I finally got around to planting my seeds over the weekend.  After checking the packages, it turns out that I only have to start the seedling for tomatoes, basils and watermelon indoors.  The rest I should wait until after the last frost and plant them in the garden directly.  I planted the seeds in a mini greenhouse that fits on a window sill.  Since Sunday, I’ve been eagerly checking everyday for sprouts and today, I noticed mold on the watermelon soil!  It’s only day 3 and already I’m having problems.  According to various gardening websites, the mold is probably from overwatering.  So I removed the moldy parts and opened the greenhouse. Hopefully, the mold won’t come back.

I recently read the (UK based) article “How the myth of food miles hurts the planet” from The Observer.  The premise of the article is that the environmental impact of food cannot be simply judged by its “food mile”.  

The author has three arguments. Produce from Kenya is grown using manual labour, thus more environmentally friendly, and  has a smaller carbon footprint than some British mega-farm produce even when you consider the airfreight. Buying local greenhouse lettuce is not really better than importing the field grown ones from Spain - the transportation costs are offset by the greenhouse heating costs. The local apples in August that were picked last fall use  energy to be kept cold for nine months. 

It really made me think about my local eating philosophy.  I think that an important part of eating locally is eating seasonally, and with all things in life - moderation is key.  Our main reason to eat locally is to support our local farmers and to eat fresh and tasty food.  

What’s your reasons for eating local? 

In our continuing series of “We have…”, we have a CSA. 

After much research and deliberation, we’ve signed up for a summer half share at plan b Organics.  They deliver to a depot within walking distance from our house and I look forward to walking over with Ella in the wagon to pick up our weekly farm fresh produce in the summer.

Check back next month for our “We have not…” series.

Tanny is finished her maternity leave and is busy writing lesson plans so I’m handling the blog tonight.

This weekend we all headed down to Seedy Saturday in Toronto. It was the first time for all of us and I was really blown away by how many people were there and the variety of vendors. We saw some familiar faces from the Dufferin Grove Market - the people from whom we buy our perogies and the sprouts guy and many other organic activists and entrepreneurs. We thought the stuff at the You Grow Girl booth was pretty clever and cute. She has a well written and established blog as well (as I write this I just noticed she also has a post about Seedy Saturday). Did I mention there were a lot of seeds for sale?

We talked to a guy from Seeds of Diversity. A very interesting project that is cataloguing, preserving and distributing heritage Canadian seeds. For a small donation we picked up a packet of Blanche Beaute tomatoes.

I had a very interesting chat with a women who was campaigning against terminator seeds. I must admit to being in the dark about the issue before and I’m determined to find out more information now. The quick summary from my conversation is that seed companies are creating GM seeds that will be sterile after one harvest. The upside for the seed companies is that people need to continue buying seeds year after year. You can imagine the effect of this on 3rd world farmers. For me the issue has similar ethics to big pharmaceutical companies patenting drugs. Yes, they need to be paid for their research, but at what cost? And seriously - didn’t they watch or read Jurassic Park? Those dinosaurs were supposed to be sterile as well! For more information (on terminator seeds, not Jurasic Park) see this link.

Tanny has ballet class on Saturday so we split our visit to the show into two (with lunch at Magic Oven in between). Unfortunately we didn’t get back until 2:30 and had only 30 minutes to dash around finding seeds we wanted to buy.

Here’s what we have:

• Blanche Beaute tomatoes
• McMullen tomatoes
• Sweet basil
• Black cherry tomatoes
• Mammoth melting sugar peas
• Mary Washington heirloom asparagus
  • Apparently you have to wait a year before you can eat the asparagus.
• Chanteny carrots
  • These carrots are 7″ long, 2″ wide. I grew really stubby carrots last year so I’m hoping for big ones now.
• Harris model parsnips
• Golden midget watermelon

As Tanny just mentioned to me, “we forgot we have a 5×5 plot”!

We also learned that “sweet peas” are not the same as “sugar peas” and are in fact toxic. My farmer roots are not showing here. No pun intended.

If you’re in Toronto tomorrow, don’t forget to check out Seedy Saturday! I am very excited to shop for some seeds for my garden.

Details:

Saturday, March 15, 2008, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Scadding Court Community Centre 707 Dundas St. W (southeast corner of Dundas West & Bathurst)

There’ll be vendors selling seeds and organic gardening products, free seminars and workshops.

I finally picked up the spring issue of LCBO’s Food and Drink magazine today. And I actually got a chance to flip through the whole issue – front to back. I love reading the articles and I always get inspired to try new recipes. One of the featured wines, 20 Bees Growers’ White, boasts 100% homegrown (Ontario) grapes. This reminded me of a conversation I once had with a friend who told me that wines marked “Ontario wine” can contain up to 90% imported grapes. I thought that sounded ridiculous, figured it was exaggerated and didn’t put too much thought into it. Until today. So I decided to look into and figure it out, once and for all.

Here’s the scoop (from Grape Growers of Ontario):

• If a wine is labelled VQA, it is always 100% Ontario grapes, specifically, in Niagara Peninsula, Pelee Island, Lake Erie North Shore and Prince Edward County.
• At one point in time, a wine could be labelled “Ontario” with up to 90% imported grapes. That was to compensate for a grape shortage. That was back in 1993.
• If the wine is labelled “Product of Canada”, it contains at least 75% Canadian grapes.
• If the wine is labelled “Cellared by/in …”, it contains at least 30% Ontario grown grapes.

