Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms

Sorry for the short notice, but we just scheduled and emergency bee rescue in the neighborhood that we’re sure our neighbors will want to know about!

If you’re interested in bees, bee safety, honey, having your own hive, how bees exist in the urban setting, and what it’s like to live alongside honeybees, this is a rare chance to get a crash course.

Because, rescuing and building new hives is an expensive operation, we’re asking a suggested donation of $5 per observer to support the generous efforts of the beekeeper and as a compliment to the church for choosing to rescue the bees rather than exterminate them. (If you would like to donate but cannot attend, you can donate through the PayPal link on the right, and we’ll pass 100% of your donation on to the beekeeper for his efforts.)

Where: First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4700 Grover Avenue 78756
When: Saturday, Aug 28th, from 08:00 to 11:00

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Honeybees have seen a sharp decline in populations world-wide in recent years due to poor habitat management by humans and the subsequent spreads of diseases and unexplained ailments.

But, bees are making a comeback thanks to dedicated beekeepers who rescue healthy hives and relocate them to habitat that supports them.

This Saturday morning we’ll watch a very skilled beekeeper rescue an endangered hive that has existed inside the walls of the church for a few years.

Important Safety Notes:

• The bees are expected to be docile, but it’s always wise to be alert and careful when working with wildlife.
• Please arrive on time so we can discuss safety with everyone.
• Wear long sleeves, long pants, close toed shoes, and keep long hair pulled back.
• DO NOT ATTEND IF YOU ARE ALLERGIC TO BEES (We will have waivers for everyone to sign.)
• Listen to ALL instructions given by the beekeeper and be attentive so as not to miss something he says.
• Children should be in calm spirits and be attentive to their parents’ instructions or should be removed to a safe distance for their own safety as well as the safety of others around them.

SPECIAL THANKS! to Texas DPS Credit Union, Hoover’s Cooking, Clif Bar and Houndstooth Coffee for sponsoring our refreshments!

This Saturday we’re adding four new farms to the Crestview/Brentwood neighborhood farm and teaching about deep mulch gardening. We need help!

The fall vegetable season is here, so come learn what you can plant, too! We invite you to join us spreading mulch, planting potatoes, learning a bit and sharing the fun with friends and farmers.

Join members of Austin Growers Guild, FOOGs.org, KP Project and friends from throughout Austin.

Come help us Grow UP!

• Saturday, August 21, 2010 RSVP on Facebook!
• 8:00am – Noonish (Then we party with potatoes! The BBQ will be going.)
• 5608 Joe Sayers, 78757

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Any questions? Email mulchday@urbanpatchwork.org or call 512-662-1854.

== Important Notes for All Events ==

For all farm activities, here is how you can be prepared:
* Bathroom facilities are limited/unavailable. Please use the restroom before you come.
* It is wise to wear long pants and a light long sleeve shirt.
* Honestly, cover your body from: the sun, the plants, the bugs (i.e. the incessant mosquitoes).
* Always wear a hat.
* Gloves are kind to your hands.
* Sunblock keeps sunburn at bay.
* Water is a must. Bring a bottle of/for water.
* A packed lunch/snack will hit the spot and keep you going.

Today a dear friend cited the following quote to wish all her fatherly loved ones a “Happy Father’s Day.”

“The beginning, as you know, is always the most important part, especially in dealing with anything young and tender. That is the time when the character is being moulded and easily takes any impress one may wish to stamp on it.” –Plato

Immediately when I read it, my mind turned to our seedlings (of course .

Then my mind fell to our fatherly farm manager, Keith McDorman, who cares deeply for our young and tender ones who eventually grow up strong to become nourishment for us all. Without his extra loving care in the beginnings of their existence, they would wither and struggle to find their own way. Some may succeed but be hardened and bitter by the time they mature. Most would not make it at all.

To Keith, I am ever grateful, and to all our members and neighbors who are fathers, congratulations and Happy Father’s Day! Take heart in the fullness of your task of caring for our young and tender ones.

Austin Grower's Guild June 12th-13th Farm Raising Flier

Ever been to an Urban Farm-Raising? We want YOU to help us create a farm inside Austin’s city limits! Join Austin Growers Guild for our inaugural farm installation event. We can’t wait to get our hands on some tools and equipment to get this farm and community garden space going! This is a hands-on two day event, people! Sure hope you can be a part of it—it’s guaranteed good company and a true community learning experience. Tell your friends!

