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food & poetry, but mostly the poetry of food

Food • Writing • Poetry

Haliburton Farm includes a wetlands area, which is co-managed by the university, and there was a major project last summer to renovate it. It’s coming along nicely; the plants are growing and visiting ducks seem happy. In the summer the dragonflies are busy around it, and other pond life will be enjoying it.

On Wednesday, Farmer Elmarie called on the work party to help dig some deeply-lodged posts out of muddy springtime clay so that the hoop house they had held down last year could be secured in its new position. After attempting some initial experiments in leverage with available materials,

Farmer Ray’s expert help and repertoire of handy tools were enlisted. Hey presto! One down, three more to go…

Ray’s ducks taking a break from insect control.

Aside from his legendary skills with compost, one reason Ray is such a successful farmer is that he never stops working. His hoop house is a marvel, the plastic absolutely taut, and now absolutely clean, ready for another bumper crop of produce.

I’m off to Sooke next week to a screening of Dirt – the Movie, at Edward Milne Community School theatre, 6218 Sooke Rd, and catch a discussion with the farmers of ALM Farm.

Preferring as I do the simplicity of cooking with ingredients that are easy and relatively inexpensive to lay my hands on, I am suspicious of molecular gastronomy. It strikes me as an unsustainable novelty, requiring specialized equipment and highly processed ingredients. So I am with the feeling behind the Italian government’s ban on chemical ingredients used in molecular gastronomy, in the interests of public safety. Though I think if you really want to eat the stuff, you should be willing to bear the consequences – I doubt most people would be eating Gibbs, Vauquelin or Baumé on a daily basis anyway.

It is hard sometimes not to feel that big biobusiness is winning, through sheer massive persistence and economic might. The approval of genetically modified potatoes and feeds by the European Union is disappointing news, to say the least, coming as it does

“over the resistance of half or more of the EU’s 27 countries”

and

“opposition to such foods by European consumers, who worry about risks such as human resistance to antibiotics and the development of “superweeds” that are impervious to herbicides.”

The problem with letting GMO/GE (pick your acronym of choice) feeds into Europe is that this contaminates European animal products, and it also allows the strong possibility (inevitability?) of rogue crops springing up where the seed falls. EU legislators have apparently learned nothing from the experiences of Mexican corn farmers and Canada’s own Percy Schmeiser.

Meanwhile, Canada has more GE headaches, around the flax contamination issue. Here’s how the GE-Free BC folk are tackling it, by asking for support for Alex Atamanenko‘s private members Bill C474, An Act respecting the Seeds Regulations (analysis of potential harm) with a call to action before the bill is debated on March 17:

In the wake of the discovery of Genetically Engineered flax in shipments to Europe 10 years after that flax was removed from the market, and subsequent bans on Canadian exports of flax to Europe, Bill C-474 will help put pressure on the Canadian government to test adequately GE crops.

Please contact your MP through the CBAN website.

If you would like to start a petition to present to your MP, contact GE Free BC at gefreebc07@yahoo.ca to get a blank petition form. Your MP must present the petition in the House of Commons if you get 200 signatures.

I’ve been to a few meetings of Transition Town Victoria now, including its first birthday party at the end of January

and some momentum seems to be building.

The group, descended from its grandparent in Totnes, addresses the community concerns of those of us who want to start planning now for a life without cheap fossil fuel, which eventuality will change every aspect of our lives, but which politicians and vested corporate interests are apparently trying their best to pretend ain’t going to happen. Which, when it does, could leave us as a species unprepared to face the many inherent challenges of life in a time of energy descent. So small groups of people in many countries are starting to build communities of interest to teach themselves what they will need to know, without waiting for the great lumbering beast of politics to change direction and actually make plans on our behalf.

I’ve been interested in many of the group’s committees, including – no-brainer – the Food group. Most recently I attended a gathering on Reskilling – which aims to identify the skills needed to live in a post-carbon world. Last night we met in the Solstice Cafe

to talk about where to go next.

The possibilities are endless, which makes beginnings elusive; so at our next meeting we’ll define a project we can work on together, which will teach us necessary skills while doing something tangible and useful.

Friday night’s PEP reading featured Vancouverian Christopher Levenson

and Victorian Grace Cockburn.

Saturday was the first work party of 2010 at Haliburton Community Organic Farm. There was work to be done

and workers to do it

Apple trees to be planted

A hoop house to move and then reassemble

Coffee break

Work started on the nursery greenhouse

Indoor work to be done

Lovely lunch

Workers large and small

Make hay while the rain holds off

My first Seedy Saturday last weekend! The convention centre in Victoria was mobbed by earlybirds who arrived to browse the stands for seeds and information about all aspects of growing food and flowers.

Food was big, of course, and some interesting things on offer. A couple of places (Carolyn Herriot’s Garden Path, and Sooke Harbour House) offered a small and special tuber, Oca (Oxalis Tuberosa) which hails from the Andes is gaining some popularity in these parts for its ease of growth and its sharp flavour.

The mushroom growers were there, offering inoculated logs for sale; there was a talk about mushroom growing by local expert Justin Napier of Oystercatcher Mushrooms, which offered some revelations about the nutritional value of mushrooms (one point was that they offer vitamin D, and the content of that is related to how much sunlight they absorb).

Mason (blue orchard) bees were topical – a couple of places to buy the houses, and a talk by Steve Mitchell of Bee Haven Farm.

Yum! Jerusalem Artichokes (sunchokes) were on sale for eating and growing.

The dynamic duo of Brock McLeod and Heather Walker (Makaria Farm) were selling beans and grain and gave a talk called Growing your own pancakes (organic grains on a small scale). They’re running a grain CSA this year which sounds like a wonderful thing.

And the tireless farmers of Haliburton Farm were selling seeds, seedlings and the benefits of getting involved in a community farm.

I attended a crowded workshop on fruit tree pruning, by Philip Young who keeps the trees of Glendale Gardens in shape. Time was as always too short to cover everything we wanted to know but we got some good advice about winter and summer prunings, tools, tree renovation, and the difference between pruning for growth and pruning to encourage fruit. Recommended manual: The American Horticultural Society Pruning & Training by Brickell & Joyce.

Carolyn Herriot did a brisk trade in seeds and tubers, while promoting her latest book and eponymous talk (The Zero-Mile Diet)