Urban Farm and Coop Tour Recap

Last weekend was my 3rd time being a host on the Seattle Tilth Urban Farm and Chicken Coop tour and I think it was my favorite year. It was certainly the biggest turn-out we had ever had! There was a steady stream of people from 10am when we opened until 4pm when we closed and that was a first for us. Matt estimated that we had about 80 people come through that day.

Mind you, I don’t host every year. The first year I hosted was in 2010 and then again in 2012. I don’t like to host every year, because sometimes I like to go on the tour! It’s only been in the past few years that they have whittled it down to 25 urban farms and I think that helped the attendance. Plus, I was grouped with more coops in my area than I had been in the past, so that probably helped as well.

This year was also the most fun because it was the first time I hosted with Matt. As I’ve said before, Matt has done all of the hardscaping in the garden and that is a lot of what people wanted to know about, so it was great to have him there. He also knows a ton about gardening now, from helping me over the years, so I feel like between the two of us, we were able to talk to just about everyone and answer questions throughout the day.

A lot of what I get asked is what things are, so this year I made these nifty laminated labels. Laminators are almost as fun as label makers, except when the machine jams (yes, I almost broke the laminator at work- oops). I also love to go crazy with my logo and put it everywhere. Yes, I branded my garden.

This was also the first year, our little farm got named, due to the folks at Seattle Tilth wanting a name for the tour map. It’s Rake and Make Ranch. It was just off the top of my head, but I like it! Do you know how long I’ve been wanting a name for our farm and couldn’t think of one? Well there it is… Rake and Make Ranch. Now I can geotag it on Instagram or whatever!

This was a great time for us to host because we have been working really hard on the garden this year. We had just completed a remodel of the chicken coop and Matt recently built this awesome hops trellis (that people were very impressed by). We also met so many friendly, knowledgeable and like-minded people, that were more than happy to share their stories an experiences with us as well. I learned a ton and got a bunch of great tips from people, like sticking fertilized eggs under my old lady chickens to get baby chickens (I just might have to do this and soon). We should have been exhausted at the end of the day, but we were so energized and inspired by all the great conversations we’d had, that our minds were just racing with ideas.

It’s events like this that really bring the community together and get us all excited about what we are doing. So thank you Seattle Tilth for organizing such a wonderful event!