Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping blog

Terra Nova Voted Best ‘Green Service’ in Good Times poll

ken — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:43:49 +0000

We thank everyone who voted for us for ‘Best Green Service’ in the Santa Cruz Good Times poll. We will do our best to live up to this honor. Although we have been in the Ecological Landscaping business for twenty years we promise not to rest on our laurels!
From all of us at Terra Nova again, THANK YOU !

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Permaculture Design Course Photo update

ken — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 22:25:42 +0000

Our Permaculture design groups working/playing in the sand with their projects.

Tom Broz of Live Earth Farm giving a talk about his farm’s solar panels.

Brian Barth giving a talk at the Mataganza Garden Sanctuary.

Heather Flores author of Food Not Lawns teaching a class on seed saving.

Read the Book ! Food Not Lawns

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Bee-ing there! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We catch honey bee swarms in the Santa Cruz area.

ken — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:08:12 +0000

Pictures from 4-11-08 To learn more about bees buzz here. Call us at 831-425-3514

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Terra Nova Celebrates twenty years in business! Here’s our full page ad from the newspaper with special discount coupons

ken — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:35:43 +0000

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Santa Cruz Permaculture Design Course on going through July

ken — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 01:00:28 +0000

This is a photo of the first weekend of the Santa Cruz Permaculture Design Course with Larry Santoyo holding court.

Testing soil in the soil class.

Larry Santoyo will be joining local Santa Cruz Permaculture teachers including Ken Foster, Lydia Neilsen, Bruce Beernink and Brian Barth and Heather Flores for a Permaculture Design Course begining February 16th and 17th, 2008. The third weekend of each month:
February - July 2008 Tuition : $90.00 per day* $175.00 per weekend

Please go to EarthFlow Design Works to register or for more information.

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Ken’s Ride Report

ken — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 02:12:16 +0000

This year was the eighth time I rode my bicycle from Santa Cruz to Pacific Grove, California to attend the 28th annual Ecological Farming Conference. This is about a six hour ride from one side of the Monterey Bay to the other.
Here I am the morning of the ride.

On Westcliff Drive in Santa Cruz with Monterey in the background.
Making a stop at a friend’s homestead along the way.

The cow and her calf at my friend’s homestead.
By an amazing coincidence or rather synchronicity I met up with the Ecological Farm Tour over lunch. I stopped to see the Terra Nova crew at a job site and as I turned up the rode to see them there were the three buses from the Ecological Farm tour.
The Ecological Farm Tour busesHere’s Jim Denevan, the lunch chef from
‘Outstanding the in Field’ farm tour with Amigo ‘Bob’ one of the founders of the
Ecological Farming Conference.

With Santa Cruz in the background.The Monterey Yacht Harbor.At the conference, this is one of the three workshops I moderated.This one is with Heather Flores presenting a workshop called ‘Food Not Lawns’ which is also the title of her book.

Biking is one of the best ways to see your place on earth.

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Sheet Mulch with cardboard

ken — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:26:21 +0000

First get some cardboard
do some weeding feed the weeds to your chickens (they love oxalis!)lay cardboard over bare soil with drip irrigation over cardboardlay down Chai mulch
Here with a truth window so you know there really is cardboard under all that mulch and you’re done! Keeps weeds down for a good season. After a couple of seasons you’ll have control of those weeds without pesticides.

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We wish you all the joy of the season and . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Happy New Year !

ken — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 22:35:28 +0000

Terra Nova celebrates the solstice with
GROOVE GRASS

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WE CALL FOR A LEAF BLOWER BAN !!!

ken — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:19:10 +0000

Terra Nova advocates a leaf blower ban !

Let’s go from this . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To this !
. . . . .
“What we’re trying to do with the leaf blower and all our lawn equipment is to create the perfect suburban landscape. How do we create that? We create it by destroying the soundscape, imposing on it the drone of the internal combustion engine” says Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you know the gardener has shown up by how much noise they make.
We nominate the leaf blower as one of the worst inventions ever. With twenty-six million plus leaf blowers in the United States we think it’s time to find alternatives. At Terra Nova we prefer to use a broom or when absolutely necessary an electric blower over the two-stroke back-pack blower. Join us in calling for a leaf blower ban in your hometown.
Go here for more information

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Grey Water Clarified

ken — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 17:41:40 +0000

Lydia Neilsen and Lochlan Cuthbertson of Dirt Dragon Designs held a grey water class and the Terra Nova crew pitches in to help install a grey water reed bed and pond. What is Grey Water? Learn more at the Oasis website.

Here’s Lydia Neilsen teaching a very inspiring and informational grey water class.

Wood chip filter and pump for grey water coming out of house. Terra Nova crew helping install grey water reed filter bed.
Grey Water pond installation in process.

Finished Grey Water reed bed and pond.
Learn more about Grey Water from TreeHugger Blog.

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