KITCHEN GARDENS INTERNATIONAL CROWDFUNDING GRANTS OPEN THRU DEC. 15 As of 9pm on December 3, we have raised $230 in crowdfunding, which we keep, no matter what. We are now eligible for one of the ten challenge grants for $200 from KGI ! If we are able to raise just another $170 by midnight on December 15, we'll be eligible for $400 in matching funds ! We are eligible for consideration for $400 the merit grant. You can donate directly to the Vale Urban Farm from the Seedmoney site by by clicking on our application and description of what we do,. Every $10 donated is a big help! Last year, KGI awarded us one of 75 full grants - out of 1100 application! This year, they restructured the grant process thru SEEDMONEY.ORG as crowdfunding projects that are able to win matching funds or special merit grants. The crowdfunding sites are only available to us thru December 15th. original crowdfunding grants were designed to go to the first 75 projects that raised $400, but 75 projects hit that goal within the first 24 hours! Therefore, KGI has added other kinds of grants to the crowdfunding, including 50 "merit grants" for $400 which they will decide in mid February. These are grants that go out to gardens all over the world - India, Africa, South America, Europe.... It's wonderful to just browse thru people's projects. So click on the link and get a glimpse of the fantastic garden projects going on. August Harvests
Sunday eve, the 23rd, several of us worked on harvesting the rest of the spring crop of beets, carrots, as well as keeping up with tomato-picking. Fall crops continue to get planted - lettuce, carrots, beets, peas . . . Glacier & Stupice tomatoes continue to produce their 2 inch tomatoes in a steady supply. Summer squash continue to appear regularly, keeping us all in plenty of squash. Last Thursday we had a tomato tasting with our summer volunteers from Schenectady High School's International baccalaureate program - so many varieties & tastes ! John navigated a mulching lawnmower our way that is making the garden look SO lovely ! July's garlic harvest was followed by red & white onions NOTE: Summer updates have mostly gone to our blog and photos We opened for the season Saturday, May 30. Our new shed was installed Monday June 8th, with our perimeter fence coming in Tuesday & Wednesday June 9th & 10th. Saturday, April 18, noon-5pm was
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BIG NEWS:
The Carlillian Foundation awarded us $10,000 to
fence the garden. Rennie, Bernie & I went to the fencing company and were able to get the
price down far enough that we were also able to
get an 8'x8' shed! It turns out that the water is more than anticipated, so Bernie will continue to look for a way to bring in more permanent plumbing. We now have a 5' fence
with two tractor gates and two 4' people gates, installed by
Haley Fence. The $300 from the
Kitchen Gardeners International grant was originally to help with storage, but the cemetery's Carlillian Foundation grant freed up the $300 for other expenses. We bought buckwheat for a summer bulk cover crop
seed - the bees love the flowers and the buckwheat has successfully kept weeds suppressed in the areas where we planted it.
We applied to Griffin Greenhouse Supply for donated supplies early in the spring. While they did not approve us for outright donations, they put thru a special discount rate for us that is lower than their own cost. The incredibly low prices provided us with seed starting materials in the early spring and has made it possible to update our hoses, connectors & sprayers for our watering system. I am always amazed when I walk out of there with all sorts of things we need after writing a check that still leaves us money to use later.
What should we do - or NOT do - in 2015 & 2016 ?
FUNDING??
We did not receive ANY financing from anyone in 2014, aside from the very important materials & service donations. We can receive grants under the cemetery's non-profit status - but what should we be looking for? Some possibilities:
more trellising materials
shelving, lights, heating pads for early seed starting. also high quality seed-starting soil
water & plumbing - hoses & barrels were a BIG improvement in 2014, but maybe something more permanent?
rechargeable wee whacker
Rototiller
Should we be trying to have anyone paid? (Can someone check into it for the 2016 season?)
PEOPLE & TASKS
a compost coordinator or team - collect veggie scraps from price Chopper, Starbucks,
Jumpin Jacks, etc., keep track of what the compost pile needs - turning? shoveling, what to use?
a volunteer coordinator who could stay in closer contact with members, phone & email
a neighborhood/community liason - to increase neighborhood ownership in the garden
online coordinator - to keep the website more up-to-date
experienced gardeners who can be in the garden to help at regularly scheduled times -
we heard this most often of all comments - we need more predictability for when there will be someone there.
