Matching Landowners with Grower/Gardeners

Please Note: 1/17/09 This discussion is starting to attract offers from landowners. You can always respond to these offers by leaving a comment on their home page.

Many Vermont landowners are eager to have their land used. Many grower/gardeners, or potential grower/gardeners, are looking for land or more land. This space is for sharing ideas/models/reports relating to fulfilling this relationship where all of us can be the benificiaries.Feel free to localize or broaden the geographical focus, at will!

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kathryn Blume on January 12, 2009 at 3:38pm: I'd love to talk about the possibility of hosting a grower/gardener. I'm in the Charlotte/Hinesburg/Monkton border area on the banks of Lewis Creek. We've got an acre or two of cultivatable land.

- Kathy; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by matt on January 13, 2009 at 11:21am: Great thinking, George. There is a group here in Portland getting started on the same project....it's exciting to see the same idea popping up in Vermont!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Emily Kaminsky on January 13, 2009 at 2:03pm: Does UVM's LandLink still do this?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Carl Etnier on January 13, 2009 at 5:00pm: I got authorative word that the LandLink program no longer exists. I haven't followed up to find out why or what alternatives people recommend. NOFA? Craig's List?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by George Lisi on January 13, 2009 at 6:21pm: Also, if I'm remembering LandLink correctly, it matched 'serious' farmer prospects only. Seems to me we need robust and varied systems to make matches across a wide sprectrum of scale, 'seriousness' and formality of arrangement. Perhaps a large part is just getting the buzz out there that this is needed, and is 'cool' - sociallly acceptable for both sides of the arrangement. It's happening with other things (like ride sharing?), let's make land sharing ''normal'; a part of the culture we are co-creating as we speak.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alec Hill on April 17, 2009 at 11:16am: The Beginning Farmer and Land Access program is growing out of the foundational work of Land Link Vermont.

Yeah, this does seem to be more about 'serious' farmers.

And indeed... SHARING!!!

cheers-; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by George Lisi on January 13, 2009 at 6:27pm: Posting this idea stimulated Transition California to get this out on their site within hours. This is the kind of cross-fertilization these Transition sites can facilitate. I got the following email from Bob Banner:

Hi George
Thanks for the managing land discussion
we decided to do the same thing at the CA site...here it is:

<<http://transitioncalifornia.ning.com/forum/topics/matching-landowne...;

Since community gardens are packed and many cities are not establishing more sites for gardeners to do their desired gardening, we need to help each other out. If you own a front yard, back yard, or perhaps a lot that is just sitting there or being just a lawn that is not producing NEEDED FOOD.. and you may want to have it gardened, please use this ning site for action. If you are a gardener in search of land, please use this ning site as well. At HopeDance we were using our classified bulletin board to do this and it worked quite well <<WHO WANTS TO MANAGE LAND, BUT HAS NONE? WHO HAS LAND and WANTS HELP... >>. Hopefully other social networking sites will do the same. If you know of any please post it here....; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by David Lipton on May 25, 2009 at 12:47pm: Hi@

This sounds just like what I'd like to plug into. It's been 20 years since I'd done any "serious" food growing, so starting small sounds great to me. I'm an otherwisw techynerd also psychotherapist and meditation instructor, currenly living in dry Colorado, and would love to relocate in VT. Any ideas would be helpful

thanks!
David; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Emily Kaminsky on January 13, 2009 at 8:16pm: The book Food Not Lawns talks a lot about creating these informal relationships. I'm hoping to spark some conversation this on the Greater Barre site. I think we're getting close. I live in a neighborhood in Barre with copious green lawns. I'm waiting for the opportune time to talk to my neighbors about using our lawns for something other than fertilizer.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by George Lisi on January 17, 2009 at 11:08am: Reminds me that Sandra Lory is bringing the RUST (Radical Urban Sustainability Training) 2 day workshop to Barre next summer. I'll email you her addy, in case you didn't know about this.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by George Lisi on January 17, 2009 at 10:25am: Just saw this on Elysha Welters' homepage:
"We are currently trying to connect young farmers without land, to farmland in the Cabot area that is currently not in use."
We need to get these local stories out - thank's Elysha!
Check out Elysha's page, very inspiring. She and her husband Sjon run Rhapsody Cafe in Montpelier and much more as you'll see...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Perry H. on January 17, 2009 at 11:51am: I have recently acquired 44 acres of beautiful land in Hardwick (a small Transition Town midway between St. Johnsbury and Montpelier). I plan on building a small (about 400sf) temporary eco-shelter as well as gardens, garden walls, natural fences, and I am very open to the idea of EDIBLE FOREST GARDENS. The land is forest and plains and has quite a bit of biodiversity and alot of forest edge. Currently my ideas are only in my head and vivid imagination. When the snow melts this upcoming Spring, I will be excitedly implementing these ideas as time, community, and help permits. It would be fantastic to open my land, for garden/farm, permaculture, and building sharing, to happy and motivated people. The land currently has grid electricity and municipal water. Planting a seed on this discussion thread and looking forward to seeing how it grows.; ▶ Reply to This