By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:51:18-07:00September 30th, 2015|Categories: Food Program, Workshops|0 Comments
Are you afraid of your Pressure Canner?
It’s the safest way to can tomatoes – let us teach you how to use it!
This is a hands on class for beginners (and everyone else). You’ll get to take home a jar of tomato sauce
Sunday – September 20th – 5pm-8pm at the S. Hall. Sliding scale $10-$20
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:49:18-07:00September 30th, 2015|Categories: Community Meals, Food Program|0 Comments
Come join us at the South Hall for a raucous evening of games with your friends and neighbours!
Bring your favourite board game to share with others. (No e-games please.) There will be Scrabble, Apples to Apples, Cards, Catan, Chess, Game of Life, Othello, Trivia, Crib and more…
We will have snacks and a simple supper. Tonight we have Healthy Turkey Chili with Molasses Sunflower Bread, Cheesy Baked Beans, lots of pizza, green salad with Donuts for desert. Everyone is welcome!
The price is right!
Suggested donation: $8. Volunteers needed.
This project is funded by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons federal government, through New Horizons for Seniors Program.
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:45:03-07:00August 31st, 2015|Categories: Community Picnic, Food Program|0 Comments
The Galiano Community School & Activity Centre Sep 13, 2015 12-4pm rain or shine
Come join your neighbours, bring a friend, meet someone new. Share a favourite dish, stories, games and live music. Last year was a blast! Celebrate the end of a great summer. Everyone, young and old, is welcome. Bring your best pie to the contest table and let’s see who bakes Galiano’s Best Pie of 2015!
Please remember to bring and wash your own dishes, cutlery and cup.
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:41:41-07:00July 31st, 2015|Categories: Food Program, Workshops|0 Comments
Come join us for a fun afternoon of pickling. We’ll be putting up whatever’s ready – probably beans and beets. Sunday August 23rd at 1pm at the South Community Hall. Beginners and experienced picklers are welcome. Kitchen has sliding scale of $10-$20. Please bring at least 4 500ml canning jars. Please RSVP to attend this class
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:38:22-07:00July 31st, 2015|Categories: Food Program, Workshops|0 Comments
Galiano summers yield an amazing variety of tree fruits and berries, available from our farmers, through our Gleaning program and in your own backyard. Making jam is a great way to capture the taste of summer in a jar to brighten up those dark winter days.
Making jam can be daunting if you’ve never tried it. But there are different methods, and some are very easy. In this class we will be using commercial pectin and the only skills needed are the ability to measure a few cups of fruit, and the ability to time a boil—skills everyone has. That’s it. No thermometers, no wrinkle tests. Using some commercial pectins also gives you the freedom to use honey or skip the sugar all together—things not possible with traditional long boil jams.
Class costs $15 sliding scale. Register at galianofoodprograms@gmail.com
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:35:58-07:00July 31st, 2015|Categories: Community Meals, Food Program|0 Comments
Come join us at the South Hall for a raucous evening of games with your friends and neighbours!
Bring your favourite board game to share with others. (No e-games please.) There will be Scrabble, Apples to Apples, Cards, Catan, Chess, Game of Life, Othello, Trivia, Crib and more…
We will have snacks and a simple supper. Everyone is welcome!
The price is right!
Sliding scale $5-$10. Volunteers needed.
This project is funded by the Government of Canada’s New Horizons federal government, through New Horizons for Seniors Program.
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:32:02-07:00July 31st, 2015|Categories: Cheese Club, Food Program|0 Comments
We are going to be making Camembert and Dream Cheese in oil.
Check out both recipes on David’s web site: http://thewayofcheese.com/2013/02/14/camembert/
You must RSVP if you want to come. I must limit the class size.
Class is $15-$20 sliding scale.
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:29:16-07:00June 30th, 2015|Categories: Food Program|0 Comments
Last month, Colleen painted a bucolic picture of life with chickens that had me seriously considering adding a few to my backyard barnyard. Then I remembered why I have ducks.
For me, the absolute number one selling feature of ducks is that they adore slugs and snails. Now, when I find a slug in my garden (which is rarer all the time), instead of swearing under my breath, I call my ducks, and watch them flap over to enjoy their favourite treat. My Muscovies also eat mosquitoes and wasps out of the air. They are fantastic garden companions—I wouldn’t let them in when I have young lettuces or strawberries but at the right time they do a very efficient job of cleaning up. They eat almost any pest, and don’t scratch, so they generally don’t disturb garden plants, and are actually quite gentle. One result of their voracious appetite for garden pests is that they forage a fair portion of their diets, which keeps down the feed bill. And unlike chickens, their manure doesn’t need to ‘rest’ before you apply it to the garden.
