We’re approaching our third growing season at Landslide
Community Farm. This year we’ve
got big plans for a major garden expansion project and some big events at the
farm.
Garden Expansion
Thanks to some very generous donations and a major grant funding
that we’re anticipating receiving, we are planning a massive expansion of our
gardens on the Beelen St. farm site.
As soon as the snow starts to thaw, we’ll be getting started on
construction of 25 new raised-bed planters and several new stone retaining
walls. The anticipated grant
funding will allow us to purchase a huge amount of topsoil and other ground
cover which will allow us to grow in land that had previously been too toxic
for food bearing plants.
Later in the season we’ll also be planting dozens of new berry bushes and fruit
trees to continue the transformation of the deep woodlots on our farmland into
a permaculture forest garden.
We’re anticipating that the planned expansions will close to
triple our current food production capacity for our 2010 harvest. And as our fruit trees begin to bear
fruit, we can expect our production capacity to continue to expand for the next
several years.
Kitchen Re-Build
Sharing free food is an activity that has always been
central to Landslide’s mission.
Currently, we serve a neighborhood picnic each Friday evening a few
blocks down the street from Landslide on Fifth Ave. and each week we invite our
neighbors, friends, volunteers and supporters over for Sunday brunches. But since we started Landslide in 2007,
these food-serving efforts have always been hampered by inadequate food
preparation space.
Over the winter we’ve been working hard to completely
re-build the kitchen at Landslide Community Farm. We’ve doubled the size of our current kitchen to allow for
adequate room for food storage, food preparation, and cooking. We installed several new shelving units,
a three-basin sink, two new counter tops, a six-burner wood burning stove and a
new propane stove.
The new expansion means we’ll be able to prepare more food
and accommodate more volunteers for our brunches and Friday community
picnics. To help cook for brunch,
stop by Landslide on Sundays at 10:30 am and to help cook for our Friday Community
Picnics/Food Not Bombs, stop by Landslide at 3:30 on Fridays.
Major Upcoming Events
Because of the incredible success of last season’s planting
day and special work weekends, we’ve decided to plan a series of special events
at Landslide Community Farm to give volunteers an opportunity to plug in and
get involved.
We’re going to be kicking off the 2010 growing season with a
spring work weekend at the Farm April 2-4. That weekend we’ll be getting the lots ready for planting,
moving several tons of soil, building raised beds, and constructing and
repairing retaining walls.
Saturday, April 17th is the major planting day at
Landslide Community Farm. That day
we need as many volunteers as possible to help us get our first round of starts
and seeds in the ground.
Landslide will be celebrating Mayday Weekend at the farm
with our “Spring into the Growing Season” Farm Festival. We’ll be holding tours of the farm,
volunteer orientations, gardening and permaculture workshops and on Saturday
night a Mayday party at the farm.
Check out www.LandslideCommunityFarm.org
for more details.
About Landslide:
The Landslide Community Farm is a Hill district based, not
for profit, urban farm dedicated to being a free source of healthy food for the
community. Landslide is a neighborhood and volunteer run project
committed to sustainability and mutual aid. We hold weekly open meetings
run on consensus and regular workdays for friends and neighbors to come down
and volunteer with collective members.
