Hello Permaculture Community,

 

In 2018 there will be a great need to generate powerful community partnerships to transform our world. Coming together to build coalitions is Social Permaculture in action.

 

See this website for more ideas: https://permaculturenews.org/2013/02/08/social-permaculture-principles-in-action/

 

These partnerships allow for greater diversity of ideas and new collaborations on projects that did not previously exist within our separate groups. The world needs every single one of us and our community building efforts to be raised to the highest capacity we are capable of embodying, by sharing our gifts and talents with one another.

 

(NOTE: Talking about sharing our talents, there is also Art After Dark this Friday, January 5th at the SLO Guild Hall. 6pm to 9pm. Come see the artwork of twelve local artists and music by the BIG ROCK BALALAIKA BAND. Flyer is attached.)


The way we are embodying this Social Permaculture principle in 2018 is through community partnerships out at City Farm SLO. Together we are bringing more permaculture to the farm.

 

There is a new three-way partnership between 1. Central Coast Grown and 2. SLO Permaculture Guild and 3. Carmichael Environmental to manifest a community hub on the land. See some examples of how we are sharing and collaborating. Please scroll down to read more about it all in the CCG newsletter.

 

Shared Spaces – farm plots, outdoor kitchens, educational programming and gathering spaces are now all shared on the farm

            City Farm infrastructure underwent dramatic improvements during 2017

            Our Global Family Village is transforming into a “community hearth” for our Permaculture Guild to gather and hang out

Shared Work Parties – combined monthly work parties will now be on the 2nd Saturdays at 9am – 12noon (Potlucks at 12noon.)

January 13th  - building deer fences

February 10th – planting a Perennial Food Forest with Josh Carmichael

Shared Community Events – seasonal celebrations on the farm

March 24th - Renew the Earth Spring Equinox (partnership between SLO Permaculture Guild and local healers). Donations go towards generating electricity on the farm. Bring a culinary or medicinal herb to add to the Community Herb Garden. Flyer is attached.

May 12th – Springtime Farm Festival (Central Coast Grown community event)

Shared Produce – farmers on the land at City Farm are a vital link to local agriculture products for restaurants, farmer’s markets, students in Farm Class with Pacific Beach High School, natural food stores and now with the San Luis Coastal Unified School District! Those who share in tending the Global Family Village share in the bounty of the food crops from the four corners of the globe.

 

Volunteer days are on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (1pm – 4pm) and on the second Saturdays (9am to 12noon with a potluck lunch in our Community Hearth at 12noon)

 

See you out at the PARM! – That is a combination of “Permaculture” and “Farm.”

 

Teresa Tree Lees – SLO Permaculture Guild co-facilitator

Josh Carmichael – SLO Permaculture Guild co-facilitator

VIEW THIS EMAIL IN YOUR BROWSER

2017 Year-End Newsletter

December 2017

 

Central Coast Grown​

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Dear Friend of City Farm SLO and Central Coast Grown:

Thanks for checking out our year-end newsletter.

We hope you’ll take the time to join us in reflecting for a few minutes on the many changes that have taken place at our site and in our organization during the past 12 months.

And we hope that you’ll continue to follow more of them that unfold in the coming year.  You can stay current at our website, http://centralcoastgrown.org, our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CentralCoastGrown and our Instagram feed: https://www.instagram.com/cityfarmslo/

The core mission of our non-profit has been to fulfill the terms of our 20 year lease with the City of San Luis Obispo: to manage the 17 acres of arable land at the Calle Joaquin Agricultural Reserve so as to 1) facilitate production of crops by small commercial organic farmers and 2) provide educational programs about local agriculture to students and the general public.

During 2017 the City Farm School Project has continued for the fourth year to provide innovative classes to students in the “Farm” class at Pacific Beach Continuation High School, with the enthusiastic support of students, teachers and administration. 

Throughout the year and during summer school, students walk to the farm with their instructors from their nearby campus twice a week to engage in hands on learning about soil, irrigation, planting, cultivating, harvest, and cooking and eating the food they grow.

