New Hope Cuisine

At the Table Matters meeting on Friday, I arrived late and could only make it to one table. I chose to go to the New Hope Cuisine table and was truly inspired. I have always considered it a disgusting crime that we throw out tons of "unsatisfactory" food in grocery stores. Things such as a cake with a crack in it that nobody will buy, are being thrown out into landfills. What New Hope is doing, is taking all that food and creating frozen gourmet meals and soups from rescued foods. Whole foods is their main supplier however they are trying to get other businesses to partner up with them. At the moment Costco and Safeway are refusing to do so. In our discussion on how to get people to buy these delicious meals ( the lemon and apple chicken was all rescued food), I suggested making a Facebook page for the meals. When I think about advertising these days, the majority of it is done through technology (TV, computers, radio) and youth are a great target for these meals. University kids are always busy and may not always have the time to make themselves a good meal so New Hope would be perfect! When Scott, the Executive Chef and Instructor said that he is not at all technology savvy, I mentioned that Rockridge (I believe West Van and Sentinel too) have a program called Work Experience where there would likely be people willing to volunteer to help with creating an online area for the New Hope Cuisine. I took an extra one of his business cards and plan on talking with one of the Work Experience teachers about the idea. I hope it works out because what Scott and his team are doing is amazing.

Colony Collapse Disorder

The response for this subject will be late because of the 14 holds on one copy of the film at VPL.

Week 7

This week I spent 20 minutes composting at school and 45 minutes cleaning up dead plants in the gardens and planning out next years crops.

Identifying and Treating Varroa

Interesting elements from Varroa Mite History, Distribution, and Biology video:

• Compared to the size of the host (bee), varroa mites are one of the largest parasites on the planet, like a basketball sized tick on a human.... scary
• Natural parasite to an Asian species of honey bee, not American
• Varroa Mites have a special apparatus they stick out of the Royal jelly to breath when they are waiting for the larva to be covered

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look for any bees with deformed wings, to make sure they are not carrying deform wing virus.

Questions:

What other viruses can varroa mites transmit to honey bees?

What is the most effective way to get rid of varroa mites?

Identifying Nosema

Interesting facts from Nosema Disease Diagnosis and Control:

• Spore explosively uncoils when it hits the bee's gut and passed from bee to bee through feces
• Disease increases when bees cannot leave hive for cleansing flight
• sample size is as big as 100 bees

Questions

• What are the best conditions for nosema to thrive?
• Why must dead bees be soaked in alcohol longer than live bees?

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look for feces in the hive to see if they are taking cleansing flights or not.

Common Bee Diseases

Interesting elements from Beekeeping Made Easy: Pest/Disease Program:

• Three types of brood, however all very different, only AFB means burn everything
• Nosema and paralysis is only found in adult bees
• Small hive beetles prefer queenless hives

Next time I'm in the apiary I will look to see if there are any signs of brood (any of the three kinds)

Questions from this reading:

• What is it about vegetable oil that blocks the sent that attracts tracheal mites?
• Why are animals such as squirrels able to mess with hives without being stung or effected by stings?

Week 6

This week I did 15 minutes of composting at school and 20 minutes of gardening at home. I ended up falling off a horse and bruising my hand and hip, which made it difficult to garden so I did not get my whole hour in.

Week 5

This cauliflower we did not tie the leaves above it, so we'll have to see how it tastes.
Pulled out all the carrots... there were a lot!
The backyard compost is doing well!
Harvesting delicious apples every day.
This week I spent around two hours movie manure into our garden beds, pulling out old plants and weeds, and a few other things were harvested.

A Composting Success Story

Interesting elements of the High School Garden Grows Pride article:

• Windermere uses its feeder schools for their compost too as well as its own compost material
• The aquaponics system sounded very interesting and fairly unique for a school
• A small fruit orchard. Several schools have had vegetable gardens, however A fruit orchard would be a very interesting aspect.

Questions

• Is a fruit orchard something West Van high or Rockridge could consider?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of an aquaponics system

Next time I'm at my school compost, I will see how we recruit people to help out with our garden and compost.

Worm Composting

Interesting elements from Composting with Red Wriggler Worms article:

• The idea to reuse something such as an old dresser or a trunk for the container
• Not to use the large worms found in soil and compost. I would have assumed they would survive just as well in the worm composting
• The number of worms needed for one pound of waste (2000 worms)

Questions

• What other species of worm would work well in other parts of the world?
• Does introducing these worms into your garden have an effect on the worms already there?

Next time I'm in the garden I'll see how many different species of worms I can see.

Week 4

I composted for 30 minutes this week and spent 35 minutes gardening.

Before working

After working

Leaf Mold

Interesting elements from the How To Make Leaf Mould video:

• Best to use a range deciduous plant leaves for a range in nutrients, pine needles in a different heap for other varieties of plants, but no coniferous plant leaves
• Leaves will take about a year to create a useful leaf mould but dampness and circulating air in them is helpful
• Pine needles create an acidic leaf mould

Next time I'm in the garden I'll look for leaves to see what types are around here.

Questions

• I wonder which mix of leaves would be the most nutritious for the garden?

Other plant leaves that are bad for leaf mould

• beech
• birch
• hornbeam
• oak
• sweet chestnut
• magnolia
• holly

Bokashi Fermentation

I was very interested to find out from The Composting Guy's Guide to Bokashi that you can even through meat and dairy into the Bokashi as well as all the usual brown and green materials. It was also very interesting that the liquid from the waste materials can be poured down the drains to eliminate odours. I originally would have thought the liquid would cause odours. That is another thing I was interested to read, that the bokashi box has no bad odour.

When I'm at my compost next time I will check to see if mine has an odour or not.

I'm interested to know what other "goodies" would benefit the bokashi mix besides kelp or rock dust?

General Composting Tricks for the North Shore

Watching the North Shore Recycling Program, I liked the comparison they made saying the compost should have the same moistness as a damp, wrung out sponge. Using this comparison made it very clear what the compost should be like. It was interesting that you need equal amounts of green and brown materials. It's crazy that one household can compost about 500kg of material that turns into 100kg of fertilizer.

Next time I go out to my compost or the school compost, I will make sure to bring an equal amount of newspaper shreddings or other brown materials as well as the fruit and vegetable scraps.

This video made me wonder why people would buy fertilizer when they can make their own, more environmental fertilizer for free? I also am curious as to how long it would take the anaerobic bacteria to ferment the food scraps in a composting bin.