Community Garden Meeting Minutes

Community Garden Meeting Agenda
August 26th, 2010

1. Updates on old business:

a. Shed and Picnic Table

b. Fire Pit

c. Fencing

d. Llama Manure

e. Tool shed inventory

f. Workshops

g. CNC

h. Compost



2. New Business:

a. Blog

b. New members


Meeting Minutes – August 26th

1a. The shed has one coat of paint on it and we are waiting for the weather to clear and dry out so that we can stain the picnic table. Maureen suggested asking Mark Josephy to replace the one rotten board in the table before we stain it. If there is leftover stain we will add one more coat of stain to the shed.

1b. Fire Pit: Jodi contacted Brenda Bonin, a First Nations Support Worker at QJS regarding the fire pit. She was excited to make contact with a member from the garden and will meet with us when school goes back in September. She has applied to the school district for a small space for future education projects and plans to hold an event like they had in the spring again in late fall. The lava rocks around our flower bed are actually for the fire pit so she will take those back in the fall. Any concerns regarding this should be directed to her or Cyril Tobin at QJS.

1c. Fencing: With the additional use of the garden by QJS, fencing the area from the end of the current fence to the cement brick wall may not be the best approach as it will close off the area and may not be big enough for their gatherings. Perhaps, we should wait to proceed with this until we meet with Brenda Bonin. Maybe the school district could help us with the labour part of the fencing project as well as donate the materials?

- Maureen suggested looking into installing 6’ orange mesh fencing to keep the deer out in the meantime. The WRC staff will look into pricing for this to see how much it will cost before proceeding.

1d. Llama Manure: We need a truck to haul some llama manure. Perhaps Jean Birch may be able to help us with this. The WRC staff is very busy right now with the workshops and planning for Take Back the Night, and other projects so perhaps this could wait until mid-October or next spring?

1e. Tool Shed Inventory: Yvonne has taken an inventory of all the tools in the shed and will take pictures of the items in the shed for our records.

1f. Workshops: The next workshop at the Centre is low-cost canning on the 1st of September at 10:00 am. A workshop schedule is attached. The schedule has been sent to various organizations in town, is posted at the garden, on bulletin boards around town, on the blog, and in the bargain hunter.

1g. CNC: WRC staff will contact the CNC horticulture instructors to see when they plan to come to the garden and will let the garden members know when they will visit so they can attend. As well, staff will contact Howard Berlin to discuss whether the carpentry/framing program will build us composting bins and how much the costs will be for this as well as a time frame.

1h. Composting:
- Ellen will look into who runs the city’s composting program to see if they may be able to offer a workshop on composting for us. She will look into this after the labour dispute is settled.

- Staff will look into REAPS for more information on what they would discuss at the workshop – perhaps this could be a large community event and perhaps we could build one at or after the workshop.

- If we get plans for a composter could we hire someone to build us one?


2a. Blog: Angela has created a blog for the community garden and is working on creating a scrapbook on the blog page with pictures from the garden. It can be accessed by visiting www.qwrc.ca clicking on projects and then the community garden blog link. The link is: http://quesnelcommunitygarden.blogspot.com/

2b. New members: Need to start making contact with new volunteers and establishing a larger member base so that next year the garden can continue – especially if the WRC does not get another JCP grant for staff to help out with this. Staff will look into doing radio ads and doing an interview with ShawTV to increase community knowledge about the garden.

Other:
When Rob Borsato hosts the garlic workshop we will ask him which tomatoes are the heritage ones and perhaps we could save some seeds from them.

Garden Shed

Come on down and check out the garden shed. It has recently gotten a face lift. New stain, a little white paint, and a few funfilled hours of swinging the ol' paint brush have given it an absolutely fabulous new look. And as soon as it is dry enough again, our lovely picnic table will have the same fate.

Upcoming workshops

We are getting ready for our canning workshop next week. The garden has produced a beautiful assortment of vegetables, some of which we will be canning in this work shop. Thanks to all the volunteers who are helping, you are doing a wonderful job.
If there is anyone who has some extra vegetables in their garden, we would gladly take them.
Come join us for our workshop next week.

Herbs All Year Round

On Thursday, August 19, Pawla Moore held a very informative workshop for us at the QWRC on “Herbs All Year Round”. She explained that we should keep our garden close to the kitchen, because the less you have to walk to get there the more likely you are going to use your herbs. She helped us understand how to pick the best spot for herbs to grow and who they make great companions too. There are different ways to fertilize, Pawla recommended using manure tea (very economical) or fish fertilizer once a week. Herbs benefit greatly from being cut back every 2 weeks, it encourages their growth. To store your herbs for the winter, and best keep their flavour, any herb with a big leaf, i.e. parsley, sage, basil; should be frozen. And anything with a small leaf or that is just stems, i.e. chives, thyme, rosemary; is best dried. To dry herbs, put them in a dark warm place (approx. 80F if possible). Put them in a jar once they are dry, but don’t crush them (it makes them loose some of their flavour). To freeze herbs, cut them into an ice cube tray, add a little water to the “herb cube” and freeze. Once they are frozen, store them in a bag in the freezer for up to 6 months.


Pawla also explained how herbs are used to flavour food in everyday cooking. Different herbs complement different dishes, i.e. basil in tomato dishes, rosemary in pork dishes. One can also use herbs as an alternative to salt.

It was a great workshop with tons of excellent information on herbs.