THE DEADLINE FOR THIS APPLICATION HAS PASSED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR INTEREST!

Location: Blacksburg, Virginia

Application Deadline: December 15th at 5 pm

The YMCA at Virginia Tech and VT’s Center for Community Engagement and Community Partnerships (CSECP) have a new AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer position. The volunteer will help build the capacity of local food pantries and hunger relief agencies in the New River Valley by identifying and addressing their needs through the YMCA at VT’s Neighborhood Harvest Program and cultivating partnerships with and among the following constituencies: interested hunger relief agencies/programs, local farmers/residents, and Virginia Tech.

Term of Service: 12 months full-time (Feb 2010-Feb 2011)

Location: Blacksburg VA and the surrounding New River Valley communities

Stipend: Per AmeriCorps VISTA guidelines

Benefits: Per AmeriCorps VISTA benefits (includes health coverage; federal holidays; 10 sick and 10 vacation days; relocation allowance if eligible, choice of $5350 education award or $1200 cash stipend upon completion; mileage reimbursement for work-related travel); housing is provided if desired

Reports to: Garden Coordinator/Neighborhood Harvest Supervisor (YMCA at VT) and Assistant Director for Student Engagement Programs (VT’s CSECP)

General Function:
Build the capacity of hunger relief groups and programs in the New River Valley. The coordinator will identify and address constituent needs through the YMCA at VT’s Neighborhood Harvest Program and other collaborative efforts among interested hunger relief agencies/programs, local farmers/residents, and Virginia Tech.

Principal Activities:
1. Co-facilitate a regional coalition to support and coordinate hunger relief efforts in the New River Valley;
2. Develop and maintain database of hunger relief agencies/programs, food drive efforts, volunteer opportunities, etc. to support all interested constituents within the NRV;
3. Identify and network existing volunteer groups interested in hunger relief efforts;
4. Work with Y Neighborhood Harvest Supervisor to develop and help coordinate, promote, and network locally grown food sources and volunteers to those in need;
5. Facilitate and utilize the Sustainable Food Corps (VT student organization) as a resource of both food and volunteers for the Y Neighborhood Harvest program and the overarching project
6. Cultivate partnerships between hunger relief agencies and VT dining services to facilitate food diversion efforts;
7. Coordinate food safety training programs/presentations to interested constituents

Bachelor’s degree and/or relevant work experience is preferred.
Cover letter, one page resume, and potential availability for interview on December 16th and 17th should be mailed/emailed to:
Jake Grohs
jrgrohs (at) vt.edu
1250 Litton Reaves Hall (0168)
Blacksburg, VA 24060

Be sure to mention in your cover letter that you found this listing on the Sustainable Food Jobs website!

Dr. Wayne Roberts spoke on food policy and a new vision for cities at Toledo Library in the US. As always his witty humour is always a hit. The photos he uses in the presentation are also quite insightful. Dr. Roberts also proposes hopeful solutions and answers to fixing cities and the food system. If you want the quick written summary you can read it below.

Watch the full video and get the quick written summary at FoodCycles.org.

Hard-hit Community Learns To Grow Food
Nov. 11, 2009

WILMINGTON, Ohio (AP) – Many of the new gardeners didn’t know how to grow vegetables, and weren’t sure what to do with them once they did.

They learned, though, as part of a project by a local college to help a community hard-hit by the recession grow some of its own food.

Wilmington College provided the 20 plots and the guidance in this southwestern Ohio town after DHL Express decided last year to close its operation here, putting most of 8,000 Wilmington Air Park employees out of work. Local unemployment has soared to 15 percent.

Food pantries and other charities reported unprecedented demand, so the school, besides using its agricultural program to raise and donate crops, decided it could have a lasting impact by teaching people to garden.

“It’s not about a handout, it’s a hand up,” said Chris Burns-Dibiasio, whose husband, Daniel, is president of the private college of some 1,700 students. “It’s teaching them how to supplement their groceries; it’s about building a local food system.”

The “Grow Food, Grow Hope” program began in late spring in a grassy lot next to a college parking lot. The 20 initial families were identified with the help of social services agencies.

Students and staff set up 4-by-12-foot plots, and provided manure and compost. An anonymous donor helped cover costs, from hoes for each family to a solar-powered electric fence to keep out critters. Now, nine volunteers from VISTA, the national service program, are also helping out, trying to expand the program to more families and more seasons, and teach schoolchildren how to garden.

“We were surprised; we didn’t know that this little area could produce so much,” said Mandy Gillis as her 4-year-old son, Logan, plucked ripe tomatoes off the vines the family planted and grew themselves.

She and her husband, Josh, have enjoyed watching their four children eat broccoli straight from the garden, and have become experts on all things zucchini: zucchini bread, zucchini muffins, zucchini cakes, zucchini spaghetti sauce, hamburgers mixed with zucchini.

Every Tuesday evening, the families came to plant, weed and finally harvest, with the help of Wilmington teachers and volunteer “master gardeners” from the community.

“I would tell them, ‘If it doesn’t look like what you planted, it’s a weed, pull it up!’” recounted Monte Anderson, an agriculture professor who helped direct the project.

