Horley Street Cleanup, Plant and Seed Sale, Rooftop Garden Work Party, and Village Vancouver Workshops

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday April 28) will be our usual biweekly Rooftop Garden work party. To join us, please meet up on the roof of Collingwood Neighbourhood House between 5pm and 7pm.

This week we will be dividing plants for our annual seed and plant sale, which will be held this coming Saturday May 1, 10am-1pm in the Collingwood Neighbourhood House lobby.

Also upcoming is this Saturday's Horley Site cleanup. With financial support from Evergreen and Walmart, we will be transforming the site at 2723 Horley Street into a community orchard throughout 2010. Native plants (especially food plants) will be integrated with a compliment of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.

The volunteer team gets started with site cleanup this coming Saturday May 1 from 2pm onwards. Please join us! Dress for the weather, bring sturdy gardening gloves, garden clippers, and/or hedge clippers if you have them.

Upcoming Village Vancouver Workshops

[Message from Ross Moster]
Hi all,

We're offering an extra 1/2 day of workshops with Robin Wheeler this time around. Ten classes in all, including three in Burnaby: Intensive Urban Microfarming and Food Preservation Basics on April 30 at Cranberry Commons Cohousing Community, and Apartment and Container Gardening on May 2 - the latter in collaboration with the Afghani Food Security Project. The Apartment workshop is open to all, but geared towards Afghani immigrants, and will be translated.

Our six part West End Neighbourhood Food Growing, Sharing, and Preparedness series continues on the 1st with Food Directed Emergency Preparedness, and Seed Saving in the City.

A seed saving collective is starting on May 2nd at the Seed Saving in the City workshop in Kitsilano. You don't have to live in Kits to attend; everyone is welcome.

We're also offering Intensive Urban Microfarming at MOBY Garden in Cedar Cottage, Apartment Gardening in Dunbar, Gardening for the Faint of Heart for the first time, and a workshop we debuted earlier this month: Creating Community - Supporting a Neighbourhood that Pulls Together.

Robin Wheeler is the founder of the Sustainable Living Arts School and runs Edible Lanscapes on the Sunshine Coast. She is the author of Food Security for the Faint of Heart, and Gardening for the Faint of Heart, and her workshops are a real treat.

Workshops are offered on a pay what you can basis. A one hour workshop usually costs $10 to $15; 1 1/2 hour workshops $15 to $20; 2 hour workshops with booklets $30, and three hour workshops around $40. Our contributions to these workshops make it possible for teachers like Robin to expand and to deepen the scope of the important
educational and social change work that they are involved in, particularly in these uncertain times.

To register: (or to find out more about hosting a future workshop), please contact Ross at rmoster@flash.net.

Hope you'll join us!

Ross
Village Vancouver

If you're interested in networking with other people in your neighbourhood who share an interest around food and sustainability, please visit our website.

Village Vancouver Transition Initiative, Kitsilano Transition Village, Transition Cedar Cottage, and the upcoming Transition in Vancouver workshop May 7-8 : www.villagevancouver.ca. Worldwide Transition Town movement: www.transitiontowns.org. Robin's work and the Sustainable Living Arts School: www.ediblelandscapes.ca. Vancouver Sustainable Living Arts School: www.slas.ca.


Backyard Chicken workshops resume in May. Details soon.


Friday, April 30th

Intensive Urban Microfarming 12:45-3:45 pm
Burnaby, Cranberry Commons Cohousing Community, 4272 Albert St. (1 blk. north of Hastings, 2 blks. west of Willingdon)

Getting the most out of a normal urban garden can take imagination. This class assists us to boost production through a deeper understanding of microclimating, and of lateral growing, food cycles, succession planting, "shoulder cropping" and much more.

Food Preservation Basics 4:15-5:45 pm
Burnaby, Cranberry Commons Cohousing Community, 4272 Albert St. (1 blk. north of Hastings, 2 blks. west of Willingdon)

We will go over the Top 10 food saving techniques and their pros and cons. We'll talk about seasonal availability and how to take advantage of sales by preserving, plus what supplies we should have on hand at all times to be ready for any disaster.

Saturday, May 1

Food Directed Emergency Preparedness 9:15-10:30 am
West End, West End Community Centre
in collaboration with Green Millennium Foundation and West End Residents Association

Tremors could leave us without electricity for extended periods. We will discuss tips for stockpiling, food lists, saving freezer foods, quick cooking tips and much more.

Register thru WECC for this workshop. $15 per workshop. Register online (www.westendcc.ca), in person, or by calling (604-257-8333). You can download the Spring 2010 Guide. See page 22!

