Keith Bateman at his farm (photo by Dea Sloan)

Over the past few decades, Boulder County has seen the departure of a lot of farmers, making Keith Bateman’s long-term commitment to farming a notable one.

Keith grew up in Lafayette where his grandparents owned a dairy. Until he was 17, Keith farmed alongside his father in fields around Waneka Lake and up and down Baseline Road until his dad decided to get out of farming. A year later, Keith borrowed $800 to start farming on his own. Today, decades later, Keith is still passionate about the art of farming and being a good neighbor.

If you live in a house in Lafayette that is less than thirty years old and located between Indian Peaks golf course and the Lafayette Library off of Baseline, chances are your home sits on land that once was farmed by Keith, his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather or his great-great-grandfather. Nowadays, Keith farms with his son and, god-willing, Keith’s grandkids will grow up to be the seventh generation of Batemans to farm in and around Lafayette, Louisville and Erie.

Each year Keith and his son grow brewing barley for Coors and wheat for bread, as well as corn, alfalfa hay, grass hay, and oats. They also raise about 80 calves. For the first time in 2011, they are growing high-fiber barley – a whole grain that can play a role in healthy diets to help to prevent diabetes, heart disease and obesity. This year Keith looked at adding organic wheat to his repertoire of crops, but he couldn’t find a suitable buyer for his crop.

One of Keith’s main crops is dryland wheat. He grows it up and down Highway 52 as well as in Louisville, where he leases a field on the Harney Lastoka Open Space that sits next to the Growing Gardens’ Kerr Garden, the historic farm and the ball fields, just south of the intersection of Highway 42 and South Boulder Road.

Keith is well versed in the art of growing dryland wheat and every bit of his artistry goes into that field. He leaves stubble in the field each year to protect the soil from wind erosion and to increase stored soil moisture which leads to healthier, pest resistant wheat plants.

Like most Colorado farmers, he uses pesticides judiciously and only as a last resort when the weeds reach a level that threatens the value of his crop. Keith takes extra care when the field on the Harney-Lastoka Open Space must be sprayed. The typical buffer zone for an organic field is about 100 feet, but to protect the organic vegetables in the Kerr Gardens, Keith has expanded the zone to 200 feet.

When he needs to resort to herbicides to protect the crop, he brings in a team of experts to help with the job, even though he could do it himself. The team carefully monitors the wind, air temperature, humidity and other factors to precisely adjust the droplet size and spray volume. Their fine attention to detail ensures that they use only the amount of pesticide needed to do the job and not a droplet more. As they work, Keith uses sensitive monitors, called drift cards, near the edges of the field to confirm that no spray gets away. One time he set up a drift card just a few feet from the spraying operation and even there there was no sign that spray was going anywhere other than it’s intended target.

You’re likely to see Keith or his son out working in their wheat fields when they are planting the winter wheat sometime between the beginning of September and mid-October. They are back again the following summer to harvest that crop. In between planting and harvesting, Keith regularly monitors his fields to make sure everything is growing as it should. Weather permitting, in a good year Keith and his son grow enough hard red winter wheat to make 435,000 loaves of bread.

Learn more about How Wheat Works , a great interactive program from the Wheat Foods Council that provides the full farm-to-fork experience as you plant, harvest, mill and bake a crop of wheat.

Elizabeth Long, circa 1917-1924 (Carnegie Library)

The Boulder City Council met recently to explore the possible purchase of a conservation easement on the Long’s Gardens site at 3240 Broadway, Boulder.  The site consists of 25.1 acres which is zoned agricultural.

This timing is critical in that the Long family members are willing to negotiate a conservation easement and the preservation of the site at this time. With involved family members of an elderly age and out of town, the timing of this negotiation becomes critical.  Whereas the price may seem high ($4.7 M in its entirety), the cost of foregoing this opportunity in terms of conservation, preservation and sustainability is higher.