Workshops include:
-chicken coop building
-irrigation installation
-soil building
-integrated pest management
-raised bed gardening
and MORE!

Workshops are led by Paige Hill (Urban Patchwork)
Johnny Barnett (Resolution Gardens)
Steven Hebbard (Karpophoreo Project)
and others!

Come either or both days
When: June 12 and 13 8am-2pm each day
Where: 5213 Jim Hogg Avenue (off of Burnet and North Loop)

For more info visit www.austingrowersguild.wordpress.com

Registration is greatly appreciated to KatyHamill@gmail.com
All donations help cover cost of event
Breakfast provided, BYO lunch please and a bottle of water
Massage therapists on hand for volunteers

Support provided by Rigel Thurston of Austin Community Living

One area the sustainability movement could really enhance its image is in overall approach and attitude.

How many times have you heard doom and gloom preached in the name of the environment, local food or green building? It often sounds like, “If you don’t do what I say, the world will end!”

So what other approaches are there? Two attitudes I’d like to contrast are the creative vs. the competitive mindsets.

A competitive mind believes in lack and limitation. The world isn’t big enough for everyone, and if someone gets a piece of the pie, that’s less for someone else. It’s a zero sum game where if one person wins, someone else has to lose. For sustainability, that means someone is competing for your attention by trying to take you away from something else; by telling you why what you’re doing isn’t good enough.

A creative mind believes in abundance and opportunity. There’s plenty to go around because not everyone wants the exact same thing. If we run out of pie, we enjoy baking another one. No one has to lose because we all win together. For sustainability that means we’re all doing what we can and working toward a better tomorrow each in our own ways. If you want to pick a different way, that’s okay, too. Even if sustainability hasn’t crossed your radar, we still love you. Maybe someday you’ll see our example and want to join in on the fun.

Another way to look at it was written up by marketing expert Perry Marshall. He calls it arbitrage vs alchemy. In arbitrage, you compete by trying to build a little bit better widget. A little tweak here, a little tweak there. Cut your costs and you can undercut your competition. Alchemy is about creating value where there was none before. While arbitrage often gets us better products, in the end it’s the alchemists that make the world a significantly better place.

What does that mean for Urban Patchwork? We’re not competing with local farmers. In fact, it seems to us that more people would eat local food if it were available. We want to create more abundance so more people can enjoy fresh produce and eggs. If there’s a way we can help another farmer, we’re all for it. We’re in this together.

This is reprinted from the August Crestview NA newsletter.

Imagine getting fresh, locally grown veggies and eggs delivered to your door each week for less than grocery store prices. Now that we have launched the first nonprofit urban farm right here in Crestview, this is a reality.

Urban Patchwork is Austin’s first nonprofit CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Our goal is to make local, natural food available and accessible for all of Austin and join the growing movement toward more sustainable living. Produce can now be planted, harvested and delivered all within the neighborhood. Visiting with the farmer and seeing the process is as easy as walking down the street.

The way it works is our farmers cultivate plots of land scattered across different properties in Crestview. Then we deliver weekly baskets of seasonal fresh produce and eggs to our members. We are committed to using ecologically sustainable methods without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers to control pests and diseases. We plant heirloom varieties which have been selected over generations for flavor and nutritional value.

Help us create a better tomorrow through better food. A limited number of pilot program memberships are currently available. Visit our membership page or email me directly at paige@urbanpatchwork.org.

Over the weekend, we finished almost all of the remaining plots we’ll use for the pilot program growing season. Here are some before and after pictures:

The front plot after the rock beds were removed

The front plot after the initial tilling

The completed front plot

Tilling the back plot

Adding compost to the back plot

After the compost was spread and mixed in

We’ll be back out there tonight digging rows in the back plot. Next weekend will be seed planting. Let us know if you’d like to help.

If you’re interested in having a weekly share of fresh produce, this month is the last opportunity to get the early bird pricing. After that, the prices goes up from $288 to $320 not including delivery which would add $2 per week. Sign up on our membership page.

