Urban Grains

Chris knows a thing or two about grain…

PEDDLING THE WAY TO LOCAL GRAIN WITH THE FLOUR PEDDLER

Sat Oct 16, 3pm at the Roundhouse Cultural Centre, Room C, $10

This workshop will explore emerging and existing grain chains in Southwestern B.C., in addition to looking at some of the history of grain growing in the province. Opportunities to purchase freshly milled local grain available. This presentation is part of Farm Folk / City Folk’s Sustenance: Feasting on Art & Culture Festival (Oct 8-16)

Register at www.roundhouse.ca

Salt Spring Island’s Foxglove Farm is the creation of farmer and Author Michael Ableman. Envisioned as a space for art, agriculture and community, the farm hosts a variety of educational events and retreats throughout the year.  This August 24-27 they are offering the opportunity to  join three highly knowledgeable instructors for a three -day workshop about Small Scale Grain Production. Billed as appropriate for those interested in producing for their own families or for other small businesses, this could be a great opportunity for any of you who are interested in taking the Urban Grains values to the next level and growing your own.

Please visit buy discount cialis online Foxglove’s website for more information.

Details of the Urban Grains Farm Visit will be announced soon. If you’re interested in spending some time in the fields in the meantime, consider checking out this open house event in Delta!

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JOIN the 2010 Delta Farmers – UBC Land and Food Systems cereal grains variety trials open house field days

On display 11 varieties of spring barley, 2 types of spring oats, 14 winter wheat and 12 spring wheat varieties sourced from UK, France, Ontario, Quebec, Prairies, Maritimes, Michigan, Indiana, and Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon and Idaho) in side-by-side field trials.

DATES & TIMES: Friday, July 16th from 1-4 pm and Saturday, July 17th from 9am till noon

DIRECTIONS: The wheat field is on the Montgomery home/farm at 3010 River Road West, Ladner. Generic viagra 25 mg From Ladner, head west along River Road West, continue past the Westham Island Bridge to the Montgomery Farm- near Brunswick Point.and follow the signs at the Montgomery farm out to the variety trials fields.

Any questions beforehand:

Wayne Temple wtemple@interchange.ubc.ca (604) 327-6487 or (604) 351-7164 cell

DeLisa Lewis (604) 731-0294 delisa@interchange.ubc.ca

If you find yourself in the Victoria area on May 5th, Sharon Rempel of (among many other things) The Garden Institute of BC will be hosting a morning of seed cleaning equipment:

… explore the various types of equipment used to seed, weed, cut, harvest, combine, clean and thresh grain. When we can understand the technology we can start thinking about designing ‘green’ equipment for our ‘local’ food production needs.

May 5, 2009. 9 am to noon. Admission $3 payable to the Society. Gord Taylor and Dave Hopkins from the Saanichton Historical Society will be our guides to the machinery
You can bring your lunch and stay around and visit with the folks after the machinery tour.

Saanich Historical Artifacts Society
7321 Lochside Drive
Saanichton, British Columbia
Canada V8M 1W4
Phone:(250) 652-5522

For more information about the event, contact Sharon Rempel, TGIBC (250) 298-1133, email slrempel@shaw.ca and www.tgibc.org for organization details.

Martin and Ayla speaking at the Weaving Chains event

On Friday evening Martin and I found ourselves dining on pizza and beer and talking about grain. Farm Folk / City Folk hosted the grain-centred “Weaving Chains” event, which brought together a number of local business people and innovators who work on the local grain issue, and at which we were invited to speak. We were privileged to be there alongside the likes of John McKenzie, from Anita’s Mill in Chilliwack, Robert Giardino of the Vancouver-based Heritage Grains Foundation, and our friend Chris Hergesheimer, an SFU masters student who focused his research on south-western BC’s grain community. In addition to dinner and presentations, Robert had a wide range of heritage grains to show off, as well as small mills; there were bike-powered milling demonstrations; and those who attended could buy some of Chris’ flour – some of the only local flour they’re likely to see until our CSA shares are delivered in the fall.

Robert Giardino shows off a home-scale flour mill

Chris's fresh, artisan flour, milled from Vancouver Island-grown wheat

Sadly the light wasn’t too great, so our pictures from the event are rather poor (you’ll just have to take our word that it was a blast!) For everyone who came, thank you so much — we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did.

In addition to the event re-cap, I need to tell you about a few more very exciting things:

• The official launch of the Urban Grains CSA: we took advantage of our public platform at Friday’s event to officially announce the launch of the CSA. After many months of planning we are pleased to say that we will be sending out share offers to those signed up on our mailing list beginning this week. We will work through the list in order of sign up, until all 200 shares are taken. If you are on the list and are interested in purchasing a share, watch your inbox. The final reveal of purchasing details including price and amounts of each grain included will be posted here after our first offer has gone out.

• Collaboration with Anita’s Mill: We are pleased to announce that Anita’s will be milling Jim’s wheat into flour after harvest time. Before this week we had yet to confirm that they were able to take “transitional” grain at their certified organic mill. It turns out that organic mills are able to process any type of grain – conventional, organic, biodynamic, whatever – as long as their equipment has been sufficiently cleaned before and after each use. On Friday we had the pleasure of meeting John McKenzie, the owner of Anita’s. He and his wife bought the business from Anita herself in 2005, and have since been learning the many ins and outs of running a mill. We were pleased to hear John express his excitement about his company’s role in our CSA.

• We’re purchasing a grain cleaner: Jim got a lead on a high-quality, compact grain cleaning machine in Manitoba and made an offer to the owner. We were still working out how cleaning would happen, so we’re very excited by this find. In order to purchase the machine every share purchased this year will carry a $10 equipment fee. In this way, the CSA members will collectively raise the money for this expensive piece of equipment. It will be owned by Urban Grains and housed at Jim’s farm. We hope that by bringing it to our region more farmers will be able to have access to the machinery needed to explore grain production, thereby strengthening the local food system.

Friday, April 17 (6-9pm, Doors 5:30) Unitarian Church of Vancouver, 949 W 49th Ave (at Oak)
Interested in heritage grains? Growing your own? Buying fresh, local wheat? Join us for a fun, informative evening! Dinner, drinks, a Brian Harris slide show, pedal-powered milling demonstrations, great speakers and more! Learn about Metro Vancouver’s new Urban Grain CSA and take some red fife seeds home!

Join John McKenzie (Anita’s Organic Grain & Flour Mill in Chilliwack) and Suzanne Fielden (Rocky Mountain Flatbread, Vancouver) who support each other in their quest for sustainably grown grain. Robert Giardino of the Heritage Grains Foundation, Martin Twigg and Ayla Harker, the organizers of Vancouver’s own Urban Grains CSA and Chris Hergesheimer, a researcher working with the FarmFolk/CityFolk Society will enlighten guests during an exciting and informative evening focused on re-engaging consumers in the grain/flour/bread process.

ADVANCE TICKETS ONLY $25
Includes dinner, activities, and seeds! Live music by Token Rhyme. Crannog Ales available for sale. Limited seating. Get your tickets early! CALL FARMFOLK AT 604.730.0450. Presented by FarmFolk/CityFolk, Anita’s Organic Grain & Flour Mill, Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co.