Looking For Winter Gardeners to Help with UBC Film!

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Permalink Reply by Randy Chatterjee on October 10, 2012 at 11:21am

Sophia,
This is a great project.
A quick warning, however. Urban Food Gardening in Vancouver is very hard in the summer, due largely to our lack of a spring. Seed germination usually requires 20 degC soil temperatures for a few days, and this almost never happens until July in this city. Winter gardeners are encouraged here to sow new seed in August! This is IMHO a FALL garden. So, in short, winter gardeners here will be few and far between.
Nevertheless, humankind knows a LOT about the greenhouse effect--too much maybe--and cold frames and greenhouses can make a real difference, in all seasons. Also, simple indoor window and container gardens can be a huge learning experience and a tasty adjunct to bought food: not a whole lot of food calories, but good ones.
IDEAS: 1) Make sure you get on the BC Urban Farmer's listserv (bc-urban-farmers@googlegroups.com). If you are not on this list, I'll repost this note there for you. 2) Check out http://www.homeharvestfarms.com, a local start-up that is producing indoor, free-standing, stacked "window boxes" for apartment or any home food production. I know the owner and brains behind this green business. 3) I have several cold frames that will be used this fall and winter for food production. My kids are away at school now, but will be home for the holidays to help me eat it. 4) Village Vancouver will be running several workshops this winter on container gardening, and we can make sure you get invited and can then follow up with workshop participants to film the growth and consumption of their "learnings."
I hope you've heard from others directly.
I can be reached at randy@villagevancouver.ca
Randy

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