Posts from Our Network (any groups that come to network meetings past or present).

farm2chefMeet Farm2Chefs Collaborative member and Terra Restaurant chef/owner David Tombs and Master Gardener Elaine Sedgman at MacDonald Park Public Produce Garden on Wednesday June 25th at 11:00 am.  Try some currant & bergamot tea prepared from the garden & nosh on some muffins & strawberries.

Elaine will present David with the newly printed Public Produce, Growing Food in Public Spaces: A Start Up Guide that the Collaborative funded.  David & Elaine will then take you for a tour around the garden to talk about the possibilities and potential of Public Produce within city landscapes.

Elaine Sedgman conducted two years of research for the Kamloops Food Policy Council to write the eighty page guide on how to grow Public Produce (edible landscaping on public land).   Darrin Nordahl, author of Public Produce (2009), whose visit to Kamloops in 2011 inspired Kamloops to try growing food on public land, considers this start up guide as definitive.

The guide includes a brief history of Public Produce in the City of Kamloops, a plan on how to develop and maintain a Public Produce project and a detailed guide for preventative integrated pest management. It incorporates many of Elaine’s own photographs and graphic drawings. The appendix includes resources, a bibliography, planting plans for city snack stops and a comprehensive recommended plant matrix for public produce in the southern interior. The guide is also available on this website in the KFPC documents under the resources link.

Chandra KC has used her skills in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to analyse the relationships between the neighbourhoods that community gardeners reside in and the community garden location they garden in.  This information is helping Interior Community Services manage the Community Garden program on behalf of the City of Kamloops.  Using a list of gardens with the corresponding postal code of each gardener, GIS is used to analyze the information and map and summarize the results.

This type of mapping and analysis can be undertaken for any list of postal codes associated with a program.  Unlike street addresses, postal codes are non-identifying information.  If you wish to contact Chandra KC regarding these products, use the contact link on this website and the email will be forwarded to her.  Attached are some of the products prepared by Chandra KC.

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cultivating image

Cultivating Community Gardens

This publication is a guide to organizations wishing to start a new community garden.

A Cross-Canada’s Speaker Tour

7:00pm to 9:30pm November 27, 2013
Location: Alumni Theatre

Do you have questions or concerns regarding genetically engineered (GE) foods and human health?

If so, this fall and winter, GE Free Kamloops will be hosting an event as part of GE Foods and Human Health: A Cross-Canada Speaker’s Tour, in partnership with the Society for a GE Free BC and Greenpeace Vancouver Local Group.

Scheduled to run from November 2013 to February 2014, GE Foods and Human Health: A Cross-Canada Speaker’s Tour seeks to provide the Canadian public with an opportunity to discuss their concerns around GE foods from a scientific and regulatory perspective.

Read more

public produceBe a part of Kamloops’ Public Produce Project

March 28@ The Smorg 3-6pm

Public Produce is a growing project in Kamloops. Urban agriculture in the form of Public Produce gardens transforms any available land into an edible landscape: a space used to grow fresh, organic fruits and vegetables for all members of the community. Read more

We’d like to encourage everyone to take a look at the Public Produce Strategic Report that some of our members were instrumental in developing. If you’re wondering about how the Kamloops Public Produce Project came to be, or where it’s going, many answers may be found in here!  There are many wild and wonderful things that could happen with the public produce movement in our city (and province, and country), with support in the right places.

We are currently working on the next phase of the project, which we’re calling Phase III: Public Produce in Your Own Backyard. This next step will lend support and guidance to other organizations and communities who hope to start their own public produce project. If this is something that you or your group is interested in pursuing, get in touch with us at the Public Produce Project and we’ll keep you updated on the next exciting developments! (publicproduceproject@gmail.com)

Without further adieu.. the Public Produce Strategy Report Sept2012 !

In November, members of the Kamloops Food Policy Council put together a grant proposal on behalf of the Public Produce Project and submitted it to the City of Kamloops Social Planning Council. We recently received the good news that we have been allocated $3,000 to go toward running the Public Produce Project in its second year!! Yahooo!!

Laura Kalina receives our ‘big cheque’ from Jen Casorso, the City of Kamloops Social and Community Development Committee’s Recreation Supervisor

This next phase of the project will involve more partnerships with community groups; educational workshops about gardening and related topics; more ‘Adopt-an-Edible’ plants at local businesses; and hopefully a re-planting and continuing care for the garden at 121 Victoria Street.

We are so excited to have this financial support from the city along with the support of many partner community groups and enthusiastic individuals.  If you would like to volunteer with the Public Produce Project in any capacity, or if there is a workshop topic that you would like to see offered this year, please contact us at publicproduceproject@gmail.com.

See you in the garden!!

Kamloops Currents met up with Kamloops Food Policy Council at their Public Produce Project on the 100 block of Victoria St. Here’s a short video on the project and thought behind it!