It’s been almost a month since the last post and things have been going well for the most part. My love-hate relationship with the general public continues. I will say that the community meeting went extraordinarily well and that we got a unanimous decision from them to endorse our presence in the community and a zoning exception to allow us to sell our produce onsite.
Why that land is zoned as residential is still beyond me; I don’t make the laws though, I just follow them. At the very least the site is physically starting to look like a productive site; I’ve attached pictures of what it looks like from the roof of the leased building. It’s amazing how much better it looks from above. Throughout that whole digging process it was hard to tell if anything was getting it done. It looked organized but it was nothing compared to what it looked like from above.
We had previously decided to forego the spring season in hopes of getting a head start on summer. That’s still our plan but we had a bunch of extra spring seedlings so we opted to put them in the ground and hope for the best. At worst they die and add some diverse organic material to the soil. Anyway, we have about 20 beds of produce. It’s mostly a mix of cabbage, kale, swiss chard, and bok choy. There’s been enough natural rainfall to sustain the produce so far and I hope that will continue throughout the season. At least until we can get the rain barrels up.
Still dealing with city zoning but hopefully we’ll have that settled soon. Crazy how hard it is to get something approved even though it aligns perfectly with the newly adopted “Comprehensive Plan.” I’m not going to get into it because only bad things can come from that but if you’re curious just google “Birmingham Comprehensive Plan” and read for yourself. As far as I can tell being an adult just means learning how to talk about doing more but actually doing less.
At least things are moving. We hope to have the compost bins, worm bins, bees, and rain barrel system up in a few weeks. It would be good to finish the sides of the greenhouse as well. We’re also hoping to have our summer crops in the ground by mid April. Hope the future keeps bringing good things.
