City schools to reconnect with food through new urban agriculture project
Prairie Urban Farm launches Farm on Wheels crowdfunding campaign
Prairie Urban Farm is launching a crowdfunding campaign to build a mobile Farm on Wheels. Designed to be part farm and part training facility, the 40-foot shipping container will house an innovative farm built tough enough to survive an Edmonton winter.
The campaign kicks off Monday, March 14, 2016.
We think food insecurity is a big deal.
Our conventional food systems are in desperate need of creative interventions if we are to have any hope of feeding those in need. The Farm on Wheels project is the kind of radical approach needed to generate changes at the community level.
Located at the University of Alberta South Campus, Prairie Urban Farm is a one-acre demonstration farm that has been working with Edmonton communities to grow fresh produce, build a community of urban farmers, and provide awareness and skill-building in sustainable agriculture and food systems.
The Farm on Wheels project takes our mission to the next level, by bringing sustainable agriculture education to Edmonton schools and communities year-round. Once the container farm is built, it will be capable of producing fresh food, and will provide an onsite training facility where teachers and students can learn about farming, food safety and much more.
Last year, we asked teachers around Edmonton how we could help them get growing in their classrooms. What they told us inspired us to think radically. They needed the farm to come to them and they needed classroom-scale technologies.
Since then, we’ve been developing a program to instruct teachers and students about farming that provides hands-on training and easy-to-use technologies.
Members of Edmonton communities are invited to join the mission and help build the Farm on Wheels. The IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign starts on Monday, March 14, 2016 and closes on Friday April 22, 2016. The goal is to raise $100,000 to develop training materials and build an operational farm by September 2016.
"It takes a village to raise a child" is an African proverb which means that it's easier to bring up a healthy and well-supported child if you have the effort and care of your entire community.
The same philosophy rings true when it comes to feeding our children, our families, and each and every person within our community.
Prairie Urban Farm's volunteers range from children who aren't quite old enough to articulate the joys of gardening to older folks who have been working the soil for generations. That inter-generational diversity creates the community of sharing, teaching, and learning that is so core to what we're trying to accomplish at the farm.
Volunteer Iris helps visiting Grade 4 students to taste the kale.
Our volunteers are families and children, couples of all ages, university students, youth groups, elementary school classes, and high school classes coming from all parts of the city. Since May these volunteers have been seeding, transplanting, watering, pruning, digging, weighing and harvesting.
Averaging the volunteers at our sessions over the 24 weeks we've been operating since the beginning of this season, we've collectively sent over 500 bags of farm fresh produce to volunteer homes around Edmonton.
Volunteers harvested, weighed, washed, and packaged produce for sale at one of our summer markets.
When we pack up a box of harvested produce for one of these community organizations, the vegetables have a history.
Beets, potatoes, greens, herbs, tomatoes, and leeks donated to Meals on Wheels in time for Thanksgiving.
In July our community partner volunteers from The Neighbour Centre and our youth volunteers from E4C's Art Start planted out new lettuce, arugula, and beet plots. In August our youth volunteers from Edmonton's Inner City High School planted more late-season lettuce. The lettuce and beets donated to Meals on Wheels this Thanksgiving was harvested from those plots thanks to those volunteers in the summer.
Meals on Wheels volunteers prepare fresh and frozen meals in their in-house production centre under the guidance of Red Seal Chef Robin Cheverie.
Edmonton's Meals on Wheels uses this donated fresh produce to prepare fresh and frozen meals that are delivered to homes across the city. The average age of their members is 84 years old and many of their clientele have mobility challenges or other barriers that keep them from preparing meals themselves. By providing Meals on Wheels with fresh produce donations, they're able to keep their meals varied, nutritious, and low-cost for our Edmonton citizens who need their services.
Youth volunteers from E4C's Art Adventures Summer Camp create new lettuce, arugula, and beet plots.
Youth from Edmonton's Inner City High School plant late-season lettuce rows.
