SLUGS August Update

This summer has been packed full of exciting SLUGS projects and workshops. We've had our regular weekly workshops where we learned everything from honey beekeeping to seedsaving to making cob sculptures to the future of farming and food security. We also partnered up with several great local groups such as VIRCS, the Pathway Project, and Lifecycles to offer day and week-long summer camp programs on growing food in the city for youth from ages 12-35! It has been a whirlwind of fun and it doesn't stop here - this fall is packed full of awesomeness. Read on to find out what is coming up...

Herbalism Workshop

When: Thursday, August 26th from 4-6:30 pm

Who: Youth ages 12-18

Where: Compost Eduction Centre. 1216 North Park St.

What: Join Reed Osler, Park Naturalist with CRD Parks for an introduction to making medicinal teas from everyday garden and forest plants. Call Kim (250-386-9676) to register! 

Canning Workshop

When: Tuesday, August 24^th from 5:20-8:45 pm

Where: Fairfield Community Centre Kitchen (Gary Oak Room)

Who:  SLUGS and Lifecycles volunteers UNDER AGE 30

What: The workshop will be semi-hands-on covering the basics of water bath canning. We’ll be making plum blackberry jam with Fruit Tree Project yellow plums and blackberries brought by participants.

There is no cost for this workshop, but participants are expected to bring 2 litres of blackberries to contribute. Call Kim (250-386-9676) to register as THERE IS LIMITED SPACE and we can’t accommodate drop-ins.

Native Plant Gardening Workshop

When: Thursday, September 2nd from 4-5:30 pm

Where: Compost Ed. Centre

Who: Youth ages 12-18

What: Want to grow a garden that is beautiful, attractive to wildlife and birds, is hardy against disease and drought, needs very little maintenance and rarely needs watering? Compost Ed. Centre Staff Marika and Marion will delve into the land of native plant gardening and teach us how to integrate native plants into our gardens! Call ahead to register. 

Putting the Garden to Bed Workshop

When: Thursday, September 9th from 4-5:30 pm
Where: Compost Ed. Centre
Who: Youth ages 12-18
What: Learn how to prepare your garden for winter by mulching, pruning back perennials, building compost and sowing overwintering crops!

Cheesemaking Workshop

When: Thursday, September 16^th from 3:45-6:45 pm

Where: Fairfield Community Centre Kitchen (Gary Oak Room)

Who: SLUGS and Diggers (any age)

What: Cheesemaking workshop with Daveed where we will make a variety of cheeses from surface ripened soft cheeses to fresh cheeses and more! Workshop is $5 donation to help cover kitchen rental and materials. Call Kim (250-386-9676) to register.

SLUGS Harvest Party and “Barn Dance”

When: Thursday, September 23^rd from 5:30-8:30 pm

Where: Orange Hall in Fernwood

Who: Anyone remotely involved in the SLUGS program (volunteers, participants, workshop instructors, and friends and family of everyone!)

What: It’s our SLUGS graduation harvest party! Come join us for apple-bobbing, potlucking, square dancing, apple juicing, knowledge sharing, and some great live music as we celebrate the end of the SLUGS program and the youth who have taken part. Bring friends, partners, roommates, your dancing shoes and a home-grown potluck item to share.

Plant Propagation with Geoff Johnson

When: Thursday, November 18^th from 4:30-6:30 (time may change to accommodate your schedule!)

Where: Compost Ed. Centre Strawbale Bldg.

Who: SLUGS and Diggers

What: Learn about hardwood cuttings and the basics of perrenial propagation in this workshop with Geoff Johnson. Space is limited so call Kim ahead of time to register (250-386-9676). Cost is $5 per person.

Other Workshops…

We’re also planning to have a workshop on growing Garlic and Mushrooms in October, but are looking for a mushroom-cultivating expert to teach! If you know of anyone please let us know. When we find him/her we’ll send you the details on when and where.

