The ground is thawing, the sun is setting later, our seed orders are in and we are excited to offer you the opportunity to join us as a member in the Fresh Roots CSA community.

So much has happened since last year. With our members and neighborhood’s support last year, what sprouted as a backyard CSA project has grown into a community-engaged organization, with our urban farm fields now mostly in schoolyards. In partnership with VSB schools we are establishing schoolyard market gardens, growing food for the neighborhood while maintaining an outdoor hands-on learning classroom for the school community and greater Vancouver community. We are also part of a new farm business incubator program, with a field by the Fraser River in Richmond.

Learn more about our blossoming partnerships and projects at www.freshroots.ca 

With established, fertile soil, alongside new fields, our gardens are (and will be) growing abundantly! Now is the time to purchase a garden share and become a member of our urban CSA.

We are always learning lots, and are excited to offer you diverse varieties of delicious produce throughout this year’s growing season. Our ’schoolyard salad bowl’ will be full of tasty greens, edible flowers and beautiful head lettuces. We’ll be growing roots and beans, juicy turnips, peas, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes, head greens, and much, much more.

A garden share provides you with a weekly veggie box that feeds 2-3 people.

If you’re looking to feed just yourself, we encourage you to find someone to share the weekly veggies with or contact us, and we can help you find someone else looking to share!

Each share is $650

• $29.50/weekly veggie box for 22 weeks

We ask for a $50 tax-deductible donation that goes towards our Schoolyard Market Garden growth, bringing 2012 total amount to $700.

To accommodate your needs we offer a couple of payment options. You can:

• Pay the full price in the beginning of the season
• Pay in 2 installations, once now and the second in early summer

*If you are able, it helps us tremendously, as young farmers, to receive the amount in full at the beginning of the season. We accept cash and/or check.

Our first harvest will be June 13, and continue weekly until October 31. That is 22 weeks of fresh, local, affordable and organically grown deliciousness! Throughout the season you will also have the opportunity to purchase urban back-alley fed bee honey.

With the weekly veggie box we provide a seasonal recipe. We intend to start sending a monthly newsletter with stories from the farmers, preserving tips, and local community food happenings. Throughout the season there will be opportunities to visit the gardens, take part in a harvest celebration, and get to know our Vancouver localvore community at the weekly veggie box pick-up.

We have a limited amount of shares this year and are excited to offer you the opportunity to join our 2012 CSA. We receive members on a first come, first serve basis. If interested, please confirm on our website here.

If you have any questions please contact Ilana at (778) 862-FARM.

We are looking forward to an abundant growing season!

And it will be a gift to share our harvest with you.

The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Veggies on the Bike Trailor!

We are currently seeking a new Farm Manager. Please see the posting below, and forward along to any farmers you know and love who you think will be a great fit for our organization!

With fresh winter kale and a fistful of happy worms,
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Fresh Roots Urban Farm: Farm Manager Position

Fresh Roots generates excitement and engagement by creating model urban farms in public spaces that activate the surrounding community.

Fresh Roots Urban Farm Society is committed to creating equitable access to local, healthy, sustainably grown food in Vancouver through urban farming and community engagement. Our urban farm fields facilitate urban farming internships, workshops, and volunteer opportunities. We partner with neighborhood organizations and schools who use our urban farm fields as hands-on, experiential learning classrooms to address food sovereignty, community health, and vocational skills development. Our fields host community gatherings and celebrations. Using multiple sites, Fresh Roots exemplifies an effective way Vancouver can confront global challenges of pollution, land degradation, and poor nutrition within our society.

Farm Management: The Farm Manager is responsible for the development and operations of Fresh Roots Urban Farms including infrastructure development, propagation, soil preparation, cultivation, irrigation, crop selection, pest management, direct seed/transplanting, harvesting, compost maintenance, vermicompost maintenance, etc. The Farm Manager will work closely with the Executive Director to ensure on-time execution of food distribution to our food outlets: restaurants, school cafeterias, markets and our weekly local CSA. S/he also manages all farm work conducted by interns and volunteers. Farm management responsibilities also include managing the farm budget, maintenance of farm equipment and facilities, and maintenance of accurate records of all farm activities.

Public Education: Working closely with the Executive Director, the Farm Manager ensures that visitors to the farm are integrated into the farm in meaningful, productive and educational ways. This typically means that the Farm Manager needs to be available, when feasible, during farm tours as well as to teach in some visitor education programs.