This October we had Jr. High students from the Argyll Centre and four different Kindergarten and Pre-school classes join us at Prairie Urban Farm. During their visits they dug up potatoes which were donated to the Youth Empowerment & Support Services and The Neighbour Centre. The Jr. High class learned, as they were searching the soil for more spuds, that their efforts would help provide a filling Thanksgiving meal for youth their age living at YESS. Some of the neighbours at The Neighbour Centre were volunteers who helped at the farm throughout the summer, now able to enjoy some late-season fruits of their labour thanks to the youth volunteers digging efforts.
Neighbours and volunteers at The Neighbour Centre prepare a nutritious meal at their weekly Dinnerclub.
Each time someone at the farm plants a row of greens, pushes a garlic seed into the ground, or harvests a box of corn they have become entwined into the food stories of countless other people in their community. Food transcends all differences and it is a bridge that has allowed us to partner with and get to know youth, individuals, families and groups across the city, our village, who are working to make sure we all have enough to eat.
A salad party at Prairie Urban Farm during E4C's Art Adventures youth summer camp. Mmmm eating veggies has never looked so good!
Our community partners mentioned in this article: The Neighbour Centre is a drop-in resource centre for adults living in poverty. They're "spreading good through their 'hood". Staff, volunteers, and 'neighbours' (people in the community using their services), came out to volunteer at Prairie Urban Farm every Monday morning from July - October. They harvested produce for their drop-in centre and for their weekly Dinnerclub (where they all get together and cook a meal in a community Church kitchen).
E4C's Art Start has been collaborating with us since 2014 in facilitating art projects at many of our community events. Art Start is a free after-school art program offered in lower-income schools across Edmonton. This year we hosted two days of the Art Adventures youth summer camp which brought over a dozen youth to the farm to learn about food security and urban agriculture.
Do you have fresh produce to donate?
Bring it to any of the community service groups mentioned in this article! Chefs and volunteers on-site at YESS will create wonderful meals to feed and nourish at-risk youth living across the city. Food Banks will keep fresh produce in their coolers until they can include it in hampers going home with people.
Volunteers harvested over 30 lbs of beets, cabbage, lettuce, kale, cucumbers, and zucchini for the Edmonton Food Bank on August 11th, 2015.
We produce a lot of food at Prairie Urban Farm. Most of our food goes home with our volunteers - the people who work so hard to make our project succeed. Core to our philosophies and goals at Prairie Urban Farm is to increase food security: access to nutritious, sufficient, and safe food for all. This includes creating an abundance of fruits and vegetables for those people in our community that are struggling to access nutritious, fresh food.
Volunteers from The Neighbour Centre showing off their harvest of greens, beets, and herbs for their weekly Dinnerclub program.
This year Food Banks across Alberta have been struggling to keep up with demand as the numbers of people across the province needing food hampers has surged. Many people are blaming the recent economic downturn. Our provinces heavily oil-dependent economy tends to go through ups and downs which means that there will be many jobs created all at once, causing new families and young people to re-locate here, followed by many job losses all at once, causing a lot of financial strain to those same people. The increases are consistent across the province:
The Wood Buffalo Food Bank Association in Fort McMurray served about 390 people/month in 2014 which has now increased to 690 people/month
The Edmonton Food Bank's monthly numbers rose from 14,000 to 17,000
The University of Lethbridge has seen a 24% increase in the students served hampers this year
How can Prairie Urban Farm help?
This week volunteers harvested over 30 lbs of salad and stirfry greens (lettuce, chard, kale, mustard), zucchini, cucumber, beets, peas, and cabbage. These raw vegetables were taken to the Edmonton Food Bank warehouse where they will be stored in their coolers until used for hamper production. This will help provide our most food insecure community members with access to more nutritious food on their next trip to our local Food Bank.
Volunteers harvesting greens and veggies for the Edmonton Food Bank.
How can you help?
You can learn more about the Edmonton Food Banks procedure on food donations on their website. If you're donating non-perishable items you can drop them off at City of Edmonton Fire Stations or major grocery stores. Here are some of their most needed non-perishables:
beans
canned fruit or veg
peanut butter
mac and cheese dinners
pasta and pasta sauce
cereal and oatmeal
juice boxes and granola bars and other school snacks
The Edmonton Food Bank Warehouse in downtown Edmonton where we dropped off our 30 lbs of fresh produce.