 

This Week (June 10) Boulevard Gardening

Our garden has exploded with growth in the past month so we will kick start this workshop with a garden exploration activity to discover what’s growing. We’ll then walk a few blocks away to the Haultain Commons – a boulevard garden created as a public space for folks in the neighbourhood to grow food and learn to garden. Rainey Hopewell, the garden instigator, will give us a tour of the site and talk about why gardening on public land is so valuable for our community!

The month of the SLUG

April is the official "month of the slug" and the SLUGS program has been busy celebrating! Here are some photos of what we have been up to and a list of workshops and fieldtrips coming up.

During a workshop on greenhouses we rapidly constructed a small hoop greenhouse called a "cloche". The cloche will be used to start seedlings and later grow heat-loving veggies such peppers and eggplants. Building a cloche is incredibly easy and we had the whole thing built in under 15 mins!

Here we are at Spring Ridge Commons going for a tour of an urban food forest. The commons grows everything from mulberries to cherries, figs to seabuckthorn, willow for weaving and herbs for healing. It is an amazing place to learn from, eat from, and relax in. Check it out at the corner of Gladstone and Chambers in the heart of Fernwood.

After our tour of Spring Ridge, April Mallet and Ben Geselbracht of the Boys and Girls Club Metchosin farm led us in a workshop on Planning a Food Forest. Here we are trying out our garden designing skills as we plan out part of a food forest! On April 24th we will head out their site in Metchosin to plant the food forest we designed! 

 UPCOMING WORKSHOPS AND FIELDTRIPS...

Fieldtrip: Planting a Food Forest - Saturday, April 24^th

Last week we had the chance to research and design part of a food forest for the Metchosin Boys and Girls Club Farm. On this fieldtrip we’ll be heading out to Metchosin to plant the food forest we designed! It will be a super fun day of planning, planting, and potlucking. Bring your gumboots and a vegetarian dish to share.

Chickens in the City - Thursday, April 29^th

Ever wanted a pet that can give you food, eat your food scraps, pull your weeds, fertilize your soil, and hunt slugs in your garden? Well, chickens aren’t exactly pets but they are a great addition to an urban back yard! Come to the centre to meet local chicken expert Marilyn Soames and a few of her guest chickens for this introduction to keeping chickens in the city.

Gardening in Small Spaces - Thursday, May 6^th

Not everyone has a big yard to grow food in. For those of us with apartment balconies and small garden plots, making use of tiny areas can be tricky. In this workshop we’ll explore how to use small areas in the most effective way. We’ll cover indoor worm composting, growing food in pots, and making use of vertical space.

Food Forests and Tasty Trees  - Thursday, May 13^th

Geoff Johnson will be taking us on a tour of Spring Ridge Common to check out this amazing urban food forest. We’ll then wander down to his garden a few blocks away to learn about trees and shrubs that provide food, shelter, tools, mulch, and so much more.

Gardening for Market - Thursday, May 20^th

We’ll be taking a walk down to City Farm to join Angela Moran in her urban garden. She runs a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box program in the heart of the city and supplies our neighbourhood with delicious organic produce. Come on down to learn about ways to market produce and help Angela harvest produce for market.

Winter Veggie Gardening – Thursday, May 27^th

Did you know that we live in one of the few areas in Canada where we can grow food all year round? In this workshop we’ll look at how to plan and grow a winter vegetable garden.  We’ll sow some seeds and dream of the delicious food we’ll be eating next January.

Fieldtrip: Community Supported Agriculture Farm Tour – Saturday, May 29^th

Join us for a tour of a Saanich Organics farm to see a market garden in action! We’ll learn about the large box program they run that supplies dozens of households with healthy organic produce every week. We might even have the chance to help out and get our hands dirty!

March Update

Spring has sprung and the SLUGS youth and staff are busy getting prepared for the season ahead! In the first month of the program we were introduced to this awesome concept called Permaculture and have been starting to rethink what it means to have a sustainable food system. We've been sowing seeds, designing our veggie gardens, and getting inspired by local farmers on our fieldtrip to Ragley Farm (thanks to Susan, Vivi & Josie!). We have some awesome workshops and fieldtrips coming up, so keep on reading to find out what is in store for March...

