POWELL RIVER GREENS OPENED OUR EYES

We’re Being Left in the dust, when it comes to dirt, by our progressive coastal neighbours. A mid-August day trip to Powell River to attend the 3^rd Annual Edible Garden Contest really opened our eyes to the possibilities of food gardening. Whether one’s property is at 750 feet or down at sea level, whether the land is carved out of a clearing in the deep forest or a perfectly groomed display in a posh residential area, it is possible to produce remarkable amounts of nourishing food for the family table.

I have been following Powell River’s progress online since 2006 when this gutsy little community of 18,000 announced it’s intention to begin a 50-Mile Eat-Local challenge. My daughter, Kathie Klassen, and I were eager to see what they had achieved since that radical idea of eating local was first launched. Checking the map, the only other shopping area inside the boundaries of that circle is the Comox Valley. But at almost $30 roundtrip for a foot passenger on the ferry, shopping for food outside of Powell River doesn’t make economic sense.

The garden contest covered as far out of town as Lund so we were fortunate to have Kevin Wilson, an avid member of the town’s garden community, to act as driver/tour guide. What interested us particularly was the fact that three out of the four properties we toured were literally carved out of clearings surrounded by deep forest. One stop was at Pete Tebbutt’s site. He was one of the shareholders in a six family acreage known as the Craig Road Co-op. The veggies were thriving despite a healthy supply of rocks that were being removed one by one. What really amazed us was that he was growing greens and tomatoes on property that was sited 750 feet above sea-level.

In a future column I will share more details about specific gardening techniques used by Powell River residents that will be inspiring to readers. Meanwhile, I want to list the number of organizations that have renewed themselves or sprung to life since this amazing community embraced the “radical” idea of growing and eating local food; The Edible Garden Tour, The Community Resource Centre which organizes the Winter Farmer’s Market, A Good Food Box which has set up a bulk produce buying program, Kale Force which meets every second Wednesday of the month in the Community Centre to share a potluck and conversation about food and gardening, P.R. Food Security Project, Skookum Food Co-op, the Skookum Gleaners which was formerly known as the Fruit Tree Project and lastly, the P.R. Food Literary Council.

What inspired me about Powell River was the enthusiasm and pride we experienced at every one of the ten gardens we visited. It is a community sharing a common vision and a belief that they are making a difference in the quality of their lives and the security of their food sources…enviable goals for sure.

A MIRACLE, CHICKEN DUNG TEA

The Ultimate Gift for a food gardener… a gunny-sack of chicken manure. No one but a couple of elderly farm kids could understand the thrill. My friend Walter and I were thinking back on childhoods in the 1930s raised by families that maintained large food gardens. There was no such thing as running to the store and returning with bags of purchased food. We vaguely remember lugging home a small sack containing salt, pepper or tea, sugar and flour which would cover the essentials but very little else.

However, we both vividly remember the dripping sack of chicken manure that hung in a huge barrel of water, outside the woodshed. Our families used the liquid inside the barrel, which we referred to as “Chicken Dung Tea”, on veggies, flowers, young treelings and in fact any growing thing that looked like it needed a shot in the arm. As a recent surprise gift for me Walter spotted a 60 gal. blue drum at the local auction and was the successful bidder for a modest $10 bill. He dragged the drum home, drilled a hole near the bottom for a spigot and filled it to the top with water. Next he found a metal bar that fitted nicely across the top of the barrel and from that he hung a gunny sack filled with about 10 pounds of chicken manure.

I viewed the operation with childlike enthusiasm and every morning I pulled aside the lid to peer into the depths and check if the manure was gradually dissolving into the water. Walter said “wait at least two weeks” but that didn’t suit my impatient nature so on the seventh day I twisted open the spigot and filled my watering can with this delicious offering. Flowers, veggies, blueberry bushes, fruit trees and roses all got a generous dose of the chicken dung tea and I quickly used up the contents of the 60 gal. drum. Since then we have made and used two more barrels.

Now I want to tell you without exaggeration my 10 tomato plants literally shot out of the ground. They are now averaging between four and five feet high in fact getting so rangy that I clipped most of the tops off as the fruits are beginning to shape up and too much foliage will weaken the plants ability to grow tomatoes to full size. The three rose bushes are remarkable as well with dense green shiny leaves and exquisitely formed rosebuds. That humble sack of chicken manure in a dirty old gunny-sack turned out to be the “bestest” present I ever had!

There’s an Edible Garden Tour on Aug. 7 held at Powell River which sounds fascinating. Gardeners over there are kicking off the sixth annual 50-Mile Eat Local Challenge and the third year for the edible garden tour. What a great way to see how other people in the region are producing some of their own food and I hope to see you there. The tour includes Lund, Wildwood, Westview, Cranberry and Townsite. Here’s an opportunity to view what other small communities are doing to promote the locally-grown food movement which is sweeping across the islands. For more info check Google for Powell River’s third annual Edible Garden Tour.