Community gardens are on a roll across the country, from the one Michelle Obama began on the White House lawn to “urban gardens” in cities from New York to San Francisco. They are popular for aesthetic, environmental, nutritional and economic reasons.

“There was a lot of motivation here,” Anderson said.

Gardeners need to remain committed, he said, or community gardens can turn into a mess. Two families dropped out in Wilmington but were quickly replaced. The project’s structured approach, including weekly meetings, helped keep it on target, Anderson said.

As the first lettuce, green beans and tomatoes ripened, gardening lessons were supplemented by demonstrations on cooking and preserving crops. The lessons were conducted using a picnic table and a portable stove.

“It was pretty primitive out here,” said Anderson with a laugh, adding that the school is seeking grants for more cooking equipment and other materials for next year.

Lori Fetherolf, 44, who had been without a steady job for nearly a year, said she had always considered a garden too demanding, but was pleasantly surprised that by regularly investing about an hour a week – more during harvest time – she could grow many vegetables to get her through the winter.

“It’s been a tremendous help,” she said. “Vegetables are expensive in the grocery store.”

She learned to make fresh radish dip and to cook squash for the first time. She grew nearly 100 tomatoes. She said she realized that while unemployed, she had been filling up on cheap foods that weren’t good for her.

“This has allowed me to start eating healthier,” she said. “I’m amazed at how much better fresh green beans taste than out of the can.”

With their newly acquired agricultural knowledge, the Gillis family is planning a garden at home next year and possibly a second garden for corn, which takes up too much ground for the small college plots.

“We learned a lot of basic things,” said Josh, 32. “We learned how far down to plant the seeds, how far apart to spread them. I didn’t know; I thought you just put it in the ground and it all comes up.”

But they also want to participate again in the college project.

“I’ve met a lot of people here. We share vegetables with each other,” he said. “It’s really been good to get out here in the community and work together.”

Will Allen is a giant man with a soft voice, and about 600 slides that will make your head spin. But his message is a clear clarion call.

“Our food system is really broken,” he told a packed house of diverse farmers and real-food activists at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh Monday night.  “We’ve talked about it for a long time. We’ve done the feasibility studies. We know what the problem is. It’s time to go into action.”

The “good-food movement” that was seeded in the 1960s and ’70s has sprouted into a  revolution, he said, as consumer demand for healthy cuisine catches up with concerns about climate change.

But there are challenges.  “We all need to eat, ” he said. “But we don’t have enough farmers, enough land, and enough infrastructure” to bring fresh local food to everyone.

A former basketball player, Allen began tackling these challenges in 1993 when  he bought the last working farm in Milwaukee. He thought he was just going to grow food for his family, and maybe the farmer’s markets. But then he began trying to figure out how to address the food deserts of the inner city.

That’s when he founded Growing Power, a nonprofit in Milwaukee and Chicago, and began addressing the local food system from the soil up.

First, he launched a massive vermi-compost system that relies on a mix of garbage, leaves and thousands of red worms. His rich compost can turn even the worst city soil into a productive garden.  The worm castings are sold as fertilizer to local farmers and gardeners, bringing revenue to the project.

 ”It’s all about the soil,” Allen said. “Worms are our livestock.”

Soon he enlisted local kids to help him plant flower and food gardens all over the city, at recreational centers, housing projects, rooftops,  cemeteries, along sidewalks and  in abandoned lots where drug dealers were hanging out. Kids love worms, and it’s hard to sell drugs where folks are planting gardens, he said.

Allen realized that urban farming had to be intense because land was scarce and there were many people to feed.  He constructed a two-acre hyper-intensive, year-round farm  that is bringing real food to low-income neighborhoods and real hope to small scale farmers, 365 days a year. 

His greenhouses utilize a vertical connected loop with microgreens, herbs, lettuce and vegetables growing on one level, filtering water and nutrients to tanks below feeding Great Lake Perch and Tilapia.  The structures are primarily warmed by the heat generated by a thick layer of compost at the base. It’s a perfect closed system that feeds itself, grows greens and protein, and uses very little energy.

Growing Power also raises bees, goats, chickens, ducks and heirloom turkeys right in the city.  Of course the animal wastes go into the compost enterprise.

Allen has established a co-op, a CSA,  and an urban food center that sells produce from 300 area farms.

“We can drop healthy food in every community, using food stamps, WIC or cash,” he said. “It allows everyone access to the same food.”

Finally, he developed an anerobic digester, a massive cylinder that grinds waste into slurry, creating methane gas to generate enough electricity to power the farms and sell excess back to the utility company.

He is engaging and educating a new generation about the importance of fresh, healthy food — showing them how to grow and market it. He encourages them to get their hands dirty, work hard, and stay in school for the long haul, so they can become innovators too.

His projects bring people of all ages and cultures together, and Monday’s diverse lecture crowd was a great example.  It included sustainable farmers, community gardeners, entrepreneurs and activists of all backgrounds, and more  teens than I have seen at other such gatherings.  Allen spoke at a high school in Goldsboro earlier in the day. And he was planning to drive three hours to Virginia Monday night so that he could talk to another large group on Tuesday.

