How much have we spent on our Urban Farm Startup?



free scrap wood for our compost bins



Being a budget minded person, I really don't want to spend any money that I don't have to.  When we began this project I was also adomate that I did not want our volunteers to constantly have to sow their own money for the survival of the farm startup either.  So what have we done? Well, if I had to choose just two things that will get you off and running, I would say:

Are you going to use that?

What are the three most important factors in Real Estate? Location, location, location!  Well in Urban low budget farm start ups, we have a similar montra.  Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose!  Find anything and everything that can be reused.  We are using 5 gallon pickle buckets from a deli for planting containers. Drill a couple of small holes in the bottom and you're ready! We've scoured local hardware stores for scrap wood that they aren't using, they are more than happy to give it to you to get it off of their lot.* They've also had torn bags of potting soil laying around that they can't sell due to damage, load it up!  We've also asked our volunteers and neighbors for any old gardening tools or pots they have laying around their home collecting dust . It seems everyone has gotten inspired to garden at some time in their life. Some have stuck to it, some haven't. And "spring cleaning" is a great time to help them get rid of their old gardening stuff.  Our rain barrels all came from a plant that gets their products delivered in 55gal drums.** Scour your neighborhood or the local shopping center, use your imagination. If you see something lying around, ask yourself, "How could we use that?" After all, free is the best price!

Build a team!



tomato stakes from discarded road side signs



Would you believe that there are people out there that do what you do better than you? AND, there are people that are gifted with certain talents and abilities that you do not possess? Well there are and they will prove invaluable in your startup process. Our foreman, we call him Pops, is contractor who runs his own handyman/repair/small construction service.  Anytime there was a need for supplies, tools, etc, this guy knew where to find it! I mean literally, I mention wood for beds and a compost bin, he chimes in, "Oh there is a stack of old lumber behind my client's house that she doesn't want, I'll go grab it." AWESOME! I mean we literally fenced in our garden space with chain link fence and wood posts that he got from a construction site FOR FREE! And what is the best price? FREE! Get one of these guys on your team and they will prove invaluable.

A scouter. Do you have someone who has time on their hands during the day? Maybe they work evenings or are retired. In other words, they have some time to run around and find all of the things that the project needs. Our scouter is Trena, she is a hustler boy! She has found us free stakes for our tomato plants, older wood that we are using for our compost bins, and top soil for our beds.



not a great pic, but free topsoil to add to our compost pile



There are many others on our team that I haven't mentioned here. We are very fortunate to have all of them utilizing their talents and abilities for the project. Deb, TC, Lenita, Pops, Josh, Trena, Gail! Moneka, and Chris are all playing vital roles in our growth. 

Moral of the story, if just one or two of us were doing this, we wouldn't be nearly as far along. Our team has the benefit of 10 networks to help get the job done.  Moral of the story? GET A TEAM!!!

How much have we spent?

What are the big costs associated with the project?  Well we haven't had a great deal of cash outlay. We spent $25 on seeds(we had a great deal of seeds donated as well), $15 on some spray paint for the outside of the containers, maybe $50 on hardware for the rain barrels, and some starter soil for our starter cell trays.  Not bad!

We are getting ready to incur our largest expense to date though.  Soil time! Since we have an 8x4 bed, and 8-4x4 beds, we need a good amount of soil and compost.  We're going to need a few truckloads, so the cash outlay will be relatively high compared to what we've already put into the project.  However, I will say this. Your growing medium should be your greatest investment!

We, as humans, make our homes our greatest investment, and rightfully so! We live there, we eat, play, and grow there. It is our hub.  And your plants are no different. This is the environment that will produce hundreds and hundreds of pounds of produce over its lifetime. Starting with the best you can afford and adding to it over the years will pay you back many many times over. If I had to tell you the one area of this project that we are committing to the greatest investment, it is our soil!

So in closing, use your imagination to repurpose and build a team to help.  Both will save you time and money on your project! Get to it!

KD

*depending on what kind of wood you're looking for. If you desire untreated wood, you should ask if it's be en treated with chemicals or pressure treated. It is thought that the chemicals can leak into the soil.

**you should look for food grade barrels. Barrels used for chemicals are unsafe.



Food grade barrels for rain collection







Seedling Progress week 4!

Seeds are making such great progress in their 4th week of life. We have a little over 200 seedlings consisting of 7 varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, chiles, bell peppers, marigolds, and lavender. Of course we will be direct sowing some more items once construction of the raised beds are finished. We will have pease, green beans, collards, kale, beets, carrots, tons of lettuce and spinach, and watermelons.

The seeds really shot up all at once, and since we sowed two seeds per cell for many of the varieties, we had to thin quickly. The germination success rate for the seeds was great and it is looking as if the garden will be quite bountiful.  

Construction of the beds is scheduled for April 19th with a couple of the guys and myself doing the work.  In all we are planning on 1-8x4 bed and 8-4x4 beds. We like the manageable size of the 4x4's and the larger bed will house the bulk of our salad vegetables.  All in all, progress is good and we're excited!

Plant sale for fundraising is coming up. If you're in the DC area and like what we're doing, stay tuned!

Small Urban Farms preach the Gospel of the Garden

Gardening became of huge interest and importance to me in the past 3 years or so.  Being a chef, I've always seen the value in sourcing the very best ingredient, after all the best dishes require the best ingredients.  And while I work in DC primarily, I live in the suburbs and sourcing the best ingredients can be a challenge.  Overrun with chain grocery stores and large corporate restaurants who often care nothing about having the finest ingredients on hand, suburbia is not the best place for those seeking farm fresh ingredients.  