The Long family has a history and a vision of working with the city to preserve this 100 year old farm.  This is our opportunity, at a critical moment, to join together and let our voices and shared vision be known.  City Council needs to hear from the community as to their support of this endeavor.  As the Blue Line defined Boulder years ago, the Long’s Gardens site and Growing Gardens will define Boulder’s future for generations to come.

The long term vision includes a conservation easement put in place between the city and Long’s Garden family members as a means of preserving the 25 acre site, the historic structures which have supported the 100 year old farm, and the value in terms of an urban farm within the center of the Boulder community.

Suitable soils and water necessary for food crops, with an intact water delivery system, are an irreplaceable resource in the center of our community.  Protecting these resources in the heart of urban Boulder is one of the most forward-thinking investments the city can make.  This investment appears consistent with recent Comprehensive Plan revisions acknowledging the city’s desire to remain on the leading edge of promoting a sustainable local food economy.

The Long’s Gardens property is the foundation of Growing Gardens’ urban farming operation.  The site currently houses the Growing Gardens not-for-profit organization and has for the past 11 years.  Growing Gardens is not just a “community garden” organization, but has an extensive outreach program. Over 10,166 individuals participated in Growing Gardens programs in 2010. Of these, 4,415 were low-income, 270 were youth, 140 were people with disabilities, over 1,422 were gardeners, 53 were seniors and 3,700 children.  Growing Gardens worked with a total of over 100 schools, community groups, agencies and corporations.  They donated 8,000 pounds of produce in partnership with the Boulder County Farmers Market and through their own Market Garden, to those in need.  There were 554 individuals volunteering 3,872 hours of their time to benefit our programming.

City Council acknowledged that the preservation of this site would give Growing Gardens the greatest opportunity for success and could well be, and should be, a world class success, furthering Boulder’s core values of sustainability.

Council acknowledged that there exists an unparalleled opportunity to preserve this urban farm, to allow for expansion of the Growing Gardens facilities at the Long’s Gardens site, and has empowered city staff to move forward with obtaining an appraisal of the property.

All City Council members acknowledged the value of the property and the desire to preserve the historic structures and urban farm operation.  Many expressed concern over the purchase price and the ability for the city to consider this purchase at this time with energy issues in the forefront.  There was discussion as to funding options, the ability to acquire agricultural grants, foundation support, partnerships, etc.  There was discussion of the increased densification of central Boulder and the value of this urban farm within that context.  There was strong support for sustainable, publicly available agriculture, with acknowledgment that this is a unique property and opportunity.

Council directed staff to move forward with a current appraisal of the property and further consideration of options for preserving this legacy.

Please let your voice be heard.

Read the draft version of the conservation easement.

Growing Gardens is currently looking for sponsors for our Harvest Dinner scheduled at the Longs Gardens, Hawthorne Garden site on August 6, 2011.  Corporate sponsors are an important part of this celebration and support is vital to making this program possible.  All community members are invited to attend the Harvest Dinner and tickets may be purchased at growinggardens.org.  For those unable to attend, silent auction items are welcomed.

Rebecca DiDomenico garden, photo by R. DiDomenico

Grab your spring-fever and take yourself on a tour of enchantment through the eccentric gardens of 15 Boulder artists.  Visit the Boulder Public Library Canyon Gallery and see how 30 painters, photographers and sculptors were inspired by these 15 artists’ gardens.  Then head home and plant seeds of inspiration in your own garden!

The Peters-Walker garden, photo by George Peters

The Eccentric Artists’ GARDENS TOUR

Sunday JUNE 12th 2011, 11am – 6pm.  Buy a map-guide for $10 and tour the gardens of 15 Boulder artists.  All gardens are free and open to the public. Map-guide sale locations: Boulder Arts & Crafts Co-op, Sturtz & Copeland, Piece Love & Chocolate, Indochine.

