News

While picking raspberries on the peninsula last week for jam, we learned the Heat Wave was accelerating harvest at local farms at a rate faster than consumers were buying, leaving good food wasted in the fields. We saw cauliflower the size of your head, beautiful nutrient-rich broccoli, salad greens browning in their beds – all needing to be picked now.
If you freeze or preserve food for winter consumption now is the time to get started.

On our way home we stopped in at Silver Rill to see if the corn was ready. Sure enough, we came away with the first of many dozen cobs we’ll buy this summer, some destined for that night’s dinner but most to be processed and put into the freezer for winter meals. At $14 a dozen it seemed costly until I price-checked it against a tin of corn in the grocery store. In this instance fresh, local is comparably priced, almost certainly more nutritious, and carries a much smaller carbon footprint.

According to Saanich’s Climate Plan, if everyone in the world lived the lifestyle of the average Saanich citizen we would require five or six planets right now for us all to survive. When we’re talking carbon footprints, every step counts.

Today I was basil picking in my home garden. Our small greenhouse offered up a 4 litre bucket full of fragrant basil which, within an hour, became packets of pesto, and lemon-basil vinaigrette, also stowed away in the freezer for winter meals.

That we have such a rich variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables available to us, whether from nearby farms or our own backyards, means we can eat locally year round with a little preparation. Jamming red raspberries, preserving basil, corn off the cob is simple to do, takes a little time but no fancy tools, and contributes significantly to reducing my family’s carbon count. And it cements my relationship with our farmers, reduces food waste, and contributes to the local economy.

BC Farms and Food lists dozens of Saanich Peninsula farms where you can buy direct from
the farmer, including these U-pick

Dan’s Farm & Country Market
Meadowbrook Farm
Michell Bros Farm
Northbrook Farm
Plentiful Plate Farm
Rosemeade Farms
Stewart’s Berry Patch
Violet Grove Farms

If you’d like the pesto or lemon-basil vinaigrette recipes, contact CHUFF – (Quadra) Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers and we’ll post them next issue. qchca.chuff@gmail.com

Watch for CHUFF’s August activities in QCHCA Events listing.

Back by popular demand, join the CRD and Satinflower Nurseries for a FREE 90-minute
webinar on Thursday, June 2 to learn how to convert your lawn into a low maintenance native plant meadow that saves water, doesn’t need fertilizer or pesticides and creates habitat for local bugs, birds and pollinators.

Learn how at the upcoming free webinar on June 2 at 7 pm. Click here to register.

How to accomplish all that in one act? Grow your own… food that is.

For the $3.69 you spend on a head of lettuce imported from California you could buy a packet of seed sufficient for you and your neighbour to be eating nutrient-rich lettuce from June to September.

Don’t have time? One positive outcome experienced by many families during our stay-close-to-home- Covid-summers was the choice to try growing a few vegetables. A phenomenon ensued! The primary B.C. producer of vegetable, fruit, flower and herb seeds sold out of many seeds. And, our children learned what fresh green beans really taste like. And, how fun they are to pick. And oh those tomatoes.

With our late Spring temperatures the soil is still cool enough to plant many of the early crops that are  gratifying to grow – peas, a myriad of lettuces and greens, then beans, squash, and yes tomatoes.

Don’t know how? Start small. Make it fun. And, if interested, join CHUFF – (Quadra) Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers – a growing group of both gonna-be and experienced food growers that formed just this Spring in your neighbourhood. CHUFF is a volunteer initiative of the Quadra Cedar Hill Community Association’s Climate Action Group. What are people saying? “A friendly bunch of people … lots of useful information… loved the chance to see someone else’s garden”.

We meet one Sunday morning a month in member’s gardens to share our experiences and our quandaries (like, controlling rats in the compost). Next gathering Sunday May 29. Topic:  Notes from a Small Garden. Vertical growing, programmable water system, hardscaping on the cheap. Contact shermorgan.hi@gmail.com for more information

On May 24, members and friends of QCHCA were treated to an engaging and extremely informative talk by Alistair Knox, the Youth Network Coordinator for the Good Food Network & Capital Region Food & Agriculture Initiatives Roundtable (CRFair).  Alistair studied Forest Ecology and Environmental Studies at UVic and, as CRFAIR’s Youth Food Network Coordinator, will be organizing and facilitating a Youth Climate Action Panel where participants will be discussing topics ranging from what kinds of changes we have seen in our food systems as a result of climate change, to some of the actions that other organizations in our area have already taken up to address these systemic issues.  Details are below in case you missed the talk or would like to see it again – it was information-rich and so uplifting!  Special thanks to Alistair for the talk and for allowing us to record it!

Topic: QCHCA AGM & talk by Alistair Knox
Start Time: May 24, 2022 06:50 PM

Meeting Recording:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/I3UIRFz98cuYT_iBDnyvYvnBjda_80RgR_KCgxX7s_1Jj9BlFO0w3Vr9KmwyYEzl.OvUjx7TmWohvFFnP

Access Passcode: H3&Xt4vF