Shitake mushroom workshop

Here’s a great way to celebrate spring, contribute to a unique community garden, and learn how to grow shitake mushrooms.

The Carolina Campus Community Garden will have a shitake workshop on Sunday March 20 from 1 to 3 p.m.  You can learn how to grow shitakes by helping UNC staff and students prepare 12 logs with mushroom plugs for the garden. Leading the workshop will be Aaron Moody, a geography professor who grows mushrooms on the side.

You will also get to sample some delicious dishes made with shitakes. How about some mushrooms with fontina cheese over polenta?

The garden was developed last year by Claire Lorch and colleagues to give UNC employees and students access to fresh local food that they can raise themselves and share with others. It’s located on University property on Wilson Street, off of Cameron Avenue just a couple of blocks west of the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.

The workshop is free, but you are welcome to give a donation to the garden. For more information, contact Claire at clorch@email.unc.edu.

Teens learn to farm and lead

By Dee Reid

Sharada

When I pulled up in front of the SEEDS community and youth garden in Durham, conveniently located next to the Food Bank, I was amazed to see huge vegetable gardens on both sides of the street. After entering the first section, I realized it was even bigger than what I had seen from my car.  There were community plots, a Seedling Garden for children, a green house and hoop house, compost bins, clay-bale oven, hand-made pond, mushroom logs, herbs, pollinator garden, a fire pit, sheltered outdoor classroom, and beautiful murals. All just past the railroad tracks in east Durham.

Even more impressive, my tour guides were inner-city teens who knew a heck of a lot about farming. Sharada Fozard-McCall and Vianey Martinez love learning, growing, cooking and talking about it — all part of their jobs as year-round crew members of SEEDS DIG program (Durham Innercity Gardeners). They especially love selling produce and flowers at the Durham Farmer’s Market.

“We learn so much that adults come to us now for knowledge,” said Vianey.  And, they get paid. “It’s pretty awesome,” said Sharada.

The community garden beds are leased to local residents on a sliding fee scale ranging from $1 to $35 a year.

Vianey

Their DIG garden is across the street and includes vegetable, flower and herb beds, bee hives, and a shed with a rooftop garden and cisterns.

“Alot of time, effort and love went into this,” said Vianey.

And it shows.

– SEEDS was one of two dozen farms on the Eastern Triangle Farm Tour this week-end. Photos by SEEDS.

Urban bounty

By Dee Reid

From left, Ishmael and Keith with summer produce ready for Vimala's, 9th Street Bakery and Trosa Grocery (Photo by Bountiful Backyards)

Keith Shaljian believes that fresh, local, organic fruits, herbs and vegetables shouldn’t just be for affluent foodies.  That’s why he and his colleagues at Bountiful Backyards partner with other community organizations to start sustainable gardens in unlikely locations.

I first met Keith when Bountiful Backyards was helping to install a community garden that would provide job training for homeless persons in Chapel Hill. I found him again this week-end at Two Ton Farm, an amazing urban permaculture garden with produce, fruit, flowers and herbs, filling the 2500-square-foot lot surrounding Jruth Manor, a transitional house in North East Central Durham. They call it Two Ton Farm because they intend to eventually be able to harvest 2-3 pounds of food per square foot.

“We want this to be a replicable model of sustainable life, expanding access to local, fresh organic food at an affordable cost,” Keith explained during the Eastern Triangle Farm Tour.

He and Sarah Vroom, also of Bountiful Backyards, explained that the garden shows that you can grow enough food on an urban lot to feed multiple families or to start a micro-business by selling to local food enterprises.

The Durham garden is a community collaboration involving several other organizations including Good Work (a sustainable community development organization), Green Space Initiative (working to connect Durham to its agricultural roots) and Jruth, Inc., developing social entrepreneurship strategies for homeless persons, ex-offenders and others.

The project broke ground May 1.  Working with Jruth residents, teens and other volunteers the group developed compost, mulch and 15 French intensive double-dug raised vegetable beds. They also planted herb and pollinator plots,  elderberries and blueberries, according to a plan designed for sustainability and low maintenance. They have harvested more than 275 pounds of fresh produce to sell or give to neighbors, restaurants and community organizations.

Check out photos and video about Two-Ton Farm, produced by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

More photos of Two-Ton Farm on Facebook.