Michelle Peters-Jones from the Tiffin Box teaching us how to make salsa in September 2014 at our canning workshop.
Where we came from and how we grew up, our food traditions, our present living situation and current access to foods, our schedules and family members and jobs - each of these things contribute to our unique food journeys. Perhaps you grew up in a home with fresh garden produce and homemade preserves, but you never learnt yourself. Maybe you've lived your whole life in an urban environment without access to or knowledge of gardening or food production. Maybe you have a huge family, kids to feed, soccer practices to attend, and no time to grow food on your own and no budget to buy what you feel are the most nutritious options.
Our volunteers harvesting tomatoes in September 2014. All of our farm members come from different places in their food journeys. Many haven't ever gardened before and some have gardened most of their lives.
There are ways that we can produce nutritious food no matter where we're at in our food journey. Below I describe three ways to help us feel empowered in our path towards food security.
1. Learn the skills that you want to have
Don't know how to garden but want to learn? There is plenty of opportunity. Join Prairie Urban Farm or one of the other U of A communal gardens on campus and you'll have garden leaders take you through the season from seeding to harvesting, giving you the skills you need to experiment on your own yard if you wish to. Prairie Urban Farm also organizes educational workshops throughout the year relating to food preservation so that our members can learn how to can, pickle, and ferment produce.
Want to scale up your current green thumb? Consider taking the Master Gardener course offered by the Devonian Botanical Gardens or the Organic Master Gardener course offered by the Stony Plain Heritage Agricultural Society.
The City of Edmonton has recently passed a bylaw allowing urban beekeeping. There are plenty of mentors and organizations in the city that can teach you the skills you need to get started.
Johwanna from Mojo Jojo Pickles & Preserves demonstrating how easy it is to preserve and pickle foods at our February seminar. A lot of Edmontonians want to learn how to can and ferment their produce!
2. Use the skills or resources that you do have
Maybe you hate gardening but you love the taste of a garden tomato or carrot. A lot of people who grow those tomatoes or carrots would likely be open to a friendly exchange of goods (usually they have more than they know what to do with!). What skills do you have right now? Are you awesome at making bread or muffins or quilting or wood-working or pie-making? Ask your neighbour who has abundant apples covering their ground if you could use some in exchange for an extra apple pie for them. Ask gardening neighbours if you could trade them freshly baked bread in exchange for some garden produce when they have extra. Maybe your resource is that you have time and willingness to pick up a shovel! That could be huge for a neighbour who doesn't want to or can't do the heavy lifting involved in some of their tasks. Everyone has things they're great at. And if you really feel that you don't, learn some things! Everyone has to start somewhere and there are dozens of teachers in our own communities very willing to mentor each of us. There are also great events that happen during the year such as February 2014's Resilience Festival which had workshops on baking bread, maintaining tools, crafting out of willow branches, and cooking techniques!
Retired professor Nils Peterson helps a group of U of A students build a raised garden bed.
3. Use the space that you do have
If you own your own home and have access to a yard, you're golden! You already have a ton of space that you can use to produce a variety of foods. Are there environmental barriers - is your yard completely shaded? Do you have crappy soil or a ton of weeds? Maybe you live in a condo and only have a windowsill? Each space has its own unique opportunities.
Low-light/Shaded Yards
There are plenty of crops that do quite well in a low-lit environment. Most greens (lettuce, spinach, kale) prefer a growing environment with low-light conditions. Root crops like carrots, beets, and turnips need a certain amount of light over the whole growing season to grow the root that we eat underneath the ground. If you plant these seeds early as soon as your soil thaws you should have a harvest by the fall. If your yard is very shaded and the roots are still small (you should be able to tell by digging a bit of soil away from the tops), leave them in the ground for a few weeks longer before you harvest as they will tolerate the frost that the fall brings. Strawberries, in their natural habitat, grow as a groundcover in forested areas so you may have luck with them in your partially shaded plots. Experiment and try different crops to see what does well in your particular growing environment.
