Local Delicious

If you don’t have the time, patience or sense of adventure to grow a garden in your spacious yard but hate seeing all that real estate go to waste, how about having someone come in, work your garden for you, and leave payment in the form of a regular supply of fresh, organic produce?

There are a variety of creative gardening partnership options to choose from, including sharing or leasing.

Check out City Farm Boy, Kitsilano Farms and Sharing Backyards for more information.

It kills me to see trees and gardens laden with fruit and produce going to rot. It’s such a waste!

A friend of mine was walking in Kerrisdale a few weeks back and came across a tree laden with beautiful Bing cherries that were ripe and as yet untouched by birds — a most unusual sight. There were a few branches overhanging the alley, so she and her partner sampled a handful — not only did they look good, they tasted amazing. A few days later, the cherries were still there, beckoning, with no harvesting efforts in evidence.

Being a good citizen, she curbed temptation and instead wrote a witty note offering to share the bounty if the home owners would allow her to harvest any fruit they didn’t want. She waited by the phone for days, but to no avail. A week later, the cherries were decimated, and the note she’d left under a rock on the porch was still there. Sadly, the home owners were clearly not in residence.

If you have a bounty of fruit or produce, or if your elderly neighbours are no longer able to harvest theirs, The Fruit Tree Project is just what you need.

It’s a basic, common sense idea: connect people who have excess fruit from their backyard fruit trees with those who have the time and energy to harvest it, all for a good cause.

Most of the harvested fruit is donated to community organizations and individuals in need. The Fruit Tree Project also partners with Community Kitchens and other local organizations that use the fruit in educational programs, such as the importance of fresh produce in a healthy diet, canning workshops, and other food security activities.

Skip the unnecessary guilt and bad karma — get on their list quick, before your fruit all rots on the ground!

One of the biggest challenges to eating more locally is sourcing the food. I’m not a rabid locavore — I love a good latte and savour chocolate on a regular basis, and those habits are not likely to change anytime soon.

I do, however, want the option to eat food from sources closer than farther.

I want to be able to choose the nearer farmer, which might mean a neighbouring province over another continent, rather than limiting my food choices to a strictly limited radius. (Given the state of our food systems, a 100 mile diet a great goal to aim toward, but not attainable at the moment.)

I was very interested to learn of NOW BC from a fellow community gardener. NOW BC is an organic, member-owned food co-operative whose mission is “to build a sustainable local food system by connecting local farms and processors with consumers and building community around sustainable food choices.”

In search of other than the usual fruit and vegetables, browsing the NOW BC product catalogue I find unbleached flour from Chilliwack, lentils from Saskatchewan (and you thought they only produced wheat), hazelnuts from BC, and whole wheat macaroni from Alberta.

You can make a purchase without a membership, food is organic wherever possible, and your purchase is delivered to a depot in your neighbourhood for pick up, keeping costs more reasonable and sustainable. Think of it as an expanded farmers market — those SK lentils might not make it to the Kits Farmers Market on Sunday, but you’ll still be supporting farmers and strengthening our ability to trace where our food has come from.

Now wouldn’t it be even more cool if the bakery at the weekly market made their bread with flour from Chilliwack?

The Richmond Food Security Society is offering gardeners a look into Beescaping, the sustainable art and science of integrating bees into the living landscape.

Bee conservation is widely recognized now as crucial to a sustainable future (hello, we need bees to pollinate!). This class is an introduction to beescaping, that looks at aspects of forage and nesting needed for both native bees and honeybees with an emphasis on bee health.

Creating a variety of nesting material for native bees, the basics of keeping honeybees in an urban setting, bee wrangling and other hands-on activities will be offered. This class is suitable for horticulturalists, landscape designers, farmers and home gardeners alike.

Saturday, July 18th
9am – 12 pm
Barn, Terra Nova Rural Park, 2631 Westminster Hwy
Cost: $30

For more information or to register for any of these classes, please contact Arzeena Hamir at foodsecurity@richmondprc.org or call (778) 297-2202

Are you planning to attend? Let us know how it goes — leave a comment…

Have a couple of hours this Saturday and want to get down and dirty? How about volunteering to help maintain gardens for the Edible Garden Project.

The mission of the project is to create a network of communities where locally grown food is collected and distributed to organizations that provide food to low income families and individuals. The Edible Garden Project connects homeowners with gardens who want to donate a portion of their harvest, people who have under or unused garden space and would like to cultivate this land for growing food, and volunteers who want to contribute to the growing, sharing, and learning around locally produced food.

Saturday, June 27
10:00 am to Noon
North Shore (Vancouver, BC)
For location details, contact: coordinator@ediblegardenproject.com

Meet up with other gardeners, get great garden advice, and help the community.

The Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm and the 100-Mile Diet Society are celebrating the Farm’s first market of the year and the official launch of the Vancouver 100-Mile Diet Foodshed Map.

Saturday, June 13
9:00 am – 1:00 pm
UBC Farm, 6182 South Campus Road Map

Mark Bomford, UBC Farm Program Coordinator and Kelly Kuryk, Foodshed Project Coordinator will be speaking about the unique collaboration between the 100-Mile Diet Society and the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at UBC Farm, synthesizing action, research and education.

As the only working farmland within the city of Vancouver, the UBC Farm is an urban agrarian gem, featuring a landscape of unique beauty and productivity. Currently, it is highlighting how sustainable agricultural techniques can reduce the negative impact of the food system on climate change and the environment.

Everyone welcome! Fun for the entire family, including farm tours, live music, a 100-mile pancake breakfast cooked by local chefs, fresh, local produce, garden tool sharpening (bring your tools!), bike tune-ups, local artisans, baked goods, children’s activities, and more.