Having planned my backyard reading for the same day as the Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers summer garden tour (oops) I was pleased to be able to take in the follow on tour, and manage to get to one of the gardens at least.
We have a number of talented gardeners in our neighbourhood, and in this one, Emily had chosen to plant her front yard in fruit, vegetables, herbs and pollinator plants, with a rabbit hutch and chicken coop in back.
After the tour we repaired to Gabe & Belle’s for a poke round their garden and a large and splendid potluck supper, which featured many locally grown vegetables, and finished off with a large gluten-free chocolate cake to celebrate Lorrie’s birthday… and some rather luscious fruit pavlovas, cakes and (ahem) some bourbon-spiced peaches that I’d canned earlier in the summer.
I’m in Vancouver at the moment, so will be missing the annual Seedy Sunday that my community food security group will be holding this weekend. It’s lower key than some of the fancy schmancy ones we used to enjoy in the beforetimes; no speakers or commercial vendors, just a good honest seed swap. Most of the seeds are harvested from local gardens, meaning they are well adapted to local (though ever-changing!) conditions and pests, and are open-pollinated, aside from the surplus from seed packets retrieved from drawers and cupboards.
However, making a pre-emptive strike, I irresponsibly wandered into a community seed swap here last month, at the Britannia Centre, on Commercial Drive. I say irresponsible given the quantity of seeds I have in my seed box back home… but I did bring contributions (parsley and cherry tomato seeds). Came away with a few packages of some new and interesting things to try: Ethiopian kale; Tokyo long white onion; Flamingo Pink Swiss Chard; Scarlet Nantes Carrots (well, I’ll try again!).
The seed table.. before!The seed table… with seed-lovers!
The News has become a dark place, and February 24 was a darker day than most. For a couple of months I felt crushed, dodged war reports, hunkered down in helpless anguish.
Then one day an email dropped into my inbox from The Real Bread Campaign, reminding me that there was indeed something I could do. I could bake!
I managed to enlist a few other like-minded bakers, and an idea was born. A healthy baking bake sale!
And so it will be, this very weekend. We’re defining healthy in any way we choose; the only condition being an ingredient list so buyers can decide if our views match up.
I’m still deciding what to make. So far I’ve made some favourite crackers – cassava flour – and some sourdough flax crackers. Planning to make some banana bread (GF) and some chocolate-coconut truffles; some muffins; maybe if there’s time some cookies too.
By other hands we also have GF / vegan peanut butter choc chip cookies, rhubarb bars, savory muffins and homemade Twix bars; and some magnificent gluten free olive bread and GF “fake rye” bread.
Our bakers include CSNN grads and GTUF members and I thank them for their generous donations of food and time. Quality cooking takes quality ingredients, and great care. I’m hoping we’ll get a good turnout on Sunday afternoon and be able to turn over some needed funds for the Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal. Any leftovers will be donated to a local community kitchen or two.
It was an intense ag-food weekend starting with Seedy Saturday at the Victoria Conference Centre. Many were the crowds, nigh on as numerous as the seeds on sale, and much was the diversity on offer. I was helping out at the CRFAIR stand, conveniently situated next to Jacob of Salt Spring Sprouts & Organic Mushrooms, who is always generous with his samples. I also sampled some excellent banana pancakes made by chef Joseph from his bean flour pancake mix. Managed to escape with only one package of seeds, this one from GTUFerKendell Nielsen, PAg, who had dropped off some mini-spaghetti squash seeds that caught my eye. I did not need her giant Jerusalem artichokes though they were beautiful. There was a very busy table of volunteers repackaging the donated seeds, and a large variety on offer (free for trade or $1 a package).
My book was on sale at the CRFAIR table (near the giant rutabaga); Verna & Bob Duncan talked fruit and fruit trees at their very popular stand, and it was spring all over the place with tender snowdrops and other spring shoots waiting to be taken home. There were many workshops as well, including a preview of the Changing the Way We Eat food talks which are upcoming at the Belfry Theatre in late April. Watch this space for news..
