We're helping get the Lookout Mountain Conservancy start a food forest on their property at the Old Wauhatchie Boulders/old Rockmont Park, in conjunction with the city's (rescheduled due to snow) MLK Jr. Day of Service volunteers, come out to help us clean the site up from accumulated trash and invasives- work gloves and good shoes a definite help for this one!

1832 Old Wauhatchie Pike, Chattanooga, TN 37409

It's spring planting time! We'll be planting whatever we have on hand (and if you have stuff to plant, please let me know/bring it, check out our list of things on hand and wanted), plus working on infrastructure (raised beds, sign, water system), I'll bring some woodworking equipment but if you have tools on hand bring them along! Like last time we'll start out at our St. Elmo site (St Elmo United Methodist Church, 4626 St Elmo Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37409) and then as time/energy permits move over to our Cedar Hill location (4501 13th Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37407). 
 
Also, if you have a nice supply of rocks on hand we could really use some to mark the paths at the St. Elmo site, right now we have tree limbs which work to demarcate the paths but are not a long-term solution, some decent rocks would really do the trick, and if a lot of us haul some over it will go a long ways towards meeting our need.

We'll start the afternoon at our St. Elmo site next to St. Elmo UMC, where we need to work on berms, move some more mulch, trim some tree limbs, and demarcate paths; we might do some planting as well depending on what we have on hand in a couple weeks' time (let me know beforehand if you've got a tree/shrub for the site and we can figure out if it's something we can integrate in). Once we finish up there we'll head over to ELLA Library in the Cedar Hill neighborhood (4501 13th Ave, Chattanooga, TN 37407) to finish laying down mulch, marking paths, and building the pallet wall. 

We'll gather at Crabtree Farms in the Evelyn Center to plan and plot out our plantings and infrastructure for the coming year, building on the incredible success and momentum we generated in 2023! Before our meeting we can sketch out ideas, add lists of species we'd like to plant, etc, via this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15rDr6MqsSS3eyTaaYPNr5-Y5_zegpGVZz9ZJ1k8ofGs/edit.

We'll be meeting to finish winter prep for the ELLA site- finish putting down cardboard, pulling some weeds, building some beds, really whatever we can in terms of available materials. If you happen to have a good source of pallets those are the one item we could really use in bulk- we need to build a barrier between the kids' outdoor play space and where the forest garden will go to try and prevent damage from errant balls etc. This would be a good day too just to drop by and see what we're up to at this site, suggestions and ideas are definitely welcome!

We'll aim at finishing up the work started during November: putting down fallen leaves, cardboard, and mulch up and down the hillside. We might also be able to do some work on the berms, depending on how hard the soil remains by then. If folks have some nicely decomposed logs, bags of leaves, that sort of thing, feel free to drop them at the site between now and then, I'm sure we can use them! Same goes for cardboard- we've got a decent stock from the church, but more will no doubt be needed here and elsewhere. I'll supply some light refreshments and libations, and will have some hand tools available should we need them. Depending on where we are on the tree work we might be able to do some additional stuff, I'll let everyone know should that become an option.

For our next work meeting at the St. Elmo site we can put in cardboard, organic matter, lay out and stake logs for initial water control, and maybe even do some plantings; I'm hoping we'll have gotten permission on our sign by then and can put that in and start posting information as well. Bring gloves, shovels, an axe or two might come in helpful as well (I'll supply some tools of my own such as I have on hand).

We’re also going to be learning about soil health as well, with our own Krisi Olivero providing a demonstration of soil testing and a discussion of soil health and ecology, so it won’t all be hard work!

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Join us to start work on a new community food forest site at the East Lake Language Arts Library, at 4501 13th Avenue, Chattanooga, TN. The first phase of the work here is going to involve preparing a length of land next to a chain link fence, which we’ll be using as a trellis for climbers like blackberry and raspberry; the fence currently has a lot of old vines and brambles that need to be removed, which is what we’ll aim to do on this work session, as well as think about next steps in prepping the site (there is also a second larger area that we’ll eventually tackle).

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We will meet behind St. Elmo UMC to explore the sloping lot that we're hoping will be our first community food forest installation site. The site in question is a bit north of the church, and slopes down to the greenway. Useful items to bring: notepads, measuring tape, that sort of thing; I'll try and supply some coffee. After examining the site we can get to work formulating a plan, which once finished we can submit to St. Elmo UMC for approval.

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