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.