For basketball fans it might be shootin' hoops with Michael Jordan.  For rockers it might be sharing the stage with Ozzy And Lemmy and for pop culture-ites it might be Madonna and Britney singing at your karaoke party BUT for a couple of young urban farmers like Broc and Moss it was all the above and more.  SPIN farming creators and co-founders Gail Vandersteen and Roxanne Christiansen invited us for breakfast and dropped by Mossy Point to admire our SPIN farming furrows, praise our efforts and pass on some valuable SPIN farming advice. (What is SPIN?)

Gail and Roxanne were in town to deliver the first SPIN Gardening workshop EVER!!!  SPIN Gardening is closely aligned with SPIN Farming, the farming methodology that we use at City Garden Farms.  We had breakfast at Vita Cafe on NE Alberta and believe me it was a "No coffee required" type of event such was the energy and enthusiasm we all displayed for urban farming (but we still had coffee anyway and boy did we talk.....and how!!!!!!!)

Gail and Roxanne were keen to see one of Our City Garden Farms in action so we took them to Mossy Point where they were impressed by what they saw.  Gail checked our beds and confirmed regulation width (Thanks Gail!) and enthused over our baby Salad greens in progress!

Roxanne discussed some of her thoughts and vision for the SPIN movement and was very much encouraged by the neighborhood gardens and greenery in Portland.  I drove them back to their hotel but not before an impromptu wee tour of all my favorite neighborhood streets showing off the best of Portland gardens. We arranged to meet next day for the SPIN gardening class.  Broc and Moss were going to be guest speakers!

Next day Broc, Moss and some trusty farming tools showed up at The Ecotrust building in downtown Portland for the workshop.  There were 100 people there with more being turned away!!!!!!  We finally got a chance to meet, shake the hand of and thank Steve Cohen from Portland's Office of Sustainable Development.  He has been a great source of support and encouragement to City Garden Farms.  You could not meet a nicer guy!!!  Steve had arranged to put on the seminar with Gail and Roxanne.

The workshop commenced and 100 enrapt Portlanders looked, listened, discussed, questioned, embraced and APPLAUDED the SPIN gardening workshop.  City Garden Farms' very own Broc delivered part of the workshop and demonstrated the use of various SPIN friendly tools.  His new hoeing technique is unstoppable and his tips were SPIN-genious (let the puns begin!!!)

He then led a small side seminar on the finer points of furrow formation and weeding!!!!

It was a great day indeed.  We said "goodbye and thank you" to Roxanne and gave her a wee gift as a token of appreciation and arranged to meet Gail next day as she wasn't leaving till Monday!

Well!!!!  If Saturday wasn't exciting enough Sunday turned out to be just as much fun for different reasons.  I arranged to pick up Gail and took her to Wilshire Park for a few hours while my daughter ran off some energy and played in the sandpit.  Gail and I chatted and talked farming.  Man!  I never thought I would learn so much about garlic, pea shoots and seed saving!!!  Gail overflows with knowledge, enthusiasm and encouragement.  She has a real light in her eyes when she talks about growing food.  It truly was inspirational to be in her presence.  Back to Mossy Point where a film shoot commenced for Cooking Up A Story (who make the most amazing movies BTW) and where Gail delivered a great interview on her life, her thoughts on food, growing vegetables, seed saving, health and her vision of people empowered to grow food for themselves.  SPIN is a leader in the burgeoning local food movement.  Gail is planting the seeds in the minds of all who she meets and is growing this revolution from the ground up!!!

We had dinner, hugged and said goodbye with the promise that Moss, Broc, Gail, Wally (her husband and SPIN co-creator) would get together again soon.  We've got work to do!!!!!!!!

Moss

City Garden Farms lives!!! If ever I've done something I believed in and that made total sense to me for so many reasons and that brought out and together the best elements and talents of two enthusiastic friends then this would be it. There are many ways I could try and express what City Garden Farms is all about but "common sense for the common good" sums it up in so many ways for me.

Using Urban land to produce fresh local produce, taking fuel out of people's food equation, stabilizing food prices, creating connections with our community, creating food security for those who support us and doing something elemental really speaks to me.

Funnily enough it was this book that planted the seed in my mind, brought together many things I had been thinking about and that spoke to me in a way that made me realize that common sense is who I am and what I stand for and what I can do for other people.

So...........months later, we've got land in the city to farm and we've got an acre on Sauvies Island.

We've got seeds, starts, a planting schedule and an effective farming methodology that again makes great sense to us and is being used successfully by other small farms in the USA. We've got a stall at The Portland farmers market and we hope to attend other markets regularly. We've worked out our CSA program and got it up and running with shares available. We'll be doing A la carte pick up AND deliveries too.

We're doing all this in the City of Portland (A city we love and who's people we love) where common sense for the common good is something we all believe in.

Moss