Happy Thanksgiving from Smart Yards Co-op and Smart Yards Education

As we pause to give thanks for our family, friends, good health, food, shelter, nature, clean air, water, work and our beautiful planet, we're thinking of you in gratitude for the great time and difference we've make together. Gratitude, indeed deserves a day as there is so much to be grateful for.

We, at Smart Yards Co-op and Smart Yards Education, celebrate this day by giving thanks for the opportunity to work with you. Many members of our community and partners to meet our mission of transforming outdoor living spaces into habitat, full of life, regenerative, fun and beautiful gardens using Permaculture methods: Planet Care. People Care. Fair Share. Thanks for the positive changes made throughout the year and for the investment you've made with us in taking action and doing your part to using our precious resources wisely, while curbing climate change in your own outdoor spaces.

We thank our wonderful clients, trainees, and partners for their investment in nature, their trust, inspiration, and overall making a difference with us. This year alone, in 2022, we:

• Worked with over 150 of you, members of our community

• Designed and converted over 50,000 square feet of grass

• Helped save more than 15 million gallons of water per year

• Did many greywater systems installations, shower and laundry water to gardens

• Engaged over 175 participants with our hands-on workshops such as pastries and pollinators, laundry to landscape, aquaponics and community events such as The Seed Saving and Exchange and The Annual VeggieFest

• Built many habitat gardens full of life; working with our local elected official on greywater (water localize and re-use) policies and taking action to being a voice for the conservation of our local flora and fauna

We think that this incredible impact is something worth being thankful for as every drop counts and every creature matters in our web of life.

It takes a village and we're so proud to be part of such a supportive village to make a difference with us at Smart Yards Education and Smart Yards Coop. YES. The collaboration with, Human Agenda, A Slice of New York, Lopez Remodeling, Mariposa Gardening and Design, La Mesa Verde of SHCS, Valley Water, Vital Cycles, TeamWorks, Assembly Member Ash Kalra, The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County and Marian Goldeen & Arthur Ogawa Fund are key partners we have work with over the years. We're grateful for their ongoing support and friendship. Thank you all.

Awareness is key. The growing interest of learning more about our work of designing, building and nurturing life supporting urban ecosystems is exciting. And we, at Smart Yards Education, our non-profit organization, bring people together through hands-on workshops to learn how to design, install and manage California climate-appropriate gardens, cultivate vibrant communities by connecting with nature in ones own outdoor back and front yards.

Stay tuned for the up coming opportunity to participate in our first-of-its-kind program which is offered in partnership with Santa Clara Valley Water District(Valley Water) and Vital Cycles of Santa Cruz.

Hands-on Permaculture Skills Training Workshop Series: Learn How to Grow Water.
4 Workshops • 4 Weekends • 4 Months • 4 Our Earth!

The first weekend will be held at an established food forest and native garden designed upon permaculture principles, and includes an introduction to permaculture with an emphasis on a regenerative approach to water solutions. We will cover understanding the water cycle, its challenges, and how to restore it with an extensive tour of the garden system, examples, Q & A and discussion. Each of the 3 remaining weekends will include Saturday morning presentations followed by hands-on installations on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

For more information about this visit us at, smartyardseducation.org or contact Lisa, lisa@smartyardseducation.org

Thank you and very Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones.
The Smart Yards Co-op and the Smart Yards Education Team

“The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.” – William Blake

🦇Little Animals, Great Impact🦇

🦇 Happy Bat Appreciation Week🦇

🌿 Smart Yards Co-op observes this week, October 24th to October 31st, in appreciation for these little animals with great impact.

Bat Week is an international annual celebration designed to raise awareness about the need for bat conservation and the role of bats in nature. Smart Yards Co-op, was founded on October 2015 with the ethics of Permaculture: planet care, people care & fair share. Also to celebrate and to share this type of awareness.

Did you know that bats contribute with critical services for our ecosystem? Here we list three important ecological functions that they provide:

✨Pollination: Like hummingbirds🐦, 🌱Seed dispersal: They travel long bees🐝, and butterflies🦋, which distances and defecate while Smart Yards Co-op's garden thrive they fly, thereby dispersing the with, bats are also important fruit’s seeds along their way. pollinators.

(Seeds dropped by bats can account for up to 95% of the first new growth in those areas.)

🦟Pest Control: By eating up to 1,200 mosquitos per hour, bats help keep pest populations in check.

(Recent studies estimate that bats eat enough pests to save more than $3.7 billion per year in crop damage and pesticide costs.)

Unfortunately, there are 23 species of bat currently listed as critically endangered because of disruption of forests, over-harvesting of trees, climate change and disease. This means that many of them face immediate risk of extinction. These are some of the reasons why at Smart Yards Co-op we take their habitat into account when designing and building our gardens.

