Garden Wisdom Blog

CSAs represent one of the ways that small organic farmers are changing the way we think about food, the way we access food, and how we, as consumers, participate with food production. CSA stands for Community-Supported Agriculture, and we’ve talked about this before. The basic idea is that a farm sells shares in its produce early in the season. The shareholders are guaranteed boxes of fresh produce from the farm to be picked up at regular (usually weekly) intervals. Sometimes the farmer arranges to have the shares delivered to central pickup spots like farmers’ markets. Farm Box Pickup   The...

Food miles measure the literal distance in mileage between the producer and the consumer. They’re used to demonstrate the relative carbon footprints of conventionally farmed and imported groceries. This isn’t an effort to make consumers feel guilty. It’s about better understanding the burden our regular food consumption places on the environment. What it might compel some people to do is to be more proactive about growing some of their own food. We think that growing some of your own food is a pretty good idea anyway. Although food miles are a good measure of how shipping food impacts the environment,...

West Coast Seeds is a proud supporter of the amazing organization, Growing Chefs. These “Chefs for Children’s Urban Agriculture” bring food into the urban classroom in the form of raw ingredients that are completely unfamiliar to the students. Their mission is to educate children, families, and community members about healthy eating and healthy food systems. Over the course of three and a half months, the chefs visit the classroom every two weeks, helping the students plant and tend to indoor vegetable gardens. The chefs engage the students in games, lessons, and activities focusing on plant growth, local and urban agriculture,...

If you ever find yourself tempted to purchase kale from a supermarket, you really ought to try growing it. By its nature, kale is one of the easiest, hardiest, and most productive of all crops. It doesn’t need warm soil to germinate, it’s perfectly at home in containers, and it actually improves in cold weather. Heck, it thrives in cold weather, and can be harvested all winter long. Much has been made recently about kale’s nutritional quality as a Super Food. One cup of chopped raw kale contains just 33 calories, but delivers the following amounts of the recommended daily...

As we continue this Twenty-one Days of Green, planting trees seemed like an obvious choice. There are several fruit trees already growing on the farm at West Coast Seeds, so the idea came to expand the orchard area and expand our perennial food garden. With a minor investment and a bit of digging, planting just one tree improves the world tremendously. We planted two. We stopped off to visit our friends at Art’s Nursery in Langley, where they have a fine selection of common and collector fruit trees. These trees are readily available at your local garden centre, and start...