Allen’s goal is to engage many more people in growing healthy food for themselves and their communities.  “We need 50 million people growing food,”  in gardens, on farms and in pots on their patios, he said.

Last year he won a MacArthur “Genius” Award.  With a larger public platorm, he is also calling attention to the need for policy changes, including a new Farm Bill, one that would ensure public support for sustainable agriculture, so that farming is more viable for more people.

“We just need an assist,” he said.  “Like in basketball.”

– Allen’s lecture was co-sponsored by the Center for Environmental Farming Systems and Burt’s Bees with support from N.C. A & T University and many local farm and food enterprises.

David Baron — a UNC-Chapel Hill undergrad studying biology, ecology and social entrepreneurship – understands the importance of fresh whole food for human and environmental health.  But it bothers him that not everyone has access to locally raised fruits and vegetables.

So last year he founded  HOPE Garden, combining community garden plots with a small-scale urban farm and job training program for homeless people. 

The project, part of UNC’s Campus Y Homeless Outreach Poverty Eradication (HOPE) project, will rent about 25 individual, 4×8-foot raised-bed plots to local residents for $100 annually.  At the same time, the garden will provide  transitional employment, skill-building, income and food for homeless people tending common space in nine adjacent 60-foot beds.

“We combined an urban farm with a community garden to bring the community in to help socialize the homeless and give them a support network,” Baron said.  He explained that he and project volunteers would work with homeless individuals they know are ready for employment training.

The 5,000-plus square-foot garden is enclosed by deer fencing. Farmers have access to free public transportation via Chapel Hill Transit.  The homeless gardeners will be able to sell produce at the local farmer’s markets and donate the rest of their harvest to a local homeless shelter and kitchen.

Baron received a $10,000 grant for the garden from philanthropist Kathryn Davis (Projects for Peace).  He’s taking time off from his undergraduate studies to develop the gardens with volunteers including students from UNC and local public schools as well as homeless people. This fall they have been working together to grow collards, kale, lettuce and turnip greens.

Saturday a group of volunteers showed up to plant mulberry trees and blueberry bushes, with guidance from expert garden installers and educators associated with Bountiful Backyards.

Last summer, Baron had an internship with Growing Power, run by urban farming guru and McArthur “Genius” Fellow  Will Allen. Baron trained at Allen’s famous Milwaukee farm, helped run the project’s other farm in downtown Chicago and sold produce at local farmer’s markets there. Before that he apprenticed on a farm in Tanzania.

UNC’s APPLES Service Learning program is giving students academic credit for participating in HOPE Garden.  Other partners are the Town of Chapel Hill, N.C. State University, Active Living by Design program , the  NC Botanical Gardens, and several local nurseries and garden businesses.

Anyone interested in particpating in HOPE Garden can reach Baron at baronsdavid@gmail.com

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Are you creative, innovative and committed to the urban environment?

Boston Natural Areas Network (BNAN) is a 30 year old urban environmental non profit working to preserve, protect and expand open space in Boston. Working collaboratively with community, public agencies, and non-profits, BNAN combines the environment with cultural and social issues. BNAN offers a wide range of educational, recreational and cultural programs to build constituencies for green spaces.BNAN is looking to fill a key position – Stewardship Manager for Boston’s Community Gardens and Urban Wilds.  The Stewardship Manager is responsible for supporting and increasing BNAN’s substantial “social infrastructure”, the   many people and groups who are engaged in Boston’s community gardens and urban wilds.  The position is responsible for promoting stewardship for Boston’s community gardens and urban wilds and is responsible for community organizing, outreach, working with volunteer individual and groups, annual events and education programs. The stewardship manager should be familiar with Boston neighborhoods and should have a strong background in community outreach and environmental stewardship.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Support garden based management of BNAN’s 40 community gardens.
• Promote stewardship in all 150 active community gardens in Boston and for Boston’s Urban Wilds.
• Design and develop year round programs and environmental education opportunities for the general public, gardeners and school children.
• Outreach and publicize all programs and events.
• Staff the Boston Gardeners’ Council to host meetings and programs for promoting community gardening in Boston.
• Staff and support the Urban Wilds Council for the preservation of Boston’s urban wilds.
• Facilitate gardening and environmental education programs including training, supplies and curriculum.
• Facilitate the Students Learning through Urban Gardening and the MUGatHome program.

Qualifications and Experience:

• 3-5 years experience in community outreach and organizing, with a focus on the environment.
• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in education, environment, urban planning or related field, such as horticulture, with experience in educational or cultural public programming.
• Sound knowledge of gardening and/or horticulture.
• High energy, goal oriented, self-starter with the ability to prioritize and see a project through to completion, combined with patience and people skills.
• Ability to engage students and public.
• Experience managing volunteers and leading volunteer based projects.
• Availability to work evenings and week-ends.
• Good computer, writing and organization skills.

