Next Meeting 11/30 and Volunteers Needed

Hi fellow gardeners:
1. Community Gardens NAT meeting rescheduled for Tuesday 11/30 at 7pm at the Keller House. Please join us as we may be restructuring our group and want to hear what you think the Community Gardens Action Team should focus on.
2. Volunteers Needed - If you would like to help with outreach or helping us get organized, we need your help! Very flexible and not a huge time commitment. Please let me know if you're interested.

Jenna

Community Gardens NAT Meeting October 13, 2010

Present: Jenna Carlsson, Mary Lou Laubscher, Dave Pitman, Kathy Renfrow

Snacks: basil, tomatoes, lemons, and peppers from the backyard garden!

Announcements

· Transportation meeting 10/21 at 7pm

· Monday at NAT meeting – someone is going to come to get public input on the spray park

· The Public Health Department is sponsoring a Bed Bug Prevention Forum 10/28 at 7pm Meadow Homes School – we need to do outreach

· Friday October 22 at 6pm – Want to form an informal outreach group for SCUFI.

Program Updates

· Melinda did container gardens at the health fair. She helped kids to make over 75 container gardens with seedlings, and 150-200 more with seeds!

Sustainability Issues, Funding Changes for Future Grants (Kathy)

Big Picture Solution to Larger issues – Funders are looking for collaboration of community partners (non-profits, businesses, faith community, restaurants, farmers, school districts)to work on BIG INTERRELATED ISSUES like hunger, food production, health, food systems, nutrition/education, physical activity, economic development and sustainability (conservation of resources, air quality, storm water mitigation - #1 pollution per EPA, carbon footprint).

When we talk about food, we talk about:

• Food Production
• Food Distribution
• Food Processing
• Consumption
• Waste

Along with that, we have to be VERY CLEAR about measurements, outputs and outcomes. How we can PROVE that growing local food changes the nutrition of families that will prevent/reduce diabetes and obesity and improves the local economy. The more coordinated, the more groups working together, the better. That’s what Grant Makers are going to fund.

Main Agenda Item: How to Secure Land on the Monument Trail through the Iron Horse Trail Advisory Committee

Questions we need to answer for the Iron Horse Corridor Advisory Committee by February:

Kathy’s opinion: The Iron Horse Corridor Board wants to know not just general but SPECIFICS – a business plan presentation (where pipes are, water usage, who’s in charge of the maintenance)

1. How do we describe ourselves in this new way?

o We are the coordinator of partners MCP City food policy council responsible for growing 20% of food in Concord that will be distributed to restaurants, hospitals, and schools.

o As in BART land, MCP obtains land and permits, covers insurance. SCUFI will do training – local owned business farmers (individuals and co-ops) to be established. Advisory group (of experts and interested community residents) will be established.

o We are addressing the Iron Horse Corridor Advisory Committee to acquire their parcel of land to grow local vegetables and fruit that would be part of Sustainable Commercial Urban Farming in Concord. SCUFI is the training incubator for local farming businesses copyrighted.

2. What are we requesting? To be worked on next

3. How much land are we proposing? And where would it be placed? We have this mapped out – but work with Bruce to map out how we would be avoiding utilities.

4. How does Iron Horse Corridor proposal link up to SCUFI? To be worked on

5. Is water available? Connection to house on Mayette or City connection. We need to give SPECIFICS – which house, get a contract, and find out about City connection. Needs to be worked on

WATER: Build relationships with and connect to water source – Melinda?

• Are the neighbors ok with it?
• Are they going to be part of it?
• Will they be the protectors of it?
• Do they fully understand what it means to allow us to use their water connection and do they want do it?
• Kathy will bring in water bill. Would give idea on how much the water usage increased with the backyard garden.
• Think of creative sources: research them (Jenna)
• The city has trails that have water meters. What would that cost to do? Where are water connections for new trails? Would connecting to future trails water connections be feasible?

6. How would the project be funded? By the farmers themselves – using a business model. Community members could then rent a plot from the farmers.

7. How would long-term maintenance be covered? – Long term maintenance would be done by the local business owners themselves, who are farming the land, not as an extracurricular activity, but as a business. (Maybe 10 are local farmer owned; 14 community garden members would pay a fee but the overall production of plots would be managed by farmers)

8. How would underground utilities be avoided? See #3.

9. How would the right to use County land be obtained? The Iron Horse Trail Advisory Committee should know the answer to this.

