January's Newsletter

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Got Milkweed?

Help save the monarch butterfly and make Humewood Community School a more beautiful place.

As part of the Homegrown National Park Project, the David Suzuki Foundation will be selling milkweed plants for $5 each through its website (www.davidsuzuki.org/gotmilkweed) during April. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch butterflies lay their eggs on and the primary source of food for monarch caterpillars. Scientists throughout North America have identified milkweed planting as the most important action people can take to help support threatened monarch populations.

"Monarch butterflies are one of nature's true wonders, fluttering thousands of kilometres across North America despite weighing less than a paperclip," said Homegrown National Park Project team lead Jode Roberts. "Through the #gotmilkweed campaign we hope to inspire Torontonians to do their part to help the monarch by planting milkweed in their yards and on their balconies."

This winter, scientists raised alarms when numbers of monarchs overwintering in Mexico hit an all-time low. Severe weather and the virtual eradication of milkweed throughout much of their migratory path between Canada and Mexico have put the monarchs' epic migration back to Canada at risk.

Humewood wants to do its part to save the Monarch Butterfly and teach students the benefits of conservation within on our school grounds. During April you can order milkweed plants for $5 and it will be planted by students at Humewood as part of our naturalization project. Please make sure when you are entering your contact information when ordering that you select “make a purchase on behalf of an organization” and enter Humewood Community School.

Seedy Sunday pt2

[ just a taste of how busy it was ]

I can't tell you what a great time I had today at Seedy Sunday. I really wanted to stay there all afternoon and not come home. It was great to see and talk with a lot of familiar faces. I was also able to make some good contacts today regarding field trips for the garden/eco club and for volunteers in the garden. Dare I say that I'm becoming part of the urban agriculture community?

First things first. I got an awesome haul of seeds today. I would have gotten more, but thankfully I ran into a fellow teacher, who is also a parent at the school, and she let me in on some deals from Urban Harvest if I order through the school. Her and I are going to be in touch and put an order together and share some seeds and save some money too!

[ crappy photo = awesome haul ]

One of the faces that I always love to run into is Garden Jane. She's totally awesome and put on great workshops for community gardeners and anyone else who wants to learn about permeculture. She gave me some free bean seeds and some great ideas for activities to do with them. I felt bad taking all this stuff and knowledge without giving her anything in return, so I bought a seed ball kit from her. I'm planning on giving it away as a prize for some sort of event at the school.

[ seed ball kit ]

If you don't know what a seed ball/bomb is you need to go look that up. I think that we'll do something for International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day (May 1st 2011). I don't know if we'll do sunflowers, but we'll definetly do some kind of hardy, flowering, native plant.

In talking with people today I realized that there are a lot of people who want to volunteer in our little school garden to help the students grow food. There are also a lot of people who want community garden space and aren't able to get it. I know that I'd have to clear this with the administration, but I was thinking this could be an awesome trade off for some help watering in the summer and getting some people with more know-how than myself to really get our garden going. Volunteers may have to get a police check (more than likely they would) but it would be a small price to pay for some space to grow some veggies of their own.

For those of you interested in volunteering please email me or leave a comment with your email address (don't worry all comments need to be approved before they're posted so I'll copy and delete your email address so you don't get any random spam).

Seedy Saturday... ON SUNDAY!!!

I was reminded to post this after I heard about it again on Metro Morning. I hope that it has doesn't get too busy after being on the CBC.
Seedy Sunday will be taking place this Sunday (Feb. 21st) at the Wychwood Barns, barn #2. Aside from a great chance to get native and heirloom seeds there will also be interesting workshops and presentations.
The day starts at 12:30pm, with the workshops starting at 1pm, and runs until 6pm. Looks like that will give me a half hour to get the seeds I want before spending the rest of the afternoon attending workshops. There is a suggested donation of $2 and they are still looking for volunteers.

I guess this means that I'll have to finalize a list of the plants to grow at the school this year. Any suggestions of plants you'd like to see?

Tapping Urban Trees

Not Far From the Tree is a local organization that you may have already heard about, or from, if you have a fruiting tree in your backyard. This organization started by picking fruit that would have otherwise gone to waste rotting on trees. They send volunteers to pick fruit from trees growing around the city with permission from the owners. 1/3 goes to the owner, 1/3 goes to the volunteers that picked the fruit, and the final 1/3 goes to a community organization.
They're always looking for volunteers and owners of fruiting trees ;)

I was excited to find out that they are now tapping local maple trees in Toronto. So if you have a maple tree in your backyard I urge you to get involved. You could end up with some great tasting maple syrup from your own backyard tree!!! If you don't have a tree that's okay, you can volunteer and still end up with some yummy syrup. Here's the link if you want to find out more information and take part in this great opportunity