Category — Canada

Deborah Henderson, director of the Institute for Sustainable Horticulture at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Langley. Photo By Bill Keay. Vancouver Sun

Food Production: Kwantlen lab on cutting edge of pest control. Langley university to work on process that uses predators, parasites and microbes to fight destructive insects

By Randy Shore
16 Oct 2009
The Vancouver Sun

A new biological pest control laboratory opening today at Kwantlen Polytechnic University will place B.C. at the forefront of a global revolution in urban food production.

The lab — the first of its kind in North America — will develop insect-and microbe-based pest control systems for use on small-scale farms and in areas where farming and housing share space.

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A history about the culinary history of New France, in French. Link to this book here.

Peter Kalm’s Travels into North America

From the earliest days of settlement in North America, town and country Kitchen Gardens were essential to the survival of the new inhabitants. One traveller, the Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm, has written extensively about what he saw during his travels in French Canada in 1749 (Volume 3) and he spends considerable time writing about the plants that were grown and used in people’s gardens.

His three volume Travels into North America : containing its natural history, and a circumstantial account of its plantations and agriculture in general, with the civil, ecclesiastical and commercial state of the country, the manners of the inhabitants, and several curious and important remarks on various subjects is a treasure trove of fascinating history of life in North America 250 years ago.

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Photo by Michael Levenston. Chestnuts up in the tree. Porcupine quill-like burs encase the nuts.

Most people find Horse Chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) lying on the ground in the Fall. They are a beautiful, shiny brown nuts but inedible. However, there are in Vancouver a few Spanish Chestnut or Sweet Chestnut trees (Castanea saliva), the nuts of which are edible, and elderly Asian and European residents are quick to harvest them as they fall to the ground. They often use long poles to hit them out of the trees.

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Photo by Michael Levenston

Bears are a part of city life in many municipalities in and around Vancouver. Our Hotline receives calls from residents about bears strolling into yards and knocking over compost bins in North Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, Whistler, Squamish and parts of Vancouver Island.

Laurie Chambers of Lund, BC, designed and built this beautiful bear-proof composter and we are lucky to have one at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden.

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Title: Waste Not Want Not: Prepare For Winter

Artist: Henderson, E.
Publisher: Canada Food Board, Ottawa
World War I — Canada Food Board;

The Gardens – Richmond BC Canada.

The Gardens, a housing development in Richmond, BC for 550 housing units, will include agricultural plots for food production, community and restaurant garden plots, orchard for food production, and rooftop gardens.

From Community Workshop 3

Edible landscape and other educational landscape features and displays could be incorporated into the gardens. The ponds could also serve the dual function of accommodating storm water retention. Community gardens and an orchard are provided for the surrounding community and residents to enjoy.

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A trailer showing Zell and Krist growing, revitalizing, and transforming the Artan Garden into a Creative Cultural Centre in North Bay Ontario.

Artan Garden

Mr. and Mrs. Artan came to North Bay with their family over 35 years ago. Mr. Artan built a cottage at the end of Judge St. The foundation is still there in the back parking lot. Mr. Artan came with many skills; his talents in stone masonry, cement, and permacultural design came from his long career as a General Contractor, at the age of ten, Artan was laying ceramic shingles on Mediterranean homes. Artan Contracting was a thriving business and employed many in the community.

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By Bronwyn Smyth

My dad makes this juice every year from our small, Alberta grown purple grapes. We then freeze it. At Christmas time, we take it out and have it with Christmas dinner or at New Years. Sometimes, we add sparkling water, soda or ginger ale to it for fizz and flavour.

1. Place your grapes in a bucket and fill the bucket with water. Let your grapes stand for an hour, so that any insects and insect bodies will come floating to the surface. Skim these off, then remove your grapes.

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Christoph Martens and Paul Hoepfner-Homme with the baby greens in one of their plots. The two hope to make food more local by using unused yards in and around Nelson.

“FARMING IN THE CITY XI (Nelson Urban Acres / Massachusetts Avenue Project)”

By Jon Steinman
Deconstructing Dinner
September 10, 2009

Nelson Urban Acres

Nelson Urban Acres is bringing fresh produce closer to home. They are a multi-plot urban farm in Nelson, British Columbia that launched into operation in 2009 based on the SPIN farming model. Co-founders Paul Hoepfner-Homme and Christoph Martens are working backyard gardens within the city using low-impact, organic farming techniques to grow fresh produce.

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Photo by Michael Levenston

Maria grew three colourful varieties of corn this year at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden. Visiting six-year-olds from a neighbourhood after-school program were fascinated by the new colours of their favourite food and each child got to taste a kernel from a freshly picked cob.

