Present: Name, role, and favorite summer fruit!
· Jenna Carlsson: MCP Community Gardens Action Team facilitator. Fruit: peaches, strawberries
· Kathy Greene (AKA Alice): Home gardener who wants to help out with the backyard gardens. Even though she lives in Martinez, she wants to help out the Monument community. Peppers and tomatoes are her favorite vegetables.
· Siamack Sioshansi: From the Urban Farmers, his son and his son’s roommate started the project. Both of the boys are very busy this summer, going from San Francisco to Lafayette to tend to the farmers there. Planted 900th plant recently!
· Francisco Martinez: From Pittsburg, has been working with MCP for a while now. Favorite fruits: Strawberries, watermelon, and mangos. Mango expert! Francisco says that mangos grow best under the warm rays of a summer sun.
· Cesar Ortiz: Huge helper with the Backyard Gardens! Favorite fruits and veggies: Tomatoes, chiles, loquats, and cactus fruit.
· Catalina Ramos-Wright: Has lived in Concord for 50 years! Fruit: Peaches, guava, and loves avocados!
· Mike Kerr: Coordinator of Ambrose Community Gardens. Having a bit of trouble in the garden, the well water might be shut off. Favorite veggies and fruits: peaches, tomatoes, and plums. Mike has forty types of fruit trees, so his favorites vary depending on the fruit tree he’s near by!
· Edi Birsan: Concord Diablo Rotary. Geez, can’t even grow a rock! Favorite fruit: plums.
· Mary Lou Laubscher: love strawberries, growing her own in an old BBQ
· Luz Sierra
Announcements:
1. Gleaning Project Update (Edi Birsan)
You provide, we pick, and we all give to those in need! The Concord Diablo Rotary Club picks excess fruit from trees, so why not donate if your tree is ripe with lush fruits?
Example: Today got a call from Anna Chan (Lemon Lady) to pick apples at Alamo house. Within 2 hours he and 17 yr old grandson picked & delivered 75 lbs of apples to Food Bank.
2. RotoCare Update (Edi Birsan)
Free Health Care Clinic – Open every Thursday evening from 5-9pm at Cambridge Elementary School. Open to people with no medical insurance. Make an appointment, since there is limited space. If it isn’t used they might move it!!
3. SCUFI – Sustainable Commercial Urban Farm Incubator Update (Mary Lou)
Starting soon! A project in which people are trained to make their own businesses out of locally growing food. Keep your eyes peeled for an announcement of when SCUFI training will start.
4. Monument Crisis Center Bicycle Donation Finished! – Wes Laubscher collected bikes repaired by Marsh Creek Detention Facility inmates and donated them to people in need of bikes for transportation for school or work.
5. Irrigation Volunteers at Cambridge: Master Gardener Janice Winsby is looking for 2-3 volunteers to help out at Cambridge Elementary school for irrigation installation. Please contact her at 938-6126 for more info.
6. Garden group at DVC: Pretty earnest folks that are willing to garden.
7. Blog: We are going (more) virtual! Check it out: http://communitygardensactionteam.blogspot.com/
Speaker: Siamack Sioshansi from the Urban Farmers www.theurbanfarmers.org
1. Background: His son, Cameron, who is a junior in college, goes to school in Chicago. Two summers ago, instead of enjoying the joys of video games, he and his friend, Alexander, set out to find their passions. Those passions turned into the Urban Farmers, to feed people sustainable, clean, and local food in a way that is environmentally sound, socially just, and culturally compatible.
2. Current State of Agriculture System
a. Our idea of the American farm is an illusion: pesticide use, monocrops, and the distance between farmer and consumer is growing rapidly.
b. Energy resources: the distance that food travels is environmentally and economically unreasonable
c. Environmental Damages: soil depletion, once the soil is depleted of nutrients necessary for crops, it’s done. At the rate we are doing so, we will run out of soil in 50-70 years
d. Water wise: our water supply of clean water is running out. At the rate we are using it for agriculture, we will run out in 25 years.
e. Pesticide Use: Farmers in the United States have been authorized by the USDA to use an abundant amount of pesticides on fruits and vegetables (37 for an apple). In the EU, only two types of pesticide agents are allowed.
f. Social Justice: In the U.S. the FDA determined that the number of people who cannot put food on the table (are hungry) is at an all time high.
3. To combat this, they decided work with a Local Food Environmental Task Force in Lafaytette to start a local food production program in 20 Lafayette backyards in Lafayette. Selection Criteria:
a. Accessibility
b. Home owner’s attitude
c. The amount of land and the quality of sun exposure
4. Then they build the gardens:
a. They have found that homeowners have wanted to be involved, learning how food is grown and spending $3-5000 each ($78,000 total) on irrigation systems, etc.
Updates from our own backyard garden:
· We secured free manure for the soil and Ron and his son’s have put in it!
· Now we need to continue prepping the soil
· We got wine barrels donated to plant the seedlings in while the soil is being prepped
· We need soil!
· Work party this Saturday at 5pm at Ron’s house to prep the soil – 1213 Grove.. Please come! Call Lorena for more information. (Ron, Mike, Cesar, Lorena, Francisco, Kathy, Manuel, anyone else who wants to come!
Next Steps
· Attend work party this Saturday
· Find soil
· Volunteer at Sunnyside Organics in Richmond for free seedlings – Friday July 30. Contact Lorena at 246-5461 if you are interested in going.
· Set regular meetings for the Backyard garden group
Next Meeting: August 11, 7pm, Here
This meeting:
| + -Meeting went excellent! Siamack’s presentation was fantastic, thank you Siamack for presenting! -Everyone was eager to put their 2 cents in, it’s great to have participation! | - |
