Urban Food Production at the Expo

It was the Transition Towns presentation on Urban Food Production today at the cathedral. There were three speakers on the subject, all taking different approaches to the problem of what to do about food in the city. I went along to have a look.

The first speaker was Sue Boyle from Operation Green Thumb, a group dedicated to setting up community gardens in the city for those people who have no access to land of their own, such as those who dwell in apartments. She spoke about soil and passed around two plastic pottles of it. She spoke about how to cultivate soil to make it living, soft and black. Fertile soil capable of passing that fertility into the plants that it nurtures. The two pottles of soil illustrated clearly the difference between healthy, living soil fed with compost and mulch, and soil that has been made barren by chemical bombardment and improper care. The group makes a planting calendar specific to Wellington's tempestuous temper, with advice on what to plant when, a guide to the moon phases and advice on things such as composting. I couldn't get one for myself today, as they were selling like hotcakes. They are $5 each and available from the Kilbirnie Commonsense Organics (7 Bay Road, Kilbirnie) or by emailing Operation Green Thumb. I highly recommend everyone interested in growing food in our fair capital to invest in one of these, not only will you be helping a great cause, but you'll be gaining a very helpful resource.

Second up was a representative from Simply Good Food CSA, unfortunately and with many apologies I have forgotten her name, that'll teach me for not taking notes, but she spoke about community supported agriculture. The idea is to forge a strong relationship and involvement between the consumer and the grower. I can forsee this becoming a very powerful and positive way to change our society's relationship to food and how it is grown. More information on what this means, presented better than I could hope to here, can be seen on their website. The 100 dollar membership fee is a one time deal and entitles you to a lifetime of membership in an initiative that may well help shape the future of food. From their website: "The Simply Good Food CSA supplies people in the Wellington and Wairarapa regions with a regular, year-round supply of quality vegetables, fruit, herbs, groceries and other seasonal foods." Sounds pretty good.

The final speaker was Sister Loyola from the Sisters of Compassion, who has been working for the last few years creating Common Ground Community Gardens. At the age of 87, she spoke with the passion and enthusiasm of someone a quarter of her age. After she retired from nursing, after a lifetime of caring for sick people, she decided to take up gardening. She had never had any time to garden until she retired. She took over the care of the grounds for the Sisters of Compassion, and in particular, paid attention to the vegetable garden, which had been left fairly bare after years of neglect. She has managed to turn the vegetable garden into a food machine. She spoke of the healing power of gardening and recommeded to anyone retiring to become a gardener and to learn something about how to work with the earth. Gardening, she says, has an incredibly beneficial effect on the body, you're outside in the sun and the fresh air, working with your hands, exercising. She says it gives you energy, mentioning a friend of hers who at 89, strengthened by her time gardening, goes dancing every second Saturday night. Quite a good inspiration to people of any age really. She spoke also of encouraging children to get involved. It teaches them many valuable skills and lessons about the processes of life, the value of natural food production, and perhaps most importantly it gets them from out in front of their TV or computer screens and gets them engaging with the world. Check out the work they do, or join up for a $10 per year fee, they have working bees every sunday.

If you have kids and are interested in getting them interested in food production, talk to their school staff and see if they have anything in place. Or if you fancy yourself a master gardener, why not pass on your knowledge and skills to a new generation by lending yourself to help kids learn to grow food. The Marlborough District Council has a pamphlet on their website about an initiative called the Kids Edible Garden programme, which "aims to teach students to grow organic edible gardens and also eat the produce they make". Check it out Also see Gardening With Kids, Kids Gardening, a couple of websites on the subject that I stumbled across.

All in all the expo seems to be going well, there were a number of people at the presentation, many lingering to sign up for newsletters and taking flyers. I left a few flyers, trying to drum up a bit of traffic. There's a lot of good information presented there, it's free, and it's running until the 19th of September 10am to 4pm at the Wellington Cathedral. So go get some information. Because with the right information you can make the right actions and the right actions can change the world.

-Fredd

freefood.org.nz

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