The Eccentric Artists’ GARDENS EXHIBIT

MAY 31st through JULY 10TH, 2011.  The Canyon Gallery of the Boulder Public Library, 1000 Canyon, Boulder, CO (303) 441-3100. Hours: M-Th 10am-9pm; F, Sa 10am-6pm; Su 12-6pm. Opening Reception:  Friday, June 3rd, 5 – 7pm.

About Us

For the past year, 15 Boulder artists have opened their gardens to 32 painters, photographers and sculptors.   Inspired by these 15 gardens, the exhibiting artists created new work which will be on display at the Boulder Public Library from May 31st – July 10th.  On June 12^th, the public will have their own chance to tour these 15 gardens, meet the artist-gardeners, and talk to painters demonstrating plein-air painting in the gardens.  From baroque to eclectic, from funky to elegant, these gardens span all styles and offer many ideas to gardeners searching for inspiration in their own spaces.  Our mission is to cross-pollinate the visions of gardeners with those of artists, and to germinate seeds of inspiration, which will sprout into artistic flights of fancy in your own garden. Please join us.  You may find that your own garden and life will change!

Related Events

The Eccentric Garden JOURNAL WORKSHOP: On June 25^th from 12-4PM, join book-maker Kristen Law for a FREE half-day book-making workshop at the Boulder Public Library, and create your own garden journal to document changes in your yard.  To sign up, contact Carol Hepke at 303-441-3196.  Suggested donation for materials: $10

Climate-Wise Gardening

click to view entire cartoon

As a part of the Eccentric Artists Gardens Exhibit at the Library, the Eccentric Artists are tackling the issue of what Front Range gardeners can do in their own back yards to adapt to and mitigate climate change.  Visit the exhibit at the Canyon Gallery of the Boulder Public Library or our website, and learn how to turn your yard into a carbon-munching machine! See examples of Climate-Wise gardening practices in other Boulder gardens on the Eccentric Artists’ Gardens Tour on June 12^th.

The Eccentric Artists decided to take on the topic of Climate-Wise Gardening because it is timely and there is not a whole lot of information about it.  We have outlined 10 easy guidelines which gardeners can follow to become “Climate-Wise.”  Many gardeners will find that they have already been doing some of these things, and they should be commended!  New gardeners will find lots of new ideas to try out.  The guidelines are all inexpensive, non-capital-intensive solutions.

I have designed, written and produced this exhibit.  To present the guidelines, I have created a character named Climate Wise-Guy, who is designed to be friendly, non-threatening, comforting and wise. Climate Wise-Guy, along with his dorky side-kick Little Bunny, is able to present disturbing information in a non-threatening way, so people can hear it better.  My drawings of Climate Wise-Guy and Little Bunny are available for free to use in educational material about climate change.  Contact me at 303-449-7532 or Elizabeth@ElizabethBlackArt.com if you want to use Climate Wise-Guy in your own educational campaign.

To learn more about Climate-Wise Gardening on the Front Range, follow this link: http://www.eccentricartistsgardens.com/climatewisegarden.html

A local food revolution is quietly unfolding in our midst right here in Boulder County. It’s a revolution aimed at rebuilding this region’s capacity to feed its own people, to ensure food security and food sovereignty for all.

Anyone living in the area could scarcely have escaped noticing some of the obvious first signs of this revolution: Farmers’ markets are popping up around the county, along with roadside farmstands. More restaurants are sourcing their ingredients from local farmers and ranchers. Municipalities have been compelled to change laws to accommodate the rapidly rising citizen demand to raise chickens, goats and bees in residential backyards.

Backyard and frontyard gardens seem to be proliferating everywhere, and local fresh produce is now even being offered in many Boulder County school lunchrooms. Dozens of family farms are now offering CSAs (community supported agriculture), and plastic-covered “hoop houses” are springing up on farms and in yards as gardeners struggle to meet the challenge of extending the Front Range’s famously short growing season.

