CHUFF sprouted April 2022 as an initiative of our community association’s Climate Action group. In Saanich, food and our food systems are the third greatest contributor to carbon emissions after transportation and buildings. Food waste plays a significant role. We all eat, and we each have the power to be part of the solution. CHUFF’s goal is to encourage our neighbours to grow more food, consume more local foods, eat more of what is in-season, and to stop wasting food. Luckily for us, on southern Vancouver Island we can grow and purchase good, locally-grown food year round. CHUFF members gather most months, on a Sunday morning. Here is some of what CHUFF offered in its third year, 2024. New members welcome
January 2024
CHUFFians greeted the new year and each other with our very own Social Seed Swap. Most seeds were saved from member’s own gardens, the intent being to share locally-successful and favorite varieties.
January / February 2024
A handful of able volunteers organized CHUFF’S 2 ND EAT LOCAL Winter Recipe Contest open this year to all Saanich residents. Contest rules required that 75% of ingredients be BC grown produce, and in-season. The contest attracted 55 fabulous recipes and was featured in the T-C by food columnist Eric Akis. 1 st place prize (by random draw) went to Saanich resident Nancy D’s delicious Hungarian Mushroom Soup. See all contest recipes here qchca.org/winter-veggie-recipes/
In April
Members gathered to troubleshoot a challenging, food-on-a-budget grow site. Ashlie’s backyard has a gigantic glacially-scoured rocky outcropping right in the middle of it. While her initial intent was to create habitat for pollinators she soon decided that that much work should produce people food too. Despite pests, pernicious weeds, too much heat, and zero soil she is creating a food forest with child-friendly play places throughout, a resilient garden for a working mom that won’t be too time-consuming or expensive to maintain.
May
Paige and Tommy of Fullmoon Farmstand on Maplewood opened their backyard to CHUFF members and the public for the community association’s Lower Your Carbon Footprint Neighbourhood Tour. Paige works with HAT (Habitat Acquisition Trust) and Tommy with Satin Flower Nursery and their garden exemplifies the benefits of biodiversity. As they say: We have tended to and expanded our garden on this rental property for the last 4 years. Here we produce 75% of the vegetables we consume in summer, plus enough to give away to family and friends and to sell at our farmstand. About half the backyard garden is devoted to vegetables; half the yard is lawn for the dogs and backyard hangouts, with the perimeters being native plants for pollinators and biodiversity. About 50 QCH neighbours took advantage of the all day tour. Thanks Paige & Tommy!
June
An early summer visit to Judy & Ian’s garden carved out of a blackberry thicket along the Galloping Goose Trail – surely ironic for food growers who describe themselves as aspirationally lazy gardeners!
Here the focus was strategies for maximum yield with minimum effort, benefits to co-growing with family members or neighbours whose garden plots are nearby but separate, and balancing living next to a wildlife sanctuary with the desire for a reasonably productive garden.
CHUFF-ians gloried in Judy’s garden art and re-named Ian the McGiver of Growers for his talent in fashioning tool solutions from found objects.
September
The highlight of 2024 was CHUFF’s tour to ALM Farm; Full Circle Seeds in Sooke! Enthralling … Inspiring … I had no idea what’s required to be a certified organic farm … I want to go back to volunteer … Mary-Alice is amazing! were some of the comments shared.
Buckwheat in full bloom, seeded mere weeks earlier as a green manure /cover crop following potato harvest.
Established 30-plus years ago, ALM Farm offered the South Island’s first organic CSA box program which continues today. Many of our region’s organic farmers got their start with Mary-Alice via ALM’s on-farm apprenticeship program. “Townies’ can find ALM produce at the Moss Street Market every Saturday.
November
Undaunted by October rain, CHUFF’s annual Harvest Potluck Lunch moved indoors a month later. Always a delicious social event, members bring a dish concocted from their own garden produce. A treat this year was taste testing Gregor’s sparkling plum cider! For dessert, the CHUFF pie-guys provided a choice of wild-foraged blueberry, or orchard apple pie!
Appreciating that one in every three bites of foods we eat is reliant on pollinators, after our Harvest Potluck lunch we toured the Community Association’s latest climate action – an in-progress, native plants for pollinators boulevard garden, Astoria Street at Willerton.
Quadra Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers, or CHUFF, gathers on a Sunday morning most months in the growing seasons. Activities reflect what garners the support of our members. New members welcome, especially new-to-food growing families. Contact qchca.chuff@gmail.com