Additional Skills and Interests:

• Ability to be flexible and work in a non-traditional, multi-racial and multi-cultural environment.
• Knowledge of Spanish, French, Creole or Cape Verdean a plus.
• Vehicle to transport program material, etc.
• Sense of humor

Salary: $35,000 – $42,000 depending on experience, plus generous benefits.

BNAN is an equal opportunity employer.

Please send resume and cover letter to:

Vidya Tikku

Boston Natural Areas Network

62 Summer Street, 2^nd Floor, Boston, MA 02110

Email: info (at) bostonnatural.org

Presenting … Greenest City’s 2010 calendar!

It’s an annual tradition of ours, and a way for us to share what we’ve accomplished in the year that was.

Featuring beautiful pictures of the people and work of Greenest City, the calendar is a perfect gift for yourself and to your family and friends as we near the holiday season.

The calendar includes all the important Canadian and multicultural holidays, as well as the different lunar phases, daylight saving time days, environmental dates, among other things. The boxes are bigger than last year’s, so you can have enough space to fill it out with notes. The design is crisp and simple, and we look forward to hearing what you have to say about it when you hold it.

Some preview shots:

Please click here to find out how you can get these calendars. Apologies for the multiple linkages. WordPress doesn’t approve of paypal’s “buy now” buttons, so our website is the only place where you can click on it.

For comparison, here are 2008 and 2009 calendars.

Enjoy!

I have been thinking about gathering coffee grounds for compost for a while ever since I read about how good it is for gardens. Coffee grounds have a 20:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio which make for a good addition for a compost pile. The balance is not optimal which should be about 30:1-35:1, but the addition of vegetable scraps, leaves or hay make for a great balance. The good news is that coffee grounds are free.

Almost every town has a coffee shop and Ann Arbor being a college towns uses its fair share of coffee beans. Most of this garden providing fertility is thrown out, which cost the coffee shop money to dispose of. An important conversation to have when talking about local food is also local soil fertility.

So I purchased a few five gallon plastic containers with lids and started going around to local coffee houses to ask if I could have their leftover coffee grounds. So far I have three places that are willing to let me have their coffee grounds. Some places can have about 1-2 containers a week, while others can do 1-2 full five gallon buckets a day.

I have a corner area on the side of my garage where I plan to start piling up the grounds, leaves and veggie scraps. It is 5×5 and 3-4 feet high which comes to about 75-100 cubic feet. One five gallon bucket comes to about 1 cubic feet, so I can shooting for 75 buckets. Compost experts say that a pile should only be made up of about 25% coffee grounds. So I might have to stop at 10-20 buckets.

If you want to start collecting coffee grounds, get at least two containers and lids. One container is for giving to the coffee house. The second container is to replace full container when you pick it up. Make sure you give them a lid because they do not want the grounds sitting out uncovered.

Remember that you are doing them a favor. Without you taking the grounds off their hands they would have to pay for its disposal. Make sure that you do not forget the ground and pick them up when they are full. If they sit too long the coffee shop will see you as a pain and stop letting gardeners collect grounds. So be good about picking up your grounds so you don’t ruin it for the rest of us. I find that you also have to keep on them to give you the grounds. Some employees will not know to save the grounds, so you have tell them what you are doing.

I think there really should be a local gov’t initiative to collect and compost all coffee grounds along with leaf pick up to add to garden fertility of a town. Granted, coffee is far from a local food, but it is here and it can be used to provide a beneficial use for a local food system instead of going to waste.

American’s drink 450 million cups a year, which comes to 2.5 million pounds of coffee. Every last good to the last drop (ground) can be use to give back to the soil to support a local food system.

(Updated Oct. 24):  How many small-scale farmers have wished they could have a crew of strong hands and backs to help with the heavy lifting?  Crop Mob has invented a way to fulfill that wish, which explains why last night they won the Abundance Foundation’s Not Stupid Award. The honor was presented to the Mobsters at the US premiere of the Britsh film, The Age of Stupid, at the Piedmont Biofuels plant in Pittsboro.

 Last fall, this group of eager young farmers and farm hands showed up at Piedmont Biofarm in Pittsboro and harvested 1600 pounds of sweet potatoes.  In the past year, they’ve gone to a dozen farms and done more than 2000 hours of work, just because they love building strong farms and community.  This summer they converged on  an Orange County farm incubator plot and spent all day clearing, tilling and planting the fall crops.  Here’s how it worked:

From The Independent: ‘On a sweltering Sunday last August, a peaceful mob of 35 local farmers, armed with shovels, hoes and wheelbarrows, raided Serendip Farm in Orange County. But instead of a traditional raid, which is about taking, this raid was about giving: The Crop Mob, as the group is known, spent five hours cutting down starter crop, tilling beds, weeding and mulching—for free. For the past year, the local Crop Mob, mostly landless, self-proclaimed farmers, has spent one Sunday each month “raiding” a small farm that is not theirs, working the land and planting and harvesting crops.’

This Sunday, Oct. 25, they will celebrate their first anniversary where it all began, at Piedmont Biofarm, located at the Piedmont Biofuels plant in Pittsboro. If you’d like to work hard, then party, you’re invited.