Most bats are nocturnal, they fly and forage for their food/bugs at night, which gives us the opportunity to provide them with safe places to sleep during the day. This is an example of the type of homes that Smart Yards Co-opcreates for bats so they can thrive in our urban gardens and at the same time they continue with their role in the web of life. We encourage you to let the professionals take care of your garden in order to create an ecosystem where our native flora and fauna, including bats, is supported.

"The bat who cannot grow a feather, contrives to fly on wings of leather."
― Arthur Guiterman

🍂Fall Breeze & Autumn Leaves🍂

🍁Happy Autumn . September 22nd marked the autumnal equinox for the Northern Hemisphere. It was both the last day of summer and the first day of fall- a special transition for us at Smart Yards Coop and all in gardening world.

This transition is fun and with it, the sweet fruits as pomegranate, (punica granatum), pineapple guava (feioa acca sellowiana) and chayote squash all delicious and charged with health benefits. Check out HERE to see the health benefits of chayote squash and let Smart Yards Coop know if you'd like one to plant in your garden.

In addition to beauty and the health benefits for people, these plants also provide food for a variety our local song birds as Turdus migratorius (American Robin), tanagers, thrashers, orioles, mockingbirds and others. In honor of World Migratory Bird Day, this October 8th, we celebrate by providing habitat for those beautiful friends making their survival journey.

The abundance in one of our gardens. Photo by Elizabeth Sarmiento, September & October, 2022.

For Smart Yards Coop the planting of habitat, native, fruit trees, vegetable gardens- growing food season does not stop. We remove those corn, zucchini, pepper, tomato...plants to make compost and get ready for the cool season vegetable gardens for our homestead and some of you. There are quite a few cool season vegetable plants to plant now— even tolerating up to the upper teens temperatures. Linked HERE is a list for you to check out and plant or lettuce 😉 know if you'd like our team to bring plants and compost to get you going with your season garden.

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together. For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

― Edwin Way Teale

The Story of Emilia & Max

#FridaysForFuture is a leading hashtag on twitter referring to the global Fridays for Future demonstrations popularized the 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg. All around the world young activists are taking (and resuing) their demonstration posters and pleading leading government officials to take action against climate change.

One simple commonality that has connected so many young citizens of the world towards a common goal: their love for nature. At Smart-Yards Co-op, we believe that a strong connection and time in nature is a key to raise awareness about preservation. The love towards our environment as well as the dedication towards its protection is brought on by exposure to the outside world and education on its status of well-being.

In densely populated communities such as the Bay Area, coming across nature may be more difficult than expected and therefore your quickest and easiest way to get to a patch of green may just be your backyard. This was exactly my case. My name is Emilia and I am spending my summer working for Smart Yards Co-op. Our San José native garden with fruit trees and vegetable beds is what replaced green lawn when I was 6. I remember the significant increase of butterflies and native birds right outside my bedroom window after my family had created a native habitat for them.

Our Smart Yard was featured in an award-winning video my older brother and I produced and edited when we were 10 and 12 respectively. We earned the “Community Energy Champions” title in the 2012 Greenlight Film Festival. In it we gave a tour of our sustainable lifestyle at home, which includes four Solar Panels, three different ways to greywater our garden, two native and edible gardens (front and backyard), and one hybrid car for four people. In addition to a zipline that doubles as a clothesline.

Being so close to the native plant and animal species is what elevated my appreciation of nature’s gifts. After taking a working gap year in Chile for a non-profit, I plan to study environmental politics and dedicate my career to the conservation of our beautiful planet for future generations. All this would not have been brought on without my native California garden. It is truly wonderful being able to enjoy the space alongside all sorts of wildlife. Even both of my dogs love savoring the outdoors lying in the shade of the trees or chasing lizards.

Laundry to Landscape

Imagine having lots of fruit in your garden and reusing your laundry water to water the trees? In many Bay Area homes, a spiking water bill is observed during the warmer months, accounting for water spent on our use and vegetation. What if they could be one and the same? Smart Yards Co-op is happy to introduce the greywater system, specifically Laundry to Landscape (L2L).

L2L is a greywater irrigation system transporting the used water from your laundry to the plants, fruit trees and shrubs, in your garden. Not only do you save water and help the environment, but you see your water bill recede significantly. Smart Yards Co-op is certified to install the systems and also maintain them after the installation.

Valley Water offers a rebate program to help folks with the cost --- we can help design the system, too. In addition to installing a greywater system, Smart Yards Co-op suggests placing a bucket in your kitchen sink and shower to collect the used water and preventing it from going down the drain. The collected water can also be used to water thirsty garden plants, save on the water bill and do your part to use our precious water wisely.

