In spite of the lack of sunshine the Urban Agriculture Workshop on May 23rd at Loutet Farm was a great success. Thanks to the Vancouver Foundation Neighbourhood Small Grants program we were able to purchase supplies for the workshop and the makings of a great lunch.
The day started with Carole Stewart talking about growing tomatoes from seed. She demonstrated how to use peat pots for starting seeds and how to make a plant pot out of newspaper. Many gave the newspaper pot a try and had a lot of fun in the process – origami for gardens.. There was a great discussion about pruning and staking different types of tomatoes plants as well as the different varieties of tomato seeds available. Seeds and pots were available for everyone to take home. A great source for tomato and other veggie seeds is www.westcoastseeds.com.
Fiona Walsh was a hit with her talk on making kombucha, a fermented tea drink with a myriad of health benefits. She had several SCOBYs or mothers available to look at and touch. Even though they look a bit like jelly fish, the drink they produce is delicious. We enjoyed tasting Fiona’s different batches and several people are going to try making kombucha at home using the SCOBY’s provided by Fiona. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ve_YrSp500
Fiona’s second demo was about kefir, a fermented milk product that is a little like thin yogurt. The kefir is made by putting kefir grains into milk and letting the grains do their work for about eighteen hours. Kefir is really simple to make at home because it does not require any refrigeration. Each batch of kefir grows some new grains which are tiny white spheres with a bumpy surface so once started there are more to share. A number of people took home some kefir grains in jars to make their own. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8inJzX-6yE)
Dianne Jackson and Fiona Walsh talked about sprouting seeds. We saw a number of different kinds of equipment from basic mason jars to containers with tiers for growing multiple kinds of sprouts at the same time. They also had examples of sprouts at the different stages of growth from seed to green sprouts ready for a salad. Many of the participants took home seeds to sprout and mason jars to put them into. Dianne had a book with a lot of useful information on all kinds of sprouting that many wanted to look at and there are many sources for info about sprouting online.
A highlight of the day for everyone was a visit from Evonne Strohwald and her beautiful buff orphington chicken. Evonne talked about the many things to consider when deciding to keep urban chickens. The chicken was charming and seemed to enjoy being held by a number of people. For more information about keeping chickens here are some links. www.chickensinnorthvancouver.wordpress.com or http://www.villagevancouver.ca/group/north-shore-chickens
The formal part of the day wrapped up with a delicious lunch served under the new shelter at Loutet Farm. Marilyn Watson, Dianne Jackson, Carole Stewart and Fiona Walsh all worked on the prep. Most of the ingredients were organic and produced and purchased locally from Sprout Market, The British Butcher and Loutet Farm.
After lunch many of the workshop participants stayed to weed the potato patch on the Farm. .”Many hands make light work”. The event wrapped up about 3:00pm. Thanks to Loutet Farm for letting us visit and use their new shelter. More info about the Farm can be found at http://ediblegardenproject.com