The garden is still lush and green in the cool fall weather. Our collard greens and peppers are continuing to produce, and we still have plenty of flowers, herbs and the cool weather crops are growing.

Our October Garden Meeting is scheduled for Saturday October 17th at 11am. This will be a potluck and working meeting, so bring a dish and be prepared to get dirty!

Meeting agenda will be posted here next week.

The South Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces, Inc., S.E.E.D.S is a non-profit community garden, located in Durham, NC.  S.E.E.D.S goal is to teach people to care for the earth, themselves, and each other through a variety of garden based programs.

Second to last harvest.

I hated to admit it last year, and I hate it again this year, but I think the garden is just about done for the year.  I didn’t put in greens to carry the garden through the fall, and there is little fruit left.  I may still get more herbs, but I think the vegetables are done for the season.  I am sad to see the garden go.  I’d work with it into the cooler months to get it ready for spring, but in our community garden, they till over the plots each spring, destroying any efforts you make.  My consolation this year is that I’m significantly busier this year than last.  I didn’t devote nearly as much time as I should have.

If you had a garden, or perhaps overbought at the farmers market, and aren’t sure what to do with everything that you got, here’s a great article on how to eat locally grown food all year.

I look forward to the day when I can be more of a year-round gardener…

Calendula is used for insect bites and wounds.

About  a week and a half ago, I looked out the front window of our apartment and saw the community garden across the street alive with activity. Saturday mornings don’t get much more adorable than watching little kids run around with watering cans feeding plants. When you can watch this from 5 stories above ground, the birds eye view is quite pleasant.

I had been dying to know who was the driving force behind the garden for some time. That, coupled with the fact that Bram and I had been talking about starting to compost, inspired me to go say hello. I wanted to know if they would like some of our compost if we had enough. It turns out the Girard Street garden is the largest project of www.cityblossoms.org in DC. I had the pleasure of attending their Labor Day potluck as well, and took a tour around the garden. Besides your standard tomatoes, squash, basil, grapevines, gourds, etc. they also had a large variety of herbs. Hand painted signs were posted near the herbs stating their healing quality. When was the last time you saw calendula in your community garden?

I’m really excited to see how this garden progresses. I’m even more excited for our first batch of compost to be ready, but more on my mini-obsession with composting later.

Apologies for the title of this post; too many Fleetwood Mac references in the last week or so.  On with the garden updates:

Last Black Krim and first Early Girl. Let's hear it for September?

And then there were three: I turned over more of my tomato plants today, which means that of the original six, there are three left: a Green Zebra, a Cherokee Purple, and an Early Girl.  I picked my last Black Krim off the vine and committed the stalk to the earth.  I was not the most diligent tomato gardener this year, and I paid for it in low yields and dead plants.  I have some ideas for future seasons, though.  And, hey, with three plants left, the season isn’t totally over yet.  In a slightly ironic twist of events, today was also the first day that I had an Early Girl tomato ready.  And, yes, you read that correctly: an Early Girl in September.  I can’t make this stuff up.

Leave it in the living room and call it art?

“What am I gonna do with a gun rack?” : Having a little plot in a community garden is fun…until the season begins to change and I remember that I live in an apartment and have no storage for tomato cages and other gardening accoutrement.  Like Wayne Campbell, I’m left wondering what I am going to do with unnecessary equipment.  That is, of course, until next spring, when it’s necessary again.  Thoughts on some sort of creative art I could create with my cages?  Offers for storage space in creepy basements are also welcome.

“Let’s get a farm.” : It might strike some folks strange that this came from the mouth of one of my classmates in an urban planning program, but it sounded like a damn good idea to me.  I’m sure there will be plenty of occasion to despise reading a million pages of journal articles a week, and I’m sure I’ll want to run to some kind of manual labor, but I’m not sure I’m ready to go big time with a farm.  A collective farm run by urban planning grad students does sound pretty groovy, though.  Reminds me of when Tea Leaf Green sings, “Darlin’ let’s let our hair grow long, we can work on a farm, maybe live on a mountain.”  Yes.  Let’s.  I mean, there are some people who think we need to grow more farmers…

“Kay and Frank Whatley have a simple vision in these tough economic times: Help people get access to food. And so, the Zebulon, N.C., couple started Grow and Share, a nonprofit that this past spring distributed more than 2,000 free seedlings to gardeners who had to sign pledges to give away some of the produce to those in need.

“This weekend, the Whatleys are holding a fundraiser and music festival in Rolesville for next year’s efforts.” They hope to give away 10,000 plants next year.

Click here to read Andrea Weigl’s feature in the Raleigh News and Observer.

Black Krim and unidentified cucumber.

End of August and it’s the days of cukes and ‘maters.  Except that my cucumber plant is about a day or two away from being completely dead.  And most of my tomato plants are not too far off.  I did get a beautiful Black Krim and a cucumber (although I have no idea what kind) from my garden for a pretty snack last weekend, and I’m grateful for that.  But this year was not the year of the tomato or cucumber for me.  Nor was it really the year of the green bean, as last year was.  This was the year of Swiss chard, which is fun and versatile.