Thursday, March 11  4:00-6:00 pm

Sheet Mulching Workparty! Ever heard of “lasagna” gardening? Nope, unfortunately lasagna doesn’t grow on trees, but you can build your soil in layers that make it look a bit like lasagna! Come discover how to create a no-dig sheet mulch in your garden. We’ll be layering manure, compost, veggie scraps, cardboard, straw, leaves and other delicious materials to create healthy garden beds without having to ship in soil. There’s no cost for this workshop and all are welcome! Bring your gloves and gumboots because we will definitely get dirty!

Thursday, March 18  4:00-6:30 pm

Community Mapping Where is your favourite chill-out spot?  Are there hidden pockets of fruit trees in your neighbourhood?  Unused soil that could be growing food?  Piles of leaves to jump in – or turn into a lasagna garden?  What is your vision for your neighbourhood?  In this workshop we will be creating maps of our communities, based on what YOU think should be on a map, and what resources might be just around the corner for our gardens and compost piles.  These maps might be just the beginning of bigger maps for your use and for green city and neighbourhood maps. We’ll finish off this workshop with an intro to Brassicas and Legumes. Come find out what plants are in these families and how to grow them!

Thursday, March 25  4:00-6:30 pm

Blogging and Photographing Your Garden  We’re teaming up with the Power of Hope (www.powerofhope.org) to bring you this exciting workshop on how to use social media to record and share your gardening experience! Learn how to use photography, writing, and personal stories to create journals and blogs that will show how you and your garden evolves over time and will inspire others along the way.

FIELD TRIP: Saturday, March 27

Eco-Sense Come meet Ann and Gord Baird and visit their beautiful cob home just outside of Victoria. You’ll have the chance to see their solar and wind power systems, green roof, composting toilets, greywater systems, amazing cob structures and organic gardens. We’ll be having a potluck picnic out there and checking out another farm en route. Take a look at photos of Eco-Sense at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eco-sense/sets/72157600040396645. This workshop is available for youth who have attended our Thursday workshops. For more info and registration, give us a call at 386-9676.   Thursday, April 1st Befriending Weeds and Pests Weeds often get a bad rap in our culture. What we often don’t see is all the amazing services these tenacious little suckers provide for us. Just a few of these benefits include holding topsoil, pulling up water and nutrients, providing food, and helping control insects. Many weeds are also good for our health, providing nutritious food and medicine! In this workshop, join our guest presenter Alix Link as she takes us on an adventure to identify common weeds, discover practical uses for them, and enjoy a tasting of edible weeds. We’ll also be meeting plants in the Solanaceae family! Don’t know what this means? Come check out the workshop to find out!

Here's an updated workshop schedule. Changes are highlighted in yellow. *** Note that the workshops on March 18th and 25th have been switched but not updated on this schedule.***

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Any youth aged 15-18 who want to come to a workshop are welcome to drop in for $5 a session. Saturday Fieldtrips are for open to folks who have attended some of our Thursday workshops and are $10 for drop-in. To register or get more info, give us a shout at 250-386-9676!

From the Straw Bale Hut

I have the great pleasure of being a story-keeper for the SLUGS program, ‘documentation facilitator’ I believe we’re calling it. I think that witnessing the evolution of a new program is as exciting as watching a garden move through the seasons, each week brings new growth – visible in the moment…or not. The arc of a program, or the evolution of a vegetable garden is sometimes better seen from a distance, through a series of vignettes that remind us of our journey, ‘oh my goodness, I can’t believe that we’ve come so far’.

This is what I’m doing here, planting small snapshots of the program as it develops and unfolds (and doing my very best to use earth-friendly metaphors along the way, you’ll notice).