Sustainable food fun all week-end, June 12-13

Three special events are coming up this week-end, where you can learn to cook healthy local food on a  budget, check out the amazing urban farming scene in Carrboro, and share a farm-fresh potluck supper with with Clyde Edgerton, Kickin’ Grass and local farmers and artists at the famous community college farm lab in Pittsboro.  Plan carefully and you can take it all in. Here’s the schedule:

You bought it so cook it: I love what Linda Watson is doing with her Cook for Good lessons: proving that you can eat fresh, local, sustainably grown food, even on a food-stamp budget — if you cook it yourself and use all of it wisely. She will show you how to save time and money while eating delectable fare in a way that’s good for you and the planet.   Saturday June 12, 2-3 p.m. at Chatham Marketplace in Pittsboro. $5 for CM member/owners, $10 general public. You must pre-register, call 542-2643.

Carrboro Urban Farm Tour: More than 15  backyard gardens and food enterprises will be open for inspection for the third annual urban farm tour in Carrboro, the Paris of the Piedmont. I participated last fall and loved visiting community gardens, all kinds of intensive vegetable beds, apiaries, chicken coops, and an artisanal bakery at a co-housing neighborhood.  Saturday June 12, 2-6:30 p.m., including walking and biking tours and a potluck supper at the end of the day. Pick up maps at Carrboro Raw, across from Weaver Street Market.

Potluck in the Pasture: When local artists, foodies and farmers converge, the result is pure pleasure. ChathamArts presents the 5th Annual Potluck in the Pasture, featuring local author Clyde Edgerton, music by Kickin’ Grass, and a chance to meet plenty of other local artists. Stonemason Joe Kenlan and Greek food goddess Angelina Koulizakis (Angelina’s Kitchen) will be running the wood-fired pizza oven with fresh dough from My Neighborhood School and fresh ingredients from the garden. Bring a potluck dish to share or plan to purchase fresh produce at the market on site, and enjoy getting a tour of the sustainable student farm and herb garden. Admission is $8 at the door, $5 online, kids under 10 free. Sunday June 13, 5-7 pm, Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro.

– Dee Reid

Crop Mob, Sunday, Carrboro

If you’ve been curious about the now famous Crop Mob and Carrboro’s amazing urban ag scene, here’s an opportunity to get involved in both. Crop Mob will work at several Carrboro garden locations this Sunday March 21 from 12 noon  until 5 p.m., followed by a dinner.  Show up  and work hard and you are sure to pick up some new skills, eat good grub, and make new friends. And you’ll even see where some of the “mobsters” live and garden.

“We’ll be mini-mobbing Carrboro,” says Andrea in the Crop Mob Facebook invitation, “3 house gardens, 1 community garden and 1 co-op garden. All of these locations, in addition to being the home-base gardens of crop mobbers, are on the map for Carrboro Greenspace’s 3rd Annual Urban Farm tour (June 12th) and we are hoping this mob will spur the creation of an urban crop mob in Carrboro/Chapel Hill.” That would be sweet.

Here are the details—–

What: there will be garden expansion, renewal, bed creation, tomato transplanting, cob & cedar greenhouse construction, chicken coop building and plenty of weeding.

What to bring (if you have): digging forks, shovels, trowels, hand weeders, wheelbarrows, a spoon & bowl or plate. (Don’t forget to label your tools.)

Where: come to one of 3 main locations; bike or carpool if possible:
* Carrboro Community Garden
* The BOG Co-op (102 Crest St) will be the base for 1 other home
* 201 Lindsey St will be the base for 2 other homes (and will also be the final destination for all mobbers for the meal)
See map for directions, parking & details: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=100558489454771298925.000481e0adad290901e2b&z=15

Feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.

Please RSVP to wood.andrea@gmail.com so they can plan the food.

Calling all students

The 2nd Annual Southeast Youth Food Activist Summit  is set for Feb. 5-7 at UNC-Chapel Hill, hosted by FLO Food, a campus student group. The summit is part of the Real Food Challenge, a student-led, nationwide movement of committed young leaders who are working to bring more sustainable, socially just and community-based food onto their campuses and into their communities.

The southeast group expects 150 students from across the region to gather for a week-end of educational seminars, professional panel discussions, peer networking, activist workshops and community dinners.  If you register by Jan. 21, the fee is only $20 and covers housing and meals.  Transportation support and a limited number of scholarships are available.  Information and online registation are  at http://www.syfas.org or contact  Jordan Treakle at southeast@realfoodchallenge.org.

HOPE: An urban garden where homeless and neighbors grow together

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