Urban Tilth

We will plant and tend 5 strawberry plants strategically-placed for a high likelihood that they will get harvested and eaten by child or young adult in west county. You can help counter the $1 billion annual junk food marketing campaign targeting American children by surrounding them with delicious, healthy food options—Free phytonutrients within easy reach of all children!

The Perennial Purple Tree Collard (PPTC) is the mascot plant for Urban Tilth. Tough, delicious, healthy, productive AND perennial (saves time, effort, and with better for the soil ecology). We dream about the day when children in west county can harvest an evening’s healthy side dish as they walk home from school, passing by stands of this magnificent plant. You can help us turn this dream into reality by sponsoring the planting of a perennial purple tree collard along the Richmond Greenway or at other parks or schools in west Contra Costa County.

For a donation of 100 dollars, Urban Tilth will plant and tend a fruit tree in your name at the Lincoln School Farm on the Richmond Greenway. The Richmond Greenway is open to the public and fruit from your tree will be free to Lincoln School Farmers, Lincoln Community Gardeners, or any other Richmond Greenway users.

We need more garden bed space at the Lincoln Community Garden on the Richmond Greenway. Your sponsorship covers lumber, hardware, gopher cloth, clean soil, drip irrigation, and seeds or seedlings for an additional garden bed at Lincoln School Farm. Work will be performed at one of our monthly garden work parties. We expect that each garden bed at Lincoln Community Garden will add at least 30 pounds of organic produce to the Richmond Greenway foodshed.

As part of our plan to increase the amount of organic food production in the Richmond Greenway neighborhoods, we want to offer a series of free gardening workshops for Greenway neighbors at the Lincoln Community Garden. Workshops will be taught by community members and include hands-on demonstrations and free seeds or seedlings.

Edible Forest Gardens are becoming the rage in permaculture circles. The idea is to create a self-maintaining forest ecosystem in which all 7-layers of plants (from canopy to root crops) are either edible and/or provide an ecosystem function (such as nutrient cycling or beneficial critter habitat). Edible forest gardens hold much promise as a low-cost way of converting sections of our commons to food production—adding a delicious edible dimension to schools and parks. Most of the work in an edible forest garden occurs in the design and installation phase; ideally, once the edible forest garden is established the bulk of the maintenance is in the harvesting! The City of Richmond, Parks and Landscaping Division has already given the initial go-ahead to develop an Edible Forest Garden in at least 2 locations and is open to more if we can secure funding.