Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms

It’s a Happy Hour!!!

• Who? The Austin Growers Guild, FOOGS, Karpophoreo Project, Hogg Farm and friends!
• What? Happy Hour Social
• Where? Houndstooth Coffee – 4200 N. Lamar
• When? Friday, July 30 · 5:00pm – 8pm (or later if you wish!)

Come gather with young urban farmers and get to know some of the folks who make fresh local food happen every day, right here in Austin. Ask veggie questions, learn about what’s coming this fall, sign up to help on the farms, and see where farming is headed in the near future.

Urban Patchwork is proud to be a part of the Austin Growers Guild; Austin’s newest and craziest bunch of urban farmers. We’ll be at Houndstooth Coffee for a few snacks, drinks, and great conversation.  We’re a wild and fanciful bunch of farmers, gardeners and grew-peas (groupies?) and we’d love to meet you!

If you are looking to volunteer, network or find training opportunities on local farms with urban farmers, or if you just want to learn how to grow your own veggies, this is the place to be; these are the people to know.

Houndstooth serves coffee, wine, beer and snacks!  Bring a friend, bring your appetite and thirst, and we’ll see you this Friday!

Hope to see you there!

Keith

The week itself is not over, but the effort en-masse has come to a close.  I’d like to thank everybody who was able to make it out and lend a hand this week as we got so much more done than Paige and I would have been able to do alone.

And we should celebrate, because we cleaned up what we wanted to clean up!  The shed has been cleaned up and organized, with a place for our tools and the tools in their place.  And the main driveway has been cleared out opening up the option of moving both the airstream and the tiny house to new locations on the property so that we have plenty of room to prepare the back 40 for the soon coming construction of yurts.

Once again, thank you so much for coming out and helping get this thing done!  We have a long way to go still, but this is the glory of farming, we are ever growing and ever moving.  Life is always interesting and the work is forever gratifying.

Keep an eye out because starting next week we’ll be expanding the farm and getting started on a few more sites.  We’d love to see you again and would very much enjoy working with you to keep on trucking.

Thank you so much to everyone who came out and helped make day one of clean up week here at UP something sweet.  We made some great headway clearing out all the beggar’s lice in the back and seriously put a dent in the east half of the site.  Good work everybody, thanks for lending us your hands!

We’re on tomorrow, same time, same place.  Hope to see you there.

It’s clean up week!

Yesterday (Happy Independence, btw!) marked our first anniversary here at Urban Patchwork (happy birthday UP!!!) and we’re still moving strong.

We have decided to make a major effort to clean up our “Home Base” yard at 1200 Taulbee Lane. We have so many exciting projects and activities that we’d like to see take place in that yard but we have quite a bit of tidying up to do before we can really get our wheels turning.

We will be turning the lot into a showcase for sustainable urban living – Urban Patchwork style. We’ll build a few yurts (i.e. Mongolian tents), catch and store rainwater, raise chickens, grow vegetables, and more.

But first, we need your help. So we are inviting you to come out this week and spend some time donating some hard work and sweat to your neighborhood farm. We will be working at these times:

Monday July 5, ‘010 time: 9am-2pm
Tuesday July 6, ‘010 time: 9am-2pm
Wednesday July 7, ‘010 time: 9am-2pm

Where? 1200 Taulbee Lane, 78757
(please park on the street)

Please come out, we’d love to spend some time with you! Invite your friends too!!!

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or e-mail.
call: 512/662=1854
email: cleanitup[at]urbanpatchwork[dot]org

See you soon!!!

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

Dear friends of Urban Patchwork.

I’d like to do some of our friends here in the Crestview neighborhood a favor and pass along a spot of information:

Brentwood Elementary School (6700 Arroyo Seco) is having a Garden Tour and Fundraiser on Saturday, April 24 from 11am – 3pm.  We will be showing off our 13 organic gardens – all raised bed or container.  There are LOTS of great ideas here for people who want to do a little gardening at home.  All the work on these gardens has been done by students!  We will also have free kids gardening activities.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact (e-mail) Candis —  candis AT gardenheads DOT net

Break It Down

I just wanted to call upon you for a bit of support for a good friend of mine and a fellow in the great world of farming.  He recently started a composting business in Austin, TX, called Break it Down.  It is a social-business that focuses heavily on bringing composting education to area schools and all his endeavors are nested within the communities where he composts.  Break it Down has recently been selected as a finalist in the Dell Social Innovation Competition and I am here to ask you to give them your vote today!

Here is the link.

Here is the video.

Tell your friends.

Thanks a bunch.

Our spring harvest season is just a couple weeks away and Paige and I are busy little bees out on each of our farm plots tending to all the veggies that we have in the ground.  Oh how we love to farm!

We are also designing our vegetable cooling system and are looking for old and non-working refrigerators (with working doors that seal well please!) that we might turn into portable ice chests.  If anyone happens to have an old or non working fridge that seals up well, and would like to donate it to us here at Urban Patchwork, we would be ever so grateful!

You can reach us by phone at (512) 662-1854 or by e-mail: donate AT urbanpatchwork DOT org

Looking forward to seeing you!

Chicken or Rooster?

It all happened because we got an e-mail that said an area feed store had a handful of Barred Rock rooster chicks that they were trying to give away.  Now we have some more new birds.  They are adorable.  Just thought I’d let you know.

Chicken Coop Workshop Postponed until April 10th

Rain is bittersweet!

Tomorrow there is a 70% chance of rain in the morning which foils our “Old Stuff New Coop” building in the park that’s scheduled for tomorrow.

Not to worry because that means we can put more seeds in the ground to be kissed by nature’s gift of fresh rain, and we’ll reschedule the coop building for April 10th.

To everyone who has written and offered materials and time, please keep those available. We are still happy to swing by the week before the 10th and pick up building materials, and we hope the date change allows lots of folks to come have fun with us in April.

Till then, we’re still planting and building our barnyard and enjoying the wonderful spring weather! Come join us if you have time.

Happy Eating!
-Paige

Fo’ Shizzle, My Drizzle

Spring Rain

Indeed what a beautiful thing it is to have rain.  It might seem to some to be a bit of a downer in the middle of the beautiful spring that finally arrived on our doorstep a week or so ago, but to those of us who have new plants in the ground, this mornings precipitation is quite a blessing.  Our planting fest yesterday (including potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, carrots, basil, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, kohlrabi, bush beans) is perfectly content to be followed by a good rain.  And the next few days of warmth and sunshine will be all the better because of this rain.

And let us hope that the sunshine keeps up because we are looking forward to the big plans we have for the weekend:

Reminder:

Our First Annual “Old Stuff, New Coop”

Chicken Coop Building Workshop!

Who: the Urban Patchwork Community Farm and Friends What: The “Old Stuff, New Coop” Chicken Coop Building Workshop

When: March 20th, 10am – 2pm

Where: Brentwood Park at the picnic area on Arroyo Sec

What: Our goal is to build 10 chicken coops that can host 10 chickens each that we will use on the Urban Patchwork farm.

Key items and materials for YOU TO BRING:

This list includes, but is not limited to the following… gloves, hammers, saws, nails, water (to stay hydrated)/water bottles, tape measures, and please bring very usable and salvageable scaps of wood, corrugated metal, roofing, fencing, old hinges, extra doors, screen, wire mesh and chicken fence, planter boxes, paint and paintbrushes, funky medallions and other decorative items with character and flair.

We look forward to seeing you there!