Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
In the bookshed: Farm Together Now
Farm Together Now: A Portrait of People, Places and Ideas for a New Food Movement
Chroni
Amy Franceschini, Daniel Tucker, Anne Hamersky
This book came in the mail right before Christmas – thanks to local distributor Raincoast Press – and although it technically is copyrighted 2011, was definitely the most inspiring food/garden book I read in 2010. Farm Together Now is a collection of interviews and photographs across the spectrum of the new farming movement in North America. From the conventional dairy farmers pushing for greater organic standards, to the urban vacant-lot-turned-market-farm – each subject in this book is as interesting as the last, with a lot of interest added by the beautiful photography that graces the pages.
The folks who put together this book obviously put a lot of thought into the diversity of approaches in sustainable food and farming – breaking this book into mini-sections such as: “Alongside Conventional Farmers”, “In Intentional Community”, “Up and Out of Poverty”, and “Market/CSA Farms”. My two favourite interviews were found in the last section – “The Experimenters” – highlighting Participation Park in Maryland and Anarchy Apiaries in New York with a close follow-up from Mountain Gardens in North Carolina. If you follow-up on just those three links you can see how different they are from each other, which is true for all the participants featured in Farm Together Now. And yet, all so inspiring in terms of fostering plant diversity, neighbourhood rebirth, community health, small-scale local economies, greater access to local food choices and new ways of viewing our world and how we live in it. This is a great snapshot of many of the currents in the movement around local food today (struggles and successes included) – and I came away with lots of micro-ideas to try in my own community involvement as things unfold around our little Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood for 2011.
The only complaint I have is the US-focus, which isn’t a fault of the book organizers – but it makes me yearn for a similar project in Canada where there are also many inspiring garden and farm communities in much less hospitable climactic regions. I would be curious to compare the differences in approach and projects given the geographic, population and weather differences between our two countries – though I need look no further than my own neighbourhood for inspiring stories of communities working together for local food.
Farm Together Now is an exciting, inspiring and visually appealing book for the food collection on the shelf. I’m really pleased to add it to the bookshed library which is growing with all sorts of gardeny, foodie, earthy boks these days!
Farm Together Now book crew and blog can be found at: http://farmtogethernow.org
The obligatory update
Strange photo-reflections aside, it’s probably time for a proper update since the month of December was mostly taken up by reflective end of year posts and I’ve been almost silent here since we took off for Christmas holidays.
I’m back at work today and feeling the strangeness of that after two weeks of being away from my desk – sick, and on holidays simultaneously. Pretty much the day I was off for the break I got a nasty cold (the one that starts with a sore throat and turns into a cough) which has lasted me right up until today as I sit here hacking out the last of the phelgm from my sinuses and lungs. Which is always awesome you know – family visiting and flu symptoms go so well together. But on the plus side, I wasn’t really expected to do much except be places, so I didn’t feel overextended like I did when I got sick during my collective bargaining roadshow in the fall.
Despite the cold and the fact that both B and I were feeling a bit dragged out from a really busy autumn – we did manage to have a Christmas Eve party that rocked, and good visits with friends and family in Victoria between Christmas Day and the 30th. Which left me wanting to go into hibernation when we did return home and resulted in B and I ushering in the New Year without anyone else – naked in our hot tub (which now has a perfect gazebo overtop of it) as the fireworks went off ten blocks away at the Hastings Park. Pretty awesome.
On top of that, I purchased a new sewing machine (a Pfaff Expression 2.0) which was pretty frackin’ exciting and since returning to Vancouver I have spent at least some of the time sewing each day (I have made three living room pillows and two baby quilts for friends since Friday – photos of all can be seen on my Flickr set “Things I’ve Made“). I’ve got one more pieced top to actually quilt (also a gift) which I’m hoping to get on later this week or on the weekend.Turns out there really is a difference between a cheap machine and a more expensive one which I am very pleased to discover since the quilting process involves a lot less swearing on this machine than on my old one.
So that was a pretty nice way to spend the first few days of 2011, plus getting some of the house cleared out, making big pots of soup for the freezer, inventorying my seeds to prepare my order for spring, and spending time with B.
On the down side, I’ve been a little worried about a friend who lost his apartment in the Frances Street fire last week – and am interested in hearing about any cheap-ish bachelor suites for rent in East Van that aren’t too skiddy or sketchy – so please email if you know of any.
I’m really hoping that 2011 brings the following for me:
- acceptance into the Master’s program I’m applying for;
- more connection with friends who I haven’t been the best about keeping in touch with;
- a great garden, some cool sewing, and lots more cooking and canning;
- more impromptu road trips with B., including our planned trip to Death Valley;
- increased creative output in the form of music and writing;
- greater fitness and less stress.
