post
Leave a comment

Fresh Five Week 2: Celebrate Spring!

This week we got to see the the first full moon of Spring, and it was gorgeous! I hope you got to see it rising as the sun was setting. Many First Nations have traditional names for each of the 13 full moons of the year. The W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich) name for this month’s full moon is Pexsisen, the Moon of the Opening Hands or the Blossoming Out Moon, which reflects both the blossoming of flowers and budding of trees, and the open hand gesture of gratitude.

(Learn more about all the W̱SÁNEĆ moons.)

The full moon also heralds a number of religious holidays and cultural spring festivals, including Passover, which starts April 8th, and Easter on April 12. Only a couple of weeks ago, people were celebrating the Spring Equinox, Nowruz, and Ostara, with Holi shortly before that. This year, Ramadan will start on April 23. And we’re right in Cherry Blossom season, as the trees at David Thompson are showing!

While there may be lots of different ways people celebrate this time of year, most of them involve gathering with family and community, and sharing food. This week’s Fresh Five are all about ways we can connect to our communities, make things to share, and have fun! Our gatherings may need to be more digital this year, but I hope everyone finds a way to celebrate the warmth, beauty, and blooming welcome of spring.

Explore Your Spring Traditions

At Fresh Roots, we think everyone should have healthy food, land, and communities, and one of the ways we strengthen our communities is through traditions! Whether your spring celebrations center around a religious holiday, a natural phenomenon, or a special calendar date, talking to your elders about where those traditions come from is a great way to build relationships.
Exploring Spring Traditions Activity Guide

 

Make Dandelion Fritters

Flowers and food are important parts of lots of spring traditions! We thought we’d bring these two things together with this simple and simply yummy recipe for Dandelion Fritters. Dandelions are amazing plants – the leaves, roots, and flowers are all edible, and they are an amazing food source for our early season pollinators, including bumblebees!
Dandelion Fritters Recipe

 

Write a Cherry Blossom Haiku

I was fortunate to get out to David Thompson for an afternoon this week. We have two beautiful flowering cherries right near the entrance to the farm, and they were in their full glory. Cherry blossom season is only a few weeks long, and different cherries bloom at different times. You can learn more about what’s blooming in Vancouver at the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival’s Blooming Now page. What kinds of trees are blooming in your neighborhood?

Feeling inspired by all these blossoming beauties? Write a haiku and submit it to the Haiku Invitational!
Cherry Blossom Haiku Invitational

 

Dye Eggs with Plants

Decorating eggs is part of a number of spring celebrations, including Nowruz and Easter, probably because eggs are such a universal symbol for new life, and because chickens start to lay more eggs in the spring, so there’s plenty to go around. Didn’t get a dye kit from the store, or just looking for a more natural route? You can use things you might already have in your kitchen to make beautiful eggs! The ones in the picture were dyed with red cabbage, and left to soak for a few hours in the fridge. They were such a beautiful color!
Dye Eggs with Plants

Plant a Kitchen Window Garden

On the farm, we love to celebrate spring by planting seeds! You can celebrate with us by planting seeds in your garden, or even in a repurposed container on your windowsill. Our friends at Growing Chefs have a great video lesson all about soil and how to plant your windowsill garden. Subscribe to their YouTube channel for more great gardening and cooking lessons you can do at home!
Windowsill Garden Lesson

Happy Spring, everyone!

Kat

Leave a comment

VSB and Fresh Roots Partner to Create Large School Market Garden at Van Tech

Media Release

VSB and Fresh Roots Partner to Create Large School Market Garden at Van Tech

Vancouver, BC (June 13, 2012) – The Vancouver School Board and non-profit Fresh Roots signed a partnership agreement paving the way for a quarter acre landscaped school market garden. The agreement is the first of its kind in Canada.

“We’re combining local food, urban agriculture and education at our schools,” says Kevin Millsip, Sustainability Coordinator for the VSB. “The work we’re doing on urban agriculture is important and we’re very happy to work with Fresh Roots to take farm to school to the next level.”

The school’s market garden will be specifically designed to provide both an educational space where students can learn about agriculture and gardening while growing Asian greens, salad greens, beets, carrots, garlic and a variety of other vegetables that grow in parallel to the school year. By synchronizing the growing season of the garden with the school year, organizers say students will reap the benefits of a fall and winter harvest.

“Hundreds of children in schools in Vancouver eat our schoolyard grown veggies with huge smiles on their faces because they learn and play in the spaces where their food grows and know their farmers,” said Ilana Labow, a Director with Fresh Roots. “We are so excited to grow a large-scale hands-on learning classroom that will make it possible for thousands of children to share in the same experience.”

School Board officials say the partnership opens up a whole range of possibilities at a time that the district is seeking new ideas to repurpose existing land and facilities in lieu of declining enrolment and fiscal challenges.

“This is a wonderful example of the VSB taking an unusable space and repurposing it into something that’s aesthetically pleasing, educationally engaging and sustainable,” says Rob Wynen, a School Trustee with the Vancouver School Board.

Fresh Roots has already collaborated with the district on a pilot garden project at Queen Alexandra Elementary. The scale of the Van Tech project is expected to dwarf the Queen Alexandra pilot. Fresh Roots organizers say a future market garden is already being planned for David Thompson Secondary.

Photos of the groundbreaking available. For more information or to arrange an interview:
Kurt Heinrich
Public Relations and Media Specialist

Vancouver School Board
1580 West Broadway | vsb.bc.ca
p: 604-713-5074 | c: 778-228-1610 | e: kheinrich@vsb.bc.ca |
Follow the VSB on Twitter | Follow the VSB on Facebook | Find us on Flickr | Watch us on YouTube