Garden Meeting Oct. 7

The next garden meeting will be October 7, 2010 Thursday 6:30 at the Info Centre. Update on what's been happening and where we are now with regards to meeting the requirements for our VIHA funding. Hope to see you all there. Have a great week.




Debbie

Planting postponed

The Friday, September 17th planting party has been postponed because of a death in the family of one of the workers.

Planting party Friday

On Friday, September 17th, there will be a planting party at the garden from 1:00 to 5:00.

Beds are looking good!

Beds are made, and next will be filled! They look great.

Garden Meeting Wed. August 11th, 7:00 Chamber building

Lease is signed

The lease is officially signed. Work has begun on the planting.

Site prep day

Thursday, July 22 at 1:00 will be a site preparation day. This work is to prepare for the gravel and soil to be brought in. Levelling of the site will be done with the big equipment. All volunteers are welcome.

Next Garden Meeting

The next garden meeting will be on Tues. July 13th at 7:00 at the Chamber of Commerce building.

Bed Maker Job Posted

The hiring process has begun for a person to build the 40 raised beds for the garden.
Poster says -

"Tahsis Literacy Society/ Community Garden

BIDS REQUESTED

For the BUILDING AND INSTALLATION

Of 40 RAISED GARDEN BEDS

For the

COMMUNITY GARDEN

Materials Provided

Applicants should have:

Good Carpentry skills

Ability to work quickly and efficiently

References or examples of previous work

For specifications and to submit bids

Contact Michelle Kowalchuk

250-934-6226

or email michelletahsis@cablerocket.com

Closing date for bids is June 30, 2010.

Funding provided through the

"Produce to Remote Communities Initiative" "

Things on hold

The lease is not finalized. The garden is waiting for that.

First Contribution

Several hardware stores were contacted to ask for donations for the Tahsis Community Garden. Home Hardware gets the award for the first to come through with a contribution. They donated two hose attachments and two pairs of gloves. A $35.00 donation. Many thanks.

VIHA announcement

Photo: Jani and Caryl from VIHA

Last night a public meeting was held to review the results of the survey done in the winter. Also at the meeting, VIHA representatives announced that Tahsis has received a grant of $25,000.00 from the provincial government for the Produce Availability in Remote Communities Initiative to use in the production of local food. This money will cover most of the costs of establishing a community garden (beds, shed, fence etc.) and will build a greenhouse for year round production.

Sign up Numbers

As of today we have 18 people signed up and 2 more applications expected back. There is the 20 we hoped for for a start.

Thanks to many

Thanks to all the people who made the workshops such a good time. Alisa and Terry for great presentations. Bill for putting up a gazebo which ensured perfect weather. Karli, Debbie and Michelle for bringing great snacks. Tena for giving us a place to make coffee (even if we did fail twice). Angie for police escort of the garden models. And for the rest of you who showed up. It was a worthwhile time.

May 1st Gardening Workshops - Success!

We had a great turnout, and we all enjoyed the very informative workshops, on composting and building raised beds. Thank you to our presenters Alisa and Terry!

Gardening Workshops May 1

Two topics will be covered in the workshops held on Saturday, May 1.
1:00 Composting
2:00 Coffee break
2:30 Raised beds.
Both will be held at the garden site, 6G in the Rugged Mountain Trailer Court. Bring your own lawn chair and coffee cup.

Sign up numbers

As of today, we have 14 people signed up for garden beds. We haven't even advertised that much. On Mon. a flyer goes out to every mailbox asking people to sign up now if they want to be in the garden.

Two clean up days down ???? to go?

A crew worked Monday and Tuesday to rake and pick rocks at the garden site. We filled 6 pallets of debris for the village to haul away. Many trees were trimmed. It looks so much more open now. Thanks to: Karli, Catherine G., Bill D., Terry S., Graham R., Corrine Olson and me, Stephanie Olson.

Here are some pictures of the workers. Some working, some not.

Registration Day

Your first chance to officially register for a garden plot will be at the school's PAC Bazaar, Sunday, April 11 from 12:00 to 3:00. Just find the table for the Community Garden. Please take time to register because it will help so much with the planning needed. Congratulations Aggie, you were the first.

If you need a registration form, call 6236.

