August Update

Annike picks up a Monarch butterfly that likely paid a visit to the farm on its northward summer migration.

Forgive me for the crass picture of the check, but we are extremely excited about our very first restaurant sale! Duck's Cosmic Kitchen hosted a farm-to-table dinner, featuring Our Community Farm Project (specifically, our tomatoes, okra, and mchicha). Susan, Maria, and Robin enjoyed a fabulous five course meal and answered other diners' questions about the farm and project.

Robin leads a tour group from the American Community Gardening Association Conference. We were a part of the Clarkston Tour, also featuring friends at Tobie Grant Garden, Jolly Ave Garden (World Relief), Clarkston Community Garden, and Birch Grove (Bhutanese Garden).

In the news!

Check out this article by Josh Smith from On Common Ground:

Urban farm in Decatur gives African refugees a chance to grow favorites

Preparing for fall

For the past few weeks, we have begun preparations for our fall planting, including seed starting.

The women showing off the seeds brought from Burundi. These are seeds for enormous African squash (like a giant butternut) and mchicha (an African green in the amaranth family). These will be directly seeded into the ground. Reportedly, the vines from a single African squash plant can travel upwards of 100 feet.

Stirring up our super secret seed starting mix.

Seeding trays of lettuce and cabbage, with Obed looking on. In about a month, we will transplant these into our rows. In Burundi (and later Tanzania), the women told me that they started seeds in small bags.

Summertime (and the livin's busy)

Our two farm managers, Venance and Obed, being silly on a Saturday morning. These two never fail to make us all laugh.

Sky high sunflower.

As expected, our sunflowers shot up into the air seemingly overnight. They are upwards of 10 feet tall now. It's a toss up on who likes them more: us or the bees.

Our tomato production peaked in mid-July, but we are still harvesting several buckets of tomatoes each week. We currently track our harvests in bucket loads, since we don't yet have a scale (hint, hint -- we'd love one!)