Vecino Victory Garden, BLITZ 2 and More
Greetings and Salutations!
As the state and community start to open up, so are we. We’re going slowly…carefully and vigilantly tracking how things unfold. We’d love to let you know about a few things but we ask for your patience of possible changes in these tricksy times.
Vecino Victory Garden
What is the Vecino Victory Garden?
It’s our first Demonstration Permaculture Food Forest and Neighborhood Composting Center!
Toni and Rose Zanella have graciously offered up their yard for a semi-public space that will be our first foray into creating a Demonstration Garden. Our goal is to have at least one of these in each town in Butte County (we are working on Paradise so stay tuned). We hope to inspire you and others to take out your grass and Eat Your Lawn .
From Toni- “The Vecino Victory Garden property has been in our family for 65 years. Vecino is the historical name for “The Avenues” in Chico. We’re overjoyed to be able to honor the land and share how to create food security for our community.”
Join us in this exciting journey as we share its transformation. Want to get directly involved? Join us for a workday this, and most, Sundays at 10am to noonish at 1535 Laburnum Ave. in Chico and help us co-create a place of peace and food security in the middle of the whirling world. Or you can donate or create a birthday fundraiser on social media with Butte County Local Food Network as the recipient and we’ll earmark it for this project.
This is our first, early sketch. We’ll have a pretty version soon but are so excited we wanted to share the first one with you, too.
Before lockdown, we had been building a great momentum with our monthly Sunday talks called “Creating Food Independence In Butte County.” We are going to start them back up. Our first post-COVID talk will feature Morgan Kennedy, who has a vision of creating a neighborhood CSA some day.
For now, she’s busy being a Mom to two strong young girls and converting her yard into a growing space for more than just her family. She’s done a ton of research on different models for having your garden be a source of extra income and is willing to share her expertise. WooT!! We love this community!!
The talk will be at Vecino Victory Garden, 1535 Laburnum Ave in Chico on June 7 th at 3PM. We will be streaming on Zoom for those who prefer staying home (can’t vouch for how great the quality will be, but we will do our best). Please bring a chair, your mask and your notepad. The food world is changing. We want to offer up solutions that can help the transitions we are starting to feel in the supply chain. Please RSVP here. The Zoom link will be there the day before.
SOS – Save Our Seeds
This brand new program is SO new that the webpage won’t even be ready until around Saturday, but since the growing season is upon us, we wanted to put you on alert.
The idea is to save seeds together as a community for seed security and we’ll be launching early next week. Please watch for us on Instagram (@bclocalfood) and Facebook and help us get seeds out there. It matters.
Want some Butternut Squash, Black Eyed Peas, Chard and Sunflowers? We chose them because they can still be direct sown and provide ample harvest this summer. We’ll deliver in Chico, Paradise/Magalia, Oroville and Gridley and hope to have them in Tiny Libraries across the county. Map on our site soon. If you want some seeds, please contact us here and we’ll get them to you.
We are SO excited to be working on this new project in cooperation with the Chico Seed Lending Library, Paradise Seed Lending Library and Grub Grown Nursery and Farm .
Giving Thanks!
Our Feed Butte County Direct program has started with a few projects to get local food to folks in our county who live in a food desert. Concow, Pulga, and Yankee Hill are the forgotten communities in the Camp Fire and were just starting to see some light when COVID hit.
We have two distinct projects to help get fresh, healthy, locally grown food up to the folks up there. Unending thanks to From The Ground UP , Tzu Chi , North Valley Community Foundation , Butte Strong Fund, and the Lundberg Family Foundation. Without them, neither project would have been possible. Thanks to the farmers at the Certified Farmers Market for growing food for us. Thanks to Turkey Tail Farms and GRUB CSA for their participation in the CSA scholarship project and a very special shout out to an angel from Concow, Emilia Erickson for all she does for her community.
BLITZ on the Burn Scar
We still have a few more gardens to install from our last BLITZ. Sadly, we had to postpone the last 10 due to the lockdown, but hope to get them installed soon now that life is easing up.
And in a few weeks, it’ll be time to start accepting applications for our next BLITZ which will be up on the Burn Scar. We are working on ideas for those who don’t yet have a fence so that they aren’t simply feeding the animals. We already have 14 applications from the last BLITZ! So exciting! Stay tuned….
Get a Tshirt. Grow Food. Repeat With Friends.
This is a special deal from a local print shop called SilkShop Printing. It is only available in this style and color. Some day we can do tanks and other versions/colors but for now, this is it. Get yours here. All monies raised will go toward the Vecino Victory Garden so you’ll not only feel stylin’ but every time you put it on you can know you are making a difference for your community
We’ll be sending these updates more regularly now that Life is opening up.
In the meantime, join us! There are plenty of volunteer gardening opportunities, but there are also other things you can join in on. These and our other projects can only happen when we come together and make it so. Join us and volunteer. We have things you can do in your home!
Stay safe, sane and happy-
Pamm, Toni, Ali, Amy, Cheri, Maria, Jarrett, Jason, Rose, Donna, Sherri and the gang!
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