Lasqueti Food Producers' Alliance

Lasqueti Food Producers' Alliance

JennyV - jennyv [at] lasqueti [dot] ca / 8601
Marie-Ange - mafall [at] gowlland [dot] ca / 8595
Wendy S - schweibee [at] gmail [dot] com / 8632
Hilary haze3 [at] rocketmail [dot] com / 8674

Topics and discussions:

• March 30: Beginning A Food Garden On Lasqueti

Island Food Security Update

A small group has been formed in cooperation with our local emergency coordinator, Darcy Pascall to come up with a plan to improve island food security in these crazy times.  We're still working on a good name, let us know if you have any ideas (Lasqueti Food Producers Alliance? Lasqueti Food Growers? Island Food Collective? ......) 

How can we grow and distribute more food locally? To start with, everyone is encouraged to step up food production at home.  There are plenty of seasoned gardeners to reach out to for advice and JennyV will be keeping us all on track with regular garden advice posts.  Talk to your neighbours about how to make best use of all the garden space available in your neighbourhood, maybe someone has more space than they can handle while someone else is short on sun or water or fencing but would love to provide some garden labour in exchange for some produce.  You may also want to grow more of what grows well in your garden and trade with neighbours or friends for things that don't do as well for you. 

Jenny V and Marie-Ange are both stepping up production of veggie starts and have catalogs listing what they will have available that can be emailed or sent to you via post.  The PAC Plant Sale has been cancelled and the Mother's Day Plant Sale will not happen as it usually does either, so at this point, it's best to pre-order and work out pick-up/delivery with them directly.  There are several other growers who will have extra starts too, such as Gordon will sell his extra starts from his stand as usual.  Reach out on the email list or call around if you have extra starts to offer or are in search of something.  A facebook group has also been started for seed and start swapping called Lasqueti Seed Trade.

It seems unlikely the Saturday market will happen, so distribution of extra produce is the big question.  Some kind of box program (sometimes called CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture) seems to be the best solution, where extra food is bought from folks for set prices and then boxes are put together so all members get a share.  There are still lots of questions to answer about how to set things up to be efficient and keep everyone safe and virus-free.  Stay tuned for more details as plans develop.  If you have any good ideas or want to help with organizing, please contact us.

We're also aiming to get unused garden space into production to grow staples on a larger scale for the community - ie. root veggies, winter squash, dry beans etc. for consumption over the winter.  Carly R and Willy are developing a list of available land as well as folks willing to help out with farm labour, so if you know of available land (especially if it's already fenced and has irrigation water available), or are willing to help with planting, weeding, watering etc, get in touch with either of them so you get added to the list.