Sales coordinator - this was very fledgling, but gave us about $160 to spend on next year. We distributed to two
small cafés towards the end of the season for the first time, generating small weekly amounts of cash that
have gradually added up. It was pretty time-intensive for me. If we're going to continue - and hopefully
expand - our marketing - which I think we should - we need someone who can focus on it more and
organize it better. If I was too busy in a given week to do it, we didn't sell anything.It would be better
to have someone else in charge of it
Grant research ? - I am doing some of this, but it would go better if someone else worked on it as well. I'm just now
getting time to look into it and it's already late for some things. More people, more likely success.
Community events display people - there are lots of events that go on and it'd be great to have a presence at them.
WHAT ELSE ? ? ?
2014 - HOW DID IT GO ?
Donations included:
Hudson Valley Seed Library awarded us a donation of 25 organic & heritage seed packs
The Seeds Savers' Exchange awarded us 50 organic & heritage seed packs
Home Depot - donated tools and materials
Schenectady's Central Park Greenhouses contributed crucial spring greenhouse space
Nine Mile Farm in Delmar - harbored plants in their high tunnel and donated multiple flats of seedlings.
In addition to our regular members, Union College students and Schenectady High School International Baccalaureate students helped with lots of time, effort and good will.
DID WE ACCOMPLISH OUR GOALS in 2014?
expanded food productivity: Besides feeding ourselves & our families, we grew enough squash to donate about 200 pounds of summer squash in July and about 30 pounds of green beans. Our ten farm share families have been enjoying multiple harvests of familiar favorites like green beans and squash and discovering new varieties of greens, tomatoes, squash and peppers. It has been a weedy, messy garden full of food.
expanded educational capacity: Our successes in this realm are personal with all of us learning something from someone about how to plant and grow, how or what to weed, ways to eat the things we've grown and getting to know each other.
expanded community participation: in 2013 we were a group of volunteers who gardened and gave away the food we grew. This year we were neighbors and friends sharing gardening time and space to grow food we love and enjoy. It was good.
more flowers and more herbs: Our tall sunflowers, petunias, scarlet runner beans and Mexican sunflowers (the orange bushy ones) brightened the garden a lot this year, bringing positive comments from a lot of people. The flowers have also made a lot of bees and butterflies very happy, which is important in any garden. No bees, no pollinating, no food. Bees' numbers have been decreasing drastically across the U.S. in the past ten years, jeopardizing food production. We've succeeded in helping a little bit.
The idea of a bed of flowers lining the edge of the garden parallel to the cemetery road bit the dust when we realized it is the weediest part of the garden and the flowers would get drowned in weeds. We left it bare and Rennie tilled it repeatedly to keep weed growth down. We left the corner patch of petunias, cosmos and mint, which has been nice to see, but full of weeds underneath. We'll try again next year. Does someone want to make the flower bed/s their main job?
PRETTY SUCCESSFUL!
Problems? Ok, we've definitely had some:
BUGS AND PLANT DISEASES: We've had a lot. Squash borers. Powdery mildew. Downy mildew. Japanese beetles. Brown beetles. Squash bugs. Late blight. The good news is that, despite pest & fungus problems, we've grown a LOT of food! Advice is generally to change where you plant things for the next year and NOT to put any parts of diseased fruits or plants into the compost. Easier said than done in a garden this size. Next year we can cut down on the problems by spacing plants further apart, mulching more, and watering more consistently, earlier in the day and closer to the ground with less on the leaves and fruit. Damp, crowded plants are more likely to get pests and mildews. Some sprays might be helpful and not toxic, but we need to research that. Soil health is also a factor. We planted a winter cover crop and will turn a lot of our mulch into the soil. Adding coffee grinds and egg shells to our compost pile is always good.
