The Urban Farm at Stapleton

Unbelievably, summer is quickly drawing to end.  From a farming perspective, that signifies that harvest is eminent.  This is the time of the year where hay is most plentiful, and can be purchased at the best price.   Thus, we are launching our 2nd annual “hay challenge” at The Urban Farm.

The hay challenge works this way: someone or some entity contributes a sum of money to be used for hay for the animals and challenges others to match some portion of the challenge.  A $3,000 challenge has been committed and so the fun begins.  The challenge is to match this sum within two weeks.

For the better part of 2010 we were paying $10.50 per bale of hay.  We have been working with a farmer in the Longmont area who has agreed to sell us an entire hay field to us for $5.00 per bale.  Do the math–this is less than half of what we paid last year.  The bales weigh about 75 pounds each and are high quality organically-grown hay.  A $100 donation buys 20 bales of hay – enough to feed all the TUF animals for one day.

Hope you will help us meet the challenge.  As always you can send checks or donate via Paypal:

And, of course, you can always designate your donation be used a different way.

Thank you very much for your support!

Only 38 more days of school till summer!  It’s not too late to sign up for summer workshops at The Urban Farm.

Summer Program for Young Children at The Urban Farm

Wondering what your kids can do all summer at The Urban Farm?   Children and youth can ride horses and learn how to care for them.  They can enjoy the experience of feeling freshly tilled earth or sitting on a log watching a couple of baby goats suckle from their momma then bounce away chasing imaginary butterflies.  They can sit under the shade of a tree and learn how to knit from a ball of yarn that they spun themselves.  Or, they can wander through the garden picking their own vegetables to eat for snack.  There is sleeping out under the stars after cooking hotdogs over a fire and experiencing that quivery feeling in the pit of their tummies from telling slightly scary stories and then hearing coyotes howl in the distance. They might give a miniature horse a bubble bath and learn how to make old-fashioned strawberry jam.

Sound like fun?  Then open the attachments and register your child in one or more summer activities today.  Space is very limited and registrations with payments are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

:: Click here to download form

Feed Denver: Urban Farms & Markets builds community-based urban greenhouse farms and markets to improve year-round access to fresh food, create training opportunities and jobs for youth and adults, support food production micro-enterprise all of which impact our local economy while strengthening and securing the foodshed of Metropolitan Denver. (Feed Denver: Urban Farms & Markets is a project of the Colorado Non-profit Development Center, a 501(c)3 organization.)

“From the Ground Up” Workshop Weekend

FEATURING

MacArthur Fellow, Will Allen &
The Growing Power Regional Outreach Training Team
November 14-15, 2009
Saturday: 8am-5pm + Sunday: 9am-3pm

This 2-day intensive, hands-on workshop will show how sustainable, healthy local food production can e developed in an urban setting with urban farming pioneer and winner of the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” Will Allen.

This training offers diverse groups the opportunity to learn, plan develop, operate and sustain community food projects. Participants leave the workshop with improved skills that they can take back into their communities and pass onto others. These workshops are for both rural and urban projects.

Workshop Breakout Sessions May Include:

Compost & Vermicompost • Aquaponics • Hoophouse Construction
Year-Round Greenhouse Production • Urban Animal Husbandry
Planning for Urban Agriculture • Community Project Design

For more info, contact Feed Denver, at info@feeddenver.com

Click here to watch video about Will Allen.

THIS 2009 WORKSHOP IS FULL — REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.