The only wines that are guaranteed to be local (to Torontonians) are the VQA ones. That’s what Josh and I drink most of the time, specifically the ones for which I get bonus Airmiles. That’s another reason for us local eaters to buy VQA.  (Do you VQA?  Why, yes, I do!)

On a side note, there is also an article about Ontario wineries that are going “green” - “The Greening of Ontario”. Wineries are reducing their environment impact by using alternatives to pesticides, reducing bottle weight, reducing waste and using geothermal energy to heat/cool buildings. There are even organic wines! It’s always nice to learn of different industries going “green”.

In my research to find local food resources I learned of a system called Community Shared Agriculture (CSA). CSA is a food distribution system where the growers are directly connected to the consumer. The consumer subscribes to a share of the year’s harvest (i.e. pays a flat fee up front) from a local farm in early spring, and in return, the shareholder receives a box of fresh produce weekly during the growing season. The share subscription provides the farmers with the capital to purchase seeds and farming supplies, and the shareholder gets an amazing supply of farm fresh produce weekly.

The size and variety of the shares depend on the farm you purchase from. Generally speaking, the farms offer at least a large and small size share. Some farms also offer a fruit box in addition to the veggie option. At Everdale Organic Farm , shareholders also have free access to the culinary herb garden, the flower garden for fresh cut flowers, and all the beans and peas you can pick when they are in season.

I think this is a fantastic idea - it really is what local eating is all about - supporting and connecting with the people who grow my food. I do have one reservation though - I LOVE going to farmers’ markets and checking out the different vendors each week. By signing up to be a shareholder, it eliminates the need to go to the markets, hmmm….I guess I can still go for the fish and local cheeses and all sorts of other goodies. On the other hand, I’ll get to try new veggies I normally wouldn’t buy and learn new recipes. Now the next question is: who should I sign up with? There’re quite a few close to the Toronto area. To minimize the environmental impact, I should pick one that is close to home.

Here are the CSAs I’ve found in Ontario so far; they are all in our database:

Everdale Organic Farm - near Guelph

Plan b Organic Farm - near Hamilton

rare Organic Farm - Cambridge

Simpler Thyme Organic Farm - Hamilton

Thurston Organic Farm - near Lindsay

Whole Circle Farm - Acton

Click here for an in-depth article on CSA from Green Living Ideas.

To find a CSA near you, go to our Find Local Food page and choose "CSA" as the supplier type.

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve just joined The Growing Challenge started by Melinda over at ElementsInTime.com.  What a great idea!  I had planned on growing some new vegetables from seeds anyway and now I’ve found a group of people doing the same thing and sharing their experiences. Most of the participants are from the US, and they’ve got sprouts already.  I’m jealous - my yard is still covered in a foot of snow, and I think we’re getting some more tomorrow.

Here are the rules of the challenge:

1. For this challenge, you must grow one additional type of fruit or vegetable than you did last year, and grow it from seed.
2. If rule #1 is not enough of a challenge for you, you may make your own rules.
3. You must post about gardening once each week.  This could be a post about researching different plants, ordering seeds, buying pots, digging beds, planting the seeds, pruning, adding compost, all the way to preparing a meal that includes the food you grew.  

To learn more about the challenge, or if you want to join in the fun, click on the icon below:

Going to the Dufferin Grove market has become a  regular outing around here. On Thursdays, Ella and I pick up Lina and we head to the market together.  We usually share a delicious cinnamon bun from the café and walk around to check out what’s available that week. After reading an article on Andrew Akiwenzie in edible Toronto - he sells the fish he caught himself from Georgian Bay the day before the market - I was looking to buy some fresh fish from him at the market. I also wanted to buy some flour to make crackers this weekend, and some sweet potatoes. I ended up with all that and some sprouts and a loaf of lemon rosemary sourdough.

I abandoned my original dinner plan of leftover Sheppard’s pie and made supper with my market purchases.  For dinner, we had mixed green salad with broccoli sprouts, baked whitefish, steamed broccoli and bread.  Pretty good for a last minute meal.

We’re not on a strict local diet yet - the main ingredients from our dinners are usually locally sourced and I’m making a conscious choice to buy local when I’m at the grocery store.  At times it is difficult to resist buying the strawberries and blueberries, but I’m holding out for the good stuff in the summer.  Other than that, it hasn’t been too difficult and we’re eating better than ever.  I’m definitely looking forward to spring more now that it represents a new growing season - I can’t wait to start my garden this year!

With Spring being just over a month away, I’ve been thinking about what to plant in my garden this year.  In the past, I usually plant some tomatoes, bell pepper, peas and herbs.  Since researching into local foods, I’ve found a couple of places that sell heirloom vegetable seeds.  So this year, I’m going to be more adventurous in my gardening.  I plan on heading down to Seedy Saturday (a grassroots seed exchange and gardening fair) and buy myself some unusual seeds and grow them in a mini-greenhouse. 

On a side note - I found out about Seedy Saturday from an ad in a new magazine called edible Toronto - a magazine dedicated to local foods in the Toronto area.  Interesting articles and lots of good resources.  I picked mine up at the Dufferin Grove Market a few weeks ago.  You can also view the articles online.

Here are some stores that sell heirloom and/or organic seeds:

(All of these stores are in our database, you can Search by Name for more information.)

• Urban Harvest - They sell seeds, seedlings and garden supplies.  They have an online store and a nursery that operates during the growing season only.
• Clover Roads Organic Farm - has an online seed store, mostly heirloom tomato varieties.
• Everdale Organic Farm - They sell seeds at their farm store.