Category — bc

July 24/25 - Small Farm Skills in Roberts Creek - Good basic skills! Take one class or take them all. Congenial camping ($5 a night per person), take in the beach or a restaurant while you’re on the coast. Contact Robin at info@ediblelandscapes.ca to register or for more info.

Saturday July 24

11:30 – 1 pm Hand Tool Maintenance and Repair (Instructor TBA)
Although we presently live in the day when it costs more to buy a new handle than to replace the broken hand tool, this might not always be the case. Our instructor will first show us how to prolong the life of our tools, then show several techniques for replacing handles using old and freshly made examples. $25

1:30 to 3:00 Year Round Gardening with Robin Wheeler
What does it take to eat our own garden food for as much of the year as possible? This is as much a space/time mapping exercise as anything, and Robin will guide us through the steps it will take to plan this wide spectrum food garden, and we will address storage issues. $25

3:30 to 5 pm Intro to Bee Keeping with Martin Cook - off site (directions provided)
Get all your basics in this class – life cycle of the bee, equipment required, siting and maintenance of the hive, a year in the life of a hive, diseases and predators, and more. See an active site and taste some results. Martin Cook is an experienced bee handler and honey producer. $25

Sunday July 25

10:00 – 11:30 Improving your Soil with Alain Bergeron
Alain turned a raw forest clearing into a fine and productive working market garden using everything he could find around him. He will discuss quick soil analysis and materials needed for correcting typical soil issues, and will get everyone working on a patch of ground trying out his methods! $25

11:45 – 12:45 Plant Nursery Skills with Robin Wheeler
We know that if we want to cover our landscape with lots of healthy plants, we need to know how to propagate and then how to tend many plants in pots. We will learn about soil mixture, pot size, overwintering and water problems. $20

2 pm – 3:30 Advanced Bee care with Al Cobbin
The new bee keeper will want to keep improving their knowledge. Master Bee Keeper Al will discuss swarming, disease issues, comb or chunk honey, granulation and seasonal preparations and more. $25.M

June 19/20 - Herb Weekend These classes are directed towards the beginner, to help round out recognition and other early skills. Held on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in the informal and relaxing gardens of Edible Landscapes. Take one class or take them all. Good learning, good networking, good fun. Some camping available ($7 a night).

Saturday, June 19

10:00 – 12:00 Herb Walkabout with Robin Wheeler
This is an introduction to many of the herbs used in folk medicine. We will observe, smell and taste dozens of plants, and participants can take leaf samples and photographs for their records. We will learn about some highlights and cultivation issues. $25

12:00 – 1:00 brown bag or order $4 snack lunch with beverage

1:00 – 3.00 – Introduction to Herbal Medicine with Robin Wheeler
Poultices, salves, tinctures and oils – what are they made of, how are they used, and why are choices made in this way? We will also learn about solvents and learn why understanding solvents is key to knowing how to free medicinal constituents for our use. $25

3:15 – 4: 30 Herbal First Aid Kit with Julie Starsage and Robin Wheeler
Learn to quickly recognize the plants around you that will slow bleeding, draw out foreign bodies and protect from infection. Learn what can be dried and packaged for quick use when the plants are dormant. $20

Sunday, June 20
10 – 12.00 - Native Use of Herbs with Cymba
Consisting of in-the-field plant identification, discussing traditional and contemporary uses of these plants. Food, medicinal and ceremonial uses will be covered as well as ecologically sustainable harvesting techniques. A hands-on component will include topical salves making (everyone will leave with a traditional medicine). $25

12:00 to 1:00 – bag lunch or $4 snack lunch and beverage.

2:15 – 3:45 Eastern Classification of herbs based on Observation with Julie Starsage
Learn the general patterns of plant use from a Chinese and Ayurvedic perspective through colour, taste, smell, parts used, and the season grown and harvested.. Examples are yellow coloured roots for digestive issues, summer flowers for fevers and infections, arial parts for the upper part of the body. $25

4:00 – 5:15 - Herb Harvesting and Storage with Robin Wheeler
Original placement of plants, exact day and time of harvest – these important points lead to a powerful herb that keeps its medicine intact for a long time. Learn proper techniques for berries, flowers, leaves, roots and seeds. $20

Biographies:
Julie Starsage completed a course in Professional Herbalism through East West School of Herbology in 99 and in West Coast Wildcrafting in 2000 through Douglas College. She has a diploma of Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine which included 1,445 hours of Chinese Herbalism from Oshio College. She is owner of Sage Mountain TCM in Wilson Creek, practicing as a Registered Acupuncturist as well as spending time in the garden and raising two small children.

Cymba (Robert Vincent) spent several years living and learning his lore with a First Nations group on Vancouver Island. He is proficient at wildcrafting and also teaches native technology classes. He has led many guided walks and educational tours in the lower mainland. He is also a carver.

posted by Robin Wheeler

Hi, all -

Still a few spaces left in the Wild Weekend May 8 and 9th at Roberts Creek…register soon! Meanwhile, back at the ranch …I’m looking forward to our next weekend of workshops coming on May 14 & 15. Take one workshop or take them all. Looking forward to hearing from you, Robin

May 14/15/16 Roberts Creek - Bush Farming

New farmers are still seeking bushland to cultivate, without having any real experience in clearing land or making design decisions. This weekend offers basic skills often overlooked but necessary. Take the time to learn some unspoken laws, have some fun with rocket stoves, network with others, meet mentors and to Unhook with Peter Light.

