Friday, January 31, 2014

The planting of the FOOD FOREST begins- Saturday, Feb.1st 9am-4pm

First off, I want to thank Barry, Brett, Don, Allen, Mike, Glen, Evan, Calvin, Ray, Nolan, Jeff, the Boyscouts, Angelica, Matthew, Kirby, Taelor and Matthew for coming out last Saturday and hauling 22 cubic yards of soil from the city parking lot to the garden.  Thank you GEOGROWERS!

NO SMALL FEAT for so few.  For those that couldn't make it, you missed an incredible core workout!

Paul Galvan and his camera crew got WAY too many shots of us hauling dirt, but this Saturday is gonna be different.  This Saturday, we're gonna PLANT!  The video crew will be back, so we need the ENTIRE COMMUNITY to come out and represent our fair city.  We'll be working from 9am to 4pm, so even if you only have an hour or two, come by and support this amazing project.

Kirby Fry and his permaculture team will be teaching us about the wonderful world of Dynamic Accumulators, Pollinators, Farmer's Trees, Cover Crops and Guilds.

Sorry, no photos of the beds and last weeks work day, (too busy hauling dirt!), but I'll add a little video from Geoff Lawton, a founder of the Permaculture movement.  This inspired me to want to build a Food Forest.

The Greening of the Desert


Sunday, January 12, 2014

The FOOD FOREST is coming! WE NEED YOUR HELP Sat. Jan 25th

Hello and Happy New Year!
2014 is already turning out to be a good one. The Rollingwood Women's Club has generously donated funds towards the building of 4 food forest planting beds along the north perimeter of the trail between the playground and garden.

THANKS RWC!

A food forest mimics the natural, self-nurturing cycles of a native forest where the bigger trees provide a shade canopy and deciduous matter that protects and fertilizes smaller trees, bushes, vines and ground cover below.  Our design will provided fruits, nuts, berries and herbs to the neighborhood!

It's an opportunity for us to try a different type of gardening, one that, once established, can survive with very little human intervention and provide really interesting results.  We will be working with our permaculture design expert, Kirby Fry, of Southern Exposure.  Kirby helped us build the garden and he is a powerhouse in the Central Texas permaculture world.

Our first of two workdays will be SATURDAY, Jan. 25th starting at 9:00am, second work day (if needed) will be the following SATURDAY, Feb.1st.

JOIN IN, it's a great way to connect to the community and your family and WE NEED YOUR ELBOW GREASE!  We'll be hauling lots of dirt from the city's parking lot to the garden beds, bring a shovel, rake and wheelbarrow if you have it.  I can give teenagers community service hours, so get them off the screens and into nature!

LOOK YOUR BEST, because Galvan Creative will be videotaping the event as a possible documentary on "How to build a Food Forest".

Here's a PLANT LIST we're using provided by Caroline Riley, Austin Permaculture Guild teacher.

We hope you'll come out and be a part of the next phase of the Rollingwood Community Education Garden!