Alchemical Blog
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Quote posted on 2012-05-02 18:49:29
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What a Jerk! - Week 9 Forest Garden Campaign Update
Hi, it’s Frank personally bringing you this update. We’ve only got 3 days left in our online campaign, and we’re hoping that we can still secure some additional funds even though we are past our goal. Can we make $2,500 by 11:59 pm on Friday? Can we think beyond The Rahma Clinic at 3100 South Salina St and envision a second forest garden, and a third, in other CNY neighborhoods? Your additional donations will enable us to do just that.
I’m also writing this personally bacause I want to share with you the honor of “Environmentalist of the Year” that was bestowed upon me by Syracuse University’s Jerk Magazine. Really now, I’m humbled, but I really just want to say what better project to make a donation to right now in Syracuse that affects our natural environment, our health environment, our green infrastructure environment, our food environment, and our ecological wisdom quotient? Please let others know how worth-while their donation will be and that their money is in good hands :>)
You can check out the blurb they wrote up about me and how the Forest Garden fit into their decision athttp://www.jerkmagazine.net/uncategorized/jerk-awards-2012.html While there, check out all the other do-gooders here in Syracuse that deserve recognition as well.
Don’t forget about the $30 donation perk that we added just a few weeks ago for a complimentary registration to Jonathan Bates’ Food Forest workshop on June 24, as well as the other great perks we’re offering. And I look forward to seeing you again, or meeting you for the first time, this coming Saturday between 10 am – 1 pm.
Sincerely, Frank and the Rahma Forest Garden Team
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-GardenWEEK 9 UPDATE – 5 DAYS TO GO
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden
1] WE DID IT! WE’RE AT $2,110!
2] JOIN US AGAIN ON SAT APRIL 21st, 10 AM – 1 PM
1] WE DID IT! WE’RE AT $2,110!
We surpassed our online campaign fundraising goal of $2,000 – we’ve reached $2,110! Thanks to each and every one of you that contributed, and that came out to our Day of Action on Saturday. There’s no need to stop here with fundraising though, we’ve got until 11:59 pm on Friday april 20th to drum up additional funders, so what are you waiting for? Go out and reach someone. Any additional funds we raise will go towards a second forest garden site in Syracuse – “ONE ON EACH BLOCK!”
Share some of the pics from our newly posted Facebook album from saturday’s Day of Action and maybe others will be inspired too. We had about 50 people join us in work and solidarity, in bringing food to share, and supplies and materials such as cardboard and plants. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150667106397997.397995.196765807996&type=1
Appreciation to this week’s funders that put us over the top: Sharon Moran, Andrew Greco, kathyRowe1, Timothy Helmstetter, Yvonne Tasker-Rothenberg, thedempsters, Katrin Naumann, middleagesmatt, and one anonymous donor.
2] JOIN US AGAIN ON SATURDAY APRIL 21st, 10 AM – 1 PM
We’ll be back at it again this coming Saturday April 21st, this time from 10 AM – 1 PM. We’ve got a load of
compost coming from the Syracuse Grows resource drive that will need unloaded into the raised beds. We’ll be planting strawberries, another tree or two, as well as any other plant donations we are able to accumulate in the next week. We also need to continue work on site mulching and sign painting. And we might be able to lay some more of the trail boundaries if we are able to get additional hardwood pole logs. We’re also registered as an OCRRA Earth Day cleanup site, so come help us pick the rest of that trash hiding out in the bushes.
This will be a shorter day, so we won’t be incorporating a lunch break into the schedule, but I encourage folks to bring snack foods for us to place out while we’re on site. We also will need volunteers to bring their own tools if they have them this time as we won’t have access to the CCE tools this time around. Shovels, wheelbarrows or garden carts, hard rakes, hand trowels. As always we’ll have gloves for use if you need them. -
Week 8 Update - 12 Days Left!
Our goal is a modest $2,000 to get this community resource started (compared to the $100,000 being spent on a 1.7 acre food forest start-up in Seattle that is getting press nationwide). Can you help out by giving as little as $5 to get us closer to our goal on IndieGoGo (it's the difference between IndieGoGo taking 9% versus 4%). Either way, please share!!http://igg.me/p/60978?a=373323 and "like", "tweet" or "+1" from the campaign page. or come out and lend a hand, a tool, a lunch finger food, or a plant on Saturday April 14.
Cheers ~Frank
WEEK 8 UPDATE – 12 DAYS LEFT!
