Food Open Space Discussion: COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION FOR GROWING AN EDIBLE LANDSCAPE

A. Impassion people
1. Offer some fun, social events to become more of a community
2. Show fun & educational movies – Dirt, The Power of Community, Global Gardener
3. Eat together – have pot lucks
4. Have successful events & projects that are fun, beautiful, creative & experiential
5. Group work party is powerful tool to de-skill and re-skill neighbors
6. Use public spaces & front yards
7. Good examples are powerful
a. Container garden party – plan it, estimate costs, association buy containers, have a planting party
b. Floating styrofoam shipping containers growing hydroponic lettuces on lake
c. Floating gardens on lake
8. Important elements for projects are:
d. Design
e. Organization
f. Tools
g. Material
h. Labor
9. Have seed swaps, bake-offs, competitions, apple bobbing, old time fun to reconnect older folks, tool share
10. Offer Transition Orientation & Handbook Discussion Group

B. Individual Initiative
1. Turn up heat slowly
2. Bring in talent to design an individual garden as a good example
3. Raised beds, small plots, container gardens
4. Start small and build up
5. Change Association Rules to allow for edible landscape

C. Permaculture design for the community
1. What speaks to people – health, fun, economy
2. Have the community support a CSA farmer
3. Have a CSA farmer use our property for growing edibles for us
4. List of statistics –
a. Asheville has two day supply of food
b. only 5% of produce is grown locally
c. 100 sq. ft. of edible landscape = $700.00 of usable retail veggies spending $50.00 for tools, for a $1,600.00 return in food production ?????
5. Economic arguments – save money on lawn & ornamentals maintenance, grow edibles so we don’t have to buy them.
6. Go back to the local way – wholesome
7. Individuals grow specific edibles & everybody shares, barters their crops.

D. Obstacles are opportunities
1. Wake up call on our dependence of oil
2. Develop a mentoring system
3. Plan for succession & maintenance
4. Have a timed adoption agreement when planting
5. Identify your allies – don’t waste huge amounts of time on people not on board
6. Use your energy where it counts
7. Embrace failure on crops – don’t give up
8. Gather elder wisdom
9. Overcome fear of wild animals – fences, cages, share food (bird feeders draw bears)

E. Assistance
1. City, State, Federal funding
a. non-profit association
b. prototype
c. creator of jobs
d. food security
e. tailgate market
2. Veterans across street on Tunnel Road
3. Churches – grass clippings
4. Asheville Green Opportunities
5. Asheville Men’s Club – Jerry Hardesty 828-299-3315
6. Bill Whipple – 828-713-2424
7. Ashevillage Institute Janelle 828-279-1955
8. Food Not Lawns book by Heather Flores