Category Archives: chickens

West Oakland Farm Park

Rodney Spencer, executive director of City Slicker Farms.

Rodney Spencer, executive director of City Slicker Farms.

There’s a difference when you walk into to West Oakland’s newest park. The plaza beckons with its lush grass. There’s picnic tables and a playground, but surrounding the park is something else. It’s familiar but unexpected. Vegetables. The newest park in West Oakland is also a farm. Kale, collards, cucumbers, beans, and tomatoes surround the central plaza and a 28 raised-bed community garden line the fence. A newly planted orchard has taken root on the southern edge and on the opposite end is a chicken coop with 20 young hens. If you stop by Saturday you can buy freshly harvested produce from the City Slicker Farm Stand on a sliding scale.

West Oakland Farm Park, a view from the entrance.

West Oakland Farm Park, a view from the entrance.

Located at 28th and Peralta Streets, West Oakland Farm Park is a public space with a working farm and a community mission. Open daily from 10am to 7pm, executive director Rodney Spencer says it’s all here for the neighborhood of West Oakland. Once a food desert with nothing but liquor stores and industry, City Slicker was able to obtain the 1.4 acre site through a $4 million dollar grant from Proposition 84. The statewide bond not only funds safe drinking water, water quality and supply, flood control, but also seeks to revitalize disadvantaged communities making them more sustainable and livable by investing in local parks and urban greening. Because City Slicker farms is a non-profit and willing to include public access with a park and restrooms within their farm they were able to obtain the grant.

Joseph Davis, farm manager of City Slicker Farms, at the West Oakland Farm Park.

Joseph Davis, farm manager of City Slicker Farms, at the West Oakland Farm Park.

Ever since the purchase last year, the farm park has been a hub of planning and building. The organization has partnered with many groups to make it a true community effort. A few examples of their partnerships include KaBOOM!, a national non-profit that put in the playground. In Good Company, a community service project of Clif Bar put in the woodshed, toolshed and farm stand. The Crucible made the iron farm gate. Art students from the California College of Arts painted the murals and architecture students from the same school designed the chicken coop.

Rachel Rehmet (in hat) at the City Slicker Farm stand.

Rachel Rehmet (in hat) at the City Slicker Farm stand.

The property’s main building will become the City Slicker Farm headquarters and houses a demonstration kitchen, an outdoor classroom, and a community rec center. City Slicker Farms is best known for its backyard garden program that helps neighbors grow food by building and installing raised backyard beds and mentoring the new gardeners to ensure success. In its 15 year history the group has installed over 300 raised beds for the community. The new site has a woodshop where they can make the 8 x 3½ foot frames. The site also hosts City Slicker’s youth summer crew program that hires 8 local teenagers teaching them urban agriculture and life skills. City Slicker’s cornerstone program, the community farm stand also takes place at the new site every Saturday starting at 10am. A sliding scale rate from $1-3 is a way to make sure there’s affordable healthy food for the neighborhood.

A youth crew teenager moves horse manure to the garden. The manure is donated from a stable in the Oakland Hills.

A youth crew teenager moves horse manure to the garden. The manure is donated from a stable in the Oakland Hills.

City Slicker has only six and a half paid positions in its organization. It relies on volunteers and community involvement. Thursdays and Saturdays are drop-in days where you can show up and help out. Farm manager Joseph Davis has just finished setting up the drip irrigation system for new beds with the help of his youth crew and volunteers. Because the soil on the site was contaminated, hundreds of yards of soil was replaced by clean topsoil. Joseph, a former teacher first worked with City Slicker back in 2009 as an intern. He then began mentoring and was the natural candidate for the farm manager position. “Being an urban farmer is very public,” he says. People come by and are interested in what’s going on. Those interested people often come back to help out.

