27 April, Level 6 at CAC Beardsley Community Farm

Come one, come all and join us this Wednesday, April 27th, from 5-7 pm at CAC Beardsley Community Farm for our sixth ULS Workshop: Blogging and Zines. We'll be joined by guest writers and artists, Dale Mackey and Beth Meadows. We will be making and documenting things.

This lovely poster by Rival Collective.

Eat Nashville, Land Scouts!

This map was made by some fine folks in Nashville, TN. If you live in Nashville and have something to add to it, email me and I can pass along your information to Brooke, one of the map's creators.


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Secret Garden

My brother took photos of this great terraced garden in East Knoxville. I'd say this could earn someone a Level Three and Level Five badge. Maybe some others.  Onward and upward; work with what you've got.

Level 5 Workshop: cultivating

This coming Wednesday, April 20th, 5-7 pm at CAC Beardsley Community Farm, 1719 Reynolds St., behind the Cansler Boys and Girls Club. Wear closed toe shoes and dress for the weather. If you have containers for small plant starts, please bring those too.

Find Good Teachers

Jeff Ross talks plants with the Urban Land Scouts at CAC Beardsley Community Farm.

We had a great visitor to last week's workshop, Jeff Ross, the head gardener at Blackberry Farm. Jeff strolled around Beardsley with two dozen eager, note-taking Urban Land Scouts and talked about various edible plants in the landscape, among them: honeysuckle, mahonia (aka: oregon grape holly), dandelions, day lilies, mulberry, wild lettuce, chickweed, wild garlic, yarrow, and on. We concluded the trip with a satisfying round of dropping our various findings into a skillet full of hot oil and sampling things like breaded dandelion heads, flash-fried yarrow leaves, onion flowers and roots.

  

It makes a real difference to learn about edible plants from someone as knowledgeable as Jeff Ross and it was doubly lucky for all of us that he works at a four-star hotel with famous and inventive chefs. It's hard to get fired up about eating, say dandelion greens, if you don't have a nice recipe for them. One woman asked if frying these wild edibles negated the health benefits of them. For me the point is not the benefit to my body (although I am glad for the vitamins and minerals found in these plants), it is the mental shift that comes with harvesting and consuming in this way. If you'd like to see a copy of notes from the walk, you can email me here (passage - at- urbanlandscouts - dot- com) or check out Kat's post about the workshop. Thanks so much to Jeff Ross for sharing his time and knowledge! 

Jeff Ross talks wild edibles at CAC Beardsley Community Farm.

Ash: Level 3

Congratulations to Ash for earning her Level Three badge. Well done. Ash also gets points for near perfect attendance to the Urban Land Scout workshops at Beardsley.

Level 4

The Urban Land Scout is fed by the land in which she lives.

This Wednesday, April 13th, 5-7 pm, at CAC Beardsley Community Farm we'll work on earning our Level 4 badges. The workshops are free. Beardsley Farm is at 1719 Reynolds St., behind the Cansler Boys and Girls Club. Wear closed toe shoes and dress to be outside, rain or shine.

Seed Bombing - A Video!

Wahoo. We have here at Urban Land Scout HQ our very first video documentation. Not only did Stephanie and Michael email their evidence in scant days after the HOMEGROWN show at Fluorescent, they shot a video! Wooo. Let's hear it for contemporary media. Well done, young scouts. Go forth rejoicing and gently watering your bombs. Keep us posted on how they do.

Spring Mapping

At the Level 2 workshop last week we walked around Knoxville College and noted some edible perennials for the Urban Land Scouts map. Mapping is the second step in Urban Land Scout-dom and a natural compliment to the practice of observation. Now is a great time to wander your neighborhood (and hopefully well beyond it) to consider what's growing, what's not, and what could. Many area fruit trees (peaches, pear, plum, apple, etc.) are on the tail end of flowering, but there's still time to note any blossoms you see. Take note now and plan to return in fall to see if the fruits are edible (or tasty).

If you'd like to add a plant to the ULS map, please send an email to passage - at - urbanlandscouts - dot - com and I'll get you added right away.


View Forage Knoxville in a larger map

If you don't live in Knoxville, start your own map! Print some cards with the URL (I recommend shortening it to something memorable with bit.ly or tinyurl.com) and start spreading the word.