More ways to learn...

Here is another great opportunity before the season gets fully underway. It is offered by Green Calgary. Here are the details:

Organic Veggie Gardening for Beginners

April 19, 2011   7:00pm - 9:00pm

Hillhurst United Church
1227 Kensington Close, N.W
Calgary, Alberta T2N 3J6
Canada

The Details:
Planning your first vegetable garden this summer and wondering about how to get started?

Green Calgary's Healthy Homes program has teamed up with Kathleen Van Ihinger from Harmonic Herbs Farm to bring you an evening of Organic Veggie Gardening for Beginners.
Learn about choosing seeds, planting, site and soil preparation, and about vegetable varieties that thrive in Calgary.
Kathleen is co-owner of Harmonic Herbs Farm where she strives to grow and raise the majority of her family's food organically on 12 acres in central Alberta. Harmonic Herbs provides open-pollinated, short-seasoned seeds and niche herbal teas for Albertans. Kathleen is former Acting Director of Green Calgary and former Cooking Class Director and Buyer for Community Natural Foods.
We know Kathleen's passion for plants and enthusiasm for all things seedy will leave you feeling inspired!
Tickets are $10 in advance (through Eventbrite).

Forget you snow...

I can't take it anymore. Snow, snow, snow, I can't remember a year with more snow. But maybe that will mean a really good year for soil? or some other positive way of spinning it. I myself am almost out of silver linings and all that I see on the horizon is more clouds.

I made myself  give one last effort towards staying positive, but if it snows all the way through April watch out. So yet again I turned to the computer to check out some good things to help me prep for the upcoming gardening season, staying positive. One of my favourite garden type things is water conservation. Not a day goes by in the summer when I don't make a remark to someone about the water level of Nose Creek, or the Harvest Hills drainage pond, or how dry the grass is. Most just smile and wave...goodbye. I think it must be my delivery. If you are interested I found a neat little clip on You Tube that has me mighty eager to hook up my 3 barrel home system. Check it out below.

And for those hardcore gardeners, or those like me that have let their holiday goodies build up into a warm protective layer of flab I found a clip on exercises for gardeners. Not that I'm going to do them, but maybe some one else will and can motivate me through shame. It's probably a good idea to limber up. Last years big garden build left me stiff for a few days. But it might have been the frostbite?

Anyways, have fun with both clips. Looking forward to green.

That's the Bee's needs...

Love those flowers, love those veggies; not without bees you won't. With the world's increasing food and space requirements for all its people and creatures it is becoming increasingly important to understand how to co-exist and hopefully prosper along side nature.

To the point the NHCA gardening group has had many a discussion on Bees and the large roll they play in our society, whether or not most people recognize it. So with a few people's help I decided to poke around a bit and find some information on Bees. A great starting point is David Suzuki's website. Here is a little excerpt to wet your appetite:

• Build a Bee House
• Provide Nutritious Bee Food
• Make a Bee Bath
• Create a Welcome Place for Bees

If you want a little background on Bees and their importance check out the film clip below:

And if that has only served to peek your interest you'll probably want to check out Calgary Beekeepers or another website that doesn't look great but has an overabundance of info, and it is also local The Beekeeper's Home Page.

Good luck with all your spring gardening BEESness.

Beyond gardening...

Northern Hills just loves their veggies. To what extent you might ask? So much so that they are starting a Farmer's Market for those that "just don't have the time" to grow their own veggies but still want that great nutritious fresh local produce while cultivating their community's spirit.

Check it out, it looks like it is going to be amazing!

NCHA Farmer's Market

Updates galore...

