A Post from Paul Mays, our 612 Director of Permaculture (Written 12/29/15)

Ice on the ground, I look over the frozen garden from Sixtwelve’s second floor and realize how much we accomplished in a little over a year. In August 2014 there was nothing more than compacted clay. After a few hundred hours of volunteer labor, aproximately 15,000 pounds of horse poop and compost, 50 bales of straw, lots of plants and trees and some water we have a pretty nice garden. We now boast a 30x30ft main garden that fed quite a few people, including kids from summer camps and pre-k. Our pre-k kids even assisted with harvesting 250 lbs of sweet potatoes, some as large as the kids heads. Twelve fruit trees, donated by Transition OKC, were planted in February with the assistance of more volunteers, the fruit trees will eventually host our Forever Food Forest, a perennial food ecosystem. A Rain Garden workshop was held, and now provides us a large water catchment area as well as providing homes and food for local pollinators. We had workshops on composting and seed saving, planting container gardens, making seed bombs and a great mycology workshop. We had another great seed exchange, and a community outdoor movie night focused around the local food movement here and across the nation.

This is a time of the year when I start really thinking of possibilities for next years garden. Now that I am part time at SixTwelve I am looking at workshop possibilities, planning gardens and camps, I am so excited of the opportunities. We are going to change the garden over to a CSA, with 5 members each paying $250 up front for a weekly produce pickup, let me know if you are interested. We have some great workshops coming up including Compost 101, I Have Worms; Kids Wormbin, Oyster Mushroom Bucket, Garden Like the Forrest, Knife and Tool Sharpening, Kombucha and Fermenting, Spirulina, plus more. We will have an Earth Day Dance Party to be followed the next day by our annual Friendship Plant and Seed Exchange. It looks to be an awesome year and I hope that you can join us in creating a better community.