Posts Tagged ‘2012’

Dog Head Farms Day 1: Cleared out, ready for beds

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

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Man… things really worked out in our favor yesterday. All yall that missed it really messed up. Within the first hour of our work day start we had a yard mule on the way to help out with the big weeds and an offer of more land in the neighborhood on which to plant.

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Dana working the grilled cheese/PB&J station

We got way more done yesterday than I would have ever thought: land completely cleared, large compost bin built, neighboring fig tree rescued, existing fence posts cleared for trellising, and preliminary contour marking of the land for raised beds (see below) — basically our overgrown, weedy lot has been completely transformed and we’re now ready to plan out some beds and start digging! Many many thanks go to Dana, Nate, Hope, Lorenz, Grady, Dixon, LaMatra, Venece, Christina, Maggie, Magaggie, Manny, Stacy, Lilli, Chris, Randy, Rick, John and Dodger!

When we first received this property, we had two big concerns: water access and the slope of the land. The more we’ve been researching it, the more convinced we’ve become of permaculture and hugelkultur practices in particular as being able to address both of these issues — basically the practice of building raised beds atop of piles of rotting logs. The logs absorb loads of water, release lots of organic matter in to the soil, and even “self-till” the soil through creation of air pockets as they decompose. Supposedly, if the beds are built big enough (6 feet+ in height) you can get away without irrigation whatsoever. We’re not quite equipped to even take on that kind of experiment, but we’re going to do plenty of smaller beds and see how far we can get.

In order to do these raised beds effectively, they need to be built to follow the contour of the hill on which they lay. This makes it so that water traveling downhill hits the bed uniformly and doesn’t funnel to a single point and break through the bed. To do that, one uses an ingenious but simple tool called an A frame to mark out the contour of the land. We have done some amount of this already, and will be doing more next week. From there, we begin digging and laying logs.

So consider this an open call for lumber: drop it off at our site! We need lots and lots of wood for these beds, and the more we have, the more we can do and the bigger we can do.

And while we’re at it, let’s go ahead and plan our next work day for this Sunday, February 12th at noon. While our first work day was much more of a clean up day, this will be more of a planning day — contour marking the land, laying out paths between the beds, planting some fruit trees, and hopefully moving some logs around and digging some dirt as well. See you there!

Tags: 2012, hugelkultur
Posted in Dog Head | No Comments »

Dog Head Farms Inaugural Meeting / Work Day – Saturday Feb 4th

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

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Hey folks…we’re pretty to excited to announce that a generous benefactor has donated use of his land to Concrete Jungle, so we’re turning it in to a farm! It’s got lots of sunshine, a small stream, and tons of potential. Conveniently located in Sylvan Hills, the land is barely a 10 minute drive from downtown Atlanta. And the name? Well, it’ll make sense when you get there.

Our current plans for the farm include:

  1. Grow lots of produce to donate, especially during our picking off-season
  2. Plant lots of fruit trees
  3. Start some beehives
  4. Offer our volunteers new and fun opportunities
  5. Get a little money for Concrete Jungle to hire a summer intern to help with the picking season

Things are still pretty open-ended in the design, and this means we absolutely want yall’s help in planning things and making it real. For now, we know for sure that we need to clean the land up, so we’re starting with that: we’re having our inaugural farm work day / meeting on Saturday, February 4th at noon. The farm is located in the empty lot next to 1117 Birch St.

Unlike our usual summer picking events, which tend to be at least somewhat well choreographed and organized, we are flying by the seat of our pants with our farm, which means this is your chance to help get a great urban agriculture project off the ground.

Since this our first work day, our tool supply is going to be somewhat limited, and it is highly encouraged that folks bring tools if they can. This would include weed eaters, lawn mowers, tillers, trash bags, loppers, pruning shears and rakes.

Our general wishlist is of course much larger and includes:

  • Seeds (cucumbers, beets, bell and spicy peppers, greens, summer squash, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, flowers/herbs for pest control)
  • Seedlings
  • Mulch
  • Garden hose and nozzle
  • Organic pest control: neem oil, pyrethrin/pyganic, bt, horticultural vinegar
  • Gloves
  • Stirrup Hoes
  • Shovels
  • Flat Shovels
  • Hoe
  • Soft and Hard Rakes
  • Organic Fertilizers
  • Fence post driver
  • T-posts
  • Metal hoops for floating row cover
  • 5 gallon buckets
  • Backpack sprayer
  • Large water totes/rain barrels

Long list right? Well, that’s okay. It’s a wishlist. We’re hoping that maybe 1 out of 50 people have something they’d be happy to donate to us and that things will all work out.

Look forward to seeing yall!

Tags: 2012, abundance, dog head
Posted in Dog Head | No Comments »

Support Concrete Jungle!

  • Check out our needs and how we work
  • Donate your tree!
3208 lbs. of fresh, local, organic produce donated in 2011
Upcoming picks:
  • May, 2012
Upcoming plantings/work days:
  • February 11, 4:30 pm, Brown Middle School
  • February 12, Noon, Dog Head Farms
  • February 12, 4:30 pm, Eastside Mini-Orchard
In season/upcoming foods:
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