But some of the signs of this revolution are far less visible. For instance, hundreds of people have been signing up for “reskilling” classes on forest gardening, food canning and preservation, composting, vermiculture, seed-saving, food fermentation, greenhouse construction, aquaponics, along with rainwater harvesting. Even more have been taking instruction in seasonal eating and cooking, as well as basic nutrition.

In addition, over the past four years more than 300 people in the area have graduated from an intense 72-hour permaculture design certification course, and about 50 have gone on to become certified permaculture instructors.

Nonprofit organizations — including Everybody Eats!, Growing Gardens, and Transition Louisville — have been working to stimulate demand for local food, as well as increasing local food production capacity. In 2007, Transition Colorado launched an ongoing countywide EAT LOCAL! Campaign, which now includes a 10 percent Local Food Shift Challenge and Pledge. The organization also publishes Boulder County’s EAT LOCAL! Resource Guide & Directory, and has hosted numerous films and high-profile speakers, conferences and an EAT LOCAL! Week.

County government is also involved. In 2008, the Boulder County Commissioners formed a Food & Agriculture Policy Council, with a mandate to convert 10 percent of the 17,000 acres of county-owned open space agricultural land to food production for local consumption by 2012.

Why local food?

Why the growing interest in local food? The answers lie in understanding our “food predicament,” particularly our dependence on a fragile and increasingly unwieldy global food system.

For perspective, it’s useful to know that the latest USDA data shows that Boulder County residents spent $947 million on food in 2010 (up from $662 million in 2007). But how much of this goes to Boulder County producers?

Not much. While definitive numbers are still unavailable, it’s safe to say that no more than 1 to 2 percent of the food we consume in Boulder County is produced within the county. For an agricultural county with more than 137,000 acres of productive agricultural land, that’s surprising. This situation is roughly in line with the state as a whole — Colorado residents spend $12 billion annually on food, 97 percent of which is imported from outside the state.

As in most places, since World War II agriculture has become primarily focused on producing exports. Conventional farmers have been told that their mission is “to feed the world.” Thus, 95 percent of all agricultural production in the county is exported.

At the heart of the local food revolution is the realization that our ability to meet our basic food needs locally has been thoroughly undermined by big agribusiness, including the “value-added” food processors whose products have added considerable heft to our waistlines and contributed directly to a national health crisis of obesity, Type II diabetes and a host of food-related diseases. The real cost of this arrangement has been very high.

Local food advocates are also acutely aware that the globalized food system is highly dependent on fossil fuels for inputs (synthetic fertilizers and pesticides), processing, storage, cooling and transportation. They see increasing signs that dependence on foreign oil — inevitably increasing in price as global oil production peaks — puts big agribusiness and “conventional” agriculture in a no-win situation, and that the misnamed “Green Revolution” (it was a coup!) is exhibiting signs of failure in the face of already devastating impacts of climate change.

They also claim that widespread application of synthetic chemicals is jeopardizing long-term soil fertility.

“The soil is a living thing, and we are murdering it,” says Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement. “Industrial agriculture has embraced the idea of farming without farmers, but at this rate one day we’ll be forced to farm without land.”

To complicate matters, as author Anna Lappé concludes in Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, the way we currently grow, process, ship, market and cook our food may be contributing more than 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

All these factors have combined to make food one of the most unsustainable spheres of human activity.

Feed the world, or feed our own?

Meanwhile, the world population is apparently on the way to 9 billion people by mid-century, necessitating at least a doubling of current food production — at a time when a global food crisis looms on the horizon.

While big agribusiness insists that the only way to continue to feed the world is to greatly increase the efficiency of industrialized agriculture (and towards that end to genetically engineer virtually all crops), a growing number of people are seeing this technological approach as not only unsustainable but a clear threat to human freedom and sovereignty.

