The Economic Value of a Rooftop Community Garden

I recently read an article on the economic value of a community garden by Ngaio Hotte. This garden is located on the rooftop of a YWCA in Vancouver. The learning and interacting that occurs with these types of collaborative projects is known as "building social and knowledge capital" and has an actual dollar value.

The author of this article valued the service-learning, increased property value, volunteer effort, boost to corporate revenue at several thousand dollars. (For example, Employee Volunteer Programs have been show to boost company revenues by 0.5%.)

A community garden is worth much more than the harvested vegetables!

http://www.farmfolkcityfolk.ca/PDFs_&_Docs/MagazinePDF/FFCF%20Spring%202012.pdf

First harvest

We have harvested lettuce and swiss chard for 2 weeks now. We've delivered over 50 lbs to the food bank.

June updates

Wow. What a difference a week makes. In the last week, with a bit of sunshine, our garden has exploded! Our veggies have grown. And so have the weeds. We harvested our first lettuce and swiss chard today. Three Rubber Maid tubs full.

In the past couple weeks, we've also planted donated raspberries and strawberries. (Thank you to Cheryl and Jake for donating these.)

We've planted out our tomatoes and marigolds and finished seeding beans. We've seeded more lettuce as well (Odyssey mix). (Thanks to the social committee and Tom for tomato plant donations.)

We've also potted up our tomatoes and delivered our lettuce growing kits. These will allow Food Bank clients to experience the thrill of growing their own food.

Potting up tomatoes

Potted tomatoes

Planting out marigolds

Tomato planting

Last week our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, marigolds and okra went outside....

Seedlings are up!

Dave tells us that the red beets, swiss chard, peas and lettuce are up!

UN food envoy decries 'shocking' conditions in Canada

Canada needs to drop its "self-righteous" attitude about how great a country it is and start dealing with its widespread problem of food insecurity, the United Nations right-to-food envoy says.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/food+envoy+decries+shocking+conditions+Canada/6626850/story.html#ixzz1v9jXIPRo

Spring Seeding

Spring seeding - What's in the ground?
Peas (4 rows of Edible Pod Super Sugar snap Peas from TnT Seeds)
Carrots
Beets
Lettuce
&
Swiss Chard

Hunger Awareness Week

May 7-11, 2012


Hunger Awareness Week is a week-long initiative that challenges Canadians to learn more about the issue of hunger in our country and to take action to make a difference for those in need.

Canadians can help in three simple ways – Give It Up, Give a Shout, and Give It Out:

Give It Up:        Give up your meals for a day, lunch for a week, or a staple food item. Walk in the shoes of hunger to begin to understand what it means to go without food, experiencing the effects of hunger first hand.

Give a Shout:    Share your experience by going online to show your support via Facebook, Twitter or blogging.

Give It Out:       Donate food, funds or your time to a local food bank.

http://www.foodbankscanada.ca/default.aspx

2012 Garden Plan

We expanded east for a larger garden and room for perennials!

Western Canada Permaculture Convergence, 2012

A three day (August 24,25,26) coming together of permaculture enthusiasts, to share information, inspiration and learn a few new skills.


Also - Skills Workshop in July

• Rocket mass heater shower installation
• Cob Oven Building
• Site design and Garden installation
• Timber frame Structure building
• Composting Toilets and creating a humanure compost

http://abconvergence2012.blogspot.ca/