Joseph Davis(in red), farm manager works with the youth crew and volunteers to put in the drip irrigation system at West Oakland Farm Park

Joseph Davis(in red), farm manager works with the youth crew and volunteers to put in the drip irrigation system at West Oakland Farm Park

City Slicker latest goal is to reach out to local progressive organizations and neighbors that need community space. Cooking Matters already is using the space for classes and demos. The community garden is going strong providing raised beds for neighbors to garden. “We want West Oakland neighbors to have events here,” says executive director Rodney Spencer. “We’ve proven that you can grow food and improve the health and well being of the neighborhood. This land has been blighted and misused for decades. It’s time to give the land back.” Visit West Oakland Farm Park for inspiration and don’t forget to pick up some kale.

The community garden, where neighbors can grow vegetables themselves in 28 raised beds.

The community garden, where neighbors can grow vegetables themselves in 28 raised beds.

An Oakland Urban Farm of Ideas

I visited Rachel Kayen’s Oakland urban farm this past weekend. She and her roommates have a half acre yard in the Mills College neighborhood that’s a backyard lab of ideas. On it they have aquaponics, bees, vegetables and currently 9 chickens, 7 ducks and a turkey, with more turkeys on the way. Rachel says she’s been raising animals since she got into 4H when she was just a kid.

One idea I liked was letting a hen raise ducklings. Most domestic ducks have lost their instinct to brood, but finding a broody hen to take over the job is not hard and it’s way more interesting for everyone involved. This hen has been raising 6 ducklings since she sat on the eggs last month. The ducklings follow her around and at night she keeps them warm under her. So they may grow up confused… Read about it in detail on Rachel’s blog and see a video of a duckling hatching: citylights.uf.com  Next up, Rachel is letting another hen take over the turkey eggs.

Let your broody chicken raise the ducklings.

Let your broody chicken raise the ducklings.

20150418_0103

A turkey egg (left) compared to a chicken egg

The 10'x10' coop was built for 10 birds with a plans found on the internet.

The 10’x10′ coop was built for 10 birds with a plans found on the internet.

Another tip is making compost the easiest way possible,  you don’t even need a bin. They have a basic “hot pile” with a dirt bottom. Start with nitrogen rich vegetable scraps in the middle (comfrey, pumpkins, squash, alfalfa are all full of nitrogen) Then add brown matter on top to insulate (dead plant matter, like leaves or hay) Add a little water now and then to help the decaying begin and each time you have more nitrogen rich vegetable matter, add it to the middle. Soon the decaying will heat up the center and you’ll have rich soil for your veggies, worms included. PS Free range chicken will do the mixing for you.

Let the chickens work your compost for you.

Let the chickens work your compost for you.

I’ve always been interested in growing potatoes and Rachel gave me some tips. When she’s ready to plant potatoes she starts by buying old organic potatoes that have “eyes” that are starting to put out shoots. Cut the potato into sections around each “eye” to plant. She grows them in these chicken wire structures that make harvesting easy and keeps the growing potatoes dry. As the shoots grow, more compost  and hay is added. When the compost and soil reaches near the top of the structure she has 80 pounds of organic potatoes! Rachel has a great blog post with more details here (scroll down)

Each of these potato planters can yield 80 pounds of  tater when full!

Each of these potato planters can yield 80 pounds of taters when full!

The aquaponics system was built by one of Rachel’s roommates who spent time in China learning aquaponics from farmers. It’s different than others I’ve seen because it has an extra pool that serves as a buffer  between the plants and fish. Fish are very sensitive to pH changes and having the extra pool helps stabilize the system. Rachel said they had strawberries all winter with their system.

The aquaponics system has an extra pool that serves as a ph buffer for the fish.

The aquaponics system has an extra pool that serves as a ph buffer for the fish.

One last tip is to fence your vegetable plots and let your chickens be free range instead of the other way around. Not everyone can do this, but if your yard is large enough the chickens won’t wander and they’ll eat your pests and fertilize as they go. Just be sure the fence around the vegetables is secure. Rachel says  lately they’ve just let the chicken roost in the trees at night. Raccoons are not a problem in their neighborhood. The big lesson from this urban farm is this. Chickens: get them working. Be sure to check out Rachel’s blog for more ideas: citylightsuf.com

20150418_0109

Free Range Chickens