With the likely total deregulation of genetically modified organisms and the absence of appropriate food labeling, consumers and growers alike feel that their ability to exercise choice has been taken away. Meanwhile, even “natural” grocers like Vitamin Cottage admit that the majority of the products on their shelves probably contain GMOs. While GMO labeling is mandated in most EU nations, industry has mobilized to successfully prevent such practices in the United States.

A U.N. report released in early March claims that support of small-scale farming using “agro-ecological” methods — i.e., mostly local and organic — could easily double food production in 10 years in critical regions. This study confirms what local food advocates have known for years, that we must begin making the shift to growing most of our own food locally, with bio-intensive methods that restore soil, rekindle connection with the land and rebuild community.

Recent studies indicate that the benefits of food localization can be far-reaching. Returning to a fresh, seasonal, mostly organic local diet will significantly improve the health of our communities, especially our children, and dramatically reduce health care costs. Shrinking our foodshed will not only reduce food-miles, but bio-intensive cultivation methods will also sequester carbon in the soil, making food localization one of the most effective approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Surprisingly, rebuilding our local food system might also be the most important thing we can do to strengthen our local economies — to create new jobs and stem the leakage of dollars. Economist and food system researcher Michael Shuman recently completed a study for the greater Cleveland area that shows that moving to 25 percent food localization in that area by 2020 could produce 27,000 new jobs, generate $4.2 billion of economic activity each year, and produce $126 million in new local and state tax revenues.

Shuman, who is director of research and economic development for BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), is now conducting a similar study to quantify the potential economic upside for food localization in the Boulder County area.

Commissioned by Transition Colorado, the study will identify gaps, challenges and opportunities, and will map the business initiatives, public policy shifts, and nonprofit programs to make 25 percent food localization achievable by 2020.

Financing the revolution

"Jos. Wolff's Orchard-Grove Fruit Farm, North Boulder, Colo." circa 1890-1899 (Carnegie Library)

One of the impacts of the globalization of food has been the gradual erosion of the network of enterprises that once supported a robust local food and farming economy. According to retired Boulder attorney and former Food & Agriculture Policy Council member-at-large Jim England, at the turn of the 20th century Boulder County had six flour mills (three of them in or near the Boulder city limits), canning factories and other processing plants, commercially successful berry and small fruit operations, and thousands of fruit trees (Boulder’s Grove Street is named after the commercial apple and other fruit groves that grew there). There were butchers on Pearl Street, malt houses, a cheese factory in Hygiene and a number of working dairies. “A hundred years ago this was something of a locavore’s paradise,” says England. “And if it once was thus, my hope is it can again be that.”

Sanitarium Dairy, circa 1930 (Carnegie Library)

But crucial to achieving any significant level of food localization will be the rebuilding of Boulder County’s local food infrastructure — production, processing, distribution and storage — which will require an infusion of financial investments to underwrite the entrepreneurs and farmers who wish to be part of the local food revolution.

In an era of shrinking budgets, where will that money come from? Woody Tasch, a frequent visitor to Boulder County, has an answer: “Slow Money,” which Entrepreneur Magazine dubbed “one of the top five trends in finance for 2011.”

Weaving economic savvy with a poet’s penchant for language, Tasch explains that Slow Money represents “the creation of new forms of intermediation that catalyze the transition from a commerce of extraction and consumption to a commerce of preservation and restoration.” It’s a reversal of dependence on Wall Street markets and traditional investment vehicles, which parallels the shift from big agribusiness to local food economies.

Tasch says that the recent economic crisis is exactly what one can expect when the relationships between money, community and the land are broken. The most appropriate way to begin building a restorative economy, he says, is to invest locally in sustainable, small-scale food enterprises. The Slow Money approach aims to bring together key stakeholders, investors and entrepreneurs, along with leaders in local food and progressive finance.

Slow Money is just now beginning to take hold in Boulder County, with a commitment of $1.5 million from an anonymous donor to seed what promises to become a critical source of capital for local food and farming enterprises. That fund is currently under the stewardship of Transition Colorado, but will soon be established as an independent Slow Money entity.