This evening I attended the second ever SLUGS workshop, hosted by Nashira, Kim, and Marika attended by Jen, Kim and Caleigh, and guested by Steve, a Times Colonist reporter. The topic? From the Ground Up: Soil and Compost. Let me ask you something, when you think of the world’s natural resources, do you ever think of soil? I tend to think of oil, wood, water, you know, things that newspapers talk about. Nashira and Kim had a wealth of knowledge to share with the group, and did it all while we, the participants, had our fingers plunged in samples of soil from our own gardens. We listened to soil, we made ‘ribbons’ of soil, and we pH tested our soil. This is hands-on stuff. The 3 SLUG members, between 16 and 18 years, were alert, interested, and seemed to connect their learning with their own garden plots and plans. This is amazing – after a full day of school, to participate wholly in more learning takes a special kind of person, and a lot of motivation. I overheard the reporter asking what drew the members in to the program. The will to actually practice environmental action, to relearn the skill of growing food that we seemed to have lost a generation or two ago, to prepare for their future plans, I’m pretty sure the list goes on. I felt so lucky to share a room full of such humble passion and motivation. YES SLUGS, YES!

I look forward to the journey ahead with you all! (and by the way, there is still lots of room to join the program, and YES you can drop in when you have a free Thursday afternoon – what a dream ☺ )

~Leanna Platt

The program now has a drop-in option!

Hello Friends of SLUGS!

Drop-in SLUGS

Too busy to do SLUGS??  Exciting news!  You can now take the SLUGS workshops without committing to the whole Feb-Sept season.  Anyone can come at any time. (Cost for drop-in is $5).  Check out the workshop line-up below to pick out the workshops you want to do!

Cheaper SLUGS!

We got a grant!! Now, you can also join up for the Full Season at anytime for only $175!! - with bursaries available

Field Trips

For full-season participants or folks who regularly come to workshops, there will be seven awesome Saturday fieldtrips to local farms, ecovillages, and gardens to check out what is happening around Victoria. (See line-up below.)

Why the Change?

We received a lot of feedback from youth that they were super excited about the program, but too incredibly busy with school and clubs and all the amazing stuff that you are all committed to already.  This way, you can come when it works for you – and bring friends to join in the fun!

Also, we received 2 generous grants from the Lifecycles Project Society and VanCity enviroFund, which has allowed us to expand and improve the program and make it more accessible to anyone who wants to take part!

Wait, what is SLUGS again?

Sustainable Living and Urban Gardening Skills

-       A fun season of growing food and learning to live green in the city!

-          Weekly workshops (4-6:30pm Thursdays)

-          Monthly fieldtrips

-          Help starting up your own garden (= free food!)

-          Community projects

-          Leadership/volunteer hours

-     Fun, friends, food!

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Last-minute applications & Donations

The SLUGS application deadline has now passed, but we are still accepting late applications from those last-minute folks who are still interested. Email it (sitemgr@compost.bc.ca), fax it (250-386-9678), or drop it by our office (1216 North Park St). Spring is fast approaching and so is the program start date, so send your applications in as soon as you can.

We'd like to extend a big thank you to two generous organizations for their support of SLUGS! Stellar Seeds in Sorrento, B.C. has donated a huge box of organic heritage seeds to the program for the youth to use this season and they look amazing. Vancity enviroFund generously awarded a grant to help support the SLUGS program and all our projects, gardens, fieldtrips, and events! A huge thank you to both of them, their support is deeply appreciated.

And if YOU would like to support us, we would gladly accept in-kind donations! Gardening can be a tool-intensive and expensive passion to take up, so we are looking for donations of good quality, good condition tools and other supplies for the SLUGS program. If you have any of the below items and would like to donate them to us, please us at call 250-386-9676!

o       Secateurs (hand pruners), pruners & pruning saws

o       Digging forks, shovels, hand trowels

o       Hoes, swoes & shears

o       Wheelbarrows

o       Hammers, screwdrivers, screws & nails

o       Greenhouse plastic

o       Hardware cloth (¼” – ½”)

o       Long pieces ½” – 1½” PVC piping

o       Lumber for building raised beds and compost bins

o       Garden hose nozzles, Garden hoses and irrigation supplies

o       Art supplies: pastels, acrylic paints, pencil crayons, drawing paper, blank journals