Giving Garden Gala at Cafe Bella

Giving Garden Gala Fundraiser to Build a Greenhouse & Provide Healthy Food to Low-Income Families/Sat. Feb. 28 from 2-10 p.m.
Do you like helping local causes? Want to be involved in bringing healthy, nutritious food to local families in need?  Here is a worthy fundraiser! The greenhouse is intended to provide produce and plant starts to give to the local SDA CHOICE food pantry on 80 S. 18th St. The project seeks to get fresh produce into the hands of low-income poeple, and also to teach them how to grow and prepare simple nutritious food on their own. Please consider volunteering at the Giving Garden Gala at Café Bella, 2593 N. High Street.  Volunteers can expect to work for two hour shifts from 2-10pm (later for clean-up crew) coordinating admissions, (wo)maning the silent auction and raffle, educating guests at the information booth, or helping with general maintenance and clean-up. Volunteers will be asked (but not expected to pay general admission / just like everyone else involved), but will receive a small entrée as a ‘thank you’ for helping. If anyone wants to
volunteer for two shifts, s/he will also receive a ‘free meal voucher’ from Café Bella, to be redeemed at a later date.  If you’re interested in joining the ranks, please contact us at givinggardencolumbus@gmail.com and let us know your name, phone number, email address, and the times you’d like to work. Feel free to specify a station, and we will try to accommodate. For more information, check out our Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=47370633098> and MySpace <www.myspace.com/cafebellacolumbus> pages. Thanks!

What is the National Animal Identification System & Why It Should Be Rejected

Web Video of the Week: What is the National Animal Identification System & Why It Should Be Rejected.

Part 1:

Make sure you view Part 2 here

Schoharie Co-op Cannery

Community cannery is being explored in eastern upstate NY. The cannery will serve local farmers as a co-packer providing canned foods that farmers will sell directly to their customers.

It may be worth following their progress for ideas on our own Ohio regional cannery.

Schoharie Co-op Cannery.

musings from Karen

It’s been a busy week and I have a cold. Here’s what’s new. The mobile processing meeting happened at OSU. Much promise here for new farmers having opportunities to enter the competitive chicken industry. I left my take in a blog on the localfoodsystems.org site. There was an article in The Lantern at OSU about a student farm having problems starting. The students want to go organic. The professors/advisers want to include pesticides as part of the course being developed. Check the Lantern blog site to lend your support for their endeavors. I did. 4 Seasons City Farm met this week. They need volunteers. There are openings on the board and anyone who wants to garden can sign up at their web page. Free seeds are available as well. I’m hoping to do a more entertaining write up about these wonderful projects. But for now. Get going. Get Green.

Small Farmer marketing options

Currently local food consists of a relatively small number of farmers selling direct at farmers markets and via their own CSAs.  While this works well, it has limitations as the demand for good local food grown by small farmers increases.  I would like to explore new creative ways that farmers can sell direct to consumers.

1. Create new farmers markets in every neighborhood for local sustainably grown food, each with business model to fit the needs of the community.

2.  Create new types of sales venues for farmers that address the logistical limitations of traditional farmers’ markets. Perhaps this could be achieved with small local-food-only stores with a format like a farmers market where each farmer has a booth (only without having to be there all the time) . Displayed with the product, would be information on how the product is produced, photos, mailing list sign up and full contact info for the farmer in case the customer wants to get in touch. The idea being that the farmer is always accessible to the consumer.  The store could hold events where farmers can come in and meet their customers, talk about the product and establish a face to face relationship.

The proprietors of the store would make sure that the products sold meet the criteria for being local, sustainably grown, etc, much like the role of  farmers market managers in a traditional setting.  The proprietor would also make sure the farmer is in fact accessible to their customers. The store provides a venue that is convenient to the customer, support staff to the busy farmer.

Comments?

The Columbus Dispatch : Ann Fisher commentary: City should welcome urban chickens

There has been alot of activity in Columbus lately regarding the urban chicken movement.

At the center of the controversy are Worthington residents Andy and Lael Rozmiarek,  who have asked Worthington City Council to change an 1973 ordinance that essentially bans the keeping of chickens in backyards in the city (within 150 feet of any residence, other than their owners).  Worthington already has a law that prohibits keeping animals that  “create offensive odors, excessive noise or unsanitary conditions which are a menace to the health, comfort or safety of the public.”

The Columbus Dispatch : Ann Fisher commentary: City should welcome urban chickens.

The above article was blogged about in Mother Earth News’ Happy Homesteader blog with some interesting comments about how ordinances are inappropriate broad-stroke reactions to a few cases of irresponsible animal owners.

Unfortunately as covered by This Week on Feb. 10th, the hens in question were killed by a couple of loose dogs.  The Rozmiareks say the fence was cut to let in the dogs.  Police said they found no evidence of this or footprints at the scene. The owner of the dogs has been cited.

