The finished product, waiting for visitors! (Photo: Evergreen)
Watching the birds come and go from a backyard feeder can be fun and stress relieving. Enticing them to your lawn or shared space doesn’t have to be complicated either. With a few simple steps, you can create a low-cost feeder using found materials and a few other basic household items.
This is a great activity to do with children, or to bring out the child within!
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Craft Corner, Gardening, How to Love Winter | 
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Posted by Jenn from Communications
Radishes peeking out of the ground in the Community Garden at Eva's Place (Photo: Evergreen)
Royal Burgundy beans, atomic red carrots, bull’s blood beets and dinosaur kale are among the scrumptious seeds our community gardens will plant this spring thanks to a successful Seedy Saturday (on a Sunday) this past weekend. We purchased an assortment of heritage varieties including strawberry spinach and Callalloo – a leaf vegetable used for a popular Caribbean dish and a favorite among many of our community gardeners.
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Posted by Mel from Development
Colourful blooms can brighten up your February. (Photos: Erin Elliott)
This week, I asked Evergreen Learning Grounds’ Debby Morton how she is surviving the drab winter months without her garden. She takes her inspiration from colour, colour, colour!
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5 Comments | Gardening, Green Tips, How to Love Winter | Permalink
Posted by Erin from Communications
Come join us at Toronto’s Seedy Saturday this Sunday, February 21 from 12:30pm to 6pm at the Artscape Wychwood Barns!
This event, organized by the Toronto Community Garden Network, will include gardening workshops, delicious food and activities for youth. You’ll also have the opportunity to buy and trade heirloom seeds in preparation for the spring!
Evergreen will join some great organizations including Seeds of Diversity Canada, The North American Native Plant Society and FoodShare.
The Artscape Wychwood Barns is located at 601 Christie Street, just south of St. Clair. For more information, please visit the Toronto Community Green Network website.
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Posted by Mel from Development
It’s cold. It’s grey. It’s slushy. It’s winter in the city.
But if you find some spicy tea and curl up in a big woolen scarf, there is lots to love about this cozy, reflective time of year. There are plenty of ways to connect to nature too.
We’ll help out by posting tips and tricks for surviving winter, starting with some of Evergreen’s most avid gardeners and how they get their fix during these long, cold months.
Leave a comment and share your strategies!
Winter kale. (Photo: Rebekka Hutton)
Tip #1 Keep Gardening
I asked Evergreen’s Rebekka Hutton, an avid urban gardener who runs community gardens around Toronto, how she makes it through. Not surprisingly, she is still gardening. “I’m still eating kale, thyme, sage and oregano from outside,” she says. “If the leaves look good, I just brush off the snow and bring them in.”
She says that these hardy species just pull through on their own, without much help. Just leave them in the fall and let them be. She has even used a pickaxe to liberate carrots from the frozen ground. “They thaw out at room temperature and taste great.”
Tip #2 Read and Learn More
Rebekka also says that winter is a great time to read all the great gardening books she doesn’t have time to read during the growing season. “Right now I’m reading Eliot Coleman’s Winter Harvest Handbook. It’s really inspiring and is giving me lots of ideas for next season.”
Tip #3 Reflect and Plan
Doing a seed inventory in preparation for seed exchanges is another way Rebekka connects to her garden and plans for the season.
And with the new year just beginning, Rebekka says it is the perfect time to start a fresh garden journal. When the season begins she’ll be ready to jot down her thoughts and experiences to review this time next year.
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Posted by Erin from Communications
Green your community! (Photo: Michelle Scrivener)
Evergreen Common Grounds is now accepting applications for the Walmart – Evergreen Green Grants program supporting community groups initiating environmental stewardship and restoration projects across Canada.
The application deadline is January 29, 2010, so apply quickly!
Leave a Comment » | Funding, Gardening, News, Stewardship and Planting | Permalink
Posted by Erin from Communications
Garden Fresh Veggies (Photo: John Shinnick, Vancouver City Hall Community Gardener)
Join me this Wednesday, December 2 to learn how to prevent your hard earned harvest from being decimated by bugs and diseases. Arzeena Hamir, an agronomist specializing in organic vegetable gardening, has courteously agreed to host a Natural Pest Control Workshop for Evergreen.
The workshop will take place from 7-8:30PM in the Strathcona Room at Vancouver City Hall off 12th Avenue. The cost is pay what you can, with a suggested donation of $5 to $10.
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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia
Arbour and communal gardens. (Photo: John Shinnick, City Hall community gardener)
Recently, I spent a beautiful day with 25 dedicated gardeners at the Vancouver City Hall Community Garden, where we constructed an entrance way arbour. This was our first work party at the garden, and we were happy for the great turn-out, sunny weather and amazing results! The garden now features a beautifully constructed entrance way arbour, two full perimeter gardens and a calming healing garden.
Check out the below video to see the community gardeners hammering away on the arbour and partaking in the funky “compact dance” to prepare the soil for planting!
More photos and event details are available on the Facebook group courtesy of community gardener, John Shinnick.
Leave a Comment » | Events, Food, Gardening, Vancouver, Video | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia
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