Rhode Island Feeds

Over 30 Community Gardens in Providence are providing space for people to grow their own food. Now is the time to rent your plot for the season. Here’s how:

First: Take a look at our map and see if there’s a garden close to your home.

Second: Contact Erika Rumbley, SCLT Gardens Network Coordinator, and she’ll put you in touch with your chosen garden’s leader. Her contact is: gardennetwork@southsideclt.org

If you’re as excited as we are about the growing season ahead, make haste in contacting Erika and securing your garden space: plots are filling up fast, and many already have wait lists. Community and home-grown equates to reductions in grocery spending – save money this spring, summer and fall by acting now!

And remember:

+ Commit to tending your garden for the whole season. We’ll sometimes see people enthusiastic about the first rush of spring, only to abandon their work in the middle of the summer.

+ The financial impact is small, but the time commitment is significant. Every garden has different requirements. Many gardens have mandatory work days, and you’ll want to keep weeds under control through daily maintenance. This is the main reason why living close to your garden plot will save you more time and more money.

Sally forth! Let your urban growing commence!

Help transform your community garden from this...

... into this! Act now to be part of nature's perennial rebirth!

Join is for the signature event of our nearly-here Spring season (second only to, that’s right, the Plant Sale): the Urban Agriculture Spring Kick-Off!

Community, food, friends, music, dancing, popcorn machine (oh yes), and much more…

Don’t miss it!

Southside Community Land Trust’s seed orders have arrived in the mail – germinating has commenced!

The Great Backyard Bird Count fever hit City Farm last week. Rich invited friends of SCLT and staff to help report, for a second year now, on what bird species were hanging around Somerset in 2010. While there were four less species identified this year than last, the turn out was still impressive for our urban habitat, as more birds were sighted than last year (a whopping 42 more).

The Bird Count gave us an opportunity to connect with what other life is nurtured in our community, as well as acknowledge the critical role birds play in City Farm’s ecosystem: spreading seeds, eating insects, inhibiting weed growth and not only as conduits for the effective functioning of natural ecosystems, but also as good indicators of the general state of our biodiversity.

Here’s 2010’s census:

Species* Number of Birds  Red-tailed Hawk 2 Herring Gull 20 Rock Pigeon 12 Mourning Dove 4 Blue Jay 1 American Crow 24 Northern Mockingbird 1 European Starling 40 Song Sparrow 2 Dark-eyed Junco 4 House Sparrow 7 Total 117

Starting in Fall of 2009, members of the Urban Agriculture Task Force (UATF) got together to make a list of all food growing workshops around the city. Their discussions and planning resulted in the creation of this lovely calendar:

First up – the March 20th Spring kick-off!

High praise belongs to fellow AmeriCorps VISTA Jamie Fredricks for her amazing work in pulling it all together. Thanks Jamie, and UATF!

Urban Edge Farm's greenhouse is getting ready...

Support your local farm and sign up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share! The CSA model is one where individuals and families invest financially in their local farm in exchange for a share of that farm’s seasonal harvest.

Benefits of CSA include: supporting your local economy, supporting your farming neighbor, eating hyper-fresh produce of nutritionally-dense proportions for a fraction of the cost found in a given “organic” supermarket (produce that’s oftentimes bussed in from California factory farms), new opportunities to pal-around in the kitchen with crazy experimental crops (purple cauliflower? bitter melons?), CSA pick-up tailgaters (‘Otter Summer Ale incl.) and much, much more.

If the aforementioned sounds like your kind of mind/body/soul party, check out Providence Journal’s article, “Now’s the time to sign up for farm-fresh food,” which includes a list of all the farms in Rhode Island currently offering CSAs. SCLT’s Urban Edge farmers also made the list – hooray!

SCLT’s 18th Annual Rare and Unusual Plant Sale May 15 & 16, 2010

City Farm Steward Rich Pederson is already pouring through seed catalogs to plan for the most spectacular event of the spring!

Stay tuned for announcements of what plants to expect this year. Your vast selection of tomato starts included….

Many folks on SCLT’s staff are enthusiastic about the exciting programs going on in Detroit, Michigan, around urban agriculture. A few of us have even visited to see the community gardens and agricultural education programs, and have been greatly impressed by all the green headway.

Recently at SCLT, there’s been some interesting lunchtime discussion around a Fortune article highlighting a new and somewhat controversial investment in Detroit’s urban agriculture .

A gentleman named John Hantz recently announced his intention to buy over 70 acres of land inside the city of Detroit, MI, for urban agriculture use. That’s right: $30 million invested in an urban agriculture enterprise.

While it’s exciting to see so much funding going into urban agriculture, there seem to be some big questions about this new enterprise. Some think that the investment is a compelling way to revitalize Detroit and explore new technologies that could increase urban food production. Others see the venture as oblivious to promoting food security and the current work being done by Detroit community organizers.

Folks over at Treehugger.com, weighing in on the subject, say:

“Perhaps I spent too much time with developers and real estate people in my architectural career, but Hantz has said it all in Fortune, from his first comment about sopping up excess land and creating scarcity to his last quote about buying a penthouse in New York. This sure sounds like a classic real estate play to me. But if it takes unused land in a temperate part of the country with lots of water and people who need jobs, and grows local and healthy food, go for it. That’s the American way and it works.”

What are your thoughts?

SCLT is making big plans for the coming season – we invite you to stay posted for more green house and office updates in the weeks ahead!

Until then, time to start planning for a maximum food (or flower!) yield in your garden plot. Here are some favorite sites for high quality seed purchasing:

Johnny’s Selected Seeds
SCLT Youth Garden Club loves Johnny’s Selected Seeds Fall Green Manure mix in learning about cover crop.

High Mowing Seeds
Awesome northern Vermonters with a real passion for their craft, and their community.

FEDCO Seeds
Some of the hippest illustrations for a seed catalogue around: total must-have for aspiring urban agriculturists and farmers alike.

Seeds of Change
Check out their section on urban food growing!

(photo credit to Lucas Foglia)

Your visit was highly memorable. We had a great time hearing-tell* about Ghost Town neighborhood rituals, your found Zen in goat raising, and the nastiest of nasty: pig-slop dumpster diving in Chinatown.

Many thanks to Novella and Slow Food RI for making the event happen!

*For those of you who missed the event, you can pick up Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer at Books on the Square