy dedication plaque. It is our great pleasure to announce the dedication and naming of the OAEC seed collection after seed preservation visionary and mentor, Kent Whealy. Kent Whealy recognized in the 1970’s that the collapse of […]
For over 2 decades, OAEC has had a deep collaboration with Food For Thought (FFT), a food bank in Forestville that serves over 700 clients living with HIV/AIDS and other critical illnesses. After many years of volunteering with FFT, Doug Gosling, OAEC’s Mother Garden Biodiversity Program Director, helped to establish the garden there in 1999 and […]
Join us at the Bioneers Conference – Oct 19th – 20th At the upcoming Bioneers Conference, OAEC’s Program Manager Cooper Freeman will discuss the evolutionary wheat breeding project he is leading on the panel: Evolutionary Plant Breeding: Breeding Crops for Climate Change, with project partner Leonard Diggs from Santa Rosa Junior College Shone Farm and journalist Mark […]
Above: Of the two species of Patchouli grown for it’s essential oils, Java Patchouli is more common to find in cultivation and can be grown as a beautiful container plant, as a fast growing annual or as a perennial in the greenhouse. Patchouli was used during the silk trade to keep moths from laying their eggs […]
The OAEC Nursery is a new member of Fibershed, a consortium of growers, ranchers, artisans, and retailers working to create a culturally, socially, economically and ecologically viable local textile industry. Fibershed encourages the revival of local fiber systems through research, education and expanding markets for regenerative textile manufacturing from soil-to-soil. The OAEC Nursery is helping […]
Well, the weather has changed from deep winter to summer in just a day, like a light switch turning from off to on, as it always seems to do every year at about this time in Northern California. So now you can be confident that it’s time to plant all of your summer crops! We are releasing our […]
As you may have heard, the Climate is Changing and so is the OAEC Nursery! > In the interest of long term sustainability of our business, we are moving away from doing full-blown Plant Sale “events” in the spring, and instead, are proud to announce that we will be open 3 days per week all […]
Friends of the Nursery Preview Sale April 1st 10am-5pm As you may have heard, the Climate is Changing and so is the OAEC Nursery! > In the interest of long term sustainability of our business, we are moving away from doing full-blown Plant Sale “events” in the spring, and instead, are proud to announce that we will […]
The OAEC non-profit nursery is the outward face of our 45-year-old esteemed Mother Garden and represents an outreach into the community from the experience, work and wisdom we’ve gained by working the land in the same place since 1974. The climate is changing and so is the OAEC Nursery! When we produced our first Plant […]