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Outpost News Archive 2007
6/1/2007 You don't have a garden
just for yourself. NEWS FROM JOE!!! We will be in the garden the rest of the week and weekend top dressing the beds and building new beds to complete the garden inside the gate. We have enough compost to complete all our needs and we are seriously eyeing other areas to improve our food security issues. I am hoping to reconnect with our walnut shaving contact today and mulch the paths and beds to save water and improve the fertility of the land. Carol and Zoe brought over tropical pumpkin seeds the other night and we will be planting them throughout the remainder of the week. We have lots of egg plant thanks to the Gunters. We planted 7 flats and still have 10 to go. Thanks to Kim, Raj and the boys for all the good help as we were out of town last weekend. Kelly and crew are working hard on the Silo garden. We hope to build out a resource list of vendors and contacts so we can expand the garden/farm needs in the greater Houston area. Hopefully soon we will have a water catchment system in place and will then setup a low volume watering system operated by solar power. If anyone is interested in urban farming come out this week or weekend for hands on training. We will be planting, composting, weeding and expanding the garden dream. We pay in greens. We could also use your support as we would like to build out the hot weather garden. We have a good selection of peppers, green tomatoes, cucumbers, an assortment of squash, swiss chard, and more in the garden today. Jason, one of the neighbors was picking lettuce the other night and he said it was still good. We also saw our first cantaloupe the other day! We will be brewing some more compost tea this weekend. Sunday is pick and pay and Kim and company is planning to grill some veggies from the garden. I am talking to Dr. Montgomery about helping him put together a garden in his back yard. For sometime we have had plans to help facilitate the expansion of urban farming in Houston by building gardens. The plan is to have a good garden compost ready to go and a good selection of plants. Ken called it drop a garden. Dr. Montgomery will be our first partner in this project. The dream is to have a 100 garden/farms in Houston in the up and coming. The gardens would be all shapes and sizes from containers to large lots. Families, communities could tailor there individual nutritional needs through local agriculture. Thanks to Claudia and Matt for their good help in the garden this past weekend. Also I appreciate all the good work that Alvaro and Jose put into the garden to make it happen. They have been planting corn, beans and squash along the fence and trenching the beds to reduce the needs of watering. With their help we have developed a better soil blend for water retention. All my good friends are in action making Houston a greener place with food everywhere. Support local farming by working with us and others promoting a local agriculture. Donations are much needed and appreciated. Connect, grow and wake up, the garden world is rising from the depths of being a place of plenty. All beneath a great sky, Joe Nelson Icet
... if I wanted to have
a happy garden, I must ally myself with my soil; study and help it NEWS FROM JOE!!! Joe and the LOOP crew wanted to thank the friends that came by this past weekend and supported the garden/farm. Jomonica helped plant the okra, Amanda, Emily and Gwen picked tomatoes cucumber, beets and squash. John David picked green beans and peppers. Thanks alot to Carole, Pat and Pam for stopping by. Joe had talked to Marcie about coming by since we were at the last garden and she stopped by with her friend Kerry. Thanks to Don and Minna for coming by having traveled from Sugar Land. Minna asked about saving seed and having a seed bank is a great idea and anyone can do it. Store the seed in your ice box in a container so that they can breathe. Preparedness is a action we can all work on. Everyone doing little things adds up to BIG things! Thanks to Jill and Adrian for coming out. Jill got some soil to start her garden at the house. Barbara and Mark returned to help out. Kerry brought her friend Ethan over and we had dinner and wonderful conversation. The garden is changing as we are moving into hot weather. Carol Gunter has ordered us 100 shoots of sweet potatoes and Dr. Montgomery came by yesterday and we loaded his truck with a yard and half of our garden mix. My youngest son Corey is visiting from Denver for a few weeks and will be helping out in the garden during the week. We are preparing orders of our mushroom compost for Wabash thanks to Corey. Alvaro's help got us moving in making a repair on the tractor tire. It is now up and running. We still have a ways to go on building out the last couple of beds to complete the garden inside the gate. Monica took the produce to market at Bayou City Farmers market Saturday and did great. Sunday is the pick and pay and it starts at 10 am and goes until later. We are out in the garden until dark. We could use the help watering late afternoons after 7pm. Thanks to Dawn for all the good help as she has been helping a lot lately. Friday night after the pick Mary and Dawn and I went to Last Concert Cafe and had dinner. It was a blast. I hope we can make it a Friday night happening visiting all our good friends at LCC! See you in the garden. Joe Nelson Icet
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