Part of the West End Neighbourhood Food Growing, Sharing, and Preparedness 2010 series.

Seed Saving in the City 10:45 am-12:15 pm
West End, West End Community Centre
in collaboration with Green Millennium Foundation and West End Residents Association

City folk may think that they cannot be part of the seed saving system, but it is important that we have a collective of trained individuals in place should we ever need to draw on their skills. We will talk about the politics of seed saving, learn basic seed saving skills, and discuss the creation of collectives throughout Vancouver both for convenience as well as emergency preparedness.

Register thru WECC for this workshop. $15 per workshop. Register online (www.westendcc.ca), in person, or by calling (604-257-8333). You can download the Spring 2010 Guide. See page 22!

Part of the West End Neighbourhood Food Growing, Sharing, and Preparedness 2010 series.

Intensive Urban Microfarming 1:15-4:15 pm
Cedar Cottage, MOBY Garden, 1735 East 11th Ave (Just 2 blocks from the Broadway & Commercial Dr Skytrain)
co-sponsored with Transition Cedar Cottage and MOBY

Getting the most out of a normal urban garden can take imagination. This class assists us to boost production through a deeper understanding of microclimating, and of lateral growing, food cycles, succession planting, "shoulder cropping" and much more.

Apartment and Cointainer Gardening 4:45-6:15 pm
Dunbar

We will cover the problems of tiny gardens and will address some cures. We will talk about the best plants for small gardens and how to get the biggest, healthiest harvest possible.


Sunday, May 2

Seed Saving in the City 9-11am
Kitsilano
Co-sponsored by Kitsilano Transition Village

Seed saving is the missing link in food security. In our current climate of seed patenting and ownership, it's important that our communities retain their knowledge about how to properly save seeds. We'll talk about the politics and the joy of seed saving, learn basic skills, and discuss the creation of a neighbourhood seed saving collective in Kitsilano and collectives throughout Vancouver. Your donation includes a copy of The Five Levels of Seed Saving by Terry Klokeid. (Draft copies of Robin's brand new booklet Grow Your Own Seed Collective will also be available.)

Creating Community: Supporting a Neighbourhood that Pulls Together 11:30am-12:30pm
Vancouver, Location TBA

City dwellers have many skills and resources all around them, but may not have a mechanism for organizing and drawing on those skills at the times when they're most needed.

We'll look at how the sharing of resources takes place so easily in rural communities, and how this can be applied to building a wider community in an urban area and the valuable support it can provide.

Gardening for the Faint of Heart 1-3:30 pm
Vancouver, Location TBA

We will confront the bare bones of garden needs, and begin our list of things to do, and create a do-able map of how to begin our 2010 food garden. (A good course for beginners.)

Apartment and Container Gardening 4:30-7:30 pm
Burnaby, near Metrotown
in collaboration with the Afghani Food Security Project.

We will cover the problems of tiny gardens and will address some cures. We will talk about the best plants for small gardens and how to get the biggest, healthiest harvest possible.

Primarily for Afghani immigrants, but anyone welcome. Special suggested donation: $10 Note that this is normally a 1.5 hour workshop; for this workshop, a translator will be on hand, and it will run 3 hours, including translation time.


West End Neighbourhood Food Growing, Sharing, and Preparedness 2010 series

Village Vancouver (VV), Green Millennium Foundation (GMF), and West End Residents Association (WERA) present Robin Wheeler in a series of workshops on the food-secure household, gardening, food growing, and community organization, Geared toward residents of the West End. (But of value to everyone.) The workshops will be held on one Sunday and two Saturdays at the West End Community Centre in Vancouver.

April 11 (Sun) 10:00-11:30 am -- THE FOOD SECURE HOUSEHOLD
April 11 (Sun) 11:45-1:30 pm -- APARTMENT GARDENING
May 1 (Sat) 9:15-10:30 am -- FOOD DIRECTED EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
May 1 (Sat) 10:45 am- 12:15 pm -- SEED SAVING IN THE CITY
June 5 (Sat) 9:15-10:45 am -- FOOD PRESERVATION
June 5 (Sat) 11:00 am-12:30 pm -- INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY - SHAPES IN SHARING.

$15 per workshop. Anyone who registers for all six workshops will receive a gift of their choice of either of Robin’s books. Register online (www.westendcc.ca), in person, or by calling (604-257-8333). You can download the Spring 2010 Guide. See page 22! Sponsors: www.greenmillennium.org, www.wera.bc.ca and Village Vancouver. Special thanks to the West End Community Centre Association for their support (venue and promo)!