Category Archives: General

Fall To-Do at 610 Gifford Community Garden

We had a fun fifth year at 610 Gifford St in 2020, and it’s time to clean up, organize, and prepare for 2021. If you want to pick one day to visit and lend a hand this fall, this coming Saturday October 24th is it, 11:00 am start time.

Here’s our Fall To-Do List in pictures:

 

Constant vigilance with the bindweed.  Concentrating this week on the strawberry beds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing doing here, just a note that we repurposed the former potato bed with some kale seedlings and some black currant cuttings we hope will root that we salvaged from one of the black currant bushes that was damaged by a falling tree branch during last week’s storm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harvesting of the highbush cranberry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hard to see, but would like to dig out the coneflower from the middle of this bed and transplant somewhere near the front of the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This former radish and herb bed will become the new potato bed, we have taters to plant on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clean up of the corn and squash bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This perennial bed will be cleaned up and receive a major batch of new asparagus crowns to expand this crop.  With care to also select for the raspberry that have moved into this bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pull the mint from this middle bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another shot of the asparagus bed from the other side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rhubarb bed will also be a bit reorganized.  Two of the rhubarb are growing too close together. We will dig up divide and plant out with better spacing in the same bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another shot of the rhubarb bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The potatoes for planting.  Fall potato plantings requires they be placed a few inches below ground and it is not necessary to chit (cut and dry) them first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The asparagus crowns that Frank dug from Brady Farm, they were giving them away as they renovate the bed the asparagus were in for a different crop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MENTION: Syracuse gardens offer residents sense of community during pandemic

“For residents in food deserts, community gardens can offer inexpensive access to high-quality produce.

“If you can save $20 on your food costs, that can be significant for some families who are in a lower income bracket,” said Frank Cetera, who operates the Edible Forest Snack Garden on South Salina Street.

Cetera saw increased interest in community gardening after the pandemic began. Many people, such as Lane, were simply looking for an outlet and a reason to leave the house.

The Salina Street garden, which allows any Syracuse resident to pick food from the plants growing there, is open 24/7, Cetera said.

“Good food, organically-grown food, is not cheap,” Cetera said. “You can spend a couple dollars just on a small container of raspberries, but we have many berries available for picking at our gardens so every little bit helps.”

Cetera is also the president of the Alchemistry Nursery Project, which promotes urban agriculture in Syracuse. Through conferencing sessions, he and other members of the project have offered advice on gardening and answered questions about how people can start gardens at home, he said.

“Some people who are more susceptible to coronavirus may not want to come into a garden space even if it is outdoors because there are a lot of people in that space,” Cetera said. “So we help them in their own homes by sending (raised beds) out and giving them seeds and so forth.””

Read the full story at http://dailyorange.com/2020/09/syracuse-gardens-offer-residents-sense-community-pandemic/

 

 

Win-Win-Win Campaign: ANP Paid Garden Stewards Program

Our Fall/Winter/Spring fundraising campaign this year will be to raise a pool of funds to use as stipends for paid labor of community members doing stewardship and maintenance work on our community growing and public harvest sites.

OUR WIN-WIN-WIN CAMPAIGN

Matching starts at 8 AM on Tuesday, DONATE on GIVING TUESDAY as close to 8 AM or after in order to have the best chance for your gift to be matched 100% by Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/donate/172183821265202/

One of our challenges through the years has been recruiting enough volunteers to maintain and steward our project sites. As our project sites grow, that challenge is even greater and more important.  Alchemical Nursery started public forest gardening in 2012 with the creation of the Rahma Edible Food Forest Snack Garden in the Southside at 3100 South Salina St in partnership with the Rahma Free Health Clinic.  In 2013 we moved our home offices to the Bitternut Homestead on Otisco St, where we manage the propagation and potting for our annual Spring native, edible perennial plants fundraising sale in partnership with the Bread and Roses Collective. In 2015, we developed the 610 Gifford Street Community Garden on a leased Land Bank property.  In 2018 we began stewarding the Gifford Shonnard Meadow Orchard to preserve peach trees, apple trees, and black currant bushes that had been abandoned.  And now in 2021 we are launching The Depot Tool Share, Bike Kitchen, and Seed Library at 713 Marcellus St, in addition to geographically-distributed COVID19 relief efforts including our Raised Beds for Food Sovereignty mutual aid campaign.

