UTSC Campus Garden Bloomed with Delicious Veggies

December 1, 2010

By: Tooba Shakeel, Stewardship Coordinator, Evergreen

UTSC Garden Celebration, (Photos: Tooba Shakeel)

University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) Garden saw a successful season of growth! On Sept 29, students and staff at UTSC celebrated the harvest by enjoying a delicious salad made from vegetables grown in the University Community Garden. Participants also enjoyed Gourd Bowling using butternut squash!

UTCS Community Garden, (Photos: Tooba Shakeel)

UTSC Garden was established in the spring of 2010 in partnership with the UTSC Sustainability Office and Evergreen. The aim was to provide students and community members a chance to practice gardening and grow vegetables. During the celebration, participants harvested pepper, zucchini, eggplant, onion, parsley, oregano, lemon grass, basil, rosemary, nasturtium and much more. Not only did everyone enjoy a delicious salad but participants also took plenty of vegetables home. The garden has been put to sleep for winter and we hope to have an even better growing season next year!

Click here for information on UTSC Sustainability Office projects and events.

Comments Off | Events, Food, Gardening, Stewardship and Planting, Toronto, Transformations, Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Kim from Common Grounds

Jack Pine: A Truly Canadian Tree

November 30, 2010

Jack pine (Photo L: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database; R: Bill Moses)

It’s been immortalized in Tom Thomson’s famous painting, known for its unique shape and ability to thrive in the poorest of conditions and has been used by the First Nations peoples as food and medicine for centuries. The jack pine is a native species that has become a symbol for Canada—our pioneering nature and our harsh but beautiful landscape.

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Comments Off | Gardening, Native Species | Permalink
Posted by Christine from Volunteering

Sathvik “Hawk” Swamy Inspires Young Adventurers

November 25, 2010

Camp Games (Photo: Mike Derblich)

Evergreen is currently recruiting for Assistant Day Camp Counsellors for our March Break Camp and soon, for summer camps in July and August.

This past August, Sathvik, known at camp as Hawk, volunteered at the Green City Adventure Camp for two weeks, engaging with campers to discover and explore nature at Evergreen Brick Works and the ravines.  A high school student at Victoria Park Collegiate Institute looking to help at a camp, Sathvik was captivated from the start and can’t wait until next summer when he can get involved again.  
 
What did you like about volunteering with day camp? I got to learn so much and helped the campers learn too.  I’d never had this kind of opportunity to connect with nature, outside of a little gardening at home.  It felt more like fun than work and it was amazing to be in this incredibly scenic site right in the middle of Toronto!  The only downside was the mosquitoes. It was also great to see how some shy campers or those hesitant to get dirty were right in there with everyone by the end, including me.  There was a lot of team-building going on and I also got to see animals and plants in nature.

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1 Comment | Evergreen Brick Works, Toronto, Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Christine from Volunteering

The Fruitful Project of 2011: Great Northern Way Community Orchard

November 24, 2010
Evergreen will be taking inspiration from the Union Street Urban Orchard, an innvoative urban orchard that ran in London, England, in 2010.

Pallets and Things at the Union Street Urban Orchard (Photo: Quite Peculiar on Flickr). Evergreen will be taking inspiration from this innovative and temporary orchard in London, England.

With a successful fall season behind us, Evergreen is busy working on crafting some new and exciting projects for 2011. One that we’re all particularly excited about is an urban orchard to be located in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats.

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Comments Off | Food, Issues, Stewardship and Planting, Transformations, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

A Slow Food Story

November 23, 2010

A woman in Turin making handmade gnocchi (Photo: Stewart Chisholm)


Foodies around the world converged on Turin, Italy in October for the global Slow Food convivium called Terra Madre to discuss topics such as biological diversity, local food and supporting food cultivation internationally.  Evergreen’s own Arlene Stein and Stewart Chisholm are both deeply involved with our evolving strategy to support local food and had the great fortune of attending this remarkable event.  Besides enjoying international artisanal foods at the concurrent event Salone del Gusto, Arlene and Stewart got to learn more about how other cultures are preserving their food traditions or developing new ones.

