Classes and Events

Earth Day at Jericho Beach
Celebrate Earth Day at Jericho Beach and visit the Vancouver Farmers Markets booth for a Spring Greens tasting and info about growing your own salad greens at home. Other activities include: nature walks, music, food, First Nations festivities and hands-on restoration projects.

For more details, visit the Evergreen website

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Ag in the CIty
From April 23rd to the 25th Metropolis at Metrotown, the largest mall in BC, will be turned into an agricultural festival celebrating all things grown and raised. From visiting a real glass greenhouse in the mall’s Grand Court to milling grain, visitors will touch, taste and learn about where their food comes from. Spearheaded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the aim is to provide an exciting, interactive, educational, face-to-face agricultural experience to promote the innovative work that is being done by farmers.

Agriculture in the City
April 23rd to 25th
Metropolis at Metrotown, Grand Court

Visit: www.aginthecity.ca/burnaby
Follow us on Twitter: aginthecity
Become a friend of Agriculture in the City on Facebook

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Garden Festival
As always, our May and June markets will be a good time to find veggie starts, bedding plants and potted herbs for our home gardens. Its also a great time to talk to the growers and get their tips and tricks for getting the best results from your work. Mark your calendars, our Dig In! Garden Festival is happening on May 29th at the East Vancouver Market location. Look for gardening information and resources, demonstrations and kids activities as well as lots of plants and planting advice. We’ll also be having our first Garden Book Swap – building on the popularity of our Cookbook Swaps – bring your old garden books & pickup something new to you.

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Growing Out of Hunger
Rescheduled for Tuesday, July 13, 7-9pm
Welch Community Dialogue presents GROWING OUT OF HUNGER featuring Will Allen, CEO, Growing Power Community Food Centre, Milwaukee & Chicago

Find out how this former professional basketball player, corporate sales executive and urban farmer is feeding 10,000 people and starting a community food revolution out of his inner-city farms in Milwaukee and Chicago. Winner of the $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship in 2008, Will Allen is transforming the cultivation, production, and delivery of healthy foods to underserved urban populations http://www.growingpower.org/blog/

Croatian Cultural Centre
3250 Commercial Drive (and 14th)
Vancouver, BC

This event is free but registration is required. Register here.

Opportunities – Volunteer and Otherwise

Honey CSA with the Blessed Bee Farm

Blessed Bee Farm is a new local Honey CSA (Community Supported Apiculture) located in the Lower Mainland. It is a partnership of mutual commitment in the future of honeybees among the beekeeper, the apiary’s community of supporters, and the bees. A share supports the apiary and our local bee populations in their pollination work throughout the growing season, and in return, shareholders receive a healthy supply of honey and hive products.

To participate, contact Brian at 778-554-6421 or blessedbeefarm.1@gmail.com.

Share prices
Select from the three share options described, ranging from “just the honey, honey” to an exclusive tour and an experience harvesting from the hive. All shareholders will get an e-newsletter updating them on the progress of the bees. The newsletter will share honey recipes, bee facts and figures, and activities for children and adults.

Drone $30.00
A minimum of 1 kilo of organic unpasteurized honey plus a 250 ml jar of pollen and honey blend.

Worker Bee $50.00
A minimum of 1 kilo of organic unpasteurized honey plus a 250 ml jar of pollen and honey blend. Also an exclusive a tour of the apiary and an introduction to harvesting honey.

Queen Bee $400
All the surplus honey from one hive. Included is a personal visit to the hive to see how the bees are doing.

For other amazing Hive Products, please enquire about propolis, wax and fresh pollen sales.

Host a Hive!
Do you have a large yard that is crying out for bees? Do you want to learn more about bees and beekeeping? Host up to four hives and learn from a Certified Bee Master the art of beekeeping. Please contact Blessed Bee for more information.

Blessed Bee Farm Mission
We provide the highest standard of organic bee management to produce a honey unrivalled in flavour and quality. We keep bees ethically to sustain this vital and threatened animal for the future. Our goal is to integrate bees into the urban environment, to engage and educate the public in bee conservation and beekeeping. Our honey is chemical and GE free, unpasteurized and pure, direct from the bees to you. We only harvest the surplus leaving the bees what they need to flourish.

Phone Brian at 778-554-6421 or email Blessedbeefarm.1@gmail.com

You Say Tomato. They Say Phony.

New Hybrids Promise Same Flavor, Less Fuss; Heirloom Lovers Stew
Anne Marie Chaker, The Wall Street Journal

In the kingdom of vegetables, the heirloom tomato is high nobility. Genetically unchanged from one generation to another, it offers an intense flavor prized by gardeners and gourmets.

But it has a reputation for being persnickety in the garden. While modern hybrids are tweaked and improved to resist common diseases, the old stalwarts seem to easily succumb to pathogens that can cause plants to suddenly wilt just as they seem ready to produce.

Now, as gardeners prepare to plant this summer’s crop, a number of plant breeders are offering hybrids they claim have the distinct flavors and funky looks of heirlooms but are more disease-resistant and abundantly productive. Read on…