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Paradise Found Fiber Farm to the Rescue »

May 16, 2014 by admin

By Greg Meyer

: Greg!

Greg Meyer is a food lover, organic gardener, photographer, skateboarder, and active member in the sustainability community. He is the Outreach Coordinator for Übrlocal.

The listing read; “Eggs: Delicious! – One dozen assorted colorful M-XL eggs from happy chickens.”

And for $6, the same price as other organic, free range eggs at the store, why not try it out? I sent a message to Aaron’s Übrlocal profile and got a prompt reply to come by to get some eggs, but not before having some tea with him. He included his address and phone number in the message so I sent him a text saying I would be by in twenty minutes or so and hopped on my bike. When I got to the house, there was Aaron sitting on the front porch, observing his garden and the traffic in front of his house go by. He smiled, said hello, and took me to the back yard to show off his urban homesteading efforts and poured some tea. After 45 minutes of sipping tea and chatting, Aaron produced a carton of beautiful eggs from his coop, I handed him some cash and headed off. (I know, not everybody can take 45 min to pick up eggs).

Screen shot from UberLocal listing.

It seems everywhere you look in Seattle, people are taking advantage of the short but bountiful growing season. There is a certain curiosity that is growing (no pun intended) around reconnecting to our food. Garden beds on lawn strips, the cluck of chickens from a yard, I have even seen somebody walking their goats on leashes around my neighborhood. With this new-found curiosity, however, comes the reinvention of the many wheels that have been lost in this post industrial time. Re-skilling movements have popped up concurrently with the Urban Agriculture Movement, but you have to really look, or already be involved in those circles, to benefit from them. That’s what excited me about working with a company like Übrlocal: an open platform to connect neighbors, neighborhoods, and cities through growing food together and sharing resources. So now when I can’t pawn those large zuch’s off to my friends, I can give them away, or better yet, trade for something else like tomatoes, or a canning class and meet new people in my community while I’m at it. In our first year, we have about 250 people who have made profiles on the site, mostly browsing, but a few really great offers for things like CSA shares, classes, honey and eggs. We recently added categories for garden space and kitchen sharing, tools, and seeds and starts. A vibrant community is ready to come together, but it only works when we’ve got a lot of people on the site posting, sharing, and interacting. We hope to reach at least 1,000 members by October, and this is where you come in. Go check out the site. Have something to share? Please do! Interested in something you see? Contact the poster! You might just make a new friend too.

Übrlocal Dinner at Volunteer Park Cafe last October – Photo by Charity Burggraaf

Now, I know that we can’t feed everybody in cities by growing food in them. We can’t even grow a significant chunk. I also know that it doesn’t make sense to drive all over town for each produce item. But we can find nourishment in the food we do grow, as well as in the community, knowledge, and skills that are fostered as a by-product. We also find a deeper awareness of where our food comes and whatit took to create it. By participating in this sharing economy, we can help novice gardeners learn new skills, provide a home for the overzealous seedling starters’ extra plants, help organizations and urban farms like Seattle Tilth and City Grown Seattle, and maybe even turn those extra zuchs into a small business. So don’t wait, go make a profile, it takes about five minutes, and help us grow together.