Spinach, lettuce, kale, chard, carrot, beets, turnip would all do well in low-lit conditions.
Crappy Soil/Weeds
Have you ever heard of lasagna gardening? It's also called sheet mulching and it uses some of the abundant, free materials that our urban centres provide. Cover your crappy, weedy soil with a layer of cardboard, making sure the cardboard overlaps (this makes sure the weeds don't push through the cracks of the cardboard). Then cover this with a few inches of compost. Cover the compost with a few inches of mulch (grass clippings, wood chips, dried leaves). You're effectively suppressing the weeds you don't want to grow and producing new organic matter to plant into. Also, it's all free. There's cardboard everywhere (ask grocery stores, check recycling dumpsters behind strip malls). You can pick up free compost from the University of Alberta's South Campus just across from Prairie Urban Farm. The U of A workers leave a big pile of composted cow manure there during the growing season. Collect your own mulch by saving up your grass clippings and dried leaves, or ask your neighbours if you could collect theirs - most people just throw them out unfortunately.
Volunteers sheet mulching at Prairie Urban Farm in the spring of 2014.
Balcony
You still have a lot of opportunity! Many plants can be quite effectively grown in containers. You do have more limited space with a balcony so your best strategy would be to focus on a couple of crops that would grow well and that you like. If your balcony is shaded, again, leafy greens and root crops would be your best bet. For root crops you'll need a deep container. If your balcony receives a lot of light consider growing tomatoes, peppers, and an herb like basil which are perfectly happy in containers.
No Outdoor Space
Don't worry you can still grow nutritious food without access to an outdoor space. If you have a windowsill that receives enough light you may be able to keep a variety of herbs going throughout the growing season which would definitely scale up your culinary options! Experiment with different herbs and see which prefer your level of light and make sure to water appropriately (not all herbs like the same amount! Trust me, I've killed many an herb plant this way). You can also sprout seeds in your kitchen which is a fantastic option for a nutrient-dense vegetable to add to salads, sandwiches, and cooking that doesn't even need soil. You can buy seeds such as lentils, beans, alfalfa, grain, broccoli, and radish in bulk so that it's cheaper. Try Apache Seeds, Earths General Store or an online supplier if you find that you want quite a lot. It only takes a glass jar, some sort of strainer, and a few days time to produce extremely nutrient-dense sprouts from a tablespoon of seeds. Seeds themselves are packed with nutrition and when they sprout they keep that nutrition and create even more fibre, protein, and nutrients. This sprouting instructional video will show you just how easy it is.
There are also ways to access outdoor space. I mentioned community gardens above. Sustainable Food Edmonton has a list of all the community gardens around the city. The U of A also has an Adopt-a- Planter program where you can take care of a planter on campus for them and grow your own vegetables!
I hope this gives you a sense of how much opportunity there is for each of us right now where we're at. We don't need to wait for the right soil, the perfect yard, or yard access at all. Learning new skills, sharing skills we have, and connecting with our community is a great start towards food security.
Tim tending to the leeks in summer 2014. Volunteers who come in the spring with no garden knowledge become much more comfortable and confident in gardening tasks as the summer progresses.
And speaking of connecting with our community. Here are a couple of great events happening around Edmonton this month:
Alberta Avenue 2nd Annual Rubber Boots & Bow Ties Garden Party
Where: Alberta Avenue Community Garden
When: Friday May 29
Cost: $10 advance, $20 at the door
What: There will be music, appetizers, artwork for sale, garden games, and a silent auction!
Breakfast and Composting Workshop
Where: Trinity United Church
When: Saturday May 30
Cost: $10
What: You'll get a pancake, sausage, fruit breakfast followed by a City of Edmonton Master Composter facilitated Composting Workshop! You'll even go home with a bag of compost!
New volunteers at our second annual Volunteer Orientation.
We had an incredible season kickoff this past Saturday with over 60 people showing up for our Volunteer Orientation!! We broke up into groups and talked about what brought us to Prairie Urban Farm and what we were most excited to learn about. The groups spent some time brainstorming ideas related to artscaping, community engagement, education, and sustainable urban agriculture!