Clean Up Week

The village is sponsoring a clean up week from April 12 to 16. This is when the village crews will pick up anything on the curb and take it to the dump. This is too good an offer for the garden to pass up. There is some pick up to do on the sight. We will set work times for every afternoon of that week, Monday through Friday. (It may only take us a couple of days.) Come at 1:00 any day. Wear your work gloves and bring a rake and pruning shears. None of the work is very strenuous. The more help, the easier the work.

Community Gardens Travelling Road Show

Four of us returned today from visiting 4 community gardens on the island. What a great trip. The people we spoke to were full of enthusiasm and knowledge. They inspired us all.

We took about a thousand photos so I'll put those up soon with some snippets of information. Maybe some day we'll have a forum to present what we found out.

Found out that a presentation of this information will part of the night when we hear the results of the survey.

Before Pictures

Michelle and I met with Russ N. at the trailer court today to talk about space and what alterations we could make. The lots we decided on are 6G, 8G, 10G and 12G. Next week we are going to tape them off and begin work. I think we should have some before photos so we can remember how the site looked.

Food Film Series?

Some people on the survey indicated they were interested in the topic of food politics. Karli and I talked about that yesterday and thought it might make an interesting topic for a film series. We brainstormed: Food, Inc. , Supersize Me, Food Nation. Who knows other films on this topic? Would you be interested in watching these together?

Courses Requested on Survey

From Corrine Olson:
I did a tabulation from the tear off sheet on the survey that included a list of courses that people were interested in taking or teaching. Here are the results including the name of the course followed by the number who checked it.

Composting - 15
Harvesting wild food - 11
Greenhouse gardening - 10
Container gardening - 10
Gardening - 8
Identifying and growing native plants - 8
Canning and preserving - 7
Home repairs - 7
Seed saving - 6
Smoking salmon - 6
Herb gardening - 5
Cooking foods from around the world - 5
Woodworking/carpentry - 5
Cooking for one - 5
Cooking for special diets - 4
Computer training - 4
Eco tourism - 4
Holistic and natural health - 4
Nutrition - 3
Vegetarian cooking - 3
Food safe - 3
Traditional First Nations food culture - 3
Natural pest and wildlife control - 2
Tourism/ hospitality - 2
Environmental studies - 2
Management and leadership - 2
Literacy and reading skills - 2
General career development - 1
Politics of food - 1
GED - 1
Making baby food - 0

Spring Bazaar Table

The Tahsis Community Garden will have an information table at the school's Spring Bazaar on Sunday, April 11 from 11:00 to 3:00 in the gym at the school. This will give those of us who have been involved a chance to inform others about our activities. If anyone is willing to sit at the table for an hour that day, let Corrine O. know.

Design Committee is working hard

The garden design committee has been talking to the manager of the lot to get details worked out for use. A blueprint for bed layout has been drawn up. We are working through the documents needed for people to apply for a plot and the rules and regulations for use of the garden.

Odd Reaction

Two people who are not involved in the garden planning but strike me as sensible people have made an effort to tell me that the garden will not work because they knew of another community garden that didn't work once. I tell them that based on the people I see involved I can't see this one fizzling out. For me, this doom and gloom attitude that is floating around will be just enough to keep me going. I personally don't understand this kind of defeatism. We haven't even started and some have it failing already. Not a healthy attitude.

Skyrocket Mix

We were talking about the soil we have which is named Skyrocket. As the website said it is a bit too rich to use full strength. Alisa says when the village uses it for  beds she mixes it half and half with compost. That will be our plan for beds at the community garden.

Many people who are participating in the survey are showing enthusiam for the community garden. It's nice to hear a postive reaction to the idea.

Survey Begins

The surveying officially began Monday, February 22. The surveyors are working hard. They have returned for more surveys and more seed prizes already. One ran into someone bringing their completed survey back to the building centre. Encourage everyone you know to complete the survey and have their say in future actions.

Looking to start a worm farm!!