Next Steps

• Research water possibilities
• Find out about utilities
• Really solidify advisory group
• Work with James to give professional presentation

Next Meeting Agenda: Update Iron Horse Corridor Proposal – New Draft

Next Meeting: Nov 10 7-8:30pm Keller House 1760 Clayton Rd

This Meeting Eval:

+	∆
Small group helped to really get through proposal Good working group Big picture idea Dave talking to James that this is 1 of many Garden plots in SCUFI project

9-8 CGNAT Meeting Minutes

Present:

Wes Laubscher, Luz Sierra, Stan Hansen, Dave Pitman, Melinda Meahan, Kathy Renfrow, Claudia Vazquez

Announcements:

Kathy: It is official, SCUFI is an approved pilot project!

· Professional training, healthy profit from your own small farm, have access to fresh, affordable food, and be part of a network of small farms that provides locally grown produce to the Concord community.

· Community owned and farmers make decisions!

· Want to join or learn more? Contact Tess at farm@chavezcenter.org or 925-682-8248 x 2180

· Come next Tuesday, September 14, to the Keller House at 7pm to learn more about SCUFI.

Health Fair: Saturday, Oct 2 11am – 3pm Meadow Homes Park

· Need volunteers to do container gardens! If you would like to help out, the times are 10am – 1pm and 1pm – 3pm. Contact Jenna Carlsson at 925-246-5461.

· We are collecting plastic milk containers! Please, if you have any clean, empty plastic milk containers, bring them to the Monument Community Partnership. Just ask for the Backyard Gardens Project. We are aiming for 100 and your participation will help us to achieve that number! J

Monument Trail Garden: The working group is meeting Tuesday Sept 14 at 2:30 pm at Mi Oficina Computer Cafe. They will be preparing to give a presentation on starting a community garden to the Iron Horse Trail Advisory Committee: November 3, Wednesday from 4:30pm to 7pm Brookview Club House, 1201 Monument

Sun Ridge Apartments - Want to start a garden. Julio not present

Lakeside Garden - Resident not present

Speaker: Lorena Sanchez gave a presentation on our Backyard Pilot Project and why we should start food gardening

Next Steps:

· Sign Up for Health Fair!

· Bring milk containers to MCP by Wed, September 29, 2010

· Come by to Keller House next Tuesday for SCUFI meeting at 7pm!

Next Meeting: Wednesday Oct 13, 7pm Keller House

· Talk about the School Gardens, what’s going on over there?; SCUFI

This meeting evaluation

What went well	What can be changed
· Lorena’s presentation was good, it gave a visual of what is going on. · Green light for SCUFI! · Free vegetables and seeds! · Planting time sheet is useful!	· More participants! · Translator for future Spanish speaking participants!

SCUFI Orientation Meeting

Be an urban farmer in Concord!

Start here at the first orientation meeting

Tuesday Sep. 14, 7:00PM, Keller House

and learn about the

Sustainable Commercial Urban Farm Incubator (SCUFI) for Concord

For more information:

Small Plot Intensive (SPIN) farming http://www.spinfarming.com/

Urban Farms http://www.virtuallygreen.com/web/

Concord's SCUFI program info@chavezcenter.org

Pictures from our backyard garden 8-19

Our compost bin, also donated to us, and now up and running!

Wine barrels donated by Jack Howell - we will use them to plant blackberries!

Hot peppers

Purslane Weed - super nutritious!

Tomatoes

Close up of purple basil

All sorts of basil!

Planting at our backyard garden 7-20

Ron standing next to the garden beds before they got planted.

Cesar and Mike planting

Soil super rich in nutrients from our added compost and horse manure

Some of the basil seedlings we got donated from Sunnyside Organics

Emanuel and Lorena planting

Gerringher Harvest Festival

Gehringer Community Garden, a 2 1/2 acre community garden in the Dana Estates area of Concord had its 2nd Annual Harvest Festival/Fundraiser Saturday August 21st. Gerringher has several plots rented by community members, and 2 plots dedicated to growing food for the food bank. The Harvest Festival was a great event - music, food, drinks and fun for everyone! Great work to Katia has a plot at Gehringer and invited us to the festival.