@foodforestchatt
Building agroecological commons from the ground up in and around Chattanooga, Tennessee, nurturing community food forests, gardens, urban farming, public permaculture, and more. chattanoogafoodforests.org (account managed by @jparkesallen.bsky.social)
Why plant trees and cultivate community when the scale of our crises and systematic problems seems so overwhelming? Some reflections apropos of very different happenings in two cities- Chattanooga and Tehran- last Saturday:
Planting new fruit trees at Ascension Lutheran Church
Putting out woodchips on our hillside community food forest at St. Elmo United Methodist Church
Chattanooga DSA members hard at work in the annual vegetable garden beds at Ascension Lutheran
Working on the road-fronting perennial beds at the Chattanooga Civic Center on Hooker Road
It's been another very busy week of planting and tending, with trees starting to bloom, all kinds of things popping up out of the ground, been a real joy seeing so many people out working together in agroecological spaces all around town:
Some of this week's work and signs of spring; in the midst of a world in which many things are indeed very grim and bleak it is incredibly heartening to see people come together and cooperatively take concrete steps towards a better, kinder, more beautiful world
You should be able to see Apios americana at a couple of our affiliated food forest sites this year, probably won't be able to harvest for eating purposes until next however
What's coming up outdoor work opportunity wise and more on our fundraising campaign:
It's a small thing but I can promise that we will never use generative AI in our media or literature, and instead will use as much as possible artwork by artists past and present, with the attribution they deserve
Next week!
A tiny selection of a vast set of absolutely beautiful and delicately executed watercolors of flowering plants of North America, "made from nature by Miss Helen Sharp [fl. c 1890], and have been used in part in the botanical classes of the Lowell Free Courses of the Teachers' School of Science":
Our donation page is- finally!- live and ready to receive financial support from anyone who would like to help advance the transformative work that the Chattanooga Food Forest Coalition is doing:
All kinds of opportunities coming up to get involved in community agriculture in Chattanooga over the coming weeks, including recurring weekly gardening sessions, now at multiple locations (the two here represent a new addition plus one restarting for the spring):
love these
Another fantastic mid-century scientific book cover, from the Soviet agronomist V. A. Kolesnikov's 1962 book (here the 1966 translation into English) on fruit tree biology, also contains some fantastic scientific illustrations (see below):
eastern shadbush, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1909
eastern shadbush, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1909
james grapes, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1905
james grapes, painted by deborah griscom passmore, 1905
Continuing our DSA ecosocialism working group educational series with a talk (by yours truly) on radical organizing in the rural South in the mid-20th century, the practical lessons we can learn from such struggles, and the importance of recovering this forgotten but powerful past for our region:
Cope's grey tree frog next to an apple tree just planted
Two tranplanted apple trees, filling in the rest of the space next week!
Planting spinach, turnip green, and pea seeds
The fellers building a foundation for the Chatt Valley shed
The last week in community food forest and garden activities: new apple trees at the Crabtree Farms Community Food Forest (plus an amphibian resident we encountered while planting!) and putting up a new shed for the Chattanooga Valley Community Farm plus some early spring seed planting:
red sauce apples, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1930
red sauce apples, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1930
'As Kristin Ross puts it in her sensitive study of the intellectual effects of the 1871 Paris Commune, Communal Luxury, “Being attentive to the energies of the outmoded was one way to think oneself into the future.”'
Not pictured because none of us remembered to take photos lol is the Chattanooga-wide Urban Agriculture Roundtable that we have been helping facilitate over the last year along with several of our partners orgs, we had great turnout and got a lot done collaboratively
It's been a busy week of tree planting and mulch moving at several of our community food forest sites, spring is definitely in the air!
Our DSA ecosocialism working group turned out in force this afternoon to do some spring prep for one of our core community gardens, at Ascension Lutheran Church in East Ridge, followed by a talk on urban beekeeping and two documentaries on food sovereignty and agroecology (links below):
New post on two mutual aid based projects for the new year which we're working to get going:
A retrospective on 2025- losses, mistakes, gains, lessons, the good and the bad- plus a preview of what we're hoping to accomplish this year:
If you're in or near Chattanooga please consider attending this event our DSA ecosocialism working group is putting on in a few weeks!
Hitting the New Year running with two events coming up in the next week:
My first book acquisition and one of my favorite editing experiences was Andrew Moore’s wonderful (and award-winning) Pawpaw. Highly recommend.
Chattanooga artists! We need you!
We are planning on producing a small library of pamphlets, fliers, posters, zines, and other material in the coming year, and are looking for artists, writers, designers, and other who would be interested in working with us on these projects! If you'd like to be involved, send us a DM or otherwise get in touch and we'll reach out once we get the process underway!
The haunting background image (of a coppiced tree with the night sky and moon behind) for this post is from a printed titled "Maanacht," made in 1920 by the Dutch artist Julie de Graag
While we're especially looking to recruit local artists, writers, and the like, if you're working on similar projects elsewhere and would like to contribute remotely, maybe give a talk over Zoom (or drive up/down/over to Chattanooga if it's not too far), we'd love that too!
Join our December 15th event: Building Dual Power: Global Lessons for Local Transformation
Speakers include Kali Akuno of #CooperationJackson, Rebecca Tarlau of U.S. Friends of the #MST & Arthur Pye of Emergency Committee for #Rojava
RSVP: municipalism.org/municipalist...
"PFAN is... a grassroots movement structured around mutual aid, and economic self-reliance of small-scale men and women raising chickens on small farms abandoned due to years of cheap imports. These farmers decided to take action and organize, rather than to just give up."