THIS INTRUDER, SORREL, CAUGHT MY EYE

Sorrel Is An Amazing perennial and its versatility continues to surprise me. It arrived in my patio garden last summer, uninvited. The seed was likely dropped there by a passing bird. The first inclination is to yank out any identified weedy plant but there was something about its leafy greenness that caused me to relent. It survived the harsh waterfront winter and this spring when I was scratching around in the raised bed looking for a herb to punch up my store-bought lettuce the intruder caught my eye. In the early stage Sorrel looks rather like Romaine in appearance but with a distinct lemony bite. It turned out to be just the right addition to add taste and interest to a limp leafed head lettuce purchased in a local market. As well it is brilliant in a pot of potato soup combined with early chives and lightly grilled onions. My sorrel is now beginning to bolt but it is producing stems full of tiny seeds. If you are curious about this ancient plant send me an email at msostler@telus.net and I will search out a source for seeds or mail you a few seeds from my garden.

Speaking of “Bolting” have you gardeners noticed that so many of your plants are going to seed, practically as soon as they are ready for picking? My information was passed on by a local garden club authority who explained that the long very cold spell in May shortly after plants had begun to mature gave the wrong message to the affected plants. Poor things thought winter was arriving and as their mission while on earth is to reproduce they immediately went in to seed production. Fortunately, I now practice succession planting and had a wide array of young seedlings sprouting in containers on my sunny window sills so I was able to replace bolting plants with young starters.

“But How Do You Really Know It’s Organic?” is a question posed by so many cynical acquaintances as I confidently laud the benefits of organic vegetables. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, after a two year phase-in period for Canadian farmers and operators, has announced that effective 1 July 2011 products labeled “organic” in Canada must carry the label “Biologique Canada Organic” logo. Now in full effect, the regulations have leveled the playing field and given domestic and foreign consumers confidence in the organic label. In addition to providing consumers with confidence at home, the Canadian organic system is trusted by our two major trading partners, the United States and Europe. Recognition of Canada’s organic standards by both the European Union and the U.S. shows that our standards are amongst the best in the world and opens up a huge new market overseas for our organic products.

On July 25 The Local Agriculture Steering Committee, of which I am a member, will bring forward to City Council the plan for developing a strong agriculture sector in Campbell River. Many of readers will be surprised to know that one third of the land within the city borders is designated Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) . The committee has spent the past year, with the assistance of staff and land specialists, identifying areas of Campbell River with strong soil values and the potential for agricultural use. Vancouver Island once produced more than half of the region’s food requirements. In the past 50 years this number has dropped to an average of less than 10 percent. Agriculture is now re-establishing itself on the Island and the Committee’s vision is that Campbell River become more sustainable with the production of local food grown on its’ own land. This is an exciting time to be setting new directions and looking at new ways to develop our community and become part of the exciting locally grown food movement on Vancouver Island.

EARLY SPRING CAN ENHANCE A MEAL

That Long Rainy Month of May is thankfully over. It did create a deepening sense of despair that the growing season would never begin. I had a great yearning to begin eating something produced in my own garden and the only three plants in the patch that were bursting with enthusiasm were the perennial parsleys, chives and sorrel. The huge Portuguese kale had taken a battering over the winter and despite the lure of consuming those big crunchy leaves I left the plant to recover. Making do with what was available I chopped up one cup of chives and parsley, two cups of left over cooked potatoes, two free- run eggs, and mashed them all together with herbed seasonings. Shaping them into large patties they were grilled in a hot cast-iron pan. Served with a slice or two of locally raised bacon makes an irresistibly good quick meal. I am just discovering the wonders of growing sorrel. It is a big deep green leafy perennial, rather like Romaine lettuce in appearance with a distinct lemony edge. It certainly punches up the flavour of a store-bought lettuce when there is nothing else in the garden with which to create an interesting salad.

Checking Out Other people’s gardens is a constant source of inspiration and this time I took my friend and mentor, Georgene Price along for the ride. Georgene is well over 90 years and yet has an abiding delight in the wonders of the garden patch. Last year she sold her Candy Lane home and moved into a waterfront condo at Willow Point. Leaving her beloved vegetable garden behind was a painful wrench but it didn’t take long to find a niche. She immediately volunteered to oversee the Sybil Morgan Andrews cottage garden where she had spent so many happy hours years ago learning to paint under Sybil’s tutelage. It was obvious that tending that small garden wasn’t enough for Georgene’s boundless energy. The next task was to take on the development of her son Gordon’s back yard. He’s working out of town now and she has a generous space planned out and already partly planted. It is most likely that she will plant far more than she could ever consume but her son and her neighbours will be the beneficiary of her generous spirit.

Spin Gardening is an off–shoot of Spin Farming. That is essentially what Georgene is doing. The gardening part of the spin is where a person, who does not have land, offers to cultivate a vegetable garden in someone else’s back yard in exchange for keeping the owner supplied with fresh grown food. This concept, on a larger scale, was pioneered in Canada by Sasktoon farmer, Wally Satzewich and his partner Gail Vandersteen have become an urban phenomena throughout the country. Satzewich is now renting around 25 backyards in the city totaling about a half-acre of growing space. He and his partner make a good living on their market sales. In Victoria Spin Gardening is wildly popular and not only are these gardeners providing food for the property owners but are marketing the surplus at either a market garden co-op or a direct-to-the door system. It is exciting to see these new developments on Vancouver Island that reduce our dependency on shipments from the mainland and also provide us with fresh high quality foods.