Consumable Earth – Kamloops

Location: Heritage House, 100 Lorne Street
Time: 10-3:00 Saturday, March 6, 2010

If you’d like a booth:
Contact person: Fawn Knox
Email: fknox@telus.net
Phone: 250.579.5768
Contact person: Leslie Welch
Email: fknox@telus.net
Phone: 250.828.2321
Sponsor: Friends of the New Victory Gardens

Seminars:

Soil Fertility — Leslie Welch 1:00

Worm Composting — Penny Powers 1:00

Prevent Pests Naturally — Leslie Welch 1:45

Planting the Veggie Garden — Jo-Lynn Forbes 1:45

Must-grow Vegetables — Ann Sutherland 2:30

Herbs — Janet Kernachan 2:30

Garden Seminars presented by the Master Gardeners & Local Experts

Refreshments will be available, kid activities are planned and door prizes will be drawn. Fun for all.

Why Urban Hens?

Growing our own food is one of the best ways that people can make an impact by become more sustainable. Vegetable gardens are a great start to producing food in your backyard but by raising egg-laying hens people can introduce a home grown protein source into their diet. It creates not only food security but food sovereignty on an individual, community and global level. It may be a small, innocuous thing to have a chicken or two or three in your back yard, but it is the principal of it that makes it important. It is having the right to provide yourself as much of your own food as possible. It will improve food security in the city. It is about allowing people the dignity to legally become as sustainable as possible in a world that is quickly moving in the other direction. It is about individuals realizing that eating locally will make a difference. It is about the freedom to use land to its full extent to feed people. And it is about empowering Kamloops citizens to become more self-reliant, more food secure, and more able to step outside in the morning and collecting their fresh, very nutritious and very local eggs.

There is a unique intrinsic satisfaction that comes with occupying one’s time and energy collecting fresh food from the land you live on. What better way to start making a positive individual and social change than in your own back yard at, literally, the grassroots level?

Read a short report on the benefits or email Bonnie Klohn at b_klohn@yahoo.com for more info.
This is a project of the Thompson Rivers University Eco Committee

For some great articles on building your own coops and general chicken care

A Winner Of CMHC’s EQuilibrium™ Sustainable Housing Demonstration Initiative

KAMLOOPS, February 13, 2009 — A Kamloops builder and developer team made up of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) Central Interior Chapter, and Thompson Rivers University, has been chosen to build one of three new CMHC EQuilibrium™ Sustainable Housing Demonstration Initiative homes, the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and Minister Responsible for Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced today.

read the full article at CMHC

Currently I have been pondering this situation as there is going to be an aquisition soon regarding the furniture that will go outdoors on our new deck. Actually three decks so there is some serious thinking to be done.

New is not an option. There just isn’t something out there that I am going to spend money on to support. Something sustainable that would last. What about iron? Steel and iron furniture will last generations and can be made from recycled materials.

Wicker or rattan options are made from the fast growing leafy part of the tree. Bamboo is another fast growing wood.

Now to find a local artist who is capable… Richmond isn’t exactly local but it’s a start.