So I began growing things at home, on a whim I might add, that were important to me. Starting small with some herbs, tomatoes , and chiles, it has grown into an ever-expanding interest to numerous vegetables, canning our own products, etc.  

And I began to realize that our grandparents(depression era kids), really had it figured out. Though they often had vegetable gardens and practiced canning their own products out of necessity, they knew that this was the best and only way to control quality in their kitchens. Not to mention the numerous economic and health benefits that accompanied having a plethora of fresh vegetables growing steps from their back door(see my other post "10 Reasons Why I Have a Vegetable Garden").  

Needless to say I'm sold. Not just sold, but sold out! Sold out on the fact that this is how we should live. I found myself preaching the "Gospel of the Garden" to EVERYONE! So how can I help in convincing those around me and the community at large that this is the way we should go? 

Having a conversation with a good friend and Pastor, I shared a vision of creating a "Food Mecca" in the middle of an under served community. Food vendors and local farmers offering their products, smack dab in the middle of a food desert in Metro DC. The neighborhood isn't known for its variety of food choices. Chinese carry outs and fast food joints are practically all around and those in the community are more often than not hog tied to these choices.

So why not take this newfound passion and translate it to a community development project? Give the people what they don't know that they really want and need.

So on a lot, a church parking lot actually, we're starting with a small 20'x25'(roughly 500 sq. ft.) patch of gravel filled dirt and starting to garden with the intent of distributing food to our neighbors, preaching the Gospel of the Garden to them.  Offering organically grown veggies and fruits at conventional prices, not to make a buck, but to transform the food climate in a small DC community.

KD

Here's our little patch, with more to be added in the years to come. 

 We have a large tract of unused space directly behind the church building that we are going to be taking over. It used to flood whenever it rained(referenced in my upcoming "Install a rain barrel" post), but now we are going to line the area with 12'x4' raised beds next year. Should be able to get at least 10 beds in there. That's almost doubling our planting area!

10 Reasons Why I have a Vegetable Garden

Dozens of reasons to pick up the ol' shovel and soil. Here are my Top 10 of why I did! 10. Nothing and I mean nothing will compare in taste to vegetables grown in your back yard. If you've never done a taste comparison, do yourself a favor. Grab a tomato from a Farmer's Market or a friends back yard and compare that to a grocery store bought tomato. You will never go back. It's gotten so bad that I refuse to eat tomatoes anytime between November and May(regions vary in growing season.)

9. It excites children. My daughter LOVES "her" garden!  We have been walking past our containers all winter long and she sadly says, "It's not growing daddy." She was quite the helper during the growing season as well.  Something else I've noticed is that when kids see the produce that they're used to seeing on the shelves of their local grocery store actually growing on a plant, they are filled with questions and awe. Teach them where food comes from! 

8. I needed a hobby.  My life is stressful! We are always running around from this to that. Wife's schedule, my schedule, kid's schedule, BLAH! Being in your own garden is a calm that you find few places. 30'mins a day can be more relaxing than a therapy session with your shrink...and you get tomatoes!

7. Sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Taking a plant from seed or seedling through a season and seeing tangible, measurable results is satisfying.  In most of our professions we drill away at computers, calculators, documents, etc all day long. This virtual online world is not built for us to hold a finished product in our hand. Maybe that's why we aren't satisfied at our jobs, we don't produce anything!  

6. More vegetables=better health. Unless you're in the habit of throwing a lot of food away, if you have fruits and veggies around you'll eat them. Right? It's hard to turn down those tomatoes and hot peppers when they are ripe on your vines. I'll spare you the HUNDREDS of reasons to eat more vegetables, but if they are already in your yard, don't you think you'd eat it?  

5. Saves $$$.  As a budget nerd, this one is huge for me!  I'll stay with my tomato examples. The average price per pound of tomatoes is around $2.99 in my area. Let's be conservative. If you only planted one tomato plant and conservatively only got ten pounds of tomatoes, that's $30. From a seed that only costed a fraction of a penny!  My household didn't buy a single tomato, hot pepper, or any herbs from a grocery store for almost 7 months! So how much do you want to lower your grocery bill?

4. More variety in my diet.  You ever notice that the produce section of the grocery stores always seem to have the same old thing? Same boring broccoli, same two kinds of tomatoes. BO-RING!!!  There are hundreds of varieties that you'll never know about unless you grow your own! Spice up your family dinners! Get growing! 

3. Pick only what you need.  I despise throwing food out from having it go bad. Herbs are a particular nuisance. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a bunch of cilantro for some salsa, only to use 1/4 of it and have the rest go bad.  Well, if you have a cilantro pot in the backyard, you can pick the little bit you need and leave the rest to keep on growing. More $$$ in your pocket and less waste! 

  2. I can influence the food industry.  With all the talks of GMO's, food borne illness from food processing plants, and on and on.  I can tell the multi billion dollar industrial food industry NO!  I am growing my own, I am not as dependent on you as you think I am, I don't want your "pseudo-food products!" Stick it to the man!

1. Finally, and probably my favorite, having a surplus of fresh delicious food almost forces you to learn more about food and cooking.  After all what are you going to do with all of those tomatoes?!?!?!? What if you extended the use of your produce through the winter by learning how to jar your own tomato sauce or salsa? Ever had a homemade pickle? How about delicious frozen blueberries that you grew in your garden just waiting on your next smoothie concoction?  Make your own herb infused oils. Learn about juicing.  I could go on, I'm gifted in speaking, lol! 

So this is why I choose to garden! Did any of these compel you? Why will you take it up? Don't be scared, get some dirt and learn as you go. Happy planting!  

KD