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden
1] PROGRESS and APPRECIATIONS
2] LOGISTICS FOR APRIL 14
3] VOLUNTEER NEEDS FOR APRIL 14
1] PROGRESS and APPRECIATIONS
We’re at $1,100 in donations, a bit short of our $2,000 goal, but I hear that lots of campaigns see a flurry of funding in the last week. Thanks to Jessica Maxwell, Lilliana Rose Martinho, Kethleen I Henn, Bryan Coleman, Katherine Korba, Lindsay Speer, and Steve Letkowski for their donations this week. If you’ve claimed a perk(s) with your donation, you have the option pick it up on April 14.
2] LOGISTICS FOR APRIL 14
Looking forward to seeing you on Sat April 14 for our first 2012 “Day of Action” (3100 South Salina St). We’ll arrive on site to kick things off by 9:45 AM, break for lunch at 12:30 PM, and continue on until we’re finished with the tasks at hand (trying to finish by 3:00 PM).
Those tasks include trash pickup, black knot brush removal, weeding, trail layout, sheet mulching with cardboard and wood chips, tree and bush planting, watering and protecting, sign making, and cleanup. We’ll have a brief intro to the project, a demo of mushroom inoculation, the Mobile Literacy Arts Bus showcasing Say Yes student work, and Contemplative Video production.
To make the most of our experience and be gentle of our one and only Earth, bring if you are able: dish/bowl/napkin and refillable water bottle for eating lunch, tools that we might be short of (shovel, rakes, cart/wheelbarrow, paints/brushes).
3] VOLUNTEER NEEDS FOR APRIL 14
Yes, this is a 100% volunteer effort. We’re hoping for a great turnout (though no idea how many exactly), but have a few set tasks that we could really use your help with.
> Collect and bring cardboard to the garden site (for sheet mulching).
> Bring a finger food item to share at lunch.
> Volunteer a timeslot to manage the check-in/info/perks tent.
> Volunteer you and your truck to pick up and drop off tools from the CCE office.
To volunteer for a tent timeslot, or the tool pickup and dropoff contact Frank at 315-308-1372 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . If you can bring cardboard or food, do it! Please consider making a donation today, and if you can’t, please share on Facebook or Twitter using the share tools. Thank You :>)
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Rahma Forest Garden Post-Standard Editorial Update
Hi Supporters and Funders! If you haven't yet seen the scintillating editorial from Marty Butts of Small Potatoes Sales & Marketing (http://iamsmallpotatoes.com/) in the Post-Standard today, then follow the link below to check it out. Marty keys on the recent deluge of media coverage for the Seattle urban food forest to ask "So why is it that something that makes national news in Seattle goes relatively unnoticed when it happens here in Syracuse?"
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2012/04/support_new_public_garden_proj.html
We love the attention that this is bringing to the Rahma Edible Forest Garden project and the recognition that we are doing it at the grassroots level through your donations. We are asking for $2,000 to transform a 2/10th acre size lot (whereas the Seattle project will be utilizing over $100,000 in city dollars reportedly for a 2-acre area).
The design and outreach for the edible forest garden are also grassroots and volunteer in nature. The process was shepparded through an open competition which accepted designs from anyone desiring to submit one. Five total were received from permaculturists and landscape designers across the northeastern United States, and a volunteer panel blindly judged the submissions to select the best design. Ongoing organizing of work days, planting plans,a nd materials acquisition are all on volunteer time and labor as well! We hope you'll come out to one of our "Days of Action" this year, starting with Saturday April 14th from 10 am - 3 pm.
Finally, when I stopped by the garden site today to install our new sign informing folks about the April 14th Day of Action - the juneberry were in bloom! Here's a picture to keep you excited - Amelanchier canadensis fruit is edible raw or cooked and contains a few small seeds at the centre, it has a sweet flavour with a hint of apple. It can be eaten out of hand, used in pies, preserves etc or dried and used like raisins.
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Week 7 Update - Rahma Forest Garden
WEEK 7 UPDATE - RAHMA EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden
1] NEW PERK! $30 LEVEL: REGISTRATION FOR JUNE 24 FOOD FOREST WORKSHOP
2] PROGRESS and APPRECIATIONS
3] VOLUNTEER/PLANNING MEETING
1] NEW PERK! $30 LEVEL: REGISTRATION FOR JUNE 24 FOOD FOREST WORKSHOP
Alchemical will be hosting Jonathan Bates from the Food Forest Farm Nursery during his Upstate NY weekend tour in June. Any new or existing funders at the $30 or higher level will receive complimentary registration to this workshop and the opportunity to special order plants for pickup at the event.
