Cooks Community Garden

Urban Chickens 101 Class – 2012

Ryan Mitchell — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:10:26 +0000

Reserve your spot: http://bit.ly/HV2xTP

Cooks Community Garden is offering its Backyard Chicken Workshop again to teach folks about raising chickens. The class will cover everything you need to know to raise chickens. See different coops, examples of different chicken breeds, learn how to hold a chicken and much more at this exciting event.

Learn about:

How and where to purchase chickens
How to raise chicks and chickens
Building a chicken coop
Popular breeds
How to apply for a permit and have chickens legally
Much more!

When: April 28th 1pm

Where: 3201 Mt. Holly Huntersville Rd. Charlotte, NC 28216

Who: Anyone wanting to raise chickens or people who never raised chickens

Cost: $20 donation to Cooks Community Garden

New Sign Up & Orientaion Page

Ryan Mitchell — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 08:30:02 +0000

In order to streamline and automate things I have taken the time to put together a online orientation that people can take from anywhere and at their convenience. This will help a lot with new people coming to the garden who want to know more and/or aren’t sure how to get started. They can take the orientation and then will be given a link at the end where they can sign up.

Below is just a screen shot, it isn’t functioning

The Need For Gardening

Ryan Mitchell — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:36:22 +0000

This is an amazing video on the state of food and where we need to go with it.

Unfortunate Event…

Ryan Mitchell — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:11:47 +0000

Hello All!

I wanted to let you know we had some vandalism occur at the garden today. The coops were opened on all the chicken coops and the quail cage, a waterer was stolen, etc. Luckily we still have all the chickens still, but 2 quail flew away, it all, it was very little damage. We have moved the coops closer to the church and are now near the other little house for the time being. There is a spigot over there for the egg co-op people to fill the waterers.

We are fairly certain the vandals were kids, in fact we are pretty sure we know specifically which kids, just can’t prove it. The police have been notified and will be doing drives past the property. You all should know there isn’t any safety concern here, the suspected kids are pretty young and have always high-tailed it at the first sign of anyone. If you do see anyone on the property that isn’t supposed to be there, please give the police a call and let me know.

This is a sad reality of community gardening, but I prefer to focus on all the positives the garden brings; I hope you will too.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to me. My cell is 704.650.9260

Ryan Mitchell

Garden Manager

704.650.9260

Garden Stats So Far – 2011

Ryan Mitchell — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:21:43 +0000

Check out the stats so far of what we have grown in the donation field!

Egg Co-Op Update

Ryan Mitchell — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:43:15 +0000

I crunched some numbers about the Egg Co-Op to see where we are at in our first year of the program. So far we have been going for 113 days and have laid 553 eggs. This works out to roughly 5 eggs a day.

553 eggs weighs 62 lbs!

Cost of feed per day: $1.11
Cost of feed per bag: $17.69
A bag of fee lasts: 14.125 days
Number of bags for the year: 26 bags
Cost of feed per year: $459

Egg Production Vs. Temperature

Since we know egg laying behavior is affected by stress, one of the things that stresses birds is the heat of the summer. So we graphed the average temperatures for each month in 2011 and then we plotted the egg production per month.

New Meetup Groups

Ryan Mitchell — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:57:15 +0000

I have been handed two different meetup groups that many would be interested in. For those of you know aren’t familiar with this website it is awesome! Essentially it is a website that facilitates meeting people who share similar interests. While this on face value doesn’t seem groundbreaking, they have the key ingredient…. An active user base.

The groups are (click titles to go to webpage):

Garden Featured In Today’s Charlotte Woman Magazine

Ryan Mitchell — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:19:25 +0000

This month we were featured in Today’s Charlotte Women Magazine! It is a great article and even features photos of you all!

Click image for article

Canning Class

Ryan Mitchell — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:07:33 +0000

Our very own Jason Williams will be teaching a class on canning on July 16th at 4pm.

What is canning? Essentially it allows you take any extra food you have grown in your garden and preserve it for the long term. When you can things it will seal it in a jar safely so it doesn’t need refrigeration. The benifits of canning is that you can save that extra food you have, it allows you to have vegetables in the winter and in removes all the nasty chemicals from the process. You can also can the food at the peak of freshness and taste, canning your own food is way better tasting and for you than store bought stuff.

For those who would like to attend you will need to RSVP to reserve your spot. The class will be held at Cooks Memorial Presbyterian Church in the “fellowship hall” which is the building to the left of the sanctuary. We are asking $5 donation to cover costs of materials, plus you need to bring enough of one of the following to fill a quart jar: Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Carrots, Green Beans, Hot / Banana Peppers, and Beets. Included for your $5 is everything you need to can your vegetables, recipes on how to can, hands on demonstration of 2 methods of canning and much more!

RSVP is REQUIRED: http://bit.ly/lXfWqJ

Omelet’s Solo

Ryan Mitchell — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:11:51 +0000

A story of courage from unexpected places!