There has been an absolute ton of work going on behind the scenes to get everything gardening ready to fire on all cylinders once spring arrives. Joanne was kind enough to provide us all an update:

1. We sent in our application to the City this week. The site requested within this application is at the north end of the existing green space on Covepark Square and Coventry Hills Way NE (directly across from the Middle School under construction).  Many thanks go out to Adrianne for the hard work that she put in to the design (attached) and Lisa, Tammy, Teri and Carmen for visiting the neighbors of the garden site to answer their questions and get their support!
2. We will be constructing 40 raised vegetable beds this year. We will also be adding some trees, shrubs and flower beds this year.  This is a long term plan, and as gardeners we know we’re always changing and adding things, so there will be no shortage of work to be done every year to maintain and improve the garden.
3. I expect to get the approval to go ahead by no later than mid April.  There is a lot of work to coordinate if we want to plant by the end of May.  On that note I am calling out for committee members to help champion this.  There are four key elements outside of applications and funding which I will continue to coordinate that need committee members. They are:
1. Construction – Adrianne will coordinate this but would love someone else to help.  This organizes construction day – ordering of lumber, soil and bobcat. It organizes compost bins as well as a storage bin or shed as well as purchases of small equipment and hoses.  (Please note that everyone wanting to rent a bed must volunteer on construction day(s).)
2. Communication and Education – we are looking for someone to team up with Chris (with the Harvest Hills Community Garden ) to coordinate educational programs, provide blog updates for Coventry and coordinate signage for the garden.  We would like this person as soon as possible to help coordinate a class on first time vegetable gardening.
3. Administration – Susan will coordinate this and will maintain the user list, assign beds, coordinate the collection of fees and maintain the weekly volunteer list to water and mow.
4. Extras – Lisa will coordinate this but would love someone to help her.  This coordinates the tree and shrub purchase as well as the delivery and planting of these. They will also coordinate the planting and harvesting of the food bank and community beds.

That being said, if any of you want to sit on the committee please let me know as we don’t want to turn anyone away.  Plans are to have the committee meet in early April to get all of this underway.

4. The finalised user agreement will be coming shortly (it's in draft form right now but it shouldn’t change much).  It may look lengthy to you but it is the standard contract provided to us by the Calgary Horticultural Society.  Some major points include:
1. 100% organic gardening methods are used
2. An NHCA membership is required as they provide us with the majority of our funding
3. Bed rental fees of $35.00 (4 x 8) and $50.00 (4 x 12) for the season
4. We ask all gardeners to support with watering and maintaining common areas
5. Susan and I will work out the logistics of collecting the agreement and user fees from you sometime in May
5. If you have changed your mind and no longer want to be on the list for a garden plot this year please let me know as I have a steady stream of interested gardeners.
6. Remember to watch the blog for updates.  http://www.northernhillscommunitygarden.blogspot.com/
7. Last but not least please save your newspapers and non glossy flyers.  You will need these to place on the bottom of your bed – it kills the grass which we will not be digging up.  If any of you work for a newspaper or know of someone who does – we could use roll ends; they really do the trick!

A reminder...

Some very exciting events that are quickly approaching. Please check them out, we are lucky to have such excellent local resources.

2011 Calgary Seedy Saturday

When:   Saturday, March 19, 2011

Time:     10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where:  Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Centre, 1320 5 Ave. N.W.

Cost:     $2 Admission, we accept Calgary Dollars

Getting brighter...

That's Mr. Vitamin D to you!

But still dark before I get home from work. I timed it today and was so close to making it home in daylight that I was almost skipping, about two minutes short. Which means I'm still battling the darkness like everyone else, and struggling for that Vitamin D. It would be so easy if we could just pop out to our community garden plots and grab a handful of greens while basking in the rays of summer, but alas record cold March is kicking my but. So being stuck inside I've been poking around trying to find some other natural ways to get the big D in my diet. And would do I find to my surprise, a cow is my savior (or at least one option), good old Canadian Beef. I stumbled across www.beefinfo.org and found the article Put More 'D' in Your Diet. By no means is anyone suggesting that you eat cheeseburgers 3 meals a day (though I may be willing to try this diet), but there are some great suggestions while waiting for our gardens to bloom, or even defrost.

Another way to beat the winter blahs (thanks goodness they're almost over) is to blog about them and how we are going to get over them when our wonderful gardens start to sprout. My wife and I were talking about all the delicious things we are going to eat from the garden and how we should blog about them because it makes us sad to look outside. She then came across a Conference on Blogging about Food www.eatwriteretreat.com which sounds pretty interesting. And quite frankly gives us something to day dream about because we are afraid to even open our front door.

So until spring really arrives good luck getting your D. Perhaps we should think about introducing cows to our gardens this summer, do they come in miniature sizes?