Workshop Topic Survey

Hello fellow folks in the Near North!

The Locavores are looking for your input on what type of topics you would be interested in seeing us host in the next upcoming year. Please take a moment to fill out our survey.

Thanks!




Click here to take our Online Survey

A Great Video on Local Food from Northern Edge Algonquin

Near North Locavore member and kitchen and garden manager at Northern Edge Algonquin Greg Waters talks with Todd Lucier (also of Northern Edge) about local and organic food, and
gives a tour of the garden at Northern Edge and local farmers' markets. This video was shot last summer.

Enjoy the video!

Photos from the Locavore Community Garden

Finally here are a few photos of the Locavore garden!

It is a mish-mash of photos from different times, and we will get more taken once there is more to see. ;)

First, the overall layout of the garden:

We started this from scratch...lifting the sod, and then digging about 1.5 feet down and adding compost. No easy task, even with such a small garden! It is a grid of 20 deep beds, that vary in size, but none more than 4 feet across (for easy access).

This is a view facing West, showing the whole garden, including the containers (there are newly planted peas in the recycle bins, and other veggies and herbs in the containers).

Facing South, there are tomatoes in the first bed, then nasturtiums, dill, carrots, and cilantro in the beds behind.

Again facing South, there are nasturtiums, pole beans, bush beans, carrots, onions, chard, and chives in this row of beds.

Again bush beans, pole beans, nasturtiums, chard, lettuce, carrots, and beets.

This is the last row of beds. Pole beans, beets, nasturtiums, lettuce, and spinach.

And now here are some random shots of the garden:

Mint in the shade garden

Double chamomile

Daisy fleabane

Pansies

Chives

Lemon balm

More mint

Thyme

Tomatoes

Tomatoes

Sweet woodruff in the shade garden

Lady's mantle in the partial shade garden

More sweet woodruff

Oregano

Ryerson University Offers Free Online Course About Urban Agriculture!

Thank you to City Farmer for originally posting about this on their blog!

Ryerson University and the RUAF are offering free distance course online about urban agriculture. Here is an outline of the programming:


Distance Learning on Urban Agriculture (UA)

Course 1 - Understanding UA


Module 1 - The Concept of Urban Agriculture


Module 2 - Building Blocks of Urban Agriculture


Module 3 - Types of urban agriculture


Module 4 - Direct and indirect stakeholders in UA


Module 5 - Dimensions of UA: Benefits and functions


Module 6 - Dimensions of UA: Problems and risks


Module 7 - Constraints and opportunities facing UA


Module 8 - History and trends I


Module 9 - History and trends II


Module 10 - Analyzing urban agriculture I


Module 11 - Analyzing urban agriculture II


Module 12 - Supporting urban agriculture I


Module 13 - Supporting urban agriculture II


Module 14 - Exam

Course 2 - Dimensions of UA


Module 1 - The Multiple Dimensions of UA


Module 2 - Food Security and Nutrition Dimensions


Module 3 - Management of Health Risks


Module 4 - Environmental Dimensions of UA - Part A


Module 5 - Environmental Dimensions of UA - Part B


Module 6 - Gender Dimensions of Urban Agriculture


Module 7 - Social inclusion, community building &..


Module 8 - Economic Dimensions of Urban Agriculture


Module 9 - Financing Urban Agriculture


Module 10 - Urban Agriculture for Resilient Cities


Module 11 - UA, (multifunctional) land use planning


Module 12 - Assessing the Multiple Dimensions of UA


Module 13 - Bringing all of the Dimensions together


Module 14 - Final Exam

This course is also available with a tutor for a fee. Info about this can be found here.

Strawberry Festival!

Strawberries by Adriaen Coorte {1696}

Due to the crops not being ready, the North Bay Downtown Farmers' Market Strawberry Festival has been postponed again this year until Saturday July 11th.

Here is a blurb from the Market website:

Be sure to get to the Market early that day to buy your strawberries – all vendors were sold out before 11:00am last year. The Market Booth will have a limited number of flats of strawberries available for sale this year, but they go fast!

Everyone can look forward to many delicious strawberry treats made by the vendors – including Strawberry Shortcakes being sold at the Market Booth the day of the Strawberry Festival. Help support the North Bay Downtown Farmers’ Market as all proceeds go towards making the dream of a permanent home for North Bay’s Downtown Farmers’ Market come true.

Hope to see you all there!

Two Documentaries to Look Out For

For folks who are interested in the politics of food and agri-business, as well as homesteading, you will definitely want to check out these two documentaries!

First up is Food, Inc. (if you are familiar with the title, then you may have already read the book). Here is a small blurb about the movie from the website:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

You can view the trailer below.



Next is Homegrown Revolution, which is a documentary made by the folks at Path to Freedom. And here is a small blurb about the movie and an introductory disclaimer from the website:

In the midst of densely urban downtown Pasadena, radical change is taking root. For over twenty years, the Dervaes family has been transforming their home into an urban homestead. They harvest three tons of organic food annually from their 1/10 acre garden, while incorporating back-to-basics practices, solar energy and biodiesel.

The original version of Homegrown Revolution was made in three days for a lecture Jules Dervaes gave at the University of California Los Angeles in October 2007 on the topic of Slow Food. It received a wildly enthusiastic response from the students and, subsequently, attracted an avid following on YouTube, with over 135,000 views to date.
This is a simple film short that introduces the Dervaes Family Urban Homestead. Please note this is NOT feature-length. This short film might be best grouped with other films or part of a community event / gardening club / meetings, etc. RUNTIME: 15:44.

Below is the trailer:

Homegrown Revolution (Trailer) from Path to Freedom on Vimeo.

The Locavores Need Volunteers for the Farmers' Market!

Right now the Near North Locavores are looking for members in the community who would be interested in volunteering at our booth for the North Bay Downtown Farmers' Market.

The Market runs every Saturday until October 10th, and the booth is opened from 8 am to 1 pm. If you would be interested in helping, please email us at nearnorthlocavores(at)hotmail.com along with the date(s) you would like to volunteer. If you have any questions, feel free to drop us a line as well.