Additional Responsibilities: Fresh Roots has a very lean staff. The Farm Manager is asked to support the Executive Director in other ways as needed. This includes teaching a workshop to a visiting school class or serving as the staff liaison for urban agriculture related events and partnership meetings.

Supervision and Administration: The Farm Manager is supervised by the Executive Director. The Farm Manager will supervise all farm apprentices, volunteers and/or interns. The Farm Manager makes sure that all farm support staff has appropriate work plans and effective oversight. The Farm Manager is expected to participate in weekly staff meetings and to perform administrative tasks essential for the successful operation of the farm and of the organization as a whole.

Requirements: The ideal candidate should have minimum 2 years market farming experience, taught hands-on sustainable agriculture to adults and managed adults on a working farm. Experience farming within an urban context is beneficial, but not required. We are looking for someone who is self-directed, personable, and excited to grow and support urban agriculture here in Vancouver.  The candidate should be comfortable working with the local food movement: restaurants, consumers, non-profits, and city officials.  The candidate should be in personal alignment with the mission, values and heart/mind/body/spirit approach of Fresh Roots. The candidate should also be computer literate and comfortable with technology, social networks and email outreach.

Position begins February 20, 2012. Salary dependent on experience.

To apply: Please email résumé, cover letter, and 3 references to ilana@freshroots.ca. In your cover letter, please state why you are interested in this position and how your experience relates to the job responsibilities described above.
Deadline for Application: February 9, 2012 12pm PST

While our fields in Vancouver are blanketed under snow, Fresh Roots is busy at work strengthening our foundation and preparing for new, healthy growth this upcoming 2012 growing season.

And.

Fresh Roots has been collaborating with other neighborhood farmers in Metro Vancouver, as Metro Vancouver City Farms (MVCF). The MVCF team (led by urban farmers Julia Smith of Urban Digs Farm and Emi Do of Yummy Yards is hosting an exciting event coming up soon that we want to make sure you all have the opportunity to get yourselves tickets for!

Metro Vancouver City Farms is kicking off the growing season with a presentation of Steve Suderman’s inspiring documentary “To Make a Farm.” Come meet local urban farmers and other groups involved in the local food movement and find out what’s in store for 2012!

Starting a farm from scratch takes more than just imagination, but it’s a good place to start. Often considered a way of life from the past, today there is a movement of young people without farming backgrounds taking up this challenging profession. To Make A Farm follows the lives of five such young people through their first seasons on the land, as the joys and disappointments of bringing life from the earth become a quiet manifesto for social change. Documentary filmmaker Steve Suderman searches his own family history in farming to wonder if the mistakes of the past can be avoided this time through.

Check it out at
Eventbrite:
Metro Vancouver City Farms:
UBC Land and Food Systems

Hopefully we’ll see you all there!
The FRUF Farm Team

Kid reporter Tia from DreamRider Theatre interviewed Ilana about urban farming and gardening here in Vancouver, BC. Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Plan sent the link out a few weeks ago, and now we’re sending it to you.

You can find the interview on youtube here.

Fresh Roots farm fields are almost entirely prepped for the winter. Cozy under seaweed, leaves, and straw, our soil will be healthy, strong, and fertile for the 2012 growing season.

Some of our fields have been sown in cover crops (a living mulch that feeds  soil nutrients that the vegetables may have feasted upon during the summer). Other fields in overwintering crops (leeks, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, etc.) that will provide us with food all winter long. These fields are also used as our demonstration gardens for schoolteachers learning how to grow SchoolYear Harvest Gardens (gardens that grow food while school is in session).

And for all you composting urban dwellers! This is the time to collect your leaves and your neighbor’s leaves, to have a steady supply for your compost all winter long. Each time we add our food scraps, we add a bunch of carbonaceous materials (like leaves) too. This helps us keep our compost healthy, aerated, and beneficial bacteria and organisms alive.

All in all, Fresh Roots is looking forward to the winter, while celebrating glorious sunny days like today!

With wintry scents and sunshine to all of you,
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Hello Everyone!

We are just finishing our weekly veggie box season (5 months of weekly, delicious fresh veg grown in the neighborhood), and our gardens are still growing abundantly!

We are offering (for the first time ever) a Garden Green Share through November. A weekly collection of kale greens, collard greens, swiss chard, and potentially squash, beets, jerusalem artichokes, and all crops continuing to thrive as the season grows cold.

