urban community agriculture

hello my fellow gardening enthusiasts!

a friend and i are in the process of putting together garden plans for summer 2011 we are both big rookies when it comes to managing a real garden and working on a production schedule. the growing space is mainly big back yards and empty lots, most of which are in the rougher part of town where land is cheap. we have a very open-ended, non-binding agreement with a local organic restaurant and lots of hungry healthy friends. our main goal is to feed ourselves with real food we helped create, THEN to supply the cool restaurant with food grown down the street, to show people in these impoverished neighborhoods the benefits/ease/beauty of a garden, and to LEARN and SHARE the experience.

there are lots of things we want to try with types of plants and growing methods. trying to balance the learning curve with some sort of final product will be fun!

-most everything save a backyard or two will be raised beds
-i would like to get a carport type greenhouse going with some container plants and/or a hydro system.
-trying to be as organic as possible, except for some high production foodies to share.
-we are trying to shy away from generic type plants towards more colourful, flavourful hybrids and heirlooms.

lots of things are still coming together, like an ingredients list from the restaurant and sourcing funds for the project... BUT that doesn't mean i'm not looking for some input! questions or experiences welcomed!

final thoughts... coco tomatoes with drippers, nft micro-greens, peruvian purple potatoes, nitrogen fixers

Sound ambitious..
GOOD LUCK

Great plan, keep it up



=K

Start composting with worms. Wherever you plant in the ground you can also half-bury a pvc pipe at each of the 4 corners. Any organic waste can be dumped in there, the worms in the ground will eat it and fertilize the plants on their way to the next pvc.

For potatos get a 55gal plastic drum, fill it a quarter way with dirt, plant the potatos and gradually fill it up with dirt. Come harvest time all you have to do is dump the barrel over and collect.

You can hang 5gal buckets with a hole cut out in the bottom on a fence, plant your tomatos on the bottom, in that hole, and plant your herbs and whatnot on the top of the bucket.

You can plant viners (cucumber, canteloupes) in the ground around those fenses and train them to grow on the fence. when the fruits get bigger you can make hammocks out cloth and hook it to the fence, supporting them. (cucumbers wouldn't really need it but melons do)

When I think of more I will post them. (oh alo vera is a great plant to eat, as well as use on cuts and sores, its a great grower, black-thumbs can gro em, multiply on their own, easy to split apart into more plants.

Sounds awesome! If you need any information, your local country extention agency will be a good source of information. In addition, all of the big agriculture schools like Cornell, UGA, Clemson, University of Washingon, University of Maryland, etc., will have a wealth of information as well. Any university of a Agronomic, Horticulture, Entomology, Crop and Soil Science, Plant Pathology departments will also have a relationship with the local extention agency. Another good resource is ATTRA organization.

In your post, you said,

the growing space is mainly big back yards and empty lots, most of which are in the rougher part of town where land is cheap.

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So does this mean you or your friend owns the land? If not, did you get permission in writing from the person that owns the land to cultivate on this land? The reason I am asking is because I have seen and heard of gardens like this that get shut down/torn down for various legitimate and non-legitmate reasons.

What about security? I volunteered at a community garden and during the summer we noticed our vegetables and equiment were coming up missing. Sometimes whole plants were ripped out. We didn't want to accuse anyone, so we put up a camera. And low and behold, we were catching lots of people. Soccer moms, the same moms who have the bumper stickers that say, 'My child is an honor student at blah, blah, black', were raiding our garden. Sometimes they would send their kids in to grab stuff while they kept the car running. We had vandals from the neighborhood and not from the neighborhood. We had drunks, methheads and crackheads trying to steal and stealing our equipment.

we have a very open-ended, non-binding agreement with a local organic restaurant...

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The open-ended, non-binding agreement sounds nice, but you and your friend can be left holding the bag. I would get a contract in writing to have the restaurant commit to buying produce from you, instead of just taking someone's word for it. If a restaurant owner can find a cheaper produce supply, even if it is out of state, the owner will do that.

our main goal is to feed ourselves with real food we helped create, THEN to supply the cool restaurant with food grown down the street, to show people in these impoverished neighborhoods the benefits/ease/beauty of a garden, and to LEARN and SHARE the experience.

