Posted Jan 6 2012
Hello Everyone!
I'm Randy Hansen, co-
chair of the Cliff's Community Garden. Nancy Eubanks
is the other co- chair.
We are excited to
announce our first meeting of 2012 that will be held
at Candy's Coffee on this Saturday, 11 February at
11AM.
I know some have been
informed the time was going to be 10AM, so I'll be
there at that time.
The meeting is open to
the general public, so grab a friend and have a cup
at the coffee house!
We will be discussing
and planning for this years projects. Here's the ad,
as it may appear in the Wet Mountain Tribune.
Sustainable Ways Cliffs Community Garden Public Meeting
11 February 2012, 11am at Candy's Coffee House, 106
S. 2nd Street, Westcliffe
Everyone is welcome to come to our first meeting of
2012. As a non- profit organization, we want to
include the general public so the community at large
can better understand who and what we’re about. You
will be encouraged to provide input into helping to
make the community garden a success for our county
and help build a stronger community.
The general topics to be discussed will include:
Introductions
What is the Cliffs Community Garden
Vision
Strategy
Action
Expansion of garden plots
Discuss implementing the budget into action.
Discuss a plan for getting the garden ready for late
April/ early May planting
Discuss food share ideas
Open floor for general discussion and ideas
"Cliffs' Park Community Garden is a project of
Sustainable Ways, a local non-profit 501c3 dedicated
to educating, advocating, and demonstrating
sustainable ways of living in the Wet Mountain
Valley."
I'm excited to be a co- chair with Nancy for this
year. We have a lot of projects to do, but I don't
think it will be anything overwhelming.
A little background on me.
I'm 43 years old and a disabled army veteran. I
served for 22 years in both the active army and the
national guard. I did logistics, Infantry and was a
tank crewman. I worked in the pest control industry
for a number of years, both in Alabama and Georgia.
I also worked as a civilian contractor for a company
in Georgia providing technical and network support
to the Georgia Department of Defense, until the dot
com bubble burst, and the company went bankrupt.
I started a pest control business in 2004, only to
find myself mobilized for Iraq that December. I was
in Iraq from May 2005- May 2006 in a combat role
south of Baghdad for half the year, then we were
placed on convoy escort duty for the remainder.
During my stay in Iraq, is when I became interested
in agriculture. I was amazed at what they were able
to grow in such an extreme climate. Unlike here in
the U.S, I don't recall seeing things like, Miracle
Grow, or Sevin Dust, or anything synthetic. What I
saw would easily be labeled as “organic”, or even
“sustainable”, even by our standards.
As I was settling into our new routine in the second
phase of our tour, we were operating from an air
base in southern Iraq. That's when my wife hit me
with a question one evening while talking to her on
the phone. She said that since we essentially have
to start over, would I be willing to move out west?
I said sure. She found property here in Colorado
worth looking at, and when I came home on leave, we
flew out here and found our 40 acres. We made an
offer, put money down, flew back to Atlanta where I
boarded a plane bound back to Iraq.
When I came home in May of 2006, having finished my
tour, we sold things, fixed up the condo for sale,
and loaded up to move out here. I was only home for
two weeks when we left Georgia and moved to our new
home here in Custer County on 40 acres of vacant
land, some 9000 + feet above sea level.
We've learned a lot in the past five years of living
here. We were aggressive about learning all we could
about everything agriculture. We've had some success
- a lot of failures, but we're still plugging along.
Now that I'm officially disabled/ retired from
service, I'm devoting myself to trying to turn my
sword into a plowshare on a full time bases,
somewhat like an ancient Roman Legionnaire would
have done back in the day. Our goal with our land is
to incorporate sustainable and permaculture
techniques so as to work with nature, and make our
land highly productive. Included in this plan is to
also use water conservation techniques, so we stay
within the legal guidelines of water law in
Colorado, and so we preserve our well. (water rights
drive me nuts!)
Soap box moment
In the years to come, we hope to have success in
demonstrating that it is possible to grow food,
help the environment and encourage diverse wildlife,
(insects included) as well as live sustainably in
such an extreme environment such as ours. We would
like to be able to teach those who ask for free,
unlike so many other organizations. Education in
sustainable agriculture, (gardening included),
should not come with a price tag of $1000.00 or
more, for just a few days. If we are serious about
doing our part in combating global warming, and the
mega agriculture corporations that are destroying
our food and land for instant gratification, then we
need to learn together, and teach each other so we
all can teach others. That's a few reasons I'm
involved with Sustainable Ways.
May relearning our agrarian ways of the past,
combine with the best of our modern technology, and
come together in a harmonious way – a sustainable
way!
Thank you
The Cliffs Park: A Community Garden
c/o
Sustainable Ways, Inc.
PO Box 672
Westcliffe,
CO 81252
The Cliff’s Park:
A
Community Garden Wish List
(as of March 9,
2010)
Water Cistern (s)
Temporary shed on
skids to store hoses and equipment
Fencing for garden plot
area
2 pedestrian gates
1 large gate for
trucks and farm equipment
695 feet of fencing 6 ft tall (hog,
goat, or Chicken)
Post extensions for existing fencing to
bring to 8ft tall or more (for 708 ft.
Fence posts for 6-8 ft
fence (Distance including gates approx. 200 ft.)
Top soil
(clean)
Manure (separate fresh manure from year or more old
manure)
Straw bales, rotted hay bales (separate seed free
hay from regular), loose rotted hay or straw
Compostable
waste vegetable matter that won’t blow away or attract critters
(herbicide and pesticide free grass clippings, used coffee
grounds, etc.)
Wood chips for paths
Old carpet (5 ft or 2
½ foot widths) to use for weed suppression under paths (turned
upside down.)
Seeds for cover crops
Stakes and twine for
marking individual plots
Hoses, hosebibs, water pipes,
hardware to attach pipe to cistern and /or connect multiple
cisterns
Large worm box (instructions to make it available)
Children’s garden raised bed, fence, and gate.
Short pieces
of rebar to stake haybales
Picnic Table
Old windows for
cold frames
Old window screens for hail protection
Pallets
Seed for grassland restoration (Jim Sperry to specify)
Burlap
or other biodegradable woven material to aid
in grass establishment on steep slopes
Contact
information:
Garden Plot reservations: (no charge – volunteer
hours required): Buffy 783-4833
Donations: Robin 783-2481
Volunteers: Kim 783-0760
General questions: Sue 371-3685
Plot reservations, Donations and Volunteer offers can be
made by email
email
Labor, preferably with
mechanical or animal assistance to:
Spread manure
Disk in manure and plow to break up sod and
prepare soil for planting
Trucks to pick up and deliver manure and haybales
Cash
donations for water, payment in lieu of taxes, cistern,
liability insurance, etc.
Tax deductible donations may be sent to Sustainable Ways,
PO Box 672, Westcliffe, CO 81252, specifying that they be
applied to the Community Garden.
Donations can be offered via
email or by telephone to Robin Young at
the NRCS office 783-2481
Note: All donations need to be coordinated
through a task force (for delivery and placement instructions)
and carefully documented.
This will allow us to claim donations as local matching
for potential future grant applications.
Records need to be kept of # hours of donated labor for
the same purpose.
Garden Steering Committee:
Sue Pitman 371-3685 (for Sustainable Ways), Bob Tobin
783-3229, Steve Willman (for Custer 2020) 429-1608, Mike Liebman
371-0059, Buffy Lenth 783-4483
Sue
371-3685