It’s a two-week in advance payment plan, $15/week. So the first week of November you pay $30, and then another $30 two weeks in (if you want to continue). We may even go into December.

The pick-up site is every Wednesday between 3:30pm – 5:30pm at My Own Backyard Community Garden (MOBY) at 11th and Commercial, beneath the skytrain.

If you’re interested please email info@freshroots.ca subject: Garden Greens 2011

With warm wishes that autumn is bringing new colors into your life!
Ilana and the Fresh Roots Farm Team

As the autumn sunshine floods our soil with gorgeous light, Fresh Roots urban farm fields are growing abundantly!

Our front yard corn patch produced over 200 ears of corn, with juice so sweet it stuck to our chins.

Our field in Richmond is covered in barley and overwintering crops, and we intend to do a big garlic plant over the next couple days – filling our lives with fresh garlic and sunshine.

Our Queen Alexandra Elementary schoolyard garden just hosted a ProD day that 38 teachers attended, with a wait-list, all leaving us with glowing reviews.

And. As our fields grow, so do our potential projects and growing community relationships. Friends from This Space came out to film us on harvest day – and put together a sweet “Fresh Roots, What’s On The Menu?!” video clip – you can check it out here! (copy and paste link into your browser) http://thisspace.ca/?p=1139

With warm wishes that autumn is bringing new colors into your life!
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Check out the video and a few fun photos:

http://thisspace.ca/?p=1139

We are excited to offer you an opportunity to be a shareholder in the Fresh Roots CSA community.

What sprouted as a backyard CSA project is growing into a community-engaged organization, with urban farm fields in backyards and schoolyards. In partnership with VSB schools we are establishing schoolyard market gardens, growing food for the neighborhood while stewarding an outdoor hands-on learning classroom for the school community and greater Vancouver community.

With established, fertile soil, our gardens are growing abundantly, and we’re excited to offer mid-season CSA garden green share opportunities to you!

We have ½ shares available, consisting of our Schoolyard Salad Mix, kale greens, collard greens, and potentially more abundance as the season progresses.

A mid season ½ share will provide you with weekly greens that’ll feed 2-3 people.

Each share is $230. That breaks down to:

• $15/ weekly garden green box (for 12 weeks)
• $50 Farm Investment Fund

You can join as soon as this Thursday, August 11. Our harvests continue weekly until October 27. That is 12-13 weeks of fresh, local, affordable and organically grown deliciousness! Throughout the season you will also have the opportunity to purchase back-alley fed bee honey.

With the weekly garden greens we provide a weekly email with a seasonal recipe, stories from the farmers, preserving tips, and local community food happenings. Throughout the season there will be opportunities to visit the gardens, take part in a harvest celebration, and get to know our East Van localvore community at the weekly veggie box pick-up.

CSA pick-up is every Thursday at MOBY Community Garden, between 6-8pm. MOBY sits just under the skytrain on 11th east of Commercial Dr. There may be an opportunity to extend the Garden Greens share into the winter!

If interested, please email info@freshroots.ca subject Garden Greens

With warm regards and a fistful of compost!
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Find Fresh Roots Urban Farm Field photos on Flickr and on Facebook!

Hello Everyone!

It is that time of the year! Fresh Roots is preparing its fields for healthy, nutrient-rich overwintering growth and we’re excited to offer you the opportunity to join us. We’ll be spending Saturday, August 13 in our field in Richmond (near Steveston) prepping beds, sowing cover crops, transplanting overwintering edible crops, and talking about why we choose what, to place where, and how. We may also set up backyard alley resourced renegade field irrigation systems. You’ll learn how to build farm infrastructure with limited financial resources when living in an abundant urban environment

You’ll also learn a ton for your own home garden about how to extend your kitchen garden growing season into a year-round harvest, experience a beautiful day beside the great Fraser river, meet other people excited about utilizing our climate’s ability to serve ourselves food year round, laugh, and play (in the dirt).
ooh – and the blackberries may be ripe by then! there are so so so so many to pick!

Saturday, August 13
10am – 4pm
Richmond Incubator Farm Plot – southeast corner of Dyke Rd. And Gilbert Rd. just beyond the orchard garden

Directions:
Car (from Vancouver): Drive south along Knight, then follow signs towards the ferries (which veers you west for a moment then south again) and get off the highway at Steveston Highway – head west. At Gilbert Rd. head south, then just before the river and Dyke turn east into the parking lot for the community garden. Walk along the edge (beaten path along blackberry filled ditch) past the community garden, past the orchard, onto our farm!

