Vert-à-Go

Hi, I am very eager to find a community gardening opportunity in Saskatoon. Can you point me in the right direction?

- J

There’s still a few bits of snow lingering on the ground, but already I’m seeing a lot of interest from people who want to start growing some of their own food this year. Many people are planning on digging up part of their own yard (or lawn!), but many others are looking for a community garden plot–an excellent alternative for apartment or condo-dwellers, house renters with unsympathetic landlords, and those with shady home lots. It can be hard to find a space, though. Where to start?

1. Join the Saskatoon Community Gardening Network. This group meets every month or two to discuss issues related to gardening and community gardening in particular. It’s a great chance meet fellow gardeners and find out more about what’s going on across the city. To get on the contact list and find out the next meeting time (May, likely) call Dana at CHEP (Child Hunger & Education Program) or email dana@chep.org. You can also join the Facebook group here.
2. Apply to join an established garden. There are a number of established community gardens in the city, but spaces can be at a premium and there are often waiting lists. City Park CG will be back in business this spring after having extensive work done last autumn to improve drainage/flooding problems, but it cannot take any more gardeners this year. The Nutana CG (which lost some plots because of an electrical box installation) is also already full. Sadly, it will only be at its current home near Broadway for one more growing season, as a building is being planned for the site. We’re working with the city to find a suitable new site in the area. If I hear of any individual gardens that are accepting new gardeners directly, I will post about it immediately.
3. Help start a new garden. There is a group of people trying to get a CG established in Caswell right now, but finding a suitable site has caused delays.  You can join the Caswell Community Garden Facebook group here to get updates. Another group is trying to get set up in Eastview. Again, I’ll be posting more info about how you can help soon.
4. Get in on the ground floor with a new garden. St. Martin’s United Church (Wilson Crescent & Clarence Avenue) is creating a community garden on the church grounds and is now taking applications for this summer. You can pick one up at the church office or call 343-7101 to get one mailed/emailed to you.
5. Get in touch with CHEP. CHEP has been very involved with supporting community gardening and finding places for people to garden for years. It has a number of garden sites and is always looking for ways to expand the number of plots available. You can have a look at its community gardening brochure (somewhat out of date, but which will give you a general idea of how things work) here. Dana can help you apply to get a plot at the various CHEP community gardens and also has up-to-date info on other gardening options throughout the city. Phone her on 655-5322 for an application (the deadline is coming up fast–20 April) or email her at dana@chep.org.
   
6. Let your city councillor know that community garden access is a priority. The City of Saskatoon is quite supportive of community garden initiatives in theory, but there are currently some logistical and organisational challenges which I’ll be writing about in detail soon. Another major challenge is finding a suitable permanent space that also has easily available water for irrigation. In the older neighbourhoods in particular, there is less green space available than one would think.

I’ll be posting more information on specific gardening opportunities, and will also have advice on finding alternatives to a community garden plot soon.

(Thursday: I’ve edited this post to reflect the conversation I had with Dana from CHEP this morning)

photo by gabrielsond

Victoria Park area residents are being invited to a workshop on Tuesday, 7 April to help shape the future of the City Gardener’s site in the northwest corner of the park (the intersection of Ave H S and 16th St W).

The City Gardener’s site currently includes a community garden as well as a 100-year-old gardening shed that has been the subject of some controversy over the past few years–should the city attempt to repair the badly deteriorated heritage building, or demolish it?

At this workshop, residents will have an opportunity to discuss how heritage artefacts and a community garden can be incorporated in the future design of the park space. The workshop will start with a presentation by city staff, followed by group discussion and small group input as appropriate. Questions and discussion will be strongly encouraged!

The design for the City Gardener’s site is the first stage in the development process for the Victoria Park Master Plan, which should be completed later this year.

Program workshop for the City Gardener’s site

When: Tuesday 7 April, 7-9:30pm

Where: Royal Canadian Legion, 606 Spadina Crescent West, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

For more information: Call Dylan Czarencki on 975-3342, news release

photo: spinach soup–it’s all the rage with the preschool set (today, at any rate)

As I mentioned last week, we’ve been doing some thinning out at the community garden plot. Some of the spinach had gotten quite large and was starting to bolt, so we stripped it, stuffed it into a couple of bags, and stuck it in the fridge. Then I got busy and it sat there for a week. Or was that nearly two? Oops!