Andy Rozmiarek plans to continue to ask council to change the ordinance.  If you live in Worthington please contact your City Council members and City manager Matt Greeson to support removing the chicken ban ordinance and support laws that allow responsible animal ownership, even if those animals are traditionally considered farm animals.

by Mayda

Meeting on New Food Processing Infrastructure in Ohio

Leslie Schaller, Consultant and Director of AceNet’s Food Venture Center will be presenting at a state level meeting next Wednesday, February 18th from 10-12:00 at the Ohio Department of Agriculture

If you are in any stage of the process of developing a Food Business Incubator – or “shared use commercial kitchen”. please join us.

The goals of the meeting are to identify the existing and nascent efforts across the state of Ohio, share information on the different scales and models, operation, and ongoing support for these facilities.

More information and RSVP info at localfoodsystems.org

Free Resources for Starting Your Garden

Here are couple of good resources for starting Community Gardens. These are also useful if you are starting your own personal or market garden.

The Get Green Columbus Community Garden Manual Guide The guide is published by the City of Columbus and has information on getting access to land plots, borrowing tools and other resources to get started.

During February, The Franklin Park Conservatory has a free 2 hour class on starting a community garden:

This FREE educational program is designed to provide gardeners with the information and resources necessary to launch and sustain their community garden. This program is presented as a partnership between the Columbus Foundation, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, and Franklin Park Conservatory.

Classes will be two hours long, with a lecture during the first hour, and the second hour featuring group discussion with current community gardeners. Dates: February 4, 11, 18 & 25
Time: Wednesday evenings, 6-8 p.m.
Cost: Free, with advance registration required.
Binders with hard copies of course materials
will be available for $10.
Class size is limited to 45 participants.

For more information call 645-8733 or  visit their website.

New Year New Gardens

Food glorious food.
I first wrote this several months ago as an inivitation to meetings at the infoshop. Today I use it to herald in the new year after being at several inspirational retreats and planning sessions for gardens around the city. Drop us a line and we’ll connect you up. Create your own project and you can post it here. sincerely kareng

I seem to indulge in eating as a hobby every day. But it’s much more then that. Where would we be without food. That’s a major issue facing people every day now. Seems we can’t live without it. Then there are the quality issues and the availability issues. It’s got a lot of people worried. Here’s what I think about it. We need it. It should be good for us. And we should enjoy having it.
Unfortunately this is not the case unless you believe all the advertising on TV and think the vast amounts of processed prepackaged stuff at the store is good for you. I don’t. I’ve had colon cancer. I’m overweight and my parents and many of my not so much older relatives died because of food related diseases. Some changes need to be made. Here’s what I suggest.
Support local community gardens and farmers. I know for a fact after much research that this is the way to go. You need exercise. Then go double dig and weed a garden for yourself and a friend. You don’t want heart and stomach problems. Eat more whole grains, fruit and vegetables. That’s basically it. Doing these things will lower your health care costs, food budgets and reconnect you to your community. Why don’t we have local food anymore. Because like sheep we let corporations and high paid business men steal our wealth. We allowed corporate grocery chains and farms out west and down south put the family owned grocery store out of business. Do these big businesses really provide jobs with benefits. Do you know any of your neighbors when you go shopping. Does self service mean you get the highest quality possible at the lowest price. Can you tell the difference between a strawberry picked yesterday down the street from what’s coming from Florida or Mexico. I sure can. I remember picking fresh and eating super sweet berries. Not like the bitter ones from the store today. And just how much pesticide is on this stuff from other countries. Do you know? I dread to think.
So the next step is to learn how to localize food and finding space to do it. I have many ideas on this subject. There have been many different ways used to accomplish this for many cultures and groups of people who are into good health and good community. In Europe the Allotment gardens have been an integral part of community. A large percent (in comparison to the USA) of food is home grown in the permanent garden. They include shed’s, water, fire pits, shared expenses and even inheritance rights for being passed on within the family or sold as shares to new “owners”. France, Italy and most other countries still support a large market garden business community for profit on small plots that range from one to 5 acres. America created Victory Gardens during W W II. Some of which still exist. During the depression the government stepped in with many WPA farms to shore up local communities. Even theater companies owe their success to requiring actors to work a garden. The Black Panthers were and are food coops despite their reputation as “terrorists” With the way things are. We may need to return to this. It’s living and eating in community that has been forgotten by most Americans. One can even join the growing number of Guerrilla Gardeners. A time honored profession since the 60’s.
Now’s the time to sign up for a vacant city lot, plan your garden and order some seeds. The Growing to Green Program is gearing up at Franklin Park. 4 Seasons City Farm is making plots available as well as many other newly formed and forming garden groups coming to a neighborhood near you. For more specific info drop us a line.