Friday, May 14

6:30 – 8:30 pm- Creating Dimension lumber with the Mini Mill with Rob Corlett

It is hugely satisfying to create a stack of lumber from logs on your own property. Rob will show you finished products from his mill, and how to analyse a log for best use. He will guide you through safe use of the mill, proper stacking techniques and maintenance of the mill and chain saw. $25

Saturday, May 15

9:30 – 11:00 Woodlot Selection with Rob Corlett

Someday we will have to make decisions on how to “manage” a small woodlot for maximum yield. Rob will talk to us about light, spacing, disease, preservation of wildlife trees, watching property margins, and how to fall small trees so that we end up with the best spacing for firewood. $25

11:15 – 12:30 Post Setting with Rolef Ohlroggen

Whether keeping food competitors out or keeping animals in, we need fences. Many skills get learned the hard way. Most of us will inherit old fences or want to set new ones, and the proper setting of a post is an important art in the skill set of bush living. Rolef will show us how to interpret failure of old posts, how to choose new ones for the job, how to set in soil, how to save an old post using metal spikes. $25.

1:30 - 3:00 - A Farm is Born with Robin Wheeler

From logged forest to planet-friendly multiuse property, Robin will describe the steps she took to map the big picture - decide on a well type, position sheds, create fencing, bring in “recycled” housing and begin the gardens – all part time and on a shoe-string. $25

3:30 – 5:30 - TBA

6:00 pm - Shared dinner – contribute, or help clean up.

Sunday, May 16

9:30 – 11:00 Creating a Bush Market Farm with Alain Bergeron Off site – directions provided on registration.

Alain bought cleared land in the forest and spent months gathering seaweed, coffee grounds and leaves to improve the soil. He dug an irrigation pond, rigged up a propane shower and raised his family in a bus while building up his market farm that now produces hundreds of pounds of food a year. $25

11:30 am to 1 pm Rocket Stove Workshop ~ build your own camp stove! With Nadi Fleschhut

Understanding the basics of fuel-efficient, low-emission stove design. In this workshop we will explore the basic concepts of fuel-efficient stove design by building a zero-cost wood burning portable camping stove made from recycled cans. We will study the “rocket elbow” design of Dr. Larry Winiarski, and learn about the main principles that all rocket stoves employ to create the best circumstances for a high-efficiency wood burn that minimizes pollution and increases heat transfer. I’ll also introduce the concept of the “hay-box” as a complementary tool to minimize energy use by allowing the food to ‘cook itself’. You will go home from this workshop with your own little camp stove with which to impress your friends, and a good introduction to the concepts of fuel-efficiency. Please bring work gloves (as we’ll be working with snips and tin cans), tin snips if you have them, a notebook, and your joy of learning.

1:30 to 3:30: How to Unhook with Peter Light (off site – 2692 Highway 101)

How to stop doing what you don’t want to be doing and start doing what you do what to be doing. A discussion group tailored to the needs of each participant exploring what it means to disengage from the dominate paradigm traps of the mother culture by turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Based on the life experience of the instructor and feed-back from course members. Oriented around permaculture.

Sunday afternoon: 4:00 - 6:00: A tour of the instructors developing permaculture, showing, step by step how he is reclaiming two and a half acres of blackberry with no machinery and no digging; developing and executing a permaculture design; and planting and tending it, all with a minimum of labour and a maximum of enjoyment. But one does have to work! We’re not kidding around here! And as spring rockets into growth, ten and twelve hour days were the rewarding price of self-sufficiency and freedom, month after month.  It is how one lives a day if one is a permaculture homesteader. Now, at 67, the instructor is trying to get it down to 2-8 hours a day. Sliding scale - $30 - $45.

A prerequisite for each course it to read the segment of the instructor’s autobiographical sketch to be found at http://slas.ca/peter-light/

6:30 to 7:00 - Cook-out around the doorstep firecircle

7:30 onward - firecircle hang-out.
Soup, beer and wine provided by the instructor.

Register with Robin: info@ediblelandscapes.ca or call 604-885-4505

Join one or all six of these workshops by Robin Wheeler about food security, apartment gardening, and community. They are specially oriented toward urban dwellers living in apartments in Vancouver.

Green Millennium Foundation (GMF), Village Vancouver (VV), and West End Residents Association (WERA) are proud to present Robin Wheeler (www.ediblelandscapes.ca), author of Food Security for the Faint of Heart, and Gardening for the Faint of Heart, and founder of a local organic growers’ group (www.onestraw.ca) and the Sustainable Living Arts School (www.slas.ca) in a series of workshops on the food-secure household, gardening, food growing, and community organization, targeted especially for residents of the West End. The workshops will be held on one Sunday and two Saturdays at the West End Community Centre in Vancouver.

April 11 (Sun) 10:00-11:30 am THE FOOD SECURE HOUSEHOLD
April 11 (Sun) 11:45-1:30 am APARTMENT GARDENING
May 1 (Sat) 9:15-10:30 am — FOOD DIRECTED EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
May 1 (Sat) 10:45 am- 12:15 pm — SEED SAVING IN THE CITY
June 5 (Sat) 9:15-10:45 am — FOOD PRESERVATION
June 5 (Sat) 11:00 am-12:30 pm — INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY - SHAPES IN SHARING.

Price: $15 per workshop. Anyone who registers for all six workshops will receive a bonus gift of their choice of either of Robin’s books.

Registration. Register online (www.westendcc.ca), in person, or by calling (604-257-8333). You can download the Spring 2010 Guide. See page 22!