 

CCG staff and volunteers also provide twice weekly horticultural therapy sessions to students in the  SLCUSD PREPARE program for developmentally disabled young adults.  [pic] In addition CCG tenant and partner Our Global Family runs tours and workshops for elementary school students and Farm Girls Summer Camp.

2017 marks the first year of CCG’s Public Education and Outreach programming, which included a February Movie Night at the SLO Guild Hall featuring the feature length film Gaining Ground, our first annual Fall Harvest Festival in October which drew 250 people to the site for workshops, talks, music, yoga, a hayride and showcasing of farm activities

and a series of regular monthly 2nd Saturday work parties in which volunteers are helping to maintain the educational site.

Farm infrastructure underwent dramatic improvements during 2017, with the completion of our classroom and gathering structure, “The Pergola,” by all-volunteer labor,

the planting of a surrounding cover crop and lawn, the upgrading of the irrigation system and cooking facilities at the School Garden, and the replacement of an aging water pump.

There was movement forward on many fronts for our subtenant farmers during this year as well. After the disastrous floods of last winter, Michael Huggins, proprietor of Dacite Farm, continued to grow and market his specialty crops of turmeric and ginger and erected a large greenhouse powered by his self-designed and constructed wind turbine and solar panels, and Javier Magana, proprietor of Red Barn farms, expanded his operation, which offers daily harvests of seasonal vegetables to local restaurants and farmers markets,  by collaborating with the Food Service of the San Luis Coastal Unified School District to provide seasonal produce that is prepared in the Laguna Middle School kitchens and delivered to elementary school students throughout the district.

A new subtenant as of October, Josh Carmichael of Carmichael Environmental has made City Farm the new home of his long standing landscaping enterprise, and is planting demonstration permaculture gardens and orchards as well as food crops in the ground and a greenhouse.

Organizationally, in 2017 Central Coast grown underwent some dramatic personnel and organizational changes.  We welcomed Ty Griffin as our new Treasurer, Jill Caggiano as a new Board member, and Sandra Marshall as part-time outreach coordinator, and Teresa Lees as co-educator.   Board President, Steven Marx, took over as volunteer interim Executive Director, and we are grateful for the continuing Board service of Brian Engleton, John Phillips, Terry Hooker and Josh Carmichael.

All of us are excited about prospects for City Farm’s continued growth of service to the community in 2018.  These will include a Spring and Fall large community celebration, monthly work parties and additional opportunities for people to take part in the activities of a community farm and to purchase vegetables grown onsite, and if energy and finances permit, the development of animal husbandry and renewable energy projects.

We invite you to join us by attending our volunteer work parties, attending events, making a donation, or offering your help in any way you can think of.

Central Coast Grown Board of Directors

 

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NEW EVENT!!

January 13, 2018 9:00 A.M.
City Farm SLO Work Party

Protect our Gardens!

Ring in the New Year by joining Friends of City Farm SLO in preparing our School Gardens for a new season.

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Saturday January 13 is the day for completing a deer fence around the perimeter of our newly designed and reconstructed activity space.

Master Plan for CCG plot at City Farm

It will protect cropland where students at Pacific Beach High School and the PREPARE program grow, cook and eat their own vegetables, the new food forest orchard and the beautiful pergola used for instruction and public events like our Fall Harvest Festival.

In the last four years of these programs, deer (and some other mammals) have severely damaged the harvest by helping themselves to seedlings as well as mature crops.  This event will stop that from happening.

The posts will already be placed, but we need lots of help to attach rolls of fencing to them and hang several gates.  If time permits, we’ll also be installing new irrigation.

Instructions and supplies are supplied.  Join students and neighbors and learn some of the varied tasks and skills that it takes to maintain a small farm. Help keep up the momentum at City Farm’s ongoing improvement campaign, which has included soil preparation, weeding and sowing the now maturing cover crop.

Farm-grown snacks are provided.  Children welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Central Coast Grown

PO Box 3736
San Luis Obispo, CA 93403
United States