VANDALISM: Early tromping of feet through seeded beds wrecked a couple of plantings, particularly the beets. Our 250 onions mostly became catapults and slings, pulled up by kids and flung around the cemetery. A couple of times, we found tomatoes or squash that had been part of somebody's arsenal for throwing or smashing practice. Early on in the season, people were apparently coming thru and digging up entire plants to take home, disappearing with plants from individual plots as well as from our farm beds. Cabbage has been the crop that disappeared the most as seedlings and also as mature heads. Tomato seedlings and veggies were the next most popular to take. As the season neared the end, non members who have not had anything to do with the garden have been coming in and harvesting more and more frequently. We lost about two thirds of our winter squash, most of our frying peppers, and a lot of collards. I think this is a mix of intentional theft and poor signage on our part. We need to make it much more obvious that the garden BELONGS to the people who work on it and that people who want food from it need to help work on it. We also would like to find ways to make it more difficult for random vandals to enter and trash parts of the garden. We planted some prickly raspberry bushes, but we need to leave open runs for the tractor. More people present more often would help too. What else can we do? As for early plant stealing, I suspect what would work best is to do a good job advertising free seedlings, scheduling give-away times and spaces, clearly marking what seedlings people are welcome to take home.
DEER: You may not know this, but the Vale has at least three deer roaming around and they have periodically found our garden, mostly the collards. They had left it alone for most of the summer, but found it consistently in the fall, chomping down our collards & kale and brussel sprouts pretty badly. We can't put up the kind of fencing that would keep deer out - it would need to be 8-12 feet high! Let your dogs pee around the collards and beds of winter greens. String up CD's and things that sparkle, dangle, chime or smell like people or dogs. Save your dogs' fur from brushes or clippings - preferably PRE-shampoo. A friend suggested taking hair clippings and scattering them over the plants so they're less appealing to munch on. Next year we can inter- plant more things they like less - anything hairy, spicy or prickly - nasturtiums, borage, ????
We applied to Griffin Greenhouse Supply for donated supplies early in the spring. While they did not approve us for outright donations, they put thru a special discount rate for us that is lower than their own cost. The incredibly low prices provided us with seed starting materials in the early spring and has made it possible to update our hoses, connectors & sprayers for our watering system. I am always amazed when I walk out of there with all sorts of things we need after writing a check that still leaves us money to use later.
What should we do - or NOT do - in 2015 & 2016 ?
FUNDING??
We did not receive ANY financing from anyone in 2014, aside from the very important materials & service donations. We can receive grants under the cemetery's non-profit status - but what should we be looking for? Some possibilities:
more trellising materials
shelving, lights, heating pads for early seed starting. also high quality seed-starting soil
water & plumbing - hoses & barrels were a BIG improvement in 2014, but maybe something more permanent?
rechargeable wee whacker
Rototiller
Should we be trying to have anyone paid? (Can someone check into it for the 2016 season?)
PEOPLE & TASKS
a compost coordinator or team - collect veggie scraps from price Chopper, Starbucks,
Jumpin Jacks, etc., keep track of what the compost pile needs - turning? shoveling, what to use?
a volunteer coordinator who could stay in closer contact with members, phone & email
a neighborhood/community liason - to increase neighborhood ownership in the garden
online coordinator - to keep the website more up-to-date
experienced gardeners who can be in the garden to help at regularly scheduled times -
we heard this most often of all comments - we need more predictability for when there will be someone there.
Sales coordinator - this was very fledgling, but gave us about $160 to spend on next year. We distributed to two
small cafés towards the end of the season for the first time, generating small weekly amounts of cash that
have gradually added up. It was pretty time-intensive for me. If we're going to continue - and hopefully
expand - our marketing - which I think we should - we need someone who can focus on it more and
organize it better. If I was too busy in a given week to do it, we didn't sell anything.It would be better
to have someone else in charge of it
Grant research ? - I am doing some of this, but it would go better if someone else worked on it as well. I'm just now
getting time to look into it and it's already late for some things. More people, more likely success.
Community events display people - there are lots of events that go on and it'd be great to have a presence at them.
WHAT ELSE ? ? ?
2014 - HOW DID IT GO ?
Donations included:
Hudson Valley Seed Library awarded us a donation of 25 organic & heritage seed packs
The Seeds Savers' Exchange awarded us 50 organic & heritage seed packs
Home Depot - donated tools and materials
Schenectady's Central Park Greenhouses contributed crucial spring greenhouse space
Nine Mile Farm in Delmar - harbored plants in their high tunnel and donated multiple flats of seedlings.
In addition to our regular members, Union College students and Schenectady High School International Baccalaureate students helped with lots of time, effort and good will.