As is typical with the garden, I’m running behind.  I’ve ripped up some things that weren’t doing well, and can clearly stand to rip up more, but I’m worried that it’s too late to put in seeds for fall greens.  I’ll do it anyway, though, and call this the year of continued experimentation with the garden (last year being the first year of experimentation).  If I could only take away one lesson from gardening, it would be that just when you think you know what you’re doing, there is always more to learn, more ways to grow, new things to try.

So what did I learn this year?

1. Don’t travel for almost a month straight during late July/early August if you expect to actually take care of your garden.

2. Don’t let it rain heavily in late spring.  (What’s that you say?  I can’t control that?)

3.  If you’re not able to accomplish #2, build up your beds significantly higher than you think you should.  It may all wash away anyway, but you’ll have a better shot at having a productive summer later.

4. If you’re in a community garden, stalk your plot until you meet the people who are gardening around you, and find out if they are using chemicals/synthetics on their plot.

5. Consider asking the person who assigns the garden plots to group organic gardeners together.

6. Try to drown slugs throughout the summer instead of just at the beginning of the planting season.

I saw my garden “nemesis” earlier this morning.  There’s really no reason why we shouldn’t get along, but our relationship is edgy.  We were both new gardeners last summer, and she didn’t even know the basics like how to water or the difference between seedlings and seeds (true story).  Yet her garden was gorgeous.  And it is this year as well.  And she puts in a lot of work and time, and deserves the spoils of a tended garden.  But she also dumps a million pounds of petrochemical fertilizers and other crap on her plot.  And when she sees my garden, she says, “Oh, that actually looks good for an organic garden.”  And thus we are quasi-adversarial.

Today’s task: get over feeling competitive.  Get over how unproductive the garden was this year versus last year.  Put in some fall greens and slap a genuine smile on my face.

As the summer season winds down, there’s still plenty to do and learn in the Triangle’s sustainable foodshed.  Check out the special events scheduled in September and October:

Carrboro’s Second Urban Farm Tour, Saturday September 12 from 3 to 8 p.m.  Yes, the Paris of the Piedmont and home of one of the best Farmer’s Markets in the country is pleased to show off its urban bees, chickens and sustainable back-and-front-yard gardens at 15 diverse sites around town.  You’ll learn about honey harvesting, lasagna bed preparation, chicken “processing” and more.

Pick up your map and raffle tickets ($3 for 1, $5 for 2, etc.) at Carrboro Raw (at the bamboo fenced lot the corner of Weaver and Main), head out on your own or join one of the group tours on the hour.  Bring a local food dish to share if you plan to stay for the pot-luck supper at 7 (at 105 Dilliard St.). The best way to enjoy this tour is on foot or bicycle.  http://carrborogreenspace.org

Chefs Who Shop the Carrboro Farmer’s Market, Sept. 19, 9 a.m.  Speaking of the Left Bank, seven of the many chefs who regularly shop at the Carrboro market for fresh, local ingredients, will be on hand to share their local cuisine until the food runs out. Including Kevin Callaghan (Acme), Bret Jennings (Elaine’s), Ricky Moore (Glasshalffull), Matt and Sheila Neal (Neal’s Deli), Adam Rose (Il Palio), Bill Smith (Crook’s) and Amy Tornquist (Watt’s Grocery). Carrboro Farmer’s Market. http://www.carrborofarmersmarket.com/

How about them (heirloom) apples?  Sept. 14, 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Chatham County. Here’s a rare chance to see Lee Calhoun’s Heirloom Southern Apple Orchard. Space is limited to 50 participants and you must register in advance (no charge) by calling Chatham County Cooperative Extenstion at 919.542.8202.  Confirmed registrants will be given location and carpooling details. 

Lee is a nationally known expert on heirloom southern apples and the author of Old Southern Apples, which gives the history of more than 1,600 distinct varieties. He has traveled around the South for over three decades looking for the long-lost varieties. He has some 300 heirloom varieties at his orchard.

Eastern Triangle Farm Tour, Sept. 19-20, 1-5 p.m.  This one has it all: chickens, pigs, cows, goats, sheep, bunnies, llamas, fruits and vegetables, craft-making, storytelling and an outstanding urban community garden for Durham teens. Twenty farms are on the tour, including Edible Earthscape, the CSA where I get my weekly groceries. For tickets, map and details, click here. Brought to you by Carolina Farm Stewardship Association.

The Pittsboro Pepper Festival, Oct. 18.  Better bring a bib and your dancing shoes: Farmer Doug Jones will display some 40 different pepper varieties and a dozen restaurants will show off their pepper dishes.  Plus local beer and wine, and live music by R & B/Soulsters Howie Dewitt band. Details and tickets at: http://theabundancefoundation.org/pepper-festival/

Map showing farmers markets, community garden access. Green Works Philadelphia

With the community gardening movement experiencing increasing popularity, some cities are undertaking innovative efforts to expand access to these facilities. In Philadelphia, Mayor Michael Nutter directed the creation of a strategic plan called Green Works. One of the plan’s key goals is to “bring local food within 10 minutes [walk] of 75 percent of residents.

