With October being the harvest time of year there are lots of activities and news items. Please share with friends and family!The Trout Lake Cedar Cottage Food Security Network is now a registered society with the Province of BC. I’d like to introduce you to those who will be guiding TLCC over the next 12 months. Our 5 board members are:
- Charito Gailling, Community Developer – Seniors, Vancouver Coastal Health
- Darlene Richardson, Community Developer for BC Housing
- Marlene Bell, Program Manager, Reclaiming Our Spirit
- Sherri Maunsell, community member
- Tabitha Marie Geraghty, Operations Manager, Helping Spirit Lodge
If you’d like to get involved, have ideas for projects or want to put on a workshop please let me know. Send an email to tlccfoodsecurity(a)gmail.com.
In this edition of the newsletter:
- TLCC Survey
- TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project
- TLCC Pocket Market
- EYA’s Green Graffiti at the Lux
- October food events
TLCC Survey
Taking a page from the Talk Green to Us campaign from the City of Vancouver TLCC has created a survey to learn what you want to see and do in our neighbourhood. Front and backyard gardening parties? Neighbourhood chicken coops? Gardening and canning workshops? Tell us your ideas by Wednesday October 27th. Then, in a November survey you can vote for your favourite suggestion. The top ideas will guide TLCC grant applications in 2011 and I hope will draw like minded people together to work on projects.
Go to: TLCC Survey
TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project
We are heading into the cold season now. Some of you may be growing hardy greens or perhaps you’ve turned to canning and drying. We invite you to share your vision of local food in the winter and be part of the TLCC Winter Food Calendar Project. These monthly calendars will show a beautiful winter food photo with a calendar which you can use on your computer desktop at home or at work.
From October until April TLCC will include a calendar image for your computer desktop with the monthly newsletter. Send me a photograph (landscape format, jpeg high resolution, 1000 or more pixels wide) and a paragraph on how you have been winterizing your food supply, by the 20th of each month. Our new TLCC board will pick the best photo and story for the upcoming newsletter and calendar.
October’s calendar image is from my neighbour Tony and Lina’s greenhouse which is still full of big, beautiful, green (and blight free) tomatoes. They save their seed every year and plant a forest of tomato seedlings in the early spring which they then plant in their unheated greenhouse. Over the years I have been the grateful recipient of many tomato seedlings. The photo of their tomatoes is available at: flickr.
If you still have healthy green tomatoes on the vine, here is how you can store them and ripen them indoors, into late November:
“Pick from vigorous vines. Sort tomatoes for ripeness. Pack green tomatoes one or two layers deep in shallow boxes or trays for ripening. Separate with layers of paper or individually wrap each tomato. At 55˚F mature green tomatoes will ripen slowly in 25–28 days. At 65˚F–70˚F tomatoes will ripen faster-in about 14 days. Store in unheated room or airy cellar.”
Washington State University: EB1326 Storing Vegetables and Fruits at Home.
TLCC Pocket Market
The next Pocket Market will be on Sunday October 17th at 2290 East 25th just west of the Nanaimo SkyTrain Station. Come buy local and organic fruit and vegetables at reasonable prices right in our neighbourhood. This market goes indoors on rainy days and will continue throughout the winter. Have a cup of tea while you shop! Where else can you do that!
Here is a map showing the TLCC Pocket Market location.
Mark your calendar with the upcoming dates for the Pocket Market.
- November 14
- December 5
- 2011 dates, to be announced
Green Graffiti at the Lux
On Sept. 16th, 2010 The Environmental Youth Alliance joined with professionals to complete the installation of a living wall at The Lux at 65 East Hastings Street. The living wall is part of the EYA’s Green Graffiti Project, and the Lux - a transitional housing program- is one of four sites chosen for the project. A crew from EYA worked together with carpenter and long time EYA ally Sal, and Kevin from Streamline Enterprises who graciously volunteered his time. Green Graffiti is a project to engage local citizens in the green building movement through the creation of green or living wall gardens. The next step at the Lux is to teach residence there how to maintain the wall, and grow there own, fruits, veggies, and herbs from the wall.
EYA on the web: www.EYA.ca
October and November food events
Instead of re-listing events and activities here, take a look at the events calendar at SharedHarvest.ca where you can see everything at a glance in the convenient calendar view.
Here are a few event highlights to entice you:
Oct 16 Fermentation workshopOct 16 World Food Day Market
Oct 21 YWCA Farmers Market in downtown Vancouver
For the full list go to: www.SharedHarvest.ca/MetroVancouver
That's it for now. Please take the time to fill in the survey (it's short) and I hope to see you either at an event or at the Pocket Market.
Erin Nichols
Trout Lake Cedar Cottage Food Security Network
email: tlccfoodsecurity(a)gmail.com
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