Our project sites are located in two of the poorest census tracts in the city.  Syracuse’s census tract 30, the Near Westside, has a median household income of only $12,823; census tract 58, part of the Southside, has a median household income of only $26,364 (https://datausa.io/profile/geo/syracuse-ny/#economy).  In order to bolster the resiliency of these communities, we must bring resources into them. And so we ask for your help in developing our “ANP Paid Garden Stewards Program” by donating to the campaign that will create a pool of money that will be:

  • a WIN for residents of our project site communities by providing paid working hours;
  • a WIN for Alchemical in providing a much higher level of needed maintenance and development of the project sites than can be achieved on a volunteers-only basis;
  • a WIN for Syracuse by enhancing and demonstrating the ecological and economic value of community growing landscapes as a integral part of our city to be initiated and nurtured.

We hold no naive notions that we will be able to hire full-time staff in the next year. Nonetheless we know that for many people (for example previously incarcerated persons re-entering the workforce, students needing part-time work, or people working in low-wage jobs seeking to supplement their income with fulfilling hands-on work), the need is great and we hope to provide:

  • some income from honest-to-goodness, dirt-under-your-fingernails, sweat-on-the-nape-of-your-neck, fresh-fruits-and-vegetables-in-your-arms work,
  • skillbuilding for food sovereignty,
  • connection to neighborhood greening project sites and residents.

Please help by contributing to the Paid Garden Stewards Program 

Our goal is to raise $11,683.20 which will provide for employment of one or more individuals from April through October for a total of 600 stewardship hours at one or more of our project sites. This will be our biggest campaign raise of funds from our supporters and members in the history of our activism, but after 10 years of operations and resilience, we can take this next step with you. This will move us forward in a proactive vision of a garden city that provides right livelihood in ecological landscaping and food production The challenge is to convert more of your personal charitable budget to land-based educational and work assets that gives people work towards right livelihood, while growing greater momentum over time, for people who are struggling in our community.

BUDGET BREAKDOWN

BASE GOAL: 20 hours/week for 30 weeks (from April-October) at $16/hour living wage rate = $9,600 gross wage payments. Plus 8% wage taxes ($768).  Plus 6.7% workers comp NYS Insurance Fund rate for class code 0042 Landscape Gardening ($643.20). Total cost = $11,011.20.  

STRETCH GOAL: Our stretch goal for any monies raised above and beyond this initial amount will be used for engaging the services of a professional payroll/human resources agency, rather than our Board volunteer time, to provide an employee handbook, handle check writing, and provide tax and insurance oversight for our employees.

Matching starts at 8 AM on Tuesday, DONATE on GIVING TUESDAY as close to 8 AM or after in order to have the best chance for your gift to be matched 100% by Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/donate/172183821265202/

Raised Beds for Food Sovereignty Mutual Aid

WHAT IS IT

Do you struggle to afford fresh food? Do you wish you had the tools and resources to grow your own vegetables? Apply to The Raised Beds for Food Sovereignty Mutual Aid program to request a raised garden bed, soil, seeds, and gardening instruction for your household.
 
With support from the Gifford Foundation, The Alchemical Nursery Project is able to provide 15 raised garden beds to 15 households in Syracuse, NY that face financial and health vulnerability (based on U.N. and C.D.C guidelines).
 

WHO IS ELIGIBLE

If you fall into any of the following categories below you will be considered a priority recipient while materials supplies last. We do not have the capacity to analyze all applicant’s personal data or health records, so we are using the honor system, based upon what you tell us. The raised beds and materials will be available on a first-come, first-served basis from those applying who fall into these categories:
 

HOW TO APPLY

Requests are accepted on a rolling basis; the first round of submissions that have been received will be processed starting on Wednesday June 17th. Requests must include:
 
  • Your Name, Address, and Contact Information,
  • Your Risk Category from the list above,
  • Why you are interested in receiving a raised bed,
  • and what support you will need gardening.

Submit requests via:

  • email to info@alchemicalnursery.org; OR
  • Text or phone call to 315-308-1372; OR
  • FB message to https://www.facebook.com/AlchemicalNursery, OR
  • Postal letter to 717 Otisco St, Syracuse, NY 13204; OR
  • Come in person to 610 Gifford St Community Garden on Saturdays at 11:00 AM

UPDATES

May 27, 2021: Almost one year later, this project is continuing to help people access raised beds for food sovereignty. We’re thankful for the volunteer and material support to help make this happen! You can see a recent installs at https://www.facebook.com/AlchemicalNursery and follow that page for more garden installs and updates.

