Alleycat Acres
Seattle, WA
We have big plans for the future of urban agriculture here in the Emerald City, Seattle's nickname.
We all believe that anyone, regardless of economic status, should have access to fresh, healthy food. so, we decided to create a collective of urban gardens, focused within food insecure neighborhoods, as a way to increase said access.
By creating a farm in the city, we hope to connect everyone with the food they eat, and provide a way for everyone to know how great it feels to pull fresh food out from the soil it has grown in.
The land our garden is on was donated by a resident in a neighborhood in Seattle called Beacon Hill. It is an empty lot in between existing homes.
Our garden is 1/5 of an acre in size.
We have completed building beds in the farm and are ready to plant.
Our intention is to grow lettuces, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, corn, berries, carrots, herbs, and flowers.
Alleycat Acres is made up of a group of 11 dedicated volunteers who have built this farm from the ground up. Together, we have contributed over 350 hours of volunteer work since January 25th!
We receive a lot support from community members, volunteers, and other urban agriculture organizations in Seattle.
We have a volunteer pool of 30 people, a fan website with over 350 fans! and are partnering with local schools here in Seattle as well.
Our farm needs a lot of input to run!
We have sourced some tools (shovels, spades and tilling equipment), had compost and seeds donated.
Our compost comes from a company here in Seattle called Groco. Our seeds have been donated by various individuals, with one big contribution by Gratitude Gardens.
We bought some tools used, and have had all our volunteers bring tools to our work parties, so we had a lot made available through tool sharing.
Our next steps are to work on fundraising, and we are playing with ideas on how to do that.
The produce we grow will be channeled back into the neighborhood we grow. We are playing with a few different models to get it out there. Those include:
-Neighborhood CSA, where families buy a weekly share.
-Donations to food banks and other organizations where we are located
-Partnerships with corner stores (like gas stations) to carry a selection of healthy alternatives that we grow.
Overall, the food we grow will benefit the residents of Beacon Hill, which is a very diverse neighborhood here in Seattle with mixed income levels.
Right now, we can't legally sell anything we grow because of city laws. If that changes, all money we take in will go back into a pool to help us continue upkeep of this garden and will allow us to work on other gardens, too.
For more information, visit us at http://www.alleycatacres.com
Comments so far:
28 posts about this garden.
posted by AMAP
How do people feel about you making a garden right next to their house?
posted by flyingmonkeys
Where does all the food go?
posted by Asianinvasion
Do people like having gardens in their neighborhood?
posted by evelyn
What kinds of food do you grow and why??
posted by Good Chocolate
Are there any grocerie stores around your area?
posted by MMD1998
Dear, Alleycat Acres which food banks are you donating to, do you know who they are giving the food to?
posted by Soupcans
will you ever expand your farm in the future? why or why not?
posted by saginawsausages
How did you select the name Alleycat Acres?
posted by password
What year was your garden project started?
posted by cynk2016
Why can you not sell any food legally?
posted by emergencyroom
How does the weather in Seattle effect how affect the crops grow?
posted by emergencyroom
We mean effect how the crops grow
posted by Alleycat Acres
Hi everyone! Thank you for the amazing questions. We can't wait for the next round, and hope that you are learning some awesome information. Do you think you'll want to start a garden at home if you don't have one yet?
High fives!
Sean & The Alleycats
-----------------------------------
Asianinvasion: Do people like having gardens in their neighborhood?
Check out the video explaining this!
Gardens & Neighborhoods from sean c on Vimeo.
AMAP: How do people feel about you making a garden right next to their house?
Since we are located right between two houses, we have to be respectable of noise levels. For the most part, we're all a quiet bunch, and farming on this scale doesn't make a lot of noise. The loudest we've been was when we had our first work party with about 30 people and our friend playing the acoustic guitar! And since we had planned to be sort of noisy, we scheduled out work party in the afternoon, to give everyone ample time to sleep.
Overall, the neighbors love it! They are excited for the veggies and flowers to start growing. They enjoy it so much, in fact, that they have helped us and have donated some veggies for us to plant!
flyingmonkeys: Where does all the food go?
Good question! We're still trying to figure that out. We are going to host a community meeting to have input from everyone in the neighborhood on the best way to get our food delivered. We are probably going to be making a lot of donations to food banks and other community organizations that are near.