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Comments Off | Food, Issues | Permalink
Posted by Nate from Public Relations

Agriculture in the City

November 23, 2010


Evergreen volunteer and community food blogger, Jennifer Lem, attended a workshop on urban agriculture and city planning, presented by author Lorraine Johnson and our own Stewart Chisholm and Rebekka Hutton. The workshop took place at the Ontario Professional Planners Institute symposium on October 28 and 29.

For a recap of the event and to find out what they had to say on issues such as backyard chickens, visit Jennifer’s guest blog post on, Push Food Forward.

1 Comment | Food, Gardening, Issues | Permalink
Posted by jessicamnagy

The Brandon Friendship Centre: Feeding young minds and families

November 22, 2010

By Alix Aylen, Grant Program Administrator

Digging. Photo: Anna-Kay Gordon.

Digging (Photo Credit: Anna-Kay Gordon)

The Kokum’s Little Friends Daycare at the Brandon Friendship Centre in Manitoba had an extra special harvest this fall. With the support of a Walmart-Evergreen Green Grant, their on-site children’s garden became, according to the Daycare Co-ordinator Anna-Kay Gordon, “a magical garden,” that taught the children about the importance of growing your own food as well as provided for 36 families in the community.

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Comments Off | Food, Funding | Permalink
Posted by jessicamnagy

Today: Send an e-mail, plant a tree…

November 19, 2010
Diageo employee planting native wild ginger into cultivated leaf mold plots at Jericho Beach Park

Just another day at the office (Photo: Laura Smit)

Evergreen BC’s corporate volunteers work hard, in and out of the office.  The following groups dedicated time, money and effort toward restoring nature in Vancouver this year, giving our urban forest (and our stewardship groups) a huge boost!

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Comments Off | Events, In the Field, Native Species, Stewardship and Planting, Vancouver, Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Laura from Common Grounds Vancouver

Evergreen Needs Your Vote!

November 18, 2010

 

A young explorer. (Photo: Evergreen)

 

Evergreen’s Nature Playground is competing for the Aviva Community Fund and we need your help to succeed. The Nature Playground will provide the opportunity for children to connect with nature at Evergreen Brick Works in the best way possible: through food, play and hands-on learning.

The priority of the Nature Playground is first-hand experience and multi-sensory exploration with an edible landscape, supporting abundant opportunities for eating, cooking, and preserving fresh food. Various terrain and paths will snake through themed gardens and raised beds where plants will be a focus of study, seasonal celebrations and sensory delight.

The gardens in Nature’s Playground will feel like a miniature version of an urban farm and use innovative growing mediums and spaces – a greenhouse, vertical gardens, herb spirals, fruit and veggie hedges and fences will define the landscape.

Bringing together all the elements of Nature’s Playground and acting as a focal point of learning and experiencing is the outdoor bake oven and kitchen. Here, children will be offered an opportunity to learn baking and cooking techniques in a wood-fired brick oven—from baking bread, making pizza, pies, and pastries to all sorts of goods not usually associated with wood-fired ovens.

Help children connect with, play in and learn from nature by voting daily and telling your friends. Vote here: http://bit.ly/ebwKIDS

Follow us on Twitter: @evergreencanada, join us on Facebook.

Comments Off | Evergreen Brick Works, Transformations | Permalink
Posted by Nate from Public Relations

All Hands in the Dirt: A Forum on the Design and Programming of Children’s Outdoor Spaces.

November 12, 2010

In a 3 km pocket around Evergreen Brick Works in downtown Toronto, there are close to 10,000 children who have no access to nature from their homes. From highrises to asphalt streets, their play areas are limited to treeless parks and unsafe public spaces. Today and tomorrow, a group of experts (in education, health, design) from Canada, Europe and the United States will share their work  and discuss ways to address this reality by bridging the gap between design and programming to build healthy and creative play and learning environments for children.

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1 Comment | Events, School Ground Greening | Permalink
Posted by Nate from Public Relations

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