Come learn how to select, plant, and care for
permaculture perennial plants. Special order plants from the Food Forest Farm Nursery with free delivery to the event. Much of the plant stock comes from Jonathan’s Edible Forest Garden in Holyoke Massachusetts, the case study highlighted in the book Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier.
This workshop will be held on Sunday June 24, from 1pm – 3pm at the Rahma Forest Garden site on 3100 South Salina St, Syracuse, NY. Visit the IndieGoGo campaign page to access the full press release for this event under the Gallery tab.
2] PROGRESS and APPRECIATIONS
We are at $875 online donations towards our goal of $2,000 with only 20 days left. Remember, if we don’t reach $2,000 we have to give a bigger chunk to IndieGoGo for administrative fees. So please consider giving, and help us spread the word to as many people as you know who could give even just $5 towards a food forest that will last a lifetime. Thanks to Kathy Petrillo and Mario and Keierra Callaway for their donations this week.
3] VOLUNTEER/PLANNING MEETING
A small group will be meeting on Tuesday April 3 from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm at the Rahma Clinic site (3100 South Salina St) to review final details for the April 14 blitz day. If you would like to be more directly involved in the preparations and planning of this project, please be encouraged to attend. We will also install a new sign on site to notify passers-by of the April 14th event; and if time and weather permit, visit a few nearby homes to pass out flyers for April 14th as well.
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden -
Week 5-6 Updates - Rahma Forest Garden
WEEK 5-6 UPDATES
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden
1] WEEK 6 APPRECIATIONS
2] THE LEGACY OF 3100 SOUTH SALINA ST and A SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY
3] INITIAL PLANT ORDERS
4] WEEK 5 APPRECIATIONS
5] FOREST GARDEN PRIMER
6] GET YOUR PERKS
7] SITE PREP WITH SUNY-ESF FORESTRY STUDENTS
1] WEEK 6 APPRECIATIONS
What a great week of giving. We have had $350 in donations this week. This
brings us to $850 online and $225 offline for a total of $1075 - over
halfway to our official funding goal of $2,000, but still a bit short of
that mark through our online campaign giving. Remember, if we don't meet
our full goal online, the nice people at IndieGoGo get a bigger chunk of
our pie. So please donate online if you are able.
Thanks to Marcia Rutledge, Rebecca Fuentes-Davis and 1 Anonymous donor.
2] THE LEGACY OF 3100 SOUTH SALINA ST and A SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY
The former doctor in residence at 3100 South Salina St, Dr. Jennifer
Daniels, was in touch with us recently to express her appreciation for the
work we are doing to build upon the landscape she left. Dr. Daniels fondly
recalled building up the soil, creating a vegetable garden, and installing
many of the trees and shrubs that are still on site. She is particularly
fond of the Serviceberry (also known as Juneberry due to their fruiting
time) which might even be in full bloom for us when we are on site for our
garden blitz day on April 14th! It will be a beautiful site, if so, with
two grand specimens on the south side of the site, and another 3 on the
north side of the parking lot. These native edible shrub produces yummy
berries, and is the starting anchor of the Rahma Forest Garden!
Dr. Daniels also wanted us to remind everyone that she is providing a
$2,000 educational scholarship to a graduating senior, as she does every
year, either from the 13205 zip code (which surrounds the forest garden
site) or someone from Nottingham High School. Applications are due by
Saturday March 31st. To learn more and access the online application,
please download and view the document file Dr. Daniels provided here.
3] INITIAL PLANT ORDERS
Species ordered yesterday for the Rahma Forest Garden. Donations still
welcome to help cover the costs. This order alone was $365.90, but just
think, in years to come, we'll be able to divide and/or graft many of these
and future purchases from the plant list to share with others. So your
donation lasts and lasts and lasts . . . .
Miller Nurseries:
3 Fall Gold Everbearing Raspberries
1 Male Sea Berry
2 Leikora (Female) Sea Berry
1 Chojuro Dwarf Asian Pear
1 Hosui Dwarf Asian Pear
1 Modern ??4-on-1?? AppleTrees
1 Antique ??4-on-1?? Apple Trees
3 Jostaberry
Oikos Tree Crops:
5 Golden Currant
5 Missouri Gooseberry
3 Thimbleberry
3 Pawpaw
2 Applemint
4] WEEK 5 APPRECIATIONS
The bad news is the number of donors this week declined; THE GOOD NEWS is
the dollar amount of donations did not! We received $50 online and $100
offline donations (you can send us a check). We passed the 1/3 mark of our
goal with $725 total - 36% with 33 days left in the campaign. Thanks
M.Sauve, Magda Bayoumi, and 1 Anonymous donor.
