We did come and enjoy the music, food, people and the festival this weekend. It was awesome! The music was great, food was incredible and we left with a fistful of information and a gratifying feeling about being part of something good.
It was after a brief introduction and an evocative performance of “Trouble In The Fields” by Caroline Venters that Carolyn Herriot took to the main stage for her presentation of “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year Round Guide to Growing Organic Food.” Carolyn spoke to the sun-drenched but otherwise engaged crowd for 30 minutes about individual responsibility, going back to the garden, and how it is we alone who are responsible for what we are putting into our mouths, not only for the sake of ourselves but for those of the next generation who will inherit the world we are living in now.
Posts Tagged ‘Food’
“The Zero-Mile Diet” Book Launch
Start the “Movement”
“Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, we have to choose. We can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live.” – Wendell Berry
With “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food”, Carolyn Herriot’s greatest hope is to kickstart a movement: the “grow your own food” movement.
Some Golden Rules
While container and lasagna gardening can make the idea of growing your own vegetables a lot more doable, the amount of knowledge that comes along with even beginning can be overwhelming too! In “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food”, Carolyn Herriot provides us with 10 of her golden rules for growing great produce. Today, I am going to share a few of those with you.
A Starting Point
Much of the impetus for Carolyn Herriot’s book, “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food” was derived from the fact that only 5% of the food that is consumed on Vancouver Island is grown locally. While growing our own plants can protect us against the onslaught of chemically treated food and save money in difficult economic times, it can also help us attain a greater degree of self-sufficiency. Herriot wrote the book in the spirit of doing
Our Soil, Ourselves
Before the first leaf of basil is pulled and even before it begins to germinate, the soil is where the process begins. Soil nurtures growth and is responsible for maintaining a healthy plant. Local author and organic gardener Carolyn Herriot’s explanation of soil in “The Zero-Mile Diet: A Year-Round Guide to Growing Organic Food” can [...]
Your Cup of Tea?
After visiting Silk Road and Special Teas in downtown Victoria yesterday and doing a bit of research on the history of tea, I began to realize that my tiny teacup has been silently harboring an ocean of tradition and knowledge. I’ve always thought tea was a great example of a “slow food” – a quality food that works to preserve cultural and biological diversity, while emphasizing pleasure and responsible eating – but until yesterday, I had no idea just how accurate that description was. The story goes that tea was first discovered over 5000 years ago when the Chinese emperor, Shen Nung, was drinking boiled water and several tea leaves from a nearby bush blew into his pot. The emperor enjoyed the new concoction and thus tea drinking was born. Tea was originally popularized in Buddhist temples, where
A Green Victory – Madrona Farm
If you haven’t heard yet, after a two-year campaign with nearly 3000 donors, the Land Conservancy of British Columbia has raised 1.7 million dollars to save Madrona Farm. The Farm comprises 27-acres wedged between Blenkinsop Rd. and Mount Douglas and is a paradigm for sustainable agriculture. The farm was threatened when the owners decided to sell the property, leaving the farmers, David and Nathalie, in a sort of limbo. If the new owners didn’t want to maintain the property as an organic fruits and vegetable farm, then there would have been little holding them back. As of May 14, the area exists in a land trust that will preserve the ecological and agricultural value of the area indefinitely.
After doing a bit of reading, I realized that I was alarmingly ignorant of just how much was at stake. Not only…
Vote with Your Fork
My parents grew organic food before it was cool.
And I grew up thinking that going out into the garden with a pot to collect dinner’s potatoes was normal and that pie-fillings that came from the backyard were not at all unusual. New potatoes, soft and buttery, were a rite of spring and golden corn was a sign that the summer days would soon fade to the somber tones of fall. I’m writing this because I believe that these activities…