Which I think are all reasonable hopes given my resolution to give up some of my union work for the next little while (not the shop stewarding part, but all the other stuff). We’ll see. So far the year has started gently and I’m hoping that it continues that way.
A photo, a walk.
This is one of the places I regularly go to in East Van – take the dog for a walk down above the train tracks in the marginal space between Vancouver and Burnaby. It’s not exactly pristine down there on the waterfront above CN and the oil refinery site – the detrius of people who think no one’s looking evokes the nightmare of serial killings somehow – especially in the winter when the torn shreds of clothing hanging from the fencing or branches are that much more visible. It’s just garbage dumping, or squatters – I know – but a walk along this stretch of trail feels a bit X-Files where the gloom and fog can get the better of you. Except they don’t – because the only people I ever see down there besides me are other dog-walkers and joggers – also appreciating a little off-road, off-leash action in a city that otherwise doesn’t offer much of it.
Despite the graffitti and garbage – or perhaps because of it – I enjoy taking our dog Charlotte down here in the winter. This trail follows an old road – possibly one of Vancouver’s oldest, as this stretch of waterfront was once the home to Hastings Mill and the large squatter’s village of Crabtown which existed for several decades. The neighbourhoods around this park stretch haven’t quite succumbed to the new condos and pastel Vancouver specials that have crept into every corner of the city since I moved here fifteen years ago…. it’s still a little gritty and less healthy down here. And yet, the neighbourhood is all there walking their dogs and running back and forth despite the rain. A funny little spot where I go and take pictures.
Garden resolutions and seed sharing.
Now that the snow has stopped falling on my blog and the holiday decorations are packed away, I’m reflecting a little on the bounty that is to come in just a few short months as I leaf through my 2010 Garden Flickr set and pull out a picture of one of my favourite plants from last year:
Florence Fennel! Talk about a satisfying plant to grow and eat…. We made all sorts of scrumptious salads and stews out of this flavourful bulb in 2010, and it’s a beneficial attracting plant in the garden as well. 2011 will see many more of these in my garden beds for sure – particularly as I have lots of seed left over from last year’s West Coast Seeds Order to facilitate growing many of the same cultivars as I did last year.
I finally got around to doing my seed inventory yesterday – something that has been on the to-do list since October – and confirmed in the process that I have enough seed left over from last year for at least this growing season, if not one more to follow (in my experience seeds will still germinate after 3 or 4 years if they are kept right). I am going to try a few new things this year and eliminate some of what I wasn’t impressed with last year, but for the most part I’m sticking with a lot of what I did last year.
My garden goals for 2011 include:
- Way more seed saving.
- Becoming a great grower of red cabbage – which I love, but somehow don’t grow very well.
- Successfully growing cauliflower for once!
- Overwintering onions – which I missed the boat on in 2010 because I wasn’t organized.
- Ditto for Brussels Sprouts. I want to grow them so damn bad, but they are fussy with timing.
- Tomatillos for salsa. I killed my tomatillo plants last year by hardening them off to suddenly.
My clean-up/inventory yesterday revealed to me the following seeds for give away. Some of these are seeds I saved, some are seeds I am not going to use this year because they didn’t do well in my yard last year (melon seeds) – so if you want any of these, I’ve got a lot of some and a few of others – let me know and I’ll put them in an envelope and mail them (send a message to megan.e.adam@gmail.com with your address). I’ll collect good plant karma through the universe some other time in exchange:
- Oriental Poppy
- Columbine
- Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce
- Delicata Squash
- Sayamasume – Soya Beans
- Canteloupe – Earlichamp
- Watermelon – Blacktail Mountain
- Black Turtle Beans
New things I’m thinking of for this year’s garden include:
- Beets – Early Wonder Tall Top
- Broccoli – Gypsy
- Sui Choi – China Express
- Cauliflower – Amazing
- Snow Peas – Oregon Sugar Pod
- White Mustard (for seed)
- Green Beans – Stayton
- Summer Pumpkin – Ronde de Nice
- Spaghetti Squash
- Runner Bean – Scarlet Emperor
- Microgreens Blend
- Sweet Peas – Scentsation
All ordered from West Coast Seeds – except for the mustard which I’m going to order from Richter’s (along with some other herbs which I haven’t decided on yet). Anyone have any experience with the above cultivars to offer an opinion?
Despite the fact my backyard is frozen solid at the moment – I’m looking forward to gardening in 2011 already. Next up? Seed ordering.
Returning
Disappeared to the island for a week, emerging now from parties and illness. Posts will resume here shortly, but in the meantime, what do you think of this piece of economic ruin? Pretty damned beautiful I’d say.
Red Cedar 