spin farming

[Guest guest]

Dolores Gottenberg

 

More and more people today are focusing on healthier eating, and a growing

number are making an effort to follow the One Hundred Mile diet. Dolores

Gottenberg was one of those people but she’s taken it a step further, she’s

become a SPIN (Small Plot Intensive) urban farmer -- Check out

www.spinfarming.com.

 

The concept is simple. SPIN farmers lease 500 to 3,000 square feet plots of land

(usually free of charge) from people who would rather have someone garden their

land rather than cut the grass themselves. The benefit to the land owners is

that they get to pick all the veggies they want plus they can feel good that

their land is feeding people rather than lying fallow as well as causing them

work with their lawn mower.

 

I remember Dolores talking briefly about the concept last fall. It seemed like

an interesting idea but a bit far fetched I thought for a woman with a PhD in

education plus an MBA but it didn’t seem far fetched to Dolores. In retrospect

it almost seems that the universe somehow pushed her in that direction.

 

First people from the Community Gardens spoke at her Rotary Club and the idea

for urban gardening became more entrenched in her mind. Then she heard a feature

on SPIN farming on the radio and soon after that found herself in touch with

Wally Satzewich and Gail Vandersteen, the couple that started the movement some

years ago in Saskatoon.

 

Next thing I knew, I saw her selling her produce at the Cedar Farmers’ Market.

 

The web site makes SPIN farming sound easy and inexpensive but having checked

out Dolores’ three plots of land and seen her at work, I’m here to tell you

it still seems like a great idea to me but you better LOVE gardening and you

can’t be afraid of hard work if you want to become a SPIN farmer.

 

Mike Banasky who leases two large plots of land to her, says he sees her there

early in the morning and he’s even seen her harvesting with a flashlight at

night. This woman thrives on hard work.

 

Dolores’ first step was to prepare a business plan. Something that’s easy

for her since, as you may recall, she has an MBA, but I’m told that

shouldn’t scare the rest of us off. It seems anyone can create their own

business plan with support from Internet sites.

 

Next she put an ad in the papers to find land, purchased a couple of

rototillers, a trailer and other garden tools and she was in business -- until

the deer and the rabbits found her. Next came deer fencing, which she later

discovered didn’t dissuade the rabbits so yet more fencing was needed.

 

Next year Dolores plans on hosting WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms).

These are travellers who work four or five hours a day in return for room and

board.

 

With that extra help she hopes to farm more plots, attend at least two markets a

week and begin a home delivery service.

 

This Hidden Heroes column is about promoting good ideas that any ordinary person

could do. SPIN farming is definitely one of them, if you’ve got the energy for

it.

 

 

 

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

Confucius