Spring Crowdfunding Campaign for the Marcellus Street Gardening and Bicycling Center

Crowdfunding a community resource tool library and materials depot for gardening, bicycling, and home landscaping.  Building capacity for food sovereignty, mobility needs, and pride in home and self.

For our spring fundraiser, The Alchemical Nursery is announcing the creation of the Marcellus Street Gardening and Bicycling Center.  The project began with the goal of saving another green space from going under the pavement of another developer for a parking lot.  That campaign was successful, and now we’re moving on to developing the small structure on the back of the site.

See all the details of the project, including the budget, and make your donation at https://ioby.org/project/marcellus-street-gardening-and-bicycling-center

All donations will be matched 1 for 1 by Ioby since the Near Westside is a target neighborhood for The Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge, which “supports residents as they take an active role in creating a culture of health in neighborhoods across New York State”.

 

 

Community Seed Network & Map

The Community Seed Network is here to help facilitate the saving and sharing of seeds. The reasons for saving and sharing seeds are as diverse as the people who are doing the work. Some people in the community seed movement are activists – keeping seed in the public domain by sourcing, swapping, and freely sharing. Others are educators, organizers, innovators, and conservationists – training the next generation of seed savers while helping to secure the world’s biodiversity. And still others are home gardeners – saving and sharing seeds to carry on family and cultural traditions, or simply for the joy it brings them.

via https://www.communityseednetwork.org/why

Benefits of seed saving & sharing:

  • Keeping biodiversity alive
  • Keeping Seed in the public domain.
  • Contributing to the development of regionally adapted (i.e. Landrace) varieties.

Map:

https://www.communityseednetwork.org/map

Connect on Social Media for Latest Updates

Welcome to our web space! Like a permaculture garden space, it’s a little squirrely but has a lot of good going on.  Day-to-day updates are on social media pages for each project – links to that below. This site offers announcements and articles, long-term info and updates, and ways to get involved.

Connect with Alchemical Nursery on Facebook

Continue reading →

Fundraiser successes supporting trees in CNY!

Two local agroforestry fundraisers have succeeded in their goals this summer! Germinating projects that will grow toward fruition as we head into winter and the year to come. Much thanks for all contributions and support.

Alchemical Nursery fundraised $748/700 toward the 3 part peachy goal! “For part one, we will plant two dwarf peach at the 610 Gifford St Community Garden ($100), for part two we will invest in an electric mower (Kobalt 80V ($550) to maintain the abandoned orchard site so the peach trees there stay healthy, for part three, we will plant an additional peach tree at the Rahma Edible Forest Snack Garden ($50).”

New York Tree Crop Alliance (NYTCA) co-op has raised enough funds to buy a Kern Kraft Oil Press near Ithaca! This enables tree crop stewards to process Earth’s gifts of hickories & hazelnuts into useful & healthy oils that can be stored, shipped, and used to create a variety of value-added products. A key step in scaling up toward more broadly accessible and viable tree-based livings.
🌲 🙏 🙌 🌳

A Rap on Monthly Permaculture Principle 5 – Use & value renewable resources & services

Principle 5: Use & value renewable resources & services

Trees. A central part at the heart of every ecosystem supportin’ human habitation. A station for renewal of many a good & service: fiber, fuel, food (for humans), fodder (for animals), farmaceuticals, and all kinds o’ fun. Did I mention they live off the sun? And the soil. And in a few hundred million years, they may be renewed to rock oil. But unlike oil, dead ‘nd deadly indeed, trees can be better than free for what you need. Paying you back in fact and potentially if the way you both act is of mutual benefit, then you’re sending it: succession through time. May the force of the forest be with you!

Learn Trade Skills

Motivational graphic for repairing, building, making (and don’t forget gardening!)

“An ally in leaving the world better than one found it!” – My own saying

“Build a better world by doing good things instead of being angry at bad guys.” – Paul Wheaton of Permies.com

Repair, Recycle, ReUse

Go to a Repair Cafe near you!

– Fun hobbies
– Fulfilling & educational
– Meaningful, build resilience
– Direct action to build a better world environmentally, socially, productively
– Save money

* Not all trade skill applications equal, YMMV

[originally posted at https://alchemecology.com/?p=1209]