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Showing people who aren't interested in the get go will not inspire anyone to garden. If you want to get people involved, you must give them a sense of ownership in the community garden. That means including people from the neighborhood of your decisions. Consistantly setting up meetings and asking neighborhood people for their input and of what crops they want to see grown. If you and your friend will be in charge of this, the majority of your time will not be doing the gardening. It will be talking to people, managing volunteers, balancing budgets, writing and applying for grants to help your finance the garden, getting insurance to cover if any of the volunteers get hurt while gardening, etc. That is the hard truth in any community style garden. I hope these hungry and healthy friends will be volunteering their time and money to you. It takes alot of time, resources and cash to start and maintain a community garden. Oh sure, people wil admire it and they will say they will commit to it. But once it hits summer and a person is weeding at 8:00AM in the morning and it's already 90 degrees outside, that commitment goes right out the window. This goes for anyone, including your healthy and hungry friends. If you are serious about this, you and your friend should start networking with other volunteer organizations just in case you will be some extra hands.

final thoughts... coco tomatoes with drippers, nft micro-greens, peruvian purple potatoes, nitrogen fixers

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If you have never grown any thing before, then start very small and document your grows this year and plan for your community garden in 2012. Alot of community gardens have lots of enthusiam and great intentions, then spiral out of control and collapse in on itself due to lack of enthusiam and poor intentions.

If your goal is organic production, the first thing you want to do is plan everything before you sow. This is why I suggest starting small now and planning big next year. How do you plan on managing weeds, insects and disease? Do you know what the most common inspect pests in your area? Have you, your friend or anyone else have any experiencing spraying pesticides, herbicides and fungicides? Even organic pesticides can be highly toxic to humans and to any pests living in the area of your planned gardens. How do you two plan on taking care of your raised beds in the winter? Do you plan on growing anything in the winter? How will you maintain the land around the raised beds?

Those questions only scratch the surface. You have a good idea. I always like to see people getting involved in community style gardens. But realistically, it takes alot of committed help and effort to make one successful. Please read, research and prepare first before you start digging.

I should have read my post in greater detail. There are still alot of spelling and grammar errors. Please forgive me because it was 5:42 in the morning and I was still waking.

Also, please forgive me again, if I sounded harsh. I love community gardens. It is the focus of my Horticulture degree. However, I don't want you, your friends or anyone to believe that community gardening is all sunshine and roses. I do not want anyone to have the "If you build it, they will come." attitude because people will come, but only to watch and to reap the rewards of your hard work.

Please learn and research as much as possible. ATTRA, NOP, agriculture universities and extension agencies are good places to start. Be careful about information found on the internet because that information may not apply to your geographical area, even it is in within the same state. Learn about the lifecycles of insect pests and the lifecycles of insect predators that feed on insect pests in your area. Learn about virus, bacterial and fungi that frequent your area.

Please, please, please pay attention to enviromental issues, especially leeching, soil fertility and soil erosion.

Network, network, network. Let people who are in similiar circles as you, know what you are planning to do. In your area, there could already exist some community gardens. If there are some already that are active and functioning, volunteer at one to see the inner workings and to get used to the manual labour. Network together people who are as passionate as you are, not only in words but who are also willing to work hard and help you do the manual labor.

Oh and start raising money now if you are serious.

thanks for the reality check MV, your input is truly appreciated! along with everyone else the 'test' garden of last year had a few neem applications and some beneficial teas but other than that we had NO critter, pest, fungal problems to speak of and it isn't something i have put a lot of thought into, so thanks!
and to be clear, our harvesting goals this year are 1)to feed three grown people (us) 2) feed 3-5 others (friends, market, storage) 3) high quality food for organic restaurant
We WILL be getting a committed agreement with the restaurant soon also, we are just waiting on the request list. we're picking up compost from them once a week also which is fun.


all in all we have about $2k of our own capital to work with after the lots are claimed. maybe more if we legitimize our NPO to make donations tax deductible. hopefully soon because we have a few philanthropic connections already. the local hydro store guy is also very receptive to helping us out, used equipment and even offering pallet pricing on some high quality amendments.

i'm in the planning stages for a raised bed plot and am thinking about a few things.
does anyone have experience using coir and water polymers? i have a little idea for a high % coco bed with lots of organic amendments and water polymers and/or blumat drippers. i wonder how that would do? and what type of plants would like it.

we have lots of seed orders lined up and are just getting into harvest timetables.

its also kind of silly that most things i know about soil mixes is thorough cannabis cultivation and thinking about other types of plants is interesting. tomatoes are a easy comparison but what about broccoli, potatoes, carrots, or corn?

• what should go in the fancy raised beds and what should just go into happy earth.

• when feeding greens in an nft or similar hydro setup is the feeding regimen similar to our beloved plant? a bit milder maybe? can arugula, spinach and lettuces all be grown together with one EC level?

i have also not thought about thieving soccer moms but i bet crack heads will be our biggest nemesis.

thanks for the support everyone, big ups

I hope that Urban Ag will save Detroit.