While duck eggs may not be to everyone’s taste, to me they’re just more of the best parts of an egg. They’re bigger and richer than chicken eggs, with a higher proportion of yolk per egg. Ounce per ounce, they have twice as much iron (and twice the fat and higher cholesterol). They bake up especially light and airy and are coveted by bakers as a result. And they stay fresh longer because of their thicker shells. Unlike chickens, most duck breeds don’t stop laying in the winter, and they’re productive for a longer period of their lifespan.
Ducks are often recommended as good ‘starter poultry’ because they are quite easy to care for. They are less susceptible to disease than chickens, and usually recover on their own if they do get sick. They are more cold, wet, and heat tolerant, and need less daylight. While some duck breeds need ample water, my ‘Scovies and Runner are perfectly happy with a 6.5-gallon tub.
Ducks have no pecking order and are quite social and friendly both with each other and with people. Unlike geese, they aren’t aggressive even though some breeds, like my Indian Runner drake, are frankly “all bark and no bite”, chasing me away from his hens. He has no claws to speak of, and his beak is round, so flapping and quacking at me is the worst he can muster.
Ducks are much less noisy than chickens, and drakes have no dawn crow to wake the neighbours. Their quietness can actually be a problem if you have a prowling racoon—I’ve found having a chatty drake gives me a lot more clues as to the general happiness of the flock than when I had only hens.
A final selling feature is that, to me, ducks are just so pretty. They really do move ‘all in a row’ and I love watching their parade around the yard. They manage to pull off noble and cute in one waddle.
Also, did I mention they eat slugs?
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:26:41-07:00June 20th, 2015|Categories: Food Program, Growing (Garlic Co-op, Greenhouse, Gleaning Project)|0 Comments
In February, Program Coordinator Emma Luna Davis gave a presentation at Salt Spring Island’s Seedy Saturday about the Galiano Community Food Program’s Gleaning Project. Here are the notes from that presentation.
Galiano Island Community Food Program Gleaning Project
Started in 2009, with support from the YMCA and the federal government.
WHY
Galiano has many productive gardens and hundreds of fruit trees, many of which are heritage varieties that aren’t commercially available. And while many of our landowners do make amazing use of what they produce, there is waste. Sometimes it is because the landowners may have gotten older and find climbing a ladder difficult. In other cases, the property is owned by weekenders and it can be challenging for them to make use of everything when they are only onsite for a short time, and the window of time when things are ready for picking is not very big. Sometimes, we just have a bumper season, and all of a sudden people find themselves with more than they can use. At the same time, we have many low-income households without great access to fresh produce, which can be very expensive to bring in from off-island.
We wanted to find a way to get this excess into the hands of people who need and want it, and cut down on food waste. This would be a way to reduce our dependency on produce grown off-island, and replace it with free, mostly-organic, local fruit.
The project has been a great success. The impact has been a unique opportunity to bring the community together, get to know one another, and build a sense of shared bounty and appreciation for what our island has to offer.
HOW IT WORKS
During the harvest season, we invite landowners who have a surplus to contact us. We then organize a group of volunteer pickers to meet at the property and pick. We then divide the produce into shares: 1 for the pickers, divided amongst the number of pickers we have, 1 for the landowner, and 1 that goes to the Food Program to be used in workshops or distributed to families in need. Often the landowner will decline their share or will only want a very small amount.
In 2014, we picked an incredible volume and variety of apples, pears, figs, plums, quince, corn, grapes, crabapples, and hazelnuts. We held 18 picking sessions at 10 properties, and 45 volunteers came out to pick, ranging in age from 3 months to over 70 years.
Our volunteers range from families who appreciate having access to free produce and the fun activity to do with their kids, to professional canners who access rare varieties to include in their products, to folks who use the produce to put up a big batch of preserves for the winter months, to people who just enjoy getting outside and picking as a group.
We maintain a mailing list of interested volunteers, and we send them all an invitation to pick each time there is an opportunity. Typically when we send a callout, we indicate the maximum number of people we can accommodate based on the size of the harvest and the specific situation of the site, and then we confirm with a shortlist of people who have gotten back to us. We usually don’t have to turn anyone away, but if we do they get first dibs the next time they respond.
We promote the program at our community events such as Canada Day and our annual Fiesta, with posters that we put up around the island, and through our email list.
PROFILES OF SOME OF OUR PICKING SITES
The Bellhouse, an old inn and farm, with a very well-established orchard of a variety of apples and pears. The current owner is mostly only a weekend visitor and enjoys the orchard but can’t begin to use all that comes out of it. We picked there 6 times last year.
Cable Bay Farm, which grows the best corn in the Gulf Islands. The farmers, Thomas and Henny, are very picky about what they bring to market, so once the corn is past it’s prime, or if it’s a bit too small, they invite us to pick what’s left, which is still of fantastic quality.