Catalyzing a local network

Rebuilding production capacity and increasing consumer demand simultaneously is something of a chicken-and-egg challenge. Some farmers remain skeptical that the demand for locally produced food will continue to follow a supposed hockey-stick trajectory. They wonder: “If we are able to dramatically ramp up production, where will the infrastructure come from that can get our products processed and onto the tables of consumers?” One bright spot may be the recent emergence of a “foodshed alliance” known as the Boulder County Local Food Network, conceived as a cooperative membership organization joining farmers, food and agricultural leaders, local businesses, local governments and community residents in a united effort to stimulate and support the local food economy and to foster increasing localization of the regional food system. The group’s informal motto is “thinking like a foodshed.”

Organized as a member of the national Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, the Local Food Network was first announced on Feb. 27 at the “Our Local Economy in Transition” conference, and the group is now recruiting charter members. Founding members include Everybody Eats!, Ollin Farms, Center for ReSource Conservation and Transition Colorado.

The group hopes to grow to 200 members over the next two years, including farmers, ranchers, restaurants, retailers, food processors, distributors, food-related businesses, nonprofit and community organizations, county and municipal governments, as well as other local businesses that support the goals and values of the network.

Making the transition to local food and farming

In 2006, a food working group calculated that the then-current state of agriculture in Boulder County could only feed about 20,000 — less than 7 percent of the total population of 300,000. They then looked at the upside, estimating that with greatly expanded individual and community garden plots, greatly increased farming for food using bio-intensive methods, with reduced calorie intake and a simplified diet, this maybe could be increased to about 185,000 people — a daunting realization, but a useful benchmark of our vulnerability here. The group also learned that there were already about 34,000 food-insecure people — those without secure, reliable access to food — in Boulder County, and those numbers have been increasing dramatically with the recent economic turmoil.

Boulder County is proud of its farmers’ markets, and more of them are coming up every year. Boulder’s own market is widely regarded as one of the top 10 in the country, and an estimated 14,000 people show up at the Boulder market on a Saturday. Yet, an entire season’s sales at the Boulder County Farmers’ Markets — Boulder and Longmont together — would meet Boulder County’s food needs for less than a day and a half.

Given all this, it’s clear that one of the most important things we can all do together is to completely rebuild our local foodshed — from multiplying backyard and frontyard gardens, to raising chickens and keeping bees, to committing to only buying food that is local and organic, to converting our local agricultural lands to growing food for local consumption, to rebuilding local food storage and distribution systems, to demanding that our supermarkets stop importing food we could produce here ourselves, to training young people to learn farming as a wise and essential — and even sustainable — career choice.

Of course, the transition to a re-localized, non-fossil-fuel food and farming system will take some time — because nearly every aspect of the process by which we feed ourselves must be redesigned and rebuilt. But if we do this right, we have an opportunity to build a localized food and farming system that is economically robust, environmentally sustainable, resilient and self-reliant, one that ensures food security and sovereignty for all, one that contributes to the health and happiness of our citizens, and that revitalizes our communities.

If we do this right, not only can we reverse the destruction that industrial agriculture causes, but we can replace it with something far better, a way of growing and preparing food that heals our connection with the land and with each other. In the process, we may also find that we’re restoring the kind of democracy envisioned by Thomas Jefferson for his fledgling nation.

It’s time to get ready for Boulder’s first annual Tour de Coops.

With thanks to Betsy Burton for her inspiration, Boulder will have its first annual biking tour of backyard chicken coops, edible gardens and bee hives.  Betsy, who runs the Lyons Farmette, launched the first Lyons Tour de Coops last September, featuring 14 backyard coops around town.

Backyard gardens and ‘edible estates’ are popping up in neighborhoods around the country, and why not?  With an increasingly unstable economy, an undependable and unsustainable agricultural system, and the discovery of the pure joy that comes in growing your own food, more and more folks are taking on the challenge of producing some of their own food.  Most people think of producing their own food as growing fruits and vegetables in their backyards, patios and community gardens.  But, if you are a vegetarian, or just really enjoy eggs, the next step in backyard self-sufficiency is raising chickens.