Sunday was a double whammy. First, the GTUF meeting, in which Gabe Epstein and Belle Leon shared some photos of community gardens in Victoria, Seattle and South Africa, and invited discussion about the nature and purpose of community gardens in our area. Then we broke for snacks – including two glorious pizzas hand-crafted by local caterer Eugene Monast who has often blessed us with food at our meetings. GTUFer Robert Baker had brought a basket along to show what he’d harvested from his garden that morning, encouraging us to make the most of winter growing.
And finally it was on to the VIVA-RAW monthly potluck, to see what delectables were on the table and to hear Aika Tuomi talk about mushrooms. He focused on shiitake, reishi and chaga mushrooms and did a good plug for mushroom powders and extracts on sale where he works, Ingredients Health Foods.
And the raw food we ate: below, a delicious and beautiful salad featuring pomegranate, kiwi and avocado; seedy flax crackers; mock salmon (walnut) pate (my contribution); zucchini noodles; ingredients list from some cocoa-date cookies; and finally the groaning plate which features everything but the late-breaking and improbable-sounding but gorgeous salad of mango, citrus and sauerkraut.
Lost a bit of time to computer troubles, but we seem to be back on our virtual feet again.
This abnormally warm West Coast winter is blending seamlessly into spring with an alarming showing of buds on bushes even as the snowdrops do their seasonal duty. We’re all thinking about seeds just now. The weekend before last the Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers seed swap attracted around 50 GTUFers and other interested parties. It was a friendly and interesting time, comparing notes on what had grown well in our neighbourhood, and enlivened by the arrival of several cases of last year’s seed stock donated by a good neighbourly commercial seller.
Among my trophies, I collected seeds for:
cucumbers (field and pickling)
kohlrabi (one can never have too much)
scarlet runner beans (some unusual & beautiful brown and cream coloured seeds)
mammoth pot leeks (I have regretfully given up on onions – just don’t have enough sun in my garden)
And I left small quantities of a large number of different plants including broccoli, celery, amaranth, calendula, oca, bulb fennel, black radish and eight different kinds of tomatoes, sugar snap peas and the remains of some unneeded seed packs, like onion (my plant list is here)
On Monday I was invited to speak to the fruit & veg group of the Victoria Horticultural Society. Rather than try to cross secateurs with more seasoned gardeners I chose community seed banks as my topic, and a lively discussion (several in fact) ensued. The GTUF seed bank, like many in these parts, was started after Dan Jason’s inspirational article on the topic. A good way to build goodwill, seed stocks and, ultimately, food security in your neighbourhood!
Ah, Spring. Victoria’s Seedy Saturday was heaving again this year. I didn’t make it to any of the talks, and was too preoccupied to make thorough visits to all the stands, but once again the interest in seeds – both flower and vegetable – was there in (ahem) spades.
The seed swap was as popular as ever. Bring something to trade, or put a loonie down and take your pick of local seeds:
Gabe and I were there representing the Gorge-Tillicum Urban Farmers (GTUF) on the CR-FAIR table, and were pleased to find so much interest in neighbourhood food security.. and meet a couple of new members too.
Linda Geggie’s “Test Your Seed Smarts” was hugely popular. A few sniffed they didn’t need to see the back of the card to know what the seeds were, but most who stopped found the self-test highly entertaining,
Having planned my backyard reading for the same day as the Gorge Tillicum Urban Farmers summer garden tour (oops) I was pleased to be able to take in the follow on tour, and manage to get to one of the gardens at least.
After the tour we repaired to Gabe & Belle’s for a poke round their garden and a large and splendid potluck supper, which featured many locally grown vegetables, and finished off with a large gluten-free chocolate cake to celebrate Lorrie’s birthday… and some rather luscious fruit pavlovas, cakes and (ahem) some bourbon-spiced peaches that I’d canned earlier in the summer.
