Rahma Forest Garden Campaign Week 5-6 Updates

WEEK 5-6 UPDATES
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden

1] WEEK 6 APPRECIATIONS
2] THE LEGACY OF 3100 SOUTH SALINA ST and A SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY 3] INITIAL PLANT ORDERS
4] WEEK 5 APPRECIATIONS
5] FOREST GARDEN PRIMER
6] GET YOUR PERKS
7] SITE PREP WITH SUNY-ESF FORESTRY STUDENTS

1] WEEK 6 APPRECIATIONS
What a great week of giving. We have had $350 in donations this week. This brings us to $850 online and $225 offline for a total of $1075 – over halfway to our official funding goal of $2,000, but still a bit short of that mark through our online campaign giving. Remember, if we don’t meet our full goal online, the nice people at IndieGoGo get a bigger chunk of our pie. So please donate online if you are able.

Thanks to Marcia Rutledge, Rebecca Fuentes-Davis and 1 Anonymous donor.

2] THE LEGACY OF 3100 SOUTH SALINA ST and A SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY The former doctor in residence at 3100 South Salina St, Dr. Jennifer Daniels, was in touch with us recently to express her appreciation for the work we are doing to build upon the landscape she left. Dr. Daniels fondly recalled building up the soil, creating a vegetable garden, and installing many of the trees and shrubs that are still on site. She is particularly fond of the Serviceberry (also known as Juneberry due to their fruiting time) which might even be in full bloom for us when we are on site for our garden blitz day on April 14th! It will be a beautiful site, if so, with two grand specimens on the south side of the site, and another 3 on the north side of the parking lot. These native edible shrub produces yummy berries, and is the starting anchor of the Rahma Forest Garden!

Dr. Daniels also wanted us to remind everyone that she is providing a $2,000 educational scholarship to a graduating senior, as she does every year, either from the 13205 zip code (which surrounds the forest garden site) or someone from Nottingham High School. Applications are due by Saturday March 31st. To learn more and access the online application, please download and view the document file Dr. Daniels provided here.

3] INITIAL PLANT ORDERS
Species ordered yesterday for the Rahma Forest Garden. Donations still welcome to help cover the costs. This order alone was $365.90, but just think, in years to come, we’ll be able to divide and/or graft many of these and future purchases from the plant list to share with others. So your donation lasts and lasts and lasts . . . .

Miller Nurseries:
3 Fall Gold Everbearing Raspberries
1 Male Sea Berry
2 Leikora (Female) Sea Berry
1 Chojuro Dwarf Asian Pear
1 Hosui Dwarf Asian Pear
1 Modern ‘’4-on-1’’ AppleTrees
1 Antique ‘’4-on-1’’ Apple Trees
3 Jostaberry

Oikos Tree Crops:
5 Golden Currant
5 Missouri Gooseberry
3 Thimbleberry
3 Pawpaw
2 Applemint

4] WEEK 5 APPRECIATIONS
The bad news is the number of donors this week declined; THE GOOD NEWS is the dollar amount of donations did not! We received $50 online and $100 offline donations (you can send us a check). We passed the 1/3 mark of our goal with $725 total – 36% with 33 days left in the campaign. Thanks M.Sauve, Magda Bayoumi, and 1 Anonymous donor.

5] FOREST GARDEN PRIMER
A favorite website is Appropedia – a wiki for collaborative solutions in sustainability, poverty reduction and international development through sound principles and appropriate technology. This week in my email there was a note about their food forest page. It struck me to share with you as a quick primer on what we are accomplishing at Rahma in case you still have questions or curiosities. Go to
http://www.appropedia.org/Food_forest

6] GET YOUR PERKS
For those of you who have made donations and claimed perks as part of the donation level, you’ll have two choices as to how to receive them.The first option is to receive them mailed to you. This will take place within a few weeks following completion of the campaign.

The second option, and the one we hope you’ll partake in, is to come to our Volunteer Blitz day on Sat April 14 (10 am and 3 pm), and pick up your perk in person.We’ll also be at the site on Sat April 21 doing some follow-up tasks, and we’ll use the 21st as a rain day, so you’ll be able to come by then as well. More details will follow.

7] SITE PREP WITH SUNY-ESF FORESTRY STUDENTS
We just can’t wait for the 14th to get here, but until then, necessary prep work at the Rahma site is taking place. On Sun March 18, two SUNY- ESF students (State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry right here in Syracuse), lent their time and tools to felling and starting removal of the black knot infested plum trees on site.

According to a neighbor who lives a few houses down on W. Newell St, the black knot has been colonizing those three trees for about 10 years! They were well past saving, with the fungus on branches around the whole crown, and even into the main trunk. Thanks to Cory and Jeff! They took home some fire logs, and we left the brush on site to be lopped down in size and removed as part of the tasks on April 14.

Cheers ~ Frank and the Rahma Forest Garden Team
http://www.indiegogo.com/Rahma-Free-Health-Clinic-Edible-Forest-Garden