Page Drive, our senior living community, has one resident with an amazing huge prolific fig tree. She is no longer able to climb a ladder, so we pick her tree clean and it’s a win-win for everyone.
DISTRIBUTION
The shares of our bounty that are earmarked for households in need are distributed in several ways.
Food Program Events
The Food Program operates a number of events in the harvest season, and some of what we pick goes to these events. For example:
School Applefest
Community Kitchens
Canning and preserving workshops
Food Bank
Galiano has a small food bank operated through our church, and we bring them a portion of what we pick to give out to their users. However, our food bank is closed for July, August and September, which is the height of our program, so we usually need to use other avenues.
Health Clinic
A new idea we’ve just begun is just keeping a bowl of whatever we have fresh on the counter at the clinic for people to help themselves from, along with some information about the program and how people can get involved.
CHALLENGES
Nothing major but a few minor hiccups:
It’s challenging when we end up with unwanted excess beyond what we have the means to distribute. We’ve found it’s important to clarify how much our pickers are interested in taking home before we pick, so that we don’t pick too much.
Sometimes we have a large volume we are saving for an event and so pest-proof storage is also an issue. This year we upcycled a broken refrigerator into temporary outdoor storage by installing a few air vents.
We have to be careful stewards of the relationships with our landowners. We work hard to respect the property, only pick what we’ve been invited to pick, clean up any damaged produce, try not to leave any shares where it might attract pests, etc. and we always have one of our staff present for all picking sessions. This year we distributed seasonal gifts to our landowners of preserves that had been made by our volunteers. In the past we have had incidents where people have approached landowners to ask permission to pick before our harvesting sessions, so we no longer share the exact location of each picking very widely, only to the shortlist of volunteers who are confirmed to come out.
OVERHEAD
We have one paid staff person who coordinates and attends the pickings. We have a small list of equipment we bring:
an orchard ladder,
boxes
picking bags
picking tools
a hanging scale so we can track how much we pick
a tarp to gather the picked produce on, with taped markings to divide up into shares
Going forward
Right now things are working well. If we had more resources we might consider bringing our volunteers together to tackle two other considerations: thinning and pruning in the off season, in order to improve our harvests and the health of the trees we pick.
By Alison Colwell|2018-05-31T20:20:28-07:00May 30th, 2015|Categories: Food Program|0 Comments
In grade five I won a public-speaking contest but the head teacher didn’t care for the topic I chose: chickens. “They were too,” she paused, curled her lip and shuddered as if she had just found a slug in her shoe, “chickeny.” I found her response amusing, for I had assumed that everyone would be fascinated by chickens. Wouldn’t anyone, given the opportunity, become completely absorbed by their clucks and coos, sleep-time murmurs, broody shrieks, curious personalities, and the dynamics of the pecking order? Because I’m the same person I was three decades ago, allow me to gush about chickens, why I adore them, and why I think they help round out a homestead. They are an essential part of the process of gaining more control over one’s food production.
The eggs, with those bright orange yolks from happy chickens, are highly satisfying on many levels. The average chicken will lay about 260 eggs a year. Because we have different breeds, the egg shapes, sizes, and tones within our flock differ. With some accuracy, we can identify who laid which egg.
Chicken manure is considered one of the most desirable organic fertilizers. It is very high in nitrogen, phosphorous and potash/potassium. As a result, it is very “hot” and needs to mellow for 6-12 months prior to using or it will burn your plants. An average hen produces approximately 1 cubic foot of manure every 6 months.
Chickens are highly sociable birds. If they are out free-ranging and see us coming, they’ll clamber up the path with their barrel-chested run to greet us. When Lady Sussex needed to find a quiet place to lay, our rooster Tiny Tim followed her a respectful distance around their house, the two of them cooing softly back and forth. While she went inside the house and made herself a nest in the straw on the floor, he crouched on the other side of the hen house door, giving her privacy. Once the egg was laid, he joined her in the cacophony of clucking.
I find it meditative to have chickens around the yard. One can slip into the zone and forget time, watching the birds work their way through the grass, gobble up bugs and worms and seek out the strips of sunlight in the yard. I love to watch them work through the compost pile. They jump up, pick through any edibles, and leave their deposits exactly where they belong! While they may have a pecking order amongst themselves, they are gentle creatures amidst the landscape. I will often see them free- ranging with the deer, both species aware of the other, comfortable in each other’s presence.
Galiano has a thriving community of passionate and knowledgeable chicken-keepers. Eyes light up when chicken-keepers talk about “their girls.” Before long, we’ve spent an hour discussing the breeds, their nuances, characteristics, and the latest antics that “the kids” are up to these days.