5] FOREST GARDEN PRIMER
A favorite website is Appropedia ? a wiki for collaborative solutions in
sustainability, poverty reduction and international development through
sound principles and appropriate technology. This week in my email there
was a note about their food forest page. It struck me to share with you as
a quick primer on what we are accomplishing at Rahma in case you still have
questions or curiosities. Go to http://www.appropedia.org/Food_forest
6] GET YOUR PERKS
For those of you who have made donations and claimed perks as part of the
donation level, you?ll have two choices as to how to receive them.The first
option is to receive them mailed to you. This will take place within a few
weeks following completion of the campaign.
The second option, and the one we hope you?ll partake in, is to come to our
Volunteer Blitz day on Sat April 14 (10 am and 3 pm), and pick up your perk
in person.We?ll also be at the site on Sat April 21 doing some follow-up
tasks, and we?ll use the 21st as a rain day, so you?ll be able to come by
then as well. More details will follow.
7] SITE PREP WITH SUNY-ESF FORESTRY STUDENTS
We just can?t wait for the 14th to get here, but until then, necessary prep
work at the Rahma site is taking place. On Sun March 18, two SUNY-ESF
students (State University of New York College of Environmental Science and
Forestry right here in Syracuse), lent their time and tools to felling and
starting removal of the black knot infested plum trees on site.
According to a neighbor who lives a few houses down on W. Newell St, the
black knot has been colonizing those three trees for about 10 years! They
were well past saving, with the fungus on branches around the whole crown,
and even into the main trunk. Thanks to Cory and Jeff! They took home some
fire logs, and we left the brush on site to be lopped down in size and
removed as part of the tasks on April 14.
Cheers ~ Frank and the Rahma Forest Garden Team
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden -
Week 4 Update - Rahma Forest Garden
RAHMA EDIBLE FOREST GARDEN – WEEK 4 UPDATE
APPRECIATIONS
We start off again thanking those of you who made donations to the Rahma Edible Forest Snack Garden in the last week, helping us reach the 29% level of our funding goal with 40 days left in the campaign. That’s almost a 10% increase from last week, putting us at $575 total with $500 online and $75 offline donations. That’s also a mighty appreciation to each of you.
Newest donors include Ann Tiffany, Barbara Humphrey, Rebecca Garden, Peter A Jaros, Kristina Henson, Natalie Dart, Nancy Cetera, and Sandy Lorenzo.
CONTEMPLATIVE VIDEO AT THE FOREST GARDEN
“WITHOUT ATTENTION, EMPATHY HASN’T A CHANCE”
We’re also announcing our newest partnership today. Anne Beffel, Artist and Professor from Syracuse University, will be preparing S.U. student tutors through “Say Yes to Education” as facilitators in her Contemplative Video Project. These tutors will go on to teach the Contemplative Video methodology to high schoolers from the Syracuse City School District, who will then put their empathic and contemplative video recording skills into action at the Rahma Forest Garden during our April 14 Volunteer Day Perma-Blitz!
Here’s a description from Anne: “Sitting Still: the Contemplative Video Project allows the audience to discover different perspectives through the simple act of sitting still and observing videos of daily scenes, ranging from those that inspire awe to those that compel viewers to participate and intervene. It uses fast-paced new media communication forms such as video and Web sites, with an emphasis on slowing down.”
The
Alchemical Nursery and the Rahma Forest Garden join a list of collaborators including Syracuse University, the University of Memphis, the Everson Museum of Art, and the Zen Center Hoen-ji. We’re very excited to showcase how the forest garden can lead to not only physical health but also mental health and clarity through. Acknowledging the importance of mindfulness is a clear goal of the Alchemical Nursery’s mission to bring ecovillage lifestyle sensibilities to our urban landscapes.
To view a presentation, please visit http://www.slideshare.net/AlchemicalNursery/say-yes-alchemical-nursery-contemplative-video-project-11965987
If you haven’t yet, please consider a donation by visitinghttp://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden
And please share with your friends.
Have a great week – Frank & the Rahma Forest Garden Team
