This project started with the successful construction of the St. Peter's Community Fellowship Farm (see story below). Now the group is focused on building Sitka's first community greenhouse. To spearhead this effort, a new organization was formed: the Sitka Local Food Network. The Network will be working on this project, as well as continuing to grow the Public Market.

The next major step for the greenhouse is to write a prospectus for the project - basically a very detailed plan for how the greenhouse will be funded and how it will operate. This will be a document in progress. To see the most recent version of the prospectus, check the Documents section on the left.

Let's Grow 2009

The Sitka Local Foods Network invites one and all to a Grow Sitka Grow campaign event to prepare folks for the 2009 gardening season.

March 15, 2009
12:00 (noon) to 3:00pm
ANB Hall, Katlian Street

Anyone wishing to grow items to sell at the 2009 Sitka Farmers Markets and all local gardeners and would be gardeners are encouraged to attend.
Learn about:
* selecting and preparing a garden site
* choosing the best crops to grow in Sitka's difficult climate
* methods for improving and warming soils
* worm bins
* dealing with slugs and other garden pests
* cool tools and garden goodies to reduce the work load
* starting plants indoors
* canning and preserving your harvest
* edible flowers
* the rules for selling your produce and other products at the Farmers Market
ALSO:
Sign up to sell at the 2009 Sitka Farmers Market
Adopt a seed - help the Sitka Farmers Market by raising plant starts - seeds, materials, and instructions provided
Meet local gardeners and learn their tips and tricks for success!

We are looking for folks who can do any of the following:
* create a display on a specific topic related to gardening in Sitka,
* work at one of the tables at the event to share your gardening tips and knowledge (you can choose one or more of the topics listed above),
* do a demonstration or presentation
* OTHER?

CONTACT: Linda Wilson - 747-3096 (home - evenings) / 747-2660 (work - day) for more information or to volunteer to help at the event. Share your knowledge!

"Eating Alaska" premiere raises money for Sitka Community Greenhouse

Local filmmaker, Ellen Frankenstein, was joined by 490 movie buffs for the Sitka debut of “Eating Alaska” on Saturday, November 15th, at the new Sitka High School auditorium. The film is a serious and humorous quest for the "right" thing to eat, and it focuses on local food, subsistence, health and the environment.

Half of the proceeds went toward film editing and outreach expenses and the other half, about $1,600, was dedicated to the new Sitka Community Greenhouse seed money fund. Creating a community greenhouse was identified as a top priority at the 2008 Sitka Health Summit. In addition to the movie premiere, several community groups hosted booths about local foods.

Event sponsors included: ALPS Federal Credit Union, the Sitka Film Society, Sitka Conservation Society, the SEARHC Steps to a Healthier SE Alaska program and SEARHC. For information about the film, go to www.eatingalaska.com. To see photos from the premiere, go to www.flickr.com/groups/sitkafarmersmarket.

This Saturday's planting party was a huge success! The new community garden/fellowship farm is addressing the top three priorities from the Health Summit, the food is being grown for the Sitka Farmers Market, the locally grown veggies tie into the Food Security initiative and the land is quickly becoming a vibrant community gathering place. PS. Community Schools heroes Matt, Stacie and Livey + about 5 SNEP students and a couple of Americorp workers from Community Schools helped to prep the land on Thursday.
2 tons of sand were delivered thanks to yet another fabulous volunteer, Jay Stezenmuller. It was shoveled and mixed into the beds and then some topsoil was added which has been donated by Spenards.

The St. Peter's community garden/fellowship farm is really taking shape. The plan is to grow veggies to have them at Sitka's first Saturday market scheduled for this August or September. At today's Sitka Farmers Market meeting we discussed having a:

a.) a 1:30pm Monday (6/23) walk through/planning session at the wonderful sunny spot behind the Sea House. If you have a green thumb please come and help us to plan how to best use this space.

b.) a 10am Saturday June 28th work party/planting party for any and all who might be interested. Look for PSA's next week and please feel free to contribute what you can: tools, knowledge, starts, refreshments, gloves, morale support, soil, etc. Thank you to all the folks who have made some very generous donations.

Donations that have come in during the last 48 hours:

• St. Peters - A WONDERFUL flat spot of land.
• Linda - 21 small bags of sand/soil
• True Vaule - 2 bags of topsoil, starts, veggies etc.
• Spenard's Building Supply - soil, amount to be determined
• Natalie - a truck to haul stuff
• Kerry + Matthew - garden design/planning
• Kari L - some compost
• Stan - string and poles for peas
• Food Security/Greenhouse + Farmers Market - several volunteers to help plant.
• Faith - with the Americorps program is looking into getting a 4-8 person crew to help prep the land on Thursday or Friday morning. She is calling Russ Thorpe and is looking into using a small backhoe that might help with that job.

This just in.... Raven Radio has me plus one more community farm rep. scheduled for next Thursday June 26th 8:18am interview, to promote the upcoming community planting party. Rob said this also may turn into a news story with a reporter on hand for the Saturday's work party, so be ready.

All for now and thanks to everyone! It's heartening to see how this is coming together so nicely and with so much grassroots support. Sitka really is a great community!

We had lots of short and long term goals submitted by the 20 Sitkan's interested in food security, more locally grown produce and a community greenhouse.

On the short term list was increases in home garden production this summer, in part so that our 1st fish/farmers market has more than a few peas and a leaf of lettuce to represent local produce. Other ideas included, sharing local growing techniques, using the area around Hames, getting list serves together, doing education on the bennies of going local, building the web site and getting 100 apple trees with 4 accompanying classes on tree maintance by coop ext. and more

On the long term side of the fence: become more self sufficent, getting a small business for large scale growing, using hydroponics, creating a botanical garden as a tourist attraction and of course getting a community greenhouse, which is heavy on the volunteer and theraputic side of gardening.

Thanks to Kerry for a great presentation that included examples from Cheyna Hot Springs and the Cheyenne Botanical Garden.

Next meeting TBA in the meantime grow grow grow, Sitka's 1st farmers market is right around the corner.