Volunteers have different reasons for joining Prairie Urban Farm.
We wanted to share some of the ideas that were given by the orientation volunteers.
Why do you want to volunteer with Prairie Urban Farm? "So I can get outside to learn" "To make friends" "To meet the cool cat on the farm" "Learn how to grow food myself and the benefits of having access to natural local grown produce" "To feel more connected to nature" "To do some gardening but not have to do it all on our own" "Share in harvest of healthy produce"
How can we get the community involved with Prairie Urban Farm? "Share the surplus" "Have a harvest celebration or event" "Posters at the schools/neighbourhood cafes" "Sell at neighbourhood events" "Carnival fundraiser" "Host workshops - starting seeds, building bee houses, jam-making, pickling, cooking fresh foods" "Workshops on how to make tea, soap scents, spice mixes" "Workshops on how to freeze/prep/dry veggies for storage"
Kids from E4C's ArtStart programming painting a bench for Prairie Urban Farm.
How can we involve kids, youth, post-secondary students & the elderly? "Host summer camp day trips" "Putting some kind of 'fun' in all those gardening activities" "Give presentations at schools and senior living complexes, then have certain days and times when elders and children/youth can garden together" "Encourage the farm cats to hang around - kids love cats!" "Garden tasting night - like Taste of Edmonton" "Self directed scavenger hunt" "Live music at the garden"
What are you most interested in learning? "Compost that my neighbours will like" "How to grow mushrooms" "A little bit of everything. The best will be the A - Z in gardening, planting and taking care of fruit trees and shrubs" "The different needs and growing times of different plants" "Growing produce so my friends will want me on their zombie apocalypse team" "Compost and how to grow herbs" "Using native grasses to rehabilitate marginal soil and as a source of reducing carbon" "Soil amending/composting" "Pruning trees properly"
Garden Leader Iris teaching our student volunteers about the benefits of garden composting.
Sustainable Agriculture Ideas:
- Mulching with newspaper, grass, straw and cover crops.
- Rotations with legume crops
- Raise rainwater tanks with cement blocks and add hose adapter onto barrels.
- Trap snow melt with barrels or dugouts.
- Swales for passive water management.
Community Engagement Ideas:
- Monthly music 'jams'
- Mid-summer carnival fundraiser with scavenger hunt and geocaching
- Work with local chefs to use local produce at events
- School field trips
- Beginning gardening workshops
- Better signage for self-tours
Kira captures the artscaping groups ideas on paper
Art Ideas
- Colourful Wildlife Houses (bats, cats, birds, bees)
- Scarecrow Building Day
- Children in activities (hands-on, school involvement, educational)
- Reuse of objects like pallets, glass bottles
- Edible Ornaments - dried fruit or veg coated with honey and seeds for bird treat
- Shed and Pergola Plan - canvas/wood trellis and living wall within posts attached to shed - tie dye shade structure
Thank you to everyone who came out to the orientation and to our Garden Leaders for facilitating group discussions. Also, thank you to SustainSU for the reusable dishes that made our event more sustainable!
Volunteers discuss ideas for the 2014 growing season at our first ever Volunteer Orientation last April.
Volunteers have seeded over 1600 tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, herbs, and flowers in anticipation for this May when we will transplant the seedlings into the ground.
But before we do that, we need to come together and get to know one another!
Volunteers seeding at the Devonian Botanical Garden greenhouse on March 28, 2015.
On Saturday May 2nd join us at the University of Alberta's Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA) for our 2nd Annual Volunteer Orientation. We're going to tell you what Prairie Urban Farm is all about, discuss some ideas we have for this season, and then break up into groups so that you can get to know other volunteers. In these smaller groups you'll have a chance to discuss what exactly you would like to get out of your farm experience and what sorts of projects you would like to be involved with.
As a volunteer there are a lot of opportunities to be involved in anything from community building and education, art and building projects, and sustainable agriculture.
Student volunteers building a raised garden bed in August, 2014.
Prairie Urban Farm is built on the ideas and momentum of our members so please come join the discussion and get ready to get your hands dirty!