I for one am going to research worm farming in my back yard. I think I can build something out back and get some red wigglers out there that will break down the compost after I process it in the compost bin. Anyway, I am willing to learn and I have lots of time to do so.
I just can't wait to get growing. I would like nothing better than to see a decrease in those garbage bags also. Compost, Compost, Compost....Recycle, Recycle, Recycle...I think this is what we have to work towards.
Remember....don't throw it ...grow it!
Tena

About the soil

Is this the soil we have? (Yes, it is Skyrocket.)

skyrocket

It has a small amount of information on the analysis of the soil. i noticed we are supposed to mix it with existing soil, it seems.

Here's what it says from the Comox Valley Regional District website:

Skyrocket Compost

"SkyRocket has been screened to remove excess wood waste and tested for pathogens, nutrient value, moisture, pH and metals content. Test results meet the stringent Class ‘A’ requirements of the Organic Matter Recycling Regulation of the Provincial Environment Ministry.

SkyRocket has been used in land reclamation and slope stabilization projects, tree plantings by the Ministry of Transportation, and has been applied to enrich and amend soils on Vancouver Island.

Use of the product

SkyRocket is ideal for use in large scale landscaping and planting projects and can also be used for residential landscaping, orchards, flower gardens and lawns.

Due to nutrient levels in this product, SkyRocket should be used as a soil conditioner or supplement, rather than as a topsoil or fertilizer. It can be applied annually or as recommended by soil analysis. As when using any manure product, hands should be washed after applying or handling the product."

Square Foot Gardening

I ordered a book called Square Foot Gardening. It looks like an interesting way to do raised beds. When it arrives, I will be happy to share it with others. It looks simple.

More Authors Welcome

Yesteday I, Stephanie, figured out how to give others authoring rights on this site. I emailed to all garden members in my address book. If you want to write on this blog just email or call me and I will add you to the list.

Village Council Informed of Survey

Last night, February 16th, a delegation from the garden group went to council to inform them the door-to-door survey work would begin on the 22nd. The presentation was well received and the council had some worthwhile questions.

I am not entirely certain but I think that heap of dirt was arranged for by the mayor and for the use of the community garden project... my recollection...and remember I'm an old woman with swiss cheese for a brain...is that Campbell River has a very modern sewage treatment/waste composting integrated system which turns out near mountains of rich black soil weekly... and while this soil might not need much by way of manure or compost to begin with , it would be helpful if VIHA could do soil sample tests on it.

Some thirty years ago, perhaps more, Millwaukee produced a fertilizer "Milorganite", and, at the time, it was all things plus a bag of chips in the garden and nursery world. My brother-in-law ran Long Lake nurseries , near Nanaimo, and he said Milorganite would "grow roots on a varnished stick"... and all was well for a while, incredible crop yeilds, everybody happy, well I should say..and then the heavy metals content made itself known...and suddenly my garden was no longer producing food fit for human consumption. Well, it made for the greenest section of the enlarged lawn but Milorganite could only be used on golf courses, not even on playgrounds where small kids might roll and frolic on the heavy metal laden grass...

So with that horror show managing to survive in the wreck of my brain, I am a tad leery of the soil from the CR experiment...heavy metals might be present because storm drains wind up going through the same system, and storm drains get the heavy metals from road exhaust...plus people aren't always good about sending chemical crap down the drains or flushing who knows what down the toilets and ...soil sampling would be helpful...

There is, however, a LOT of soil out there and I think we can get more.

And we're looking for ways and means to increase our village composting, we have some ideas and it would be helpful if people could put forward some of their ideas...we have that recycling effort trying to go but one does wonder about ones overall "carbon footprint" when all the stuff needs to be trucked out to Campbell River...that's a lot of diesel fuel being burned...my suggestion has been to get a shredder/chipper and send our paper and cardboard through it, add it to the village compost, worms love the stuff and you never have too many worms...we could probably do the same kind of thing with glass and either use it in the landfill or barge it out to the trench, dump it and let it go back to what glass started out as, sand...

The real villain is plastic. Those white grocery bags do not add to the ambiance as they flap from the branches of the trees out near the dump.

Survey Completed

On Tues. January 25th the Tahsis Committee of survey takers met with the Vancouver Islannd Health Association representatives to finalize the questions on the survey. VIHA has taken it away for publication. One step closer.

Native Foods Book

Michelle has purchased three copies of a book titled "Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples". It is published by the Royal BC Museum and does a great job of explaining uses for wild plants in BC.