Great Ideas from a Sustainability Breakfast

By Julia

This morning I went to a Sustainability Network Breakfast at the River Cafe on local food. SOLEfood was mentioned, which I thought was really cool. Apparently SOLEfood is the largest urban agriculture project in North America. On their website they describe themselves as "SOLEfood Farm is a social enterprise that provides urban agriculture employment and training opportunities for Vancouver’s inner-city residents..."
 See http://1sole.wordpress.com/  .

Although Calgary faces its own challenges to growing food, I thought the concept might give some food for thought on what this garden could evolve into.

Inspiration from Other Gardens

By Julia Ko

http://canmorecommunitygarden.blogspot.ca/

In 2010 to 2012, I was the secretary of the Canmore Community Garden Society. This is a really neat group of volunteers with an exceptionally active community. The have a unique wild life safe permaculture garden with some fantastic learning events.

Take a look at their blog!

Beginnings of the Garden

Spring is in the air, and so is gardening. Congratulations Sunnyside, you have a shared community garden. Please see our "About" page for more information. For the most part, a shared garden is a shared effort. Food grown by growers is shared among growers and a portion of what is grown will be shared with the broader Calgary community.

How did this all happen?
Sunnyside has wanted a garden for a while, and after several unsuccessful applications, a group of 18 volunteers helped make this garden happen last April 2012. We didn't have very much time plan or mobilize the larger Sunnyside Community, so we decided to build a small portion of the lot near Memorial first for this season. We are sorry if we missed you in building and designing the garden in the very beginning, but we hope you'll join us as we expand next year.

What is the current setup ?
We have four raised beds with soil donated by the City. I know, raised beds maybe boring, but I am sure we can create something more fantastic next year. We think 10 people per bed is more than enough to share the responsibility and harvest, so this year we're restricting membership to 40 people. To be involved, please email us at sunnysideshared@gmail.com

Harvest will be shared among growers and with the community on harvest days. This is not your traditional garden, but this is what makes it fun and interesting.

Minutes: May 13, 2012

Attending: 11 people

Agenda:
1.       Membership
a.       Divide membership into a Decision-Making Committee by consensus (10 to 20) and Broader Community (40)
b.      Why 40 max for Broader Community? 10 people per bed more than enough
c.      For Harvest Day: Will be developed as organization develops. For now, we will have a harvest day to decide food for whom and what because we may not be able to grow much this year (i.e. threats from weather like hail, animals like squirrels, people?)
d.      Two from Decision-Making Committee per day for oversight (i.e. the garden needs to be watered every day),

i. Committee in charge of their day for oversight.

ii. Committee member decides how to organize the maintenance day.

iii. Each Committee member tracks attendance of Broader Community

iv. Two Committee members per day = can alternate per week

2.       Website
a.       Post application
b.      Post membership structure
c.       Post minutes without names of committee but numbers

3.       Schedule for Maintenance
Ask Jim to send instructions on how to turn on water and watering

Schedule for Watering and Weeding (as needed)
a.       Monday—Lisa Peter and Kai
b.      Tuesday—Gerald and Kerri
c.       Wednesday—Richard
d.      Thursday –Janice and Megan
e.      Friday—Julia & ?
f.        Saturday –
g.       Sunday--

4.       Composting / maybe workday
Tabled until we need it. Maybe for a work day