We also want to help put fresh fruit and veggies into the corner stores -- the part of town we are in has a lot of corner stores packed with processed foods -- foods that aren't as nutritious as what we will be growing.
evelyn: What kinds of food do you grow and why??
We are growing a lot. So far, we've planted carrots, onions, radishes, lettuce, spinach and chard, and we've got some strawberries started. We have a lot more to work on when the time is right and when it gets warmer!
We think about a few things when we decide to plant: who lives in the community, what foods are culturally appropriate, and what we could grow here.
Good Chocolate: Are there any grocerie stores around your area?
There are no supermarkets in the neighborhood - they are all smaller scale "markets." and it can be challenging to get to them for a number of reasons (such as transportation, distance, cost, etc.)
The closest one to us is about a 15 minute walk away, with a part of that walk being up hill.
MMD1998: which food banks are you donating to, do you know who they are giving the food to?
There is one food bank in the neighborhood that we have been talking to, and when we are ready, will most likely be working with them.
As far as who they are giving the food to -- it's to anyone who needs it in the community. A number of us, and our friends, at one point or another have been to a local food bank because we've been through rough times where its hard to make ends meet.
Soupcans: will you ever expand your farm in the future? why or why not?
Yes! We want to. We still have a lot of room to work with, and intend on doing more with the current farm when we have the financial backing to make it possible. We also aim to expand outward and create different farms on a similar model.
We want to push this because we all need food, and it only makes sense to build these farms where we can. A study that we read a while back says if something was to happen to Seattle and transportation could not get to us, there's enough food in the city for all of us to last 3 days.
Thinking about that, you can see why having more urban farms in the heart of the city can only help.
saginawsausages: How did you select the name Alleycat Acres?
In the world of bikes and bicycle races, there's a race called an "alleycat." It's a bike race that has multiple checkpoints along the way and you have to figure out how to get to the next check point the quickest. If you've seen it, think of the TV show "The Amazing Race" but instead of flying and driving, everything is done on a much smaller scale, and on bike!
We chose this name because we are taking part in a "race" to grow more food in the city that we deliver by bicycle!
Password: What year was your garden project started?
We started our project this year! In fact, we help our first meeting with the 11 of us volunteers on January 25, 2010. In less than two months, we've build this project from the ground up, relying on networking and outreach and the community to help us along to way.
cynk2016: Why can you not sell any food legally?
This is tricky. The City of Seattle has many land use regulations and zoning laws that state what can and cannot be done on land. Our farm is on residential property, and as the law states right now, you cannot sell food that is grown on land that you own.
However, the City is working on changing these codes and laws to include "urban agriculture" and "urban farming" as something can can be permitted, which means that if you decide to use your land to make a farm, you can sell what you grow.
It's a complicated and confusing process, and we've all learned more about zoning, city codes and land use stipulations than we ever knew possible!
posted by emergencyroom: How does the weather in Seattle effect how the crops grow?
The Pacific Northwest has many different climatic zones -- which means we can many types of food in different areas.
The weather here is great for growing food! And what's even better is we can collect a lot of the rain that falls to use in the gardens and farms in the city to water our crops. This time of year is tricky to plant because sometimes we can get surprised with really cold temperatures! A few weeks back, we had a cold spell sweep through and it dropped the temperature down into the 30's, and brought a little frost with it.
One of our biggest worries, though, is the decreasing amount of snow that falls on the mountains each winter -- this is where we get all of our water! So, even though it may be warmer during winter, which is nice for all of us who don't like the cold!, we still need to be concerned about how that is directly effecting how our food grows.
posted by flyingmonkeys
Have you had your community meeting yet?
Do you have any ideas of where the food might go? Have you narrowed it down enough?
posted by evelyn
What do you think we should plant if we started a garden in the Michigan climate?
posted by saginawsausages
We think its cool that you named your self after a bike race that you participate in. We also think its cool that you deliver by bike.
Do you have any advice to start a garden at our school?
posted by MMD1998
Thank you for responding to our questions. Could you please tell us the name of the food bank? We would like to help.
posted by AMAP
Thanks for the great response! We have another question though: How big do you think this garden project will get?
posted by Good Chocolate
Thanks for answering our question, and
do you walk the food to the market, or do you sell it directly from your garden?
posted by MMD1998
i
posted by emergencyroom
Thanks! Now, how many years do you think you have before the mountain snow disappears completely?
posted by cynk2016
Thats interesting, Is there any way you can grow food on a property where you are able to sell the food that you grow?
posted by Asianinvasion
Thank you for answering our question. It was cool that you did a video for us.