When: Saturday May 2nd, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Where: L1-140, ECHA, U of A Campus
The orientation is open to everyone and it is free of charge. The classroom is wheelchair accessible. There will be snacks and refreshments provided.
RSVP on eventbrite:
http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/prairie-urban-farm-volunteer-orientation-tickets-16603782360?aff=efbevent
Please note that you don't need to RSVP in order to attend and if you do RSVP you don't need to bring a ticket. It is simply a way for us to estimate numbers.
A volunteers dog came to join us in September 2014 for our hugelkultur workshop.
Our abundance of farm tomatoes got turned into salsa in September 2014 at our Canning Workshop.
Living in a privileged, processed, industrial society has disconnected us from our food: how it's grown, how it's made into rich and diverse dishes, and how it's returned back to the earth. Most of us living in the Canadian 21st century would find it challenging to grow, harvest, and prepare a delicious meal on our own. We would likely find the result of this process unappetizing compared to what we could get from our grocery deli.
And indeed, why would we waste our time trying to find sustenance on food completely produced by ourselves or our community when we have an array of tastier options at the Supermarket within a twenty minute drive of our dinner plates?
One of the first harvests of carrots and big, woody turnips. The turnips should have been harvested sooner. At this point they were wormy and didn't taste great - it was discouraging.
A common sentiment that I've heard when talking with people about growing your own food and more importantly, preserving this food that you've grown, is: why spend the time preserving food when you can just buy that food fresh from the grocery store in the winter instead? It tastes better fresh anyways.
A great article that speaks to this was written by Rebecca Roberts with the Sustainable Food Trust. She comments that there are local food traditions around the world that have been practiced by different communities and cultures for hundreds of years; well before the development of refrigeration or the globalization of industrial foods. Many of these cultural traditions around food developed as a way of using the entirety of a food harvested, such as eating the heart, tongue, or feet of a slaughtered animal instead of just the meat. They also developed as a way to ensure food was available during scarce times like winter or long journeys, such as canned or fermented fish or veggies.
But still someone might say why spend the time growing and changing food in these ways when larger industrial players can do it for us? Why spend time fermenting cabbage, kale, and carrots to use as a condiment when Kraft has a whole shelf of different mustards that we could use instead? Why spend time making syrup and jams when Smucker's can provide us with the staples? And finally, why spend time preserving produce when we can just get it shipped from California and Mexico during the winter time?
Salsa, mustard pickles, and jam (in front), pickled beets, and dill pickles (behind).
When we learn about different food cultures and traditions and furthermore, taste them, maybe even try to recreate them, we help keep those cultures and traditions and skills alive. This food diversity in a world that's slowly becoming more homogenous, globalized, and processed is critical to keeping our food systems resilient. Why? It promotes agricultural diversity because it creates a demand for a more diverse food market. It keeps valuable food skillsets alive employing people to maintain their heritage and strengthening local economies.
Selling produce at the Students' Union Farmers Market in September 2014 - in other word, getting money for services rendered in our local community! That exchange of $5 bills is keeping jobs alive and contributing to the local economy.
So eat a pickle. Hell, make a pickle. Try some kimchi from the Farmers' Market, try to make jam from berries you pick next fall, or learn about the benefits of raw milk. As Rebecca Roberts from Sustainable Food Trust implores: step outside your comfort zone and revolt against the processed, industrial food status quo by encouraging and supporting localized food traditions and practices in your neighbourhood.
Fresh and dried herbs and seasonings being sold at the market.
Prairie Urban Farm has invited Johwanna from Edmonton-based Mojo Jojo Pickles & Preserves to come out and demonstrate how to preserve our fruits and vegetables through canning, fermenting, and drying. We'll be holding this demonstration on Wednesday, February 11th, 2015 from 7 - 8:30 PM in Edmonton Clinic Health Academy (ECHA) 1-490 at the University of Alberta. This event is open to anyone and admission is by donation. There will be a draw that you can enter to win the products that Johwanna will preserve right in front of us. Get your foot in that door to the world of pickles and preserves. Hope to see you there!
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