I brought home my first chicks this March and began my journey as a chicken keeper.  I soon found a small community of other folks around town that also had chickens.  But, I also found an even larger number of folks that were interested in raising chickens but weren’t sure where to start.  The Tour de Coops in Boulder and Lyons are great opportunities for people to learn more about raising chickens by visiting a number of coops and talking with people who are keeping them in Boulder county and within city limits.

The Tour de Coops Boulder is an open tour that is free to the public, occurring in Boulder County September 4^th, 2010, from 2-5 PM.  An open tour is one in which there is no specific start or end location.  You can find a list of properties on the Tour on the YummyYards website or the Transition Colorado website.  The address of each property on the tour is listed, as well as what each property has (chickens, edible gardens, bee hives, miniature dairy goats and/or an aquaponics system).  Pick the properties to visit that have the features you are most interested in seeing, or pack in the afternoon and visit them all!  The Tour is free and open to anyone and everyone, and families are encouraged to bring their children.

There are a total of 17 properties on the tour, ranging from small urban plots with a few laying hens to a farm with 58 chickens just east of town. Participants can access a map from the Transition Colorado and YummyYards websites, or pick up a flier from a number of locations around town. From 2:00 – 5:00 p.m. tour goers can choose to visit all properties or just the ones that interest them most.

For more information, please contact the following organizations:

Event flyer

Christopher Brown and Elizabeth Black, joint owners of Your Neighborhood Christmas Tree Farm, are pleased to announce that they once again have 200 small seedling trees to give away. Trees will be available starting at 7AM Saturday June 5^th.

The free trees are 1 – 3 foot tall ginnala maples, Russian hawthorns, locusts and ashes.  There are also some golden currants, bush honeysuckle and aggressive north Boulder roses.  All trees are drought resistant, but of course will grow faster and fix more carbon with extra water.

Your Neighborhood Christmas Tree Farm is located on 13^th St, one block east of Broadway between Upland and Violet.  Look for “Nelly-Belle the Carbon Cart” in front of the house, and pick out your tree.  Planting instructions are in a box on the cart.

Please be sure to plant your tree right away, and take good care of it.  It won’t help the climate at all if you plant a tree, and then kill it with neglect.

After viewing “An Inconvenient Truth,” Elizabeth and Christopher decided they had to do something to combat global warming.   Growing trees to give away seemed like something they could do to help.  Elizabeth built a deer-proof cart named “Nelly-Belle the Carbon Cart” out of old bicycle tires, a pallet and some wire panels to house the give-away trees.  Although growing trees fixes carbon and helps combat global warming, it is not a final solution to the problem.  The tree eventually dies or is cut down, and burns or rots, returning carbon to the atmosphere.  But planting trees does help buy us more time to find long term solutions.

For more information, please contact:

Elizabeth Black and Christopher Brown

Your Neighborhood Christmas Tree Farm

4340 N 13^th St.

Boulder, CO 80304

303-449-7532

email:  elizabeth at elizabethblackart dot com

Get inspired on this year’s 8^th Annual Whittier-Mapleton Hill Garden Tour. Join this self-guided walking tour of spectacular private gardens in one of Boulder’s most prized neighborhoods, the Mapleton Hill Historic District. As you tour, absorb the abundant and lush beauty of nine spectacular gardens. Get advice and ideas from knowledgeable garden hosts, designers, expert garden volunteers, and CSU Extension Master Gardeners. All will be on hand to discuss and enjoy the gardens with you.  The gardens are easily accessible and a short walk from each other.