To accomplish this, the city, with the help of the Philadelphia Horticulture Society has mapped out the existing gardens and their proximity to residents. The maps allows the city to target programs to create new gardens and markets in underserved areas, perhaps concentrating first on higher population density areas or those without other access to fresh food.

Using this information the, Green Works makes the following statement and goals:

Today Philadelphia enjoys 30 outdoor seasonal farmers’ markets, which provide a place for people to gather and purchase agricultural products from the region. An additional 200 food-producing gardens combine to make access to fresh food convenient for even more city residents. And no discussion of access to fresh food would be complete without a nod to Philadelphia’s crown jewel—the Reading Terminal Market. In addition to its being a leading tourist destination, Reading Terminal Market is the leading redeemer of food stamps and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program vouchers in the state. Yet, as the map [see right] indicates, many city neighborhoods still lack access to locally grown fresh food. To increase this access citywide, Greenworks Philadelphia calls for the creation of 59 food-producing gardens, 12 farms and 15 farmers’ markets in Philadelphia.

This is only one component of Philadelphia’s efforts in this area, but it is one of the most important. As the old business-success-model saying goes, its all about location, location, location.

The Patterson Park community garden is one of my favorite aspects of the park. As part of the City Farms program (which had their annual dinner the other night), area residents can rent out plots in the enclosed garden for only $20 a year. DT and I are looking forward to getting a plot at some point in the future, but for now, I’m stuck being jealous of all the people currently growing tomatoes and peppers and beautiful sunflowers and many other wonderful things that make this part of the park worth a much closer look. 

I snapped these shots through the fence when we were out walking the dog one weekend morning. 

Apparently, community gardening has been a part of Patterson Park life for quite a long time:

In 1904 and again in 1913, the dedication of land for community-tended garden plots is discussed in Park Commission reports with a 1935 map depicting a large children’s garden. Photographs from the time confirm their existence and area residents have said that community-tended gardens or victory gardens have been in the park since World War II.

Sage and sapience at Steele School Garden

Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure to participate in Denver Urban Gardens’ (DUG) annual bicycle tour in south Denver. Once a year DUG takes us on a cycling tour of some of their 80+ community gardens and then we have a potluck. Little secret here: the BEST potlucks are held by gardeners and foodies! Well, you can imagine. Like community gardening, the cycling tour was a way to commune with like-minded folks, make lasting friends, groove in the bounty of a summer’s garden and savor a morning in the sunshine! The weather couldn’t have been finer and did I mention the food? Yesterday’s tour covered about 8 miles of easy cycling. We started with our guide, Scot, from DUG at Rosedale Garden and then we pedaled on to South Grant Community Garden, Urquhart Memorial Community Garden, Steele School Garden, The Bridge Community Garden, and then back to Rosedale for our potluck. As will happen with firsthand observance and fun, I learned many interesting facts and insights about how community gardens and city farmers are flourishing!  [Please visit the photo album at City Farmer's Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/City-Farmer/139796795040]

Rosedale Community Garden 

The Rosedale Community Garden

resides in the University Park neighborhood and is the largest community garden in the Denver metro area with 80 plots plus common areas including an orchard, grape arbor, beehive and picnic/gathering area. Their composting operation in the back has been well established and honed over the years. Among other amenities and resources, DUG provides its gardens with the expertise of a certified Master Composter. This garden was established in the 80’s and has a board of directors. The beehive is a new addition and is the only community garden beehive in the city. The bees here will produce 300+ pounds of honey this year! The hive is maintained by its owner who will share the honey harvest with the garden and will also donate sweetness to Project Angel Heart. There is also a resident fox and her cubs at the garden. She maintains the squirrel and rabbit population at zero. Ms. Fox lives in harmony with the gardeners – children, teens and adults alike – and the garden has built a protective fence around her den opening. 

South Grant Community Garden

South Grant Community Garden

is an intimate garden in the Platt Park neighborhood that was built on a former school playground. The school building has been converted to lofts. The garden has 18 plots, a small drum-type composter and a mascot bunny. The pet bunny lives in a cage and is fed organic greens and goodies from the garden and is the most serene creature I have ever beheld. When he’s not in his cage (as is often the case) he is being held and loved by the children of the gardeners. This is one beautiful example of the many ways to engage children (and animals) in the garden. Although children are naturally enchanted with gardening – this, I cannot underemphasize – it is valuable to have a number of outlets for their adventuresome and loving hearts. The kids at South Grant were waiting for us with muffins and chocolate kisses! Aaaaaaaaw. Big love to you, my little cowboy gardeners! 