Bike (from Vancouver): Catch the Canada line south to Brighouse (25min from Cambie and Broadway). Get out, ride south along Number 3 road all the way to Dyke Rd (15min). At Dyke turn right (west) and ride till the sweet little bridge. Turn onto the bridge – and you’ll see our farmers just there on the other side. Or, biking the whole way from Vancouver – google map it to find the best bike route

If you have any questions or need help arriving please call ilana at 778-862-FARM.

We would love to have you join us! If you think you’ll be able to make it please do rsvp to info@freshroots.ca or call (778) 862-FARM.

With healthy preparations for an abundant winter harvest,
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Now you can find Fresh Roots Urban Farm Field Photos on Flickr
Find us on facebook at Fresh Roots Urban CSA

This week in Fresh Roots neighborhood grown groceries CSA members received..

Fava beans!! Bunches of beets, scallions, leeks, carrots, kale, a bag of our Schoolyard Salad mix, mustard greens, zucchini, radish pods, and a handful of specialty basil.

The sunshine is out, the plants are glowing, our summertime compost is curing, and Fresh Roots happenings are growing. This week Gray, our compost specialist, gave a tour of our various backyard composting systems to a City of Vancouver neighborhood backyard composting pilot. The tour was fantastic (cuz Gray’s systems’ are fantastic) and the feedback was awesome.

We’re almost looking forward to slowing the season down so we can turn the black gold into our fields, in preparation for next year

Attached are some photos from the tour.

For fun shots from the Fresh Roots fields check out our new fickr site! http://www.flickr.com/photos/65742536@N05/.

You can also find Fresh Roots on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Fresh-Roots-Urban-CSA/347503614537

Recipes
What to do with your delicious favas?!
First of all – what are fava beans? Where do they come from? Check out a piece of fava bean history from wikipedia.org

“Broad beans have a long tradition of cultivation in Old World agriculture, being among the most ancient plants in cultivation and also among the easiest to grow. It is believed that along with lentils, peas, and chickpeas, they became part of the eastern Mediterranean diet in around 6000 BC or earlier. They are still often grown as a cover crop to prevent erosion, because they can over-winter and because as a legume, they fix nitrogen in the soil.”

For the simplest and still absolutely delicious. Pop the favas out of their pod. Boil them for 5-10min. Let them cool, then pop them beans out of their shells. Stir fry them in a pan with carmelized onions and garlic, add the beet thins, let it simmer for 5 minutes covered, mix ‘em, add the mustard greens, eat and enjoy!

Otherwise, other sassy fava recipes are…
1. http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/3623/fava.aspx
2. http://www.seasonalchef.com/recipe0506b.htm

Radish Pods – throw into a salad, or top any dish to impress. Crunchy and delicious, if we let them sit on the plant they would turn into seed – instead we pick them fresh and enjoy their juicy crunch.

With a fistful of cured compost!
The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Even with Vancouver sitting beneath summertime high clouds, Fresh Roots Urban Farm fields are growing strong and producing delicious neighborhood-grown veggies that CSA shareholders, schoolchildren, and some local restaurants are enjoying.

In the past few weeks we’ve done a few urban farm field tours. One was for a delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture in Korea. Ilana toured close to 30 Korean organic farmers, mostly women, some men, through our schoolyard garden and backyard gardens.

Last night we hosted the monthly Urban Farmer Network meet-up; talked FRUF, walked through the gardens, ate delicious food, and did a late night garlic harvest, in attempt to save our garlic from potential oncoming rains and garlic rot.

And. It was a success! Afterwards – we pickled! (Not all our garlic, just those that were still young and fresh).

Check out the few photos attached in this blog entry – and soon we’ll update our website with more photos from this year (us community-engaged farmers are actively working towards being as responsible with our technological nurturing as we are with the plants in our fields. You can find more recent photos at our facebook page Fresh Roots Urban CSA: Early Summer 2011

Corn is growing out in Richmond, greens are growing in the city, we harvested our first potato patch today, beets ‘n’ carrots ‘n’ turnips ‘n’ all roots rockin strong growth, scarlet runner beans flowering loud orange and red tones, are only a handful of the growing happenings in our urban fields.

With a fistful of recently finished compost (wahoo!),

The Fresh Roots Farm Team

Ilana moving CSA harvest by bicycle

Beans around the bathtub

Tying blackberries around boulevard trees

Kickin' in the cornpatch