We’re going to be doing the rest of the tilling for the pilot project this weekend. We need some volunteers who don’t mind getting out and sweating in the heat with us. We’ll go for as long as we can Saturday and possibly Sunday too depending on how it goes which leads me to the final point…

Does anyone know about a rototiller or lawn tractor with tiller attachment? We’re tilling by hand and wearing our volunteers out a little faster than we’d like. We could probably knock out the rest of the tilling in a couple of hours with something like that.

We’ll also have some less physically demanding opportunities in the next couple of weeks too if anyone wants to help but not till. We’ll need all the help we can get to make sure we get our seeds in the ground in time for the next season.

Don Tucker, Crestview Neighborhood Association Secretary, posted a recap on the Crestview website.

Here’s the clip pertaining to Urban Patchwork:

Paige Hill discussed her Community Supported Agriculture Project, the first non-profit, neighborhood-centric CSA. The movie Food, Inc. is a good summary of the state of our existing food supply (also the books Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food) – unsustainable and non-nutritious.

The idea is to lease land from residents in Crestview, have farmers raise crops on these plots, and then distribute weekly baskets of produce to share-holders. Neighbors can get to know the farmers and benefit from organically farmed, local food. Chicken coops also supported. The ideal size of the plots would be 1000-2000 sq. ft., ideal length of the leases would be 2+ years (although a 1-year lease might be possible). The price of the lease would be $0 for the first year, as the benefit to the leasor would be the added infastructure and improvement to the soil quality (including soil testing, irrigation, etc.). Afterwards, an annual dividend of $0.25-0.35/sq. ft. is estimated.

The cost of a share to receive a weekly produce basket is competitive with the cost of receiving 2-3 vegetables per day from HEB, and can either be picked up from the demo site in the neighborhood or delivered 1/week for $2/week. For the fall, the plan is to have a single plot with 25 share-holders. For the spring, the goal is to have 1/2-acre with 100 share-holders.

To participate in the fall season, leasors would need to lease their lots by October. The intention is to remain a non-profit to take advantage of grants. The goal is to eventually be able to provide employment to farmers and researchers, pay dividends to leasors annually, deliver 10% of the produce free to a “neighbor in need” each week.

Contact Paige in advance to arrange a tour of the demo lot (1115 Taulbee Ln.).

We’re proud to announce that we’re now accepting memberships for our upcoming growing seasons.

Beginning November 1st (earlier if possible), we’ll either deliver or have ready for pick-up a weekly supply of fresh, local produce. We’re still in the pilot program, of course, so we’ve limited memberships to 25 for the first season. For the following season beginning in February, we’re opening up 100 memberships. All the memberships are on a first come, first served basis.

Since we’re still expanding our capacity, we’re rewarding early members with an early bird price of $18 per week for pick up and $20 delivered. That includes at least 15 generous portions of our seasonal produce. That would feed an average person 2-3 servings a day. If you’re feeding a family, you can get however many memberships you need while supplies last.

We generally plan to have a wide variety of seasonal items so you won’t be bored. We’ll offer mainstream staples as well as new tasty varieties and a few surprises. We also plan to include recipes along with our produce. If you have a favorite recipe for something we distribute, we’d be happy to hear about it.

If you haven’t gotten your membership yet, contact us soon. Every CSA we’ve researched is sold out and has a long waiting list.

[This article appeared in the July edition of the Crestview Neighborhood Association Newsletter.]

Eating local, healthy food has been difficult until recently. We continue to lose farmland to sprawling development and global crops such as corn, soy and grain. These crops dominate our diets, but do not nourish.

Currently, high-end grocery stores and markets are the primary source for fresh, nutritious food, but prices and locations keep people from eating good food on a regular basis. Because of this lack of access, we see a sharp rise in medical costs and an increase in deadly diseases that rarely existed before cheap, processed foods were so common.

New ideas now bring healthy, nourishing food back to us. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) reconnects us with the farms producing our food. The variety, quality and level of nutrition these small farms offer is astounding, and the food is, once again, local and fresh without preservatives and hormones.

CSAs offer a variety of membership levels, and members get baskets of fresh, local produce delivered weekly. Imagine healthy veggies and eggs dropped right at your door!

I’m Paige Hill and my passion is to educate people on benefits and techniques for planting veggie gardens. I am starting the first urban CSA in the Crestview neighborhood of Austin. To learn more, please contact me at paige@urbanpatchwork.org.

We all met on July 7th to talk about our business model and some figures we’d worked up.

Stay tuned for updates!