[BCNA] Belmont Neighborhood Gardens Proposal - Please contact me if interested.

[kimber hawkey]

“Fruits of Our Labor”

Neighborhood Gardens Proposal

Fruits of Our Labor Neighborhood Gardens

Founder/Director: 
Kimber Leigh Hawkey

709 Belmont Ave, 293-3789, hawkeyk at yahoo.com

1st Proposal Draft for a
Belmont Neighborhood Garden:  

Belmont
Neighborhood Garden (future gardens within the network = “(Name of
Neighborhood) + Neighborhood Garden”

The Belmont Neighborhood Garden
is meant to be a pilot program to evaluate the viability of creating a
network of community urban neighborhood gardens.  Each neighborhood garden
would share resources as much as member-gradeners needs and wants.  

In the future, should this project
do well, there would be a possibility of setting up a service
venture whereby we provide the service of organizing and maintaining the
neighborhood garden network.  In the future, for new neighborhood gardens,
there could be a nominal entry fee to cover the administrative costs of
maintaining and organizing this network of each of these neighborhood gardens. 

Plan:  contact and
organize (1) all of the current gardeners, (2) people with fruit trees not
being harvested, and (3) people who would like to install a garden within the
Belmont-Carleton neighborhood with a view to coordinating our plantings and sharing
in the produce and/or flowers grown.  Sharing
of produce, flowers, materials, manpower and knowledge.

At
this stage, we are not looking
to obtain a plot of land that everyone works and shares, but rather to utilize
the neighborhood backyard/frontyard gardens (that each member maintains on
their own) in a cooperative fashion.

Preferably,
this gardening effort will be done with a view to practicing pesticide-free,
chemical-free, organic gardening practices. 
Biodegradable, nonharmful products such as seaweed oils or NEEM would be
allowed, however.

Method:

1.    
 Obtain and put
into an onine forum (Box.net, Google doc database, Yahoo! group) the following
info. which is to be updated on a regular basis:











a.     contact infob.     what growing in current gardens or what each gardener
would like to grow.c.     
amount being
grown of what they would like to share 


 

2.    
 Within
this online arena people could publish:

a.     
what they have
ready to harvest/offer

b.     if they needed assistance in the garden

c.     
ask/answer
gardening questions

d.     seek help for garden care when going on vacation.

e.     
offer/request a
loan of materials

3.    
 Possibilities
for site to share veg/plants/fruit:

a.      Rotate
yards/houses with member network.

b.      Neighborhood
Church involvement: ask Belmont Baptist Church, Church St. Church, or the Mennonite
Church about using their parking lot area.

c.     
Local
neighborhood school involvement: Clark School yard.  Use school yards to grow food as part of an
educational project as well?

4.    
 Questions
to answer

a.     how to determine “shares”

b.     do we require that things be grown organically,
pesticide free?

c.     
use some kind of
bartering coupons?

d.     how to determine equivalencies between produce and
flowers, i.e.  1 plant = 1plant? ; 1lb =
1lb? ; 2lb of veg = 1 pint of berries?

e.     how to decide about members selling their products within
or without the network?  Should there be
some kind of commitment or not to amounts?

f.      
f.  do we combine to meet
the 5lb. minimum of purchase by the Local Food Hub?  

The cooperative service could include
possibly:

1.     sharing of excess produce grown

2.     swapping of seeds, seedlings, and cuttings for
propagation.

3.     sharing of resources, i.e roto-tillers, pots, etc.

4.     sharing of advice and knowledge

5.     taking care of garden/watering while if a member goes
on vacation.

6.     using barter dollars/credits for produce or time spent
in someone else garden.

 

Please
contact me at the above address/email/phone if you’d like to participate in
this pilot project in any way and add your name to the list.  Thank you!

 

Current Members:







1.   Kimber Hawkey/Charles Gendrot 709 Belmont Ave 

2.   Ivana Kadja/Brian Wimer 704 Belmont Ave

3.   Bruce + Barbara 707 Belmont Ave

4.   Colleen Bishop

5.    

6.    

7.    

8.    



“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket 
fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and 
are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in 
arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its 
laborers, the genius of its scientists and the hopes of its children.” 
- Dwight Eisenhower


      
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