I tentatively stuck my nose in the bags yesterday and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had feared. Greens picked from the garden will last way longer than those you buy from the store because they haven’t taken a week or longer to get to you (incidentally, your risk of getting sick from home-grown greens is also way smaller than commercially-grown greens, although you still need to take sensible precautions while growing and preparing them). You wouldn’t want to make a salad out of the leaves in my fridge at this point–the leaves were rather mature to be eaten raw, some of it was wilting a bit (ok, a few of them were wilting a lot), and there were some yellow/damaged leaves which needed to be culled. It didn’t look real pretty, but overall it was still perfectly edible–a perfect candidate for soup.

I made a very quick and easy cream of spinach soup for lunch from Joy of Cooking: All About Vegetarian Cooking (2 minutes of chopping, 8 minutes of stirring, 5 minutes of casual supervision/pureeing resulted in 2 meals’ worth of soup). The recipe isn’t available online so I won’t infringe copyright, but I would highly recommend any spinach soup recipe that features nutmeg. My nearly-3-year-old got up from her nap and immediately requested a second cup of it for her snack (I suspect the fact that her daddy grew it made it a big draw!).

I’m expecting another couple bags of soup-grade spinach to be lugged home today or tomorrow, so there will be plenty of opportunity for further experimentation. Chilled pea and spinach soup? Spinach and chickpea soup? It’s so satisfying making a delicious meal out of something that you might unthinkingly throw out just because it doesn’t look ‘perfect’, and the possibilities are really endless.

(photo: Egg yolks, the day after–and only one casualty)

We thinned out the voluminous swiss chard at the community garden yesterday, so for supper I made a Swiss chard and tomato frittata from the Moosewood gang. The only difference was that I cooked it till nearly done on the stovetop, then sprinkled it with parmesan cheese and put it under the broiler for a few minutes to finish rather than flipping it over. We had hot buttered whole wheat toast along with it.

I thought it was delicious, and my two preschoolers even ate it all up. I didn’t personally learn to love chard until I was an adult. In fact, when my sisters and I were kids, we used to try and herd the chickens towards the Swiss chard part of the garden, hoping they would peck it to pieces (sadly for us, this did not work). So I was impressed that the kids were so enthusiastic–but I suspect that serving rhubarb crisp with ice cream for dessert is a powerful incentive for cleaning one’s plate!

The only problem with frittatas is that they call for a lot of egg whites, which means you end up with leftover egg yolks. You certainly don’t want to have to throw them out. Despite the dire things you may have heard about cholesterol and eggs, egg yolks (and, in particular, yolks from free range hens) are a nutritional powerhouse. But what can you do with the leftovers?

What to do with leftover egg yolks

If you’re going to use them within the next day, you can place them very carefully (whole) in an airtight container (they will start to get hard on the outside within a day or so and won’t be good for much after that)

If you’ll use them within 2-3 days, place them very carefully (whole) in an airtight container and very carefully cover them with water. Gently pour off the water when you’re ready to use them. This will work best with good quality eggs with a resilient yolk (standard grocery store egg yolks tend to break if you even look at them funny).

You can also freeze them, but they should be used for baking or cooking rather than an omelette. You can freeze them individually in an ice cube tray (break up the yolk a bit, but don’t beat it) or else gently mix a larger number of yolks together. You must also stabilise them before freezing or they will become lumpy and unusable when they’re thawed out. To stabilise them, decide whether you will want to use them for a sweet or savoury dish in the future, and add a sprinkling of either sugar or salt to each yolk (or 1 tablespoon sugar/salt per 1 cup of yolks). Place in an airtight container and don’t forget to label it ’sweet’/’savoury’ and list the number of yolks. They should last for about a year–thaw them out in the fridge the day before you plan to use them.

(photo: So pretty! vanilla pudding with raspberries and mint)

I plan to use my six leftover frittata yolks for this delicious vanilla or chocolate pudding for dessert tonight. I’ll probably make 1.5 batches to use up all the yolks at once–it keeps for 3 days in the fridge, so I seriously doubt that leftovers will be a problem! The free-range eggs I buy will lend it a lovely buttery tint–it would also be a good time to try the rum raisin pudding variant.

Don’t fancy pudding? You could turn those yolks into a bernaise/hollandaise sauce, pasta carbonara, or some classic desserts (creme brûlée, zabaglione). This enthusiastic thread at the Chowhound forum has some more great ideas.

Oh, dear, let’s put this in the (hopefully) better late than never category–registration for the Nutana Community Garden is taking place this afternoon from 1-2:30pm, so head down there to apply for a plot! It is located on 12th St E behind The Roastery. Be aware that you will need to sign a form committing to use only organic gardening methods.