DID WE ACCOMPLISH OUR GOALS in 2014?
expanded food productivity: Besides feeding ourselves & our families, we grew enough squash to donate about 200 pounds of summer squash in July and about 30 pounds of green beans. Our ten farm share families have been enjoying multiple harvests of familiar favorites like green beans and squash and discovering new varieties of greens, tomatoes, squash and peppers. It has been a weedy, messy garden full of food.
expanded educational capacity: Our successes in this realm are personal with all of us learning something from someone about how to plant and grow, how or what to weed, ways to eat the things we've grown and getting to know each other.
expanded community participation: in 2013 we were a group of volunteers who gardened and gave away the food we grew. This year we were neighbors and friends sharing gardening time and space to grow food we love and enjoy. It was good.
more flowers and more herbs: Our tall sunflowers, petunias, scarlet runner beans and Mexican sunflowers (the orange bushy ones) brightened the garden a lot this year, bringing positive comments from a lot of people. The flowers have also made a lot of bees and butterflies very happy, which is important in any garden. No bees, no pollinating, no food. Bees' numbers have been decreasing drastically across the U.S. in the past ten years, jeopardizing food production. We've succeeded in helping a little bit.
The idea of a bed of flowers lining the edge of the garden parallel to the cemetery road bit the dust when we realized it is the weediest part of the garden and the flowers would get drowned in weeds. We left it bare and Rennie tilled it repeatedly to keep weed growth down. We left the corner patch of petunias, cosmos and mint, which has been nice to see, but full of weeds underneath. We'll try again next year. Does someone want to make the flower bed/s their main job?
PRETTY SUCCESSFUL!
Problems? Ok, we've definitely had some:
BUGS AND PLANT DISEASES: We've had a lot. Squash borers. Powdery mildew. Downy mildew. Japanese beetles. Brown beetles. Squash bugs. Late blight. The good news is that, despite pest & fungus problems, we've grown a LOT of food! Advice is generally to change where you plant things for the next year and NOT to put any parts of diseased fruits or plants into the compost. Easier said than done in a garden this size. Next year we can cut down on the problems by spacing plants further apart, mulching more, and watering more consistently, earlier in the day and closer to the ground with less on the leaves and fruit. Damp, crowded plants are more likely to get pests and mildews. Some sprays might be helpful and not toxic, but we need to research that. Soil health is also a factor. We planted a winter cover crop and will turn a lot of our mulch into the soil. Adding coffee grinds and egg shells to our compost pile is always good.
VANDALISM: Early tromping of feet through seeded beds wrecked a couple of plantings, particularly the beets. Our 250 onions mostly became catapults and slings, pulled up by kids and flung around the cemetery. A couple of times, we found tomatoes or squash that had been part of somebody's arsenal for throwing or smashing practice. Early on in the season, people were apparently coming thru and digging up entire plants to take home, disappearing with plants from individual plots as well as from our farm beds. Cabbage has been the crop that disappeared the most as seedlings and also as mature heads. Tomato seedlings and veggies were the next most popular to take. As the season neared the end, non members who have not had anything to do with the garden have been coming in and harvesting more and more frequently. We lost about two thirds of our winter squash, most of our frying peppers, and a lot of collards. I think this is a mix of intentional theft and poor signage on our part. We need to make it much more obvious that the garden BELONGS to the people who work on it and that people who want food from it need to help work on it. We also would like to find ways to make it more difficult for random vandals to enter and trash parts of the garden. We planted some prickly raspberry bushes, but we need to leave open runs for the tractor. More people present more often would help too. What else can we do? As for early plant stealing, I suspect what would work best is to do a good job advertising free seedlings, scheduling give-away times and spaces, clearly marking what seedlings people are welcome to take home.
DEER: You may not know this, but the Vale has at least three deer roaming around and they have periodically found our garden, mostly the collards. They had left it alone for most of the summer, but found it consistently in the fall, chomping down our collards & kale and brussel sprouts pretty badly. We can't put up the kind of fencing that would keep deer out - it would need to be 8-12 feet high! Let your dogs pee around the collards and beds of winter greens. String up CD's and things that sparkle, dangle, chime or smell like people or dogs. Save your dogs' fur from brushes or clippings - preferably PRE-shampoo. A friend suggested taking hair clippings and scattering them over the plants so they're less appealing to munch on. Next year we can inter- plant more things they like less - anything hairy, spicy or prickly - nasturtiums, borage, ????
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