Our volunteers and gardeners have been busy, busy, busy preparing the garden for spring plantings. A major accomplishment is the work on our beautiful new fence.
Our February workday brought out the muscles and the welding equipment. The team work resulted in a gorgeous new fence that will serve as a trellis for grapes and other vines! Thank you to everyone for this wonderful new addition to our garden!
Our garden was photographed this morning for an article in the Austin American-Statesman.
“City Council is considering new rules, outlined at Thursday’s council meeting, that would make it easier for groups of gardeners to start new community gardens and would reduce the water rates and wastewater fees that some established gardens currently pay. And to facilitate community gardens, the city is looking at hiring a conservation program coordinator, with a salary of $81,753 .
The effort is part of a wider city goal to promote access to locally sourced food.”
Read the full article on Statesman.com: City may cut water fees for community gardens
Update: City Council passed all three ordinances in support of community gardens and urban agriculture! Our garden was featured in this news story on Austin’s YNN. Watch it here: Urban gardens may get a chance to blossom
Volunteer at Festival Beach Community Garden, Waller & Clermont Streets, near Festival Beach
Please come join us in developing our new community vegetable garden at the next volunteer WORKDAYS:
Saturday morning, September 11, 9:00-12:00 AND Saturday morning, October 9 , 9:00-12:00
We need your help and participation with workday tasks: moving and spreading mulch, mowing open spaces, weeding our communal vegetable garden, and developing our composting system.
We have the tools – we need your participation (bring your own work gloves).
Continue reading “Volunteering: Festival Beach Community Garden”
As the Festival Beach Community Garden inches toward planting many of us are looking for ways to get educated about organic gardening. We’ll be having educational opportunities at the garden (dates TBD), but until then check out Garden-Ville University. They offer a range of free online classes. It doesn’t come close to digging in the dirt, but you are already spending time on the computer. So stop reading this and go learn about organic gardening 🙂
Inside Dan Barber’s Kitchen
The Atlantic’s Corby Kummer talks with the James Beard Award-winning chef about the future of farm-to-table cooking.
http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1460906593
Keep East Austin clean and healthy. Scoop the Poop
Pet waste is more than smelly and unsightly, it pollutes our water! Pet waste left outdoors is flushed into the nearest waterway when it rains. This waste contains disease-causing bacteria and viruses that are harmful to pets and humans, particularly children.
Join Scoop the Poop on FaceBook
Thanks to everyone who contributed their brilliant ideas for our fence design, especially Jessica Braun, Alex Gilliam, Amy Starling Rampy and Emma Brandt. Have a look here…
In reviewing the designs, several ideas emerged as important:
– there should be some visual continuity in the fence design, for example, wood and mesh panels that repeat at intervals along the perimeter.
– for the more decorative areas, we liked the idea of a framework that people could work with to create different patterns (see “warp”)
– we’d like to incorporate some educational elements — murals, other signage — on the exterior in addition to (and as part of) the community vegetables and native and habitat plantings already discussed.
PARD and the City are reviewing our application for a general site permit, and we hope to be able to start construction in December. In the meantime, we’ll focus on getting our design clear, identifying materials and sources and recruiting volunteers. More updates to follow… stay tuned!
Click on the images and links to view ideas and sketches:
Public Workshop
Public Workshop1
Public Workshop2
Public Workshop3
The Travis County Master Gardeners Association, in cooperation with the Travis County Agrilife Extension Service, will present the 2009 Inside Austin Gardens, on Saturday, October 24, from 9 am – 4 pm MORE
Check out our beautiful site plan and share your comments below. Here’s the PDF file.
Those brisk temps in the 80s have me thinking one thing: Winter!
FESTIVAL BEACH COMMUNITY GARDEN 