Tour of potential backyard CSA locations

Hello friends and family of the Salida Backyard CSA,

We are getting more offers of land all the time, which is very exciting. I feel it will be very easy for us to bump up to eight gardens in our second season when we have our funding online. For this season, we are trying to decide on two sites that will be the easiest to build and maintain, and be good representatives of what we're up to. It think the best long-term plan is to cluster sites around downtown Salida as much as possible. This is why some sites which might have great gardening attributes, like Lum Pennington's, are not on this short list.

I've gone to most of the sites that I have gotten contact info for, and narrowed them to five potentials, which are of bike-able distance apart (an important long-term consideration of what sites we choose.)

So we will start closer to the river and work our way west, here's the tour starting at 9 am Saturday the 9th (tomorrow!):

301 Scott St. Steve Duhane

(from the 1st and F stoplight, head east down First until it turns the corner and becomes Oak. Take a left pretty quick on Dodge, and the next right onto Scott. The property is on the right near the end of the street. We will distribute maps of the tour here.


View salida backyard csa options in a larger map

104 Wood St. Angela Damman
246 Blake Arden Trewartha and Read McCulloch
146 E. 6th Laurie Newman
638 I St. Rhiannon Larsen

Please give a quick reply to this email if you're planning to come.
call me with any questions, last-minute issues: 207-0069

Thanks,
Eric

Backyard CSA update from Eric

If you are new to our idea: we are planning to use backyards and other unused spaces in Salida to create a Community Supported Agriculture multi-site farm.

Our first meeting was a great success. Thanks to Tia, Dave Bowers, Matthew Clark and Lawton for your help, and to everyone who came and shared your ideas, reactions and singing voices. (Yes, this is a singing movement, refer to the inspiring 2007 documentary Pete Seeger: the Power of Song for what this means. Happy 90th birthday May 3rd Pete!)

The next step is to tour the properties we have on our short list so we can choose the first two demonstration gardens we are going to do this summer. We are deliberately starting small to get our feet on the ground, and because we are starting late in terms of the real farming season. The properties not chosen will be first in line for consideration next season.

I will collate all the sites and map them this week, and then I would like to ask anyone who is interested to join a tour of them this Saturday, May 9th at 9:00 am. It would be nice to do this tour by bike; the distances on the map will determine if this is feasible. I would like to be done with this tour by 11:30-12:00 at the latest. Please let me know if you're planning to come.

In selecting sites, it's important that the homeowner or landlord envisions being there for at least three, preferably five years to make our energy and money investment in infrastructure pay off. Of course, life is unpredictable and things change, but most people should be able to guess if they're about to move or if they're settled for a while.

In the inspiration category, here's the website for the similar Boulder effort, Community Roots Farm. They've been at it 3 1/2 years and now have 13 sites. I'm trying to arrange a consulting meeting with their lead organizer Kipp Nash to shorten our learning curve. Also, there is a term for what we're planning, it's called SPIN farming.

Please be in touch,
thanks,
Eric
207-0069

Details about our next Transition Initiative meeting

This meeting is at the library at 6:30PM, May 7th; come and help us create our sustainable Salida vision.

Imagine... It’s 2030.
Salida has successfully transitioned to a lower energy, more localized economy. As such, we have become the model for all other Colorado towns engaged in their own transition processes. People come from far and wide to be inspired by our achievement.

Your job is to act as their tour guide.

Your designated group (i.e. food, energy, building, waste) will have twenty minutes to design a ten minute walking tour to introduce the rest of the group to the fantastic developments the have made Salida so resilient to climate change, peak oil and economic instability.

We will divide up into groups at 6:40PM. PLEASE, OH PLEASE be on time so we can get going on designing our tours!

Tools needed: paper and pencil (as well as your prompt presence)

Backyard Community Supported Agriculture biz in Salida

We want to start a Community Supported Agriculture business in Salida, using people's backyards or other unused spaces to grow food, create jobs and local self-reliance in the face of serious challenges to the national economy. This idea is not new, it's being done in cities across the country. We can do it here in Salida as well.

MyFarm from East Bay Pictures on Vimeo.
(MyFarm is a decentralized urban farm which grows vegetables in backyard gardens throughout the city of San Francisco. For more info go to http://www.myfarmsf.com)

For the folks who are already on board, it seems like a good way to go is to spend this upcoming season getting two gardens going as demonstration sites that we can take our angel investors to that look great. We have serious offers of space from three people, and a lot of interest from potential farmers, and we have barely begun our networking and marketing. My experience of talking about this idea so far has been like selling umbrellas in a thunderstorm. Many people have an intuitive sense that we are needing to move ahead as fast as we can on local food, and that we have that capability right here in Salida. Next season (2010) we will hopefully have our first 8 partner farmers and our first eight sites ready to go early in spring.

Tia Pleiman has generously offered her space at the Creative Playhouse for the meeting (thanks Tia, thanks Lawton!). It is at 230 E. 1st St. (between D & E). The meeting will start at 7:00 on Thursday April 30th. I can stay until 8:30 when I rehearse with the Groove Farmers, but if other folks are interested in continuing, don't let me stop you. Gina or anyone else: you know there's nothing quite like fresh baked goods to spruce up a meeting... ;-)

Call me 207-0069 or email with questions.

Thanks,
your backyard farmer,
Eric Belsey

Fruit, fermentation, beekeeping and backyard CSAs

If anyone has a fruit tree that could be cloned or grafted, please pass info along to one of us, Aaron Mendelkorn or me. We would love to get an inventory of such trees. We can plant potentially hundreds of new fruit trees simply using the trees already here.

If anyone is interested in learning about fermented foods, aka Nourishing Traditions style, with lactofermentation, we are forming a group to meet to try new recipes. Lactofermentation is an ancient process using lactobacilli bacteria that produce lactic acid, which is a natural preservative. This method of preservation also enhances the quality of nutrition with food, creating healthy enzymes (something seriously missing in the western diet), vitamins and minerals, benefical bacteria, and and for example can make a tasty fizzy refreshing drink all combined into one. This can also be used to preserve many foods for months without going bad in the fridge, requires no canning and thereby reduces energy usage by letting the bacteria do all the work.

Remember there is the Crestone beekeeping course this Monday, April 27th. Several of us will be going. Let me or Denise Ackert know if you are interested to carpool. We have at least 7 going at this point. I can forward the info via email.

Also, if anyone is interested in Eric Belsey's backyard CSA idea, you may contact Eric at 719-207-0069, or egbelsey@yahoo.com

See everyone at the next meeting, May 7th, 6:30pm at the Library.

Dave Bowers
namaste@organicfool.com
720-732-9125