I have a question: How old are the volunteers?
posted by Alleycat Acres
Hi everyone!
Thanks for the great follow up questions -- I had a chance to swing by the farm today and film a little tour so you can see what's goin' on.
We'll answer the next set of questions this weekend, and we'll probably do another video or two for ya'll.
How's your class going? Enjoying it?
High fives!
Sean
Down On The Farm With Sean-Cat from sean conroe on Vimeo.
posted by Alleycat Acres
howdy everyone!
sorry I didn't get a chance to answer any of these on video this week, but we hope you enjoy the farm tour video we were able to shoot!
so let me see if I can answer these great questions...
flyingmonkeys - no community meeting yet. we're still working out the details. soon! we're shooting for this month. and we're still not 100% sure where the food is going. but it's going somewhere! there's a food bank on Beacon Hill that will most likely be where we take most of our food for starters.
evelyn -- you can plant a lot of tasty nibbles in Michigan! You could probably start a lot of cool weather crops like what we have so far -- spinach, lettuce, radish, carrots... (have you ever tried radish chips? you should! they are great snacks! and it's really easy to make them at home). Once it's warmer, you can then start planting warmer season crops. A great resource to look at that can help you plan what works well in Michigan's climate is this website: http://migarden.msu.edu/
saginawsasages -- high fives for bike delivery! do any of ya'all have bikes? they might come in handy if you start the garden at school! so how to start a garden in school, you ask? I say just go for it! Put the idea up on the internet. Use social media (like this) to explain why you want a garden at school. Create a fundraiser so you can start getting what you need to make it happen. And don't be afraid to ask for things! We had all of our concrete, compost and seeds donated to us! Speaking of, if you do want some seeds to start off a garden, lettuce (get it? let us? hah!) know and we can send you some!
mmd1998 - hey! the food bank in our neighborhood is the Beacon Avenue Food Bank, where we will most likely be donating some of our food to.
amap -- good question. it's already huge so far! we've been on the radio, been in the newspaper... our mayor just "tweeted" about us (do you ever use twitter? i'm still new to it!)..and we are in the works with 3 other projects that we will probably take on. we're also scoping for new spaces to do this same thing all over again.. i would love to see this project expand as much as possible and inspire newer projects to start, too. Whether we feed 10 families or 100 families, we are doing the best we can. And doing the best you can is all that matters.
Good Chocolate -- We might walk some, but we will mostly use bikes! Bryan, one of the Alleycats, is in the works to craft us a nifty cargo cart for our bikes so we can pack in lots of food to deliver. When the laws change, we are also thinking about selling straight from the garden.
emergencyroom -- Hrmmm... I don't know! We hope it doesn't ever disappear *completely* !! As less and less falls, it is concerning -- that snow eventually becomes our water -- for farming, for drinking, and even for our eletricity (70% of our electricity is produced by water in Washington!) What we can do now, though, is ensure we are conserving water (and reusing it) where we can. Have you learned about greywater yet?
cynk2016 -- There are some ways to here in the city. We have whats called "Market Gardens" where what is grown can be sold. It's not a widespread program, but these market gardens do exist here. Hopefully with the upcoming changes in law, more and more people will start to do these types of things and sell what they grow -- generating extra income for themselves.
Asianinvasion -- All of us range from early 20's to mid 40's. Which is great to see such a wide range of ages, since the average age of the US farmer is in the mid 50's. We also have "volunteers" at elementary schools out here who are growing plants for us!
+++++++
Thanks for the great questions! I hope I got to answer all of them. I think this is the last week we get to chat, but if you have any more questions, don't be afraid to ask or to email them to us.
High fives all around!
Sean-cat
posted by saginawsausages
How do you advertise to try and get volunteers?
posted by Soupcans
what is the avrage age of voluteers?
posted by Alleycat Acres
Saginawsausages -- with all all different forms of social media! we use twitter, facebook and have our website that helps spread the word.
in addition, with the help of news outlets -- the Seattle Times and Public Radio stations KBCS and KUOW -- we've been able to have a lot of exposure to get more volunteers. We have a list o over 50 people who have offered their help or services!
Soupcans -- I (Sean) am the youngest in the group of members -- and I am 26. However, as far as the 50+ volunteers we have, they range in age from 17 to 50.
Are you all enjoying class??