Let us know if you want us to design and install your Laundry to Landscape greywater system. For more details and specifics about Laundry to Landscape, including types of soaps, do’s and don’ts visit, Greywater Action FAQ.

Observing World Nature Conservation Day

The Smart Yards Co-op team welcomes you to join us in observing World Nature Conservation Day this Sunday, July 28.
Thirty years ago, in 1989, Bill McKibben wrote The End of Nature, the first book about climate change. He has just published a new book; it’s titled Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? McKibben says, 30 years ago, when I started writing about climate change, it was a distant threat. We were issuing a warning. Scientists knew that as we burned coal and gas and oil, we were putting carbon in the atmosphere. They knew the molecular structure of CO2-trapped heat. We didn’t know how fast and how hard it was going to pinch.

The thing that we’re doing now is so large that it fundamentally alters our prospects as a civilization, McKebben. Think about what we saw in our beautiful golden state last fall. Literally, in an hour, a city called Paradise turned literally into hell. You know, everybody who watched it could imagine dying in a car trapped in a road as they tried to get out of a forest fire. Why we did so little for so long? says McKibben and I think it has everything to do with the ascendant political ideology of this period, this sense that laissez-faire capitalism, unlike Cooperatives business models like Smart Yards Co-op with the principles of: Voluntary and Open Membership. Democratic Member Control. Member Economic Participation. Autonomy and Independence.

Education, Training and Information. Cooperation among Co-operatives. Concern for Community.

McKebben, In the last part of Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? asks is it too late to do anything about this and if we wanted to, what could we do? And here, he gives more hope. He says, over the last decade, the climate movement and other movements for justice, against inequality, have arise. There were two great inventions of the 20th century that might just save us in the 21st. The first was the solar panel. It’s magic on a kind of Hogwarts scale- you point a sheet of glass at the sun, and out the back flows light... See this story for The New Yorker. The other invention that holds out real hope, we at Smart Yards Co-op think, is the invention and growing interest of Worker-Owned Cooperative, people learning how to take the power to stand up to the mighty and the few. And so, now we’re at the point where we have no choice but to hope we can build movements big enough, loud enough, beautiful enough to challenge that power. That’s why, it’s incredibly moving and exciting to see young people doing the Green New Deal work, to see Greta Thunberg and her comrades, you know, 12-year-olds, out of school and talking articulately about these issue.

Fundamentally, the conservation of lands, habitats, soils, water, energy and the work of collaboration exemplify the premises of SYC’s work. We ensure that the plants, animals we are so fond of today are around for future generations to enjoy. Additionally, our permaculture gardens allow our members to work with the Smart Yard’s Team on the transformation of urban yards into beautiful outdoor living space for families, community and native habitats to enjoy.

This form of conservation is our commitment to the health and well being of the present and future generations. The Smart Yards Co-op team is grateful for your support and for doing your part to observe World Nature Conservation Day.

Meet Our Interns

Smart Yards Co-op is happy to provide volunteering, training, internship and summer job opportunities to college students, environmentalists, nature lovers and aspiring landscapers. Volunteers and interns get a hands-on learning experience by participating in ongoing projects working on tasks such as: conducting customer interviews, material procurement, landscape design conceptualization, design research, explorations and finalization, installation, landscape management, social media marketing, attend and participate in educational workshops and events 

Each year, new members becomes part of our co-operative family. We would like to introduce you to our new intern member this year. Meet Emilia!

Emilia grew up in a sustainable and permaculture- oriented household. At the age of 10, with her older brother Max, they won the “Greenlight Film Festival Community Energy Champions” award. The following year they received the first place recognition in their age group at the Film Festival. During her high school years she actively participated in the school’s “Green Team” that made efforts to earn the “Eco School” title and the silver medal recognition. She enjoyed working with the younger students to help deepen their knowledge about their environment and the importance of its conservation. In her free time, Emilia enjoys going to kickboxing classes, playing the cello, reading and of course spending time outdoors. For Smart Yards she handles media, writes the newsletters and does many marketing oriented projects. After her gap year in Chile, Emilia plans to study political sciences with a specialization in environmental politics at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Meet Nick, born and raised in San Jose, Nick will be graduating with a Bachelor in Environmental Studies degree from San José State University in December 2017. Nick is very knowledgeable about energy policies, green building design, and sustainable agriculture. Working to protect the natural environment, learning ways to conserve resources, engaging in practical and hands-on experience, as well as sharing his knowledge with others is a passion of Nick. As a Smart Yards Co-op intern, Nick is working on building planters with reclaimed materials, photographing and making videos to show case the gardens designed and installed by SYC. He'll also be developing ways to promote the co-op.  Nick also works for the City of San José as a Youth Recreational Leader, where he has spent the last six years creating and running programs intended to engage youth in outdoor activities. In his free time Nick enjoys gardening, hiking, and backpacking.