I visited Sweetwater Farms the other day with my friend mark, and photographed their 6 acre facility just past the airport here in Tampa, FL. They are a community funded, volunteer driven all-organic farm that provides local residents and a fresh foods market with produce. They are a big example of Community Supported Agriculture, a type of farming that focuses on many members banding together to reap the rewards of growing their own food. find out more at the Sweetwater Organic Farms website, www.sweetwater-organic.org.
After that, mark offered to take me to a bit more secretive location, the Berns' Steakhouse Farm. This upscale Tampa restaurant grows all their produce on a small farm located on the corner of waters ave and the veterans expressway (map). There was no one there, so we walked through the gate and snapped some photos, and snagged a few other things.
unfortunately, this goof forgot the card reader, so there will be no pictures until I update again from home. Oh, and the Berns' had GREAT potatoes!
4.14.2008
hibernation station
this cold weather snap turned me into a hibernating bear today. so as I awaken, I will digress...
- when my "close to home" garden got mowed, I had to come up with a way to beat that system, and encourage others to get involved with these ideas. the gardeners of Toronto's Public Space had what I thought was a really novel idea where they use small signs to alert passerby of the presence of their gardens.
These signs ask people to tread carefully and to please water the plants, so I figured I could take a page out of their book and began to draft my own PLEASE WATER/DO NOT MOW signs. unfortunately for my pocketbook, but fortunately for my sense of humor, I am not city sponsored like the Public Space gardeners, so I ran things a bit differently. Here's what I came up with:
there are two varieties, one with a head of lettuce and one with a nice little sunflower. I made them from scratch in photoshop, and used my superb printmaking skills (thanks shanks) to faux-posterize and color reduce the images. A few prints and a quick trip to kinko's later, I had glossy laminated signs warning everyone that there are plants afoot. I put these up at my remaining three gardens, and so far so good. All the signs are still up as of last friday, and no more encounters of the john deere kind have occurred.
- the GoingGreenTampaBayExpo was held last saturday in the Sun Dome on USF's Tampa campus. there were lots of great exhibits, from hybrid cars and SUVs, to the Hyde Park Hemp shop. there were free tacos from chipotle, and some really great workshops and screenings going on. I spent the day handing out flyers for the blog that I whipped up from a photograph of the signs, and then added some neato corresponding design elements to spruce them up. if you got one of these flyers and actually read it and visited, please drop me a line on the comments or in a email, cause I love attention!
- a friend of mine came by the house last week and commented on my sweet porch garden, and proceeded to tell me about his porch garden that was ready to be transplanted. We decided to knock that out that same afternoon, and just waited for the rain to let up. we left for chris' as the sun came out, but by the time we got there, florida had other plans and it began to rain to rain violently on us, so we took a break. after it was apparent that we were not going to get more dry time, we decided to conquer the elements and hit it again. I covered my camera with a plastic bag, and we dug more beds and got al his little seedlings moved in to their new homes. check out the album here:
I'm making images of the signs up with the gardens, and I want to process them using HDR imaging, a new technique that increases the dynamic range of digital images. I hope to make some prints of them coming up soon; I'll try and drop one up here later tonight. until then, grow on!
- when my "close to home" garden got mowed, I had to come up with a way to beat that system, and encourage others to get involved with these ideas. the gardeners of Toronto's Public Space had what I thought was a really novel idea where they use small signs to alert passerby of the presence of their gardens.
These signs ask people to tread carefully and to please water the plants, so I figured I could take a page out of their book and began to draft my own PLEASE WATER/DO NOT MOW signs. unfortunately for my pocketbook, but fortunately for my sense of humor, I am not city sponsored like the Public Space gardeners, so I ran things a bit differently. Here's what I came up with:
there are two varieties, one with a head of lettuce and one with a nice little sunflower. I made them from scratch in photoshop, and used my superb printmaking skills (thanks shanks) to faux-posterize and color reduce the images. A few prints and a quick trip to kinko's later, I had glossy laminated signs warning everyone that there are plants afoot. I put these up at my remaining three gardens, and so far so good. All the signs are still up as of last friday, and no more encounters of the john deere kind have occurred.
- the GoingGreenTampaBayExpo was held last saturday in the Sun Dome on USF's Tampa campus. there were lots of great exhibits, from hybrid cars and SUVs, to the Hyde Park Hemp shop. there were free tacos from chipotle, and some really great workshops and screenings going on. I spent the day handing out flyers for the blog that I whipped up from a photograph of the signs, and then added some neato corresponding design elements to spruce them up. if you got one of these flyers and actually read it and visited, please drop me a line on the comments or in a email, cause I love attention!- a friend of mine came by the house last week and commented on my sweet porch garden, and proceeded to tell me about his porch garden that was ready to be transplanted. We decided to knock that out that same afternoon, and just waited for the rain to let up. we left for chris' as the sun came out, but by the time we got there, florida had other plans and it began to rain to rain violently on us, so we took a break. after it was apparent that we were not going to get more dry time, we decided to conquer the elements and hit it again. I covered my camera with a plastic bag, and we dug more beds and got al his little seedlings moved in to their new homes. check out the album here:
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| chris's house 4/11/08 6:50 PM |
I'm making images of the signs up with the gardens, and I want to process them using HDR imaging, a new technique that increases the dynamic range of digital images. I hope to make some prints of them coming up soon; I'll try and drop one up here later tonight. until then, grow on!
4.13.2008
a short yet triumphant interlude.
It got surprisingly cold here in Daytona Beach FL, where I am visiting my family for the day. sorry for the lack of recent posts and the brevity of this one, but I'll get to a full update later.
- I believe I am successfully combating the problems I was facing earlier
- Had a great time at the GoingGreenTampaBay expo, even though I didn't present
- Helped start another garden
and a few more things, but right now I have to get on the road back to Tampa, so a full update will be in order then.
- I believe I am successfully combating the problems I was facing earlier
- Had a great time at the GoingGreenTampaBay expo, even though I didn't present
- Helped start another garden
and a few more things, but right now I have to get on the road back to Tampa, so a full update will be in order then.
4.02.2008
To add insult to injury...
I was running late this morning, but still wanted to check on my close to home garden, as I was really afraid the pond created in fletcher field would have surely washed my plants out. Worse than any rain, I realized, was the man with the lawnmower that must have taken two or three runs to chop up a few salads worth of lettuce growing inbetween the trees. jerk. Anyhow, we'll strike that one off the list, and now I need a way to stop this from happening again. I'll be back.
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