Update 5-2-2007
MANY THANKS -- To ninth graders from Jewish Community High School of the Bay for help on lower Codornices Creek, to Peter Rudy and Big Chief Tree Service for the load of chips, to the 15 wonderful volunteers who helped dig blackberry and other weeds on Cerrito Creek on El Cerrito's Earth Day, and to the City of El Cerrito for its wonderful tradition of community-wide Earth Day work parties.
MAY 7 F5C MEETING WILL SET SCHEDULE
MAY 12 PEPPERWEED WORK PARTY AT STRAWBERRY CREEK
Please join us at 10 am - noon Saturday, May 12, on the beach west of Sea Breeze Delicatessen, south side of University Avenue just west of the I-880/580 Freeway, in Berkeley. AC Transit 9 stops across University Avenue from Sea Breeze. After the work party, I'll lead a short walk to see and discuss the past and future of other Eastshore State Park wetlands.
MAY 13 RED OAK VICTORY PANCAKE BREAKFAST, TOUR
GARDEN FOR WATERSHEDS - AND A SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENT
You can enjoy your garden and help watersheds by gardening sustainably, with plants that don't require lots of water, fertilizers, or pesticides. Fertilizers and pesticides wash to storm drains, streams, and the Bay; chloramines in tap water are toxic to aquatic organisms. In addition, low winter rainfall means we should conserve this summer. A good way to do this is to defer planting until fall, so that winter rains, now irrigation, help establish your new plantings.
But spring planting is hard to resist! Lists of Bay-friendly plants, nurseries that sell them, and pest plants to avoid can be found on the website of Alameda County StopWaste, http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=628. From this page, you can also order a copy of EB MUD's beautiful book, Plants and Landscapes for Summer Dry Climate.
Check out special sales this weekend at local nurseries specializing in native plants. Along with ruggedness, natives generally provide great habitat for beneficial insects, butterflies, and birds. Open 10 am to 5 pm Saturday and Sunday, May 5 and 6, will be Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Drive, Berkeley (in Tilden Park), www.ebcnps.org; Oaktown Native Plant Nursery, 2701 Main St, Alameda, www.oaktownnativenursery.info; and the Watershed Nursery, 155 Tamalpais Rd., Berkeley, www.thewatershednursery.com. Friends of Sausal Creek's will hold their annual native-plant sale at their nursery in Joaquin Miller Park on Sunday (http://www.sausalcreek.org/plantsale.html). (Thanks for the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour for organizing these sales.)
If you hire someone for landscaping or gardening, consider hiring a Bay-Friendly Qualified Landscape Professional, or encourage your gardener or landscaper to get this important training. Information and a list of those already qualified are at http://www.stopwaste.org/home/index.asp?page=757.
Have fun, and hope to see you soon!
All are welcome at F5C's board meeting, 7 pm Monday, May 7, at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin. We will be setting our summer and early fall schedule, and discussing activities and events. Come and bring your ideas!
For May, American Wetlands Month, our work party focuses on protecting the ecologically important tide flats at the mouth of Berkeley's Strawberry Creek, vital habitat for shorebirds. For seven years, we have worked from Berkeley into Richmond to contain invasive perennial pepperweed (Lepidium latifolium, tall white-top) that threatens these open flats. This year, the weed has made a big comeback at Strawberry Creek Cove, and your help is needed to cut and dig it before it extends its mat of roots farther, or blooms and sets seed. There will be other tasks, but containing the pepperweed may be our most urgent task all year, and the one with greatest long-term benefit for the Bay.
Not exactly a F5C event, but long-time F5C stalwarts John Mestas and Ivan Sturman also are working to restore the World War II victory ship SS Red Oak Victory. Of the many vessels built at Richmond's historic Kaiser Shipyards during WWII, this is the only one being restored. Please join other F5C folks as volunteers serve a pancake breakfast beginning 9 am Sunday morning, May 13 (Mother's Day), followed by tours of the ship - fun for the whole family! To get there, from I-580, take the Canal Blvd. Exit. Continue on Canal Blvd to 1337 Canal Blvd. Information and directions at www.ssredoakvictory.com.
May is California Watershed Awareness Month (as well as American Wetlands Month) - a reminder that protecting the quality of water and our environment starts wherever a raindrop touches Earth.
Susan Schwartz