So another nice Citrus Glean hosted by Arizona Homegrown Solutions.

Wow an amazing meeting.

This is a wrap up of what is going on in North Phoenix and of the notes from our meeting.

• Looking for ways to get the neighbors more involved and doing things that allow us to get to know them.
• Nick is working to get a school garden started at North High School next year. He also has his eye on an empty plot of land by his home.
• Nick is working to get a school garden started at North High School next year. He also has his eye on an empty plot of land by his home.
• Proposed meeting once a month for the group. Possibly the second week of every month?
• Creating a community resource Database/Spreadsheet
  • List any materials or equipment people have to loan.
  • Might contain people and locations in the area that are composting for the community.
  • Adding a resource of stores or restaurants that give away organic material and coffee grounds.
  • Listing people who are storing seeds and what they are saving.
  • Anything else that might help people in the area.
• The Horses Help Facility want to work towards opening up their facility to sustainability programs and events
  • Horses Help facility is looking to become a major Hub Solution for the North Phoenix area.
  • Their presentaion room is open for teaching classes and hosting movie nights.
  • Looking to work with AZHS sustainability and gardening experts to help create garden beds and composting bins in the empty and unused areas of the Horses Help facility.
  • They want to hold Green events and tents to allow the public to come in and learn about sustainable living.
  • Creating and herb and sensory garden for autistic children and people will disabilities.
  • Inviting local chefs to harvest the food and to host classes on how to cook with the food.
  • Drawing in local schools to come see the horses and visit the future gardens.
  • Use the facility and things we offer as a way to generate income for both AZHS and Horses Help. For example charging for classes, events, and possibly charging for a few products we might be able to produce. There are a lot of opportunities to try and genereate a little money for both organizations.
  • We need to work on a economic model for sustainability. How are all these programs and projects going to be paid for and how are they going to economically sustain themselves.
  • Horses Help has a pool of over 250 volunteers who can help us setup what we will need for the site.
  • Eagle Scouts are an excellent resource for volunteers. They are usually limited to what they can participate in, however planting and gardening may be something that they can help with.
  • Several troubled teen or people help services can come to the facility to help us garden and maintain the site.
  • This seems like an optimal opportunity for Permaculture Design students to really come in and work their magic on this site. Gregg has practically given us free regin and is very excited to see what comes out of this.
  • Try to set up this North Phoenix facility as a model for many of the other Horses Help locations around the country.
  • Working with local busniess. One of the Horses Help members is Cathy Phifer, who’s husband is a regional director for Home Depot, so we may be able to ask them for help in the future. This may include things like creating a small list of needed items and seeing if business like Home Depot can give us a hand in getting those items.
  • Ken Singh has offered to give Greg and special one on one host and instruction on how to do composting on a massive scale. If we can establish Horses Help as another composting resource this should help aleviate the demand on Ken a bit.
  • Look at providing making this a place where youth from all over the valley at various schools or organizations can come to and learn.
  • Is it possible for Horses Help to have a green store on their location?
• Updates on Mountain View Facility
  • Currently working with Walter Knox who is the coordinators at the Mountain View facility to see what possibilities exists for a community garden to be put in at that parks and recreation center.
  • Talked with Ken Vonderscher Deputy Director of the Central Phoenix parks and recreation areas and he is interested in working with AZHS. Several other groups garden at some of the parks but they mostly do roses and flowers.
  • Ken also gave some advice on things the Parks and Services will be more receptive to:
    • AZHS might be able to give them advice on how to revamp the city’s adopt a park program.
    • Arranging for volunteers to help with graffiti painting, garbage collecting, light prunning, and some general park maintenance. Perhaps that can be part of the agreement of renting a plot?
    • The details of having a community garden at a park still need to be worked out but we do have to people from the city who we’ve started a dialog with.

Here are some of the pictures from the facility. Just a lot of areas where gardens could go in. Again we need to get some Permaculture Design students up here. They will go wild.

So a very relaxed meeting where we just got to know each other and began brainstorming ideas back and forth. This list is here as a reference so hopefully we can start creating a few goals and tasks to move ahead. There are good people in this group and we can make some magic happen.

Not as many people as last time but we still managed to pick a lot of fruit. I think somewhere around 1200 pounds. The cool thing was that a friend from work Alfonso Elenes decided to come along for the trip. He’s the one who took most of the pictures this time. Enjoy.

From what I understand this is becoming more popular with people who have fruit trees. They are also very grateful that we are doing this since it would normally cost them about $150 dollars to hire a person to come out and pick the tree for them. After that the fruit is usually just thrown away. So in the end the Citrus Gleaning is working out well for everyone.