Our Plant Community: A Salmon Creek Farm Collaborative Field Guide collection of sixty drawings and descriptions of the flora found at Salmon Creek Farm in Albion, CA. The field guide was created during three gatherings facilitated by Alex Arzt in May 2018, May 2019, and December 2019 by twenty participants. The original drawings were made on watercolor paper with india ink, pen, and natural pigments created on the land. They were then scanned and printed on the Risograph machine to create this compilation. This project was made with a spirit of curiosity and amateurism in order to forge a deeper connection to the place through the plants, all the while building a resource to be utilized by visitors and residents of the Northern California Coastal Forests.

Published and printed by A Magic Mountain

- Edition of 135
- 8.5”x8.5”
- 136 pages
- Exposed Smythe stitch binding with rainbow thread
- Foil stamped hard cover
- Printed by A Magic Mountain on a Riso EZ590U in black, red, florescent pink, yellow, and blue on Springhill 80# Vellum Bristol paper
- Binding and finishing by The Key Binding and Printing in Oakland, CA.
- $90 (sold out)

A portion of our annual plants here in the gardens at SCF are left in place to dry up, set seed, and die back. A garden that values only living plants is a denial of reality. The story of a plant continues long after moisture stops coursing through its roots, stems, and leaves. As the plant dies and dries, the seeds hanging out in the sun and wind gradually become ready to disperse, while the desiccated plant material breaks down into mulch and cover for new life. The resulting complex seasonal landscape welcomes death into the center of the garden as the foundation for new life to come up beneath it. We see this in our Northern Californian landscapes that turn from bright April greens to warm October ochres.

This is not a careful and precise commercial seed mix — rather a crazy cacophonous variety, gradually collected by a group of friends week by week, seed by seed. We made sense of things as we went, sifting, sorting, winnowing, and mixing. It includes crossbred mystery varieties, inert materials, and seeds with widely divergent suggested sowing seasons and methods. But we appreciate the nature-like casualness, echoing the wild careless broadcast of extravagant seed abundance that most plants perform — of which only a fraction germinate, take root, mature, and go on to set seed themselves