Urquhart Memorial Community Garden

Urquhart Memorial Community Garden

is an interesting case study in the Washington Park neighborhood. With only 12 plots plus common orchard, grape arbor and perennial garden, the garden looks much bigger. This is in part because of its shape (long and narrow) and because it is completely exposed between a CDOT wall and the street. No fencing here! You’ll have to check my facts here but, as I understand it, CDOT/TDOT tore up the garden 2 years ago in a capital improvement project. After the project was completed, the government agencies rebuilt the garden, upgraded the irrigation system and included a beautiful frieze on the barrier wall (I-25 is on the other side of the wall), among other improvements. Is this a great state or what? And while the orchard is only 2 years old now, they had a bumper crop of peaches last year (this year’s frost nipped all the buds around town). So much so that they had to prop up the limbs of the trees! Funny garden tidbit: this garden has a guerrilla gardener who plants perennials and other worthy flora in the dark of night. When I asked the ladies of the garden why they would need a community garden in a beautiful neighborhood with plenty of yard space they replied that, for some, their yards were devoted to flowers and, for others, there was too much shade in their yard to produce a crop. Not least of all, this garden provides a meeting and sharing place for neighbors. This theme was echoed throughout every garden that we visited. So sweet. 

Steele School and Community Garden

The School Garden at Steel Community Garden

is a sprawling garden in the Washington Park neighborhood with 39 plots including a school garden and assistive gardening for seniors. Another interesting case study, Steele Garden is both school AND community garden. In fact, DUG’s philosophy is that an edible schoolyard must coexist with a community garden in order to thrive because:

• depending upon the climate zone, the garden’s main growing season may occur when school is out for the summer
• the co-existing community gardeners feel ownership in the school garden too and will shepherd it
• the community gardeners are a great resource for education, labor and skills, and TLC
• resources like funding, infrastructure and leadership can be shared

Interestingly, the leadership in this garden does not include a board of directors but lead gardeners rotate responsibilites over the years and budgetary and financing expertise are provided by DUG (as I understand it). Additionally, the children’s garden has a sponsor! Slow Food Denver sponsors this garden via its Seed To Table Coalition which supports school gardens and cooking classes in the metro Denver area (there are other initiatives around the country). 

One of the things that I admired most about this garden was its assistive gardening plots. These plots are raised to seating level and little portable gardening benches are provided to allow access and comfort to its senior members. We cannot – we must not – forget or forego this important amenity in all our gardens. I, for one, was given the “seed” for gardening by my grandmothers and I will always treasure their gifts (little did I know at the time) as I continue to treasure the gifts of our elders. I hope you do too. Moreover, if your kids do not have grandparents nearby, what better place to find them I ask you? 

The Bridge Community Garden (link TBD) in the DU neighborhood is one of DUG’s newest gardens and is in its first season! Constructed at the site of a razed and vacant residential lot that is owned by DU, this cute-as-pie garden is an effort between it’s neighbors and the student organization, DUET. The Bridge flourishes with great use of vertical gardening and space intensity (SPIN). Molly, the daughter of one of the neighbor gardeners made us beautiful tiny carrot cupcakes and we devoured them with bicycle-fueled gusto! Some of the things I loved were the hand-carved wooden garden sign, the elfin footbridge that was saved from demolition, the use of wire fencing to fashion an arbor for pumpkins to grow UP, a retaining wall made of broken/salvaged concrete and found flagstone pieces, and – perhaps most of all – a little wire basket at the entry with a sign that says, “Sharing the bounty. Take what you can use from the basket and enjoy.” 

We finished our tour back at Rosedale with the now-famous potluck and lots of buzz about gardening and FOOD! Mr. Potato Guy brought a beautiful basket brimming with purple, white and red potatoes. I took home a serving of purple baby potatoes and enjoyed them last night for supper (boiled and then sauteed in butter with a sprinkle of kosher salt and pepper). They were sublime – thank you Potato Guy! I shared tastings from a quart of fresh, raw (unpasteurized) whole organic milk from my herdshare at Windsor Dairy - lots of yums and interest in herdshares (let me know if I can help you get started with your own herdshare). Laura Lavid of DUG shared her Garlic Scape Pesto (recipe please?) that rocked my world. Also of great note were a cold, creamy salad of peas, cheese and cashews; a cold saucy marinara-rich pepper salad; fresh strawberries and fresh rhubarb nectar. How lucky am I? We had about 29 cyclers and foodies who attended the tour and, among them, I had the pleasure of meeting Joe Brown. Joe is a filmaker, a librarian, a committee chair for Colorado Environmental Film Festival and a neat guy! As I understand it, he was filming yesterday as part of a new documentary for the upcoming CEFF festival. Joe do you have any comments you’d like to add? 

Every community garden is unique and has something to offer the gardening community at large and Denver Urban Gardens provides a service to our gardens that is world-class and like none other. There are some things common to many or all community gardens:

• they are vital in providing a sense of belonging to the community: “I joined so I could get to know my neighbors!”
• they are efficient in the use of resources: shared, free, tax-provided (DUG is a SCFD recipient), year-round, etc.
• they are sustainable: they provide composting and they re-use, repurpose and salvage materials and infrastructure that otherwise would go to waste.
• they raise income from the sale of produce, from Farmers’ Market sales, annual pot lucks and thrift sales.
• they feed us, both physically, mentally and spiritually. 

Take what you can use from the basket and enjoy.