The 2010 Garden Tour has introduced a new benefit for tour participants. All ticketholders will receive a free Goodie Bag with various treats and offers from the Tour’s sponsors. Some of the items include a free glass of wine at The Kitchen, lip moisturizer, bicycle bell, free exercise class at The Bar Method, and bottle of local spring water to name just a few.  The Annual Mapleton Hill Rummage Sale takes place on the same day, bringing an extra buzz to the neighborhood and both events are the perfect kick-off to the summer season.

Highlights of the Tour include:

• A lush fantasyland in Central Boulder with whimsical sculptures and artwork, an inviting pool, Koi pond, and enormous shade-loving plants covering an expansive property;

• A sustainable garden creatively designed with salvaged bricks that once covered Broadway Boulevard, stones from the old Boulder courthouse, unusual xeric plantings, and a variety of vegetables and herbs;

• Privacy created through the use of trees, shrubs and water features;

• Interesting planting combinations resulting from unconventional gardening practices;

• A garden that started out as a small “Garden in a Box” package and has matured to feel like an urban park;

• A front yard lawn transformed into a beautifully designed vegetable garden through intensive plantings and the four-square gardening concept;

• A regal garden surrounding a meticulously preserved barn which formerly housed the Boulder Fire Department’s draft horses in the early 1900s;

• A rarely seen private garden of spectacular beauty and grandeur tucked behind one of Mapleton Hill’s most distinguished homes; and

• An inspiring smaller garden that has been twenty years in the making, demonstrating a gardener’s passionate eye for complex perennial arrangements and abundant plant variety.

Whittier International School Benefits from the Tour

The Whittier-Mapleton Garden Tour is more than just a day of revelation and fun. By taking part in the garden tour you’ll make a direct and meaningful contribution to help sustain the quality of programs at Whittier International School. All of the proceeds from the tour—100 percent—directly benefit the students of Whittier. The Whittier student body spans a diverse cultural and socio-economic spectrum. The children represent 29 countries and speak 19 different languages. Nearly 40 percent of the students receive free or reduced lunches. The contribution you make to Whittier through our garden tour is dedicated to programs that support these diverse needs. Our garden tour fundraiser is even more important this year because of impending budget cuts throughout the Boulder Valley School District that will deeply affect core academic programs.

Event Information

When: June 5, 2010; 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Mapleton Hill Historic District

Cost: $12 for adults and teens; kids 12 and younger free, no dogs please

Where to buy Tickets: Advance ticket sales at: West End Gardener, Sturtz & Copeland, and Pharmaca at Alpine and Pearl Street and the Flower Bin (in Longmont).

Day-of-event sales at: The Boulder Farmers’ Market, the former Mapleton Elementary School at the corner of 9^th and Mapleton; 402 Pine (the corner of 4^th & Pine St.); and 702 Pine Street.

For more information go to www.whittiergardentour.com.

It started several years ago after some traffic calming islands were installed at 14th and Alpine. Several neighbors thought they needed a little adornment. Some knocking on doors, a little planning and the serendipity that one neighbor is a professional gardener, and voila, the “Alpine Beautification Project” was launched and has now had four successful seasons. The flowers are kept alive with daily waterings from seven families taking charge one day per week.

Having whet their appetite for community, the neighbors expanded their collective activity to a 1,800 square foot vegetable garden in one couple’s backyard. In a defining example of how the work of many can turn daunting tasks into quick accomplishments, seven yards of compost were moved and spread in the course of an hour and a half. The first season yielded enough beets, radishes, spinach, lettuce, chard, kale and zucchini to satisfy every family.

Their latest endeavor takes advantage of the flower pot infrastructure. The Urban Hens pilot project is known as the North Boulder Egg Cooperative. Eight hens in a coop in one backyard are tended by seven families, each taking the eggs for that particular day. The chicken manure will be composted and used in the community vegetable garden.

There is now talk about expanding a couple of beehives that are already residing in the neighborhood. A little community goes a long way. We don’t get to pick our neighbors, but these neighbors wouldn’t trade places with anyone.