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Larger image here.

Photo: Vegetable garden, Dawson, Y.T., August 19th, 1905.

Album contains photographs of the Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Ontario, fruit orchards in Ontario and Quebec and vegetable gardens and miners’ houses in Dawson City, Yukon. Photographs by Horatio Needham Topley.

By David Tracey

This six-part series explains why the time is ripe for an urban farming revolution in B.C., and who’s showing how to bring it about. Supported by a Tyee reader-funded Fellowship for Solutions-oriented Reporting, David Tracey surveys the urban farming landscape of B.C., visits Cuba to learn from that nation’s city gardening success story, and explains the utility and benefits of bringing agriculture within our urban boundaries.

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Activists make a point as they make compost and grow vegetables on land in Downsview

Aug 05, 2009
Catherine Porter
The Star

Sunny Lam walks down his farm row pointing out the epazote here – “it’s a Mexican herb” – and the flowering kale there, which is “growing like crazy” as another TTC bus roars by.

“In farming, even in the city, you have to experiment,” he says, holding a straw hat in one hand and snatching a clump of earth at his feet with the other. “You got to get to know soil, which crops grow well there.”

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See larger photo here. Photo by Michael Levenston

Our garden veggies and fruit go to West Side Family Place

Head gardener Sharon Slack drives five minutes from the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden to donate freshly harvested organic food to Family Place.

West Side Family Place in Kitsilano is a resource centre dedicated to supporting families with young children. It is a place to meet new friends, gain a sense of community, and to receive ongoing assistance that helps families to raise healthy, happy children.

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Graeme Evans, director of housekeeping at Vancouver’s Fairmont Waterfront hotel, opens a hive last week to show off the bees and their honey to guests. A beekeeper, Evans keeps beehives on a deck at the hotel. And no, he doesn’t wear protective gear. Photograph by Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

Bees cause buzz at Fairmont hotel

Three hives on third-floor deck provide kitchen with honey, guests with stories

By Christina Montgomery,
The Province Newspaper
June 7, 2009

Graeme Evans is undoubtedly Vancouver’s nattiest – and most hospitable – beekeeper.

You won’t catch Evans in one of those bulky, netted helmets and spacesuits that most of his colleagues don when tending their hives. He looks after his trio of nests while wearing a dapper, crisply pressed suit. And tie.

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Live Dining is a planting, harvesting, preparing, composting, cooking, dining performance, a concept

Nicole Fournier
Visual, Interdisplinary and Performance Artist
Founder and Executive Director of InTerreArt

It is about creating a context of integrating a dining-kitchen room installation in a location where plants grow, and where the dining kitchen furniture touch the earth (the ground). Within the dining-kitchen room installation, participants perform the outdoor actions of harvesting, in the same location as the indoor domestic and intimate actions of preparing, cooking and eating.

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Minister of State, Trevor Sargent (centre) visits Vancouver’s Compost Garden. City Farmer’s Lauren Welch and Michael Levenston welcome him.

Why I grow my own food

by Trevor Sargent
From his blog, February 1, 2009

I’m lucky to have a front and back garden that’s big enough to grow some food but not too big to manage. Before I cook a meal I always see what I can add to the meal fresh from the garden. Growing food to me is richly satisfying – a healthful pursuit for mind, body and spirit.

George Bernard Swaw, even though he earned his money writing plays, stated “gardening is the only unquestionably useful job”. The same can be said for farming. Indeed, food production is not just useful, it is essential.

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Photo by Michael Levenston

On a sunny weekend, as I take a stroll with my wife, I see lots of yard sales in my neighbourhood. But on a recent walk I counted three people selling something other than old records, books and clothing.

Honey, flowers and plums!

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Karen Dar Woon teaches people how to can food

“I teach wherever people need to have a class, i.e., community kitchens, and in private homes. I have also taught in cooking stores. My next scheduled class is at Richmond Family Place, in late August. I’ve also had small classes at my home in Yaletown.

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Bronwyn picks some Russian kale leaves at the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden and walks us through the steps to make her unique muffins. She created this recipe last summer while working on an organic farm where there was nothing to eat but kale.

Kale-Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:
½ cup vegetable or grape seed oil
½ cup honey
1 egg, slightly beaten
½ cup milk
1 tsp almond flavouring
½ cup carrots, shredded
1 cup young kale leaves, (when steamed and pureed with 1-2 tbsp of milk, it produces approximately ½ cup of puree)

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