Sold out class!

The DIY Beeswax Body Product workshop at the Light Cellar in Bowness was SOLD OUT and SOOO much fun! Here are some of the pics from our night together:

Twenty students ready to learn!

Three stations set up to make lip balm, solid lotion & healing salve.

Making decisions on which essential oils to use in the healing salves.

Solid Lotion cooling (opaque tins are nearly ready)

We enjoyed some great chocolate treats by Malcolm and had some laughs too. Thanks to all of you who came to join us! Hope to see you at the next class :)

DIY bee product workshop

Check out this AMAZING partnership with The Light Cellar, ABC, and Apple Tree!

Are you interested in learning how to make your own body products with natural ingredients? Maybe with the honey and wax from the beehive in your ownbackyard? Learning how to make our own body products gives us feelings of satisfaction and comfort. By making your own body products you become aware of what ingredients are being used, you support the local economy by purchasing ingredients from local stores, you often reuse containers, and it is even easier tailor the product to best suit your needs. A.B.C- Apiaries and Bees for Communities and the The Light Cellar are pleased to team up with Sara Haney, owner of Apple Tree Sustainables. Sara is passionate about making safe body and cleaning products that can be made in your kitchen with a few simple ingredients. Her knowledge of herbs, wild crafting, essential oils and infusions, alongside her degrees in biology, education, and permaculture, provide a breadth of knowledge for you to make your own safe body products at home.

We would like to invite you to an evening, December 14th, of making natural body creams, salves, and lip balms with Calgary-bound honey and wax products, and Malcolms (The Light Cellar) famous Hot Chocolate and raw treats. Tickets are $30 and in this workshop you will learn how to make 3 different products with simple and easy to source ingredients. You will also make one of the recipes yourself in the workshop to take home with you. Come out to the workshop so that you too can give these beautiful items as gifts to your friends and loved ones this holiday season. Register today. There are only 20 seats available for this unique workshop, and seats are filling up fast! Register now.

Festive holiday workshop, includes learning how to make a salve, lip balm and lotion with ethical ingredients. Taught by Sara Haney of Apple Tree Sustainables. Raw chocolates and hot cocoa as well as delicious snacks made my Malcolm of The Light Cellar! Only 20 seats available!

Tickets are $30/pp. Register at http://www.backyardbees.ca/courses

Sustainable Gift Giving

What are you giving your friends and family for gifts this holiday season? With any luck it will involve something homemade, made by a local artisan, or grown in your backyard. Not only will you be supporting a more sustainable and decentralized economic system, you will be reducing the amount of energy spent on packaging and transport. As I am thinking about different items I can make that my friends and family would like, here are a few of my ideas:

• jam, jelly, or other preserves
• assorted dried fruit
• infused olive oil and vinegar
• relaxing eye pillow filled with flax seeds, buckwheat, or rice and lavender
• dried and crushed rose hips--it is a good time to collect them any time after the first frost
• locally grown seeds for planting in spring--Harmonic Herbs is my new favourite local company
• organic sugar and olive oil body scrub--super easy to make
• cookie jars
• local herbs for tea and honey
• make and freeze muffins for an quick morning meal for busy families
• make and freeze your favourite soup, lasagna, pie, etc.
• coupon for a free night of babysitting for a couple who could use a night out
• make a donation in a friends' name to their favourite charity
• Here are some ideas of charities that need food and monetary donations:
• Mustard Seed, Inn From the Cold, Women In Need Society, United Way, Inter-faith Food Bank
• shop for needed items for the above charities with a friend and donate at the end of your day together

If you are not inclined to make something yourself, consider shopping at the next Calgary Dollars Market on December 12th at Bow Cliff Senior Center. If you are not yet a member of Calgary Dollars, sign up at the market and receive $20 to spend!

I will be at the next Calgary Dollars market selling toothpaste, tooth powder, deodorant, face cream with sea buckthorn infused oil, ache out creamy oil, and some other surprises. As a strong supporter of the program, I accept 50% Calgary Dollars for my healthy hygiene products. Email me ahead of time to pick up your order at the market.

Leave a comment of your favourite homemade gift to make, local vendor, or charity to donate to!

Time to think about gardens!

It was not too long ago that our garden wrapped up for the year (just yesterday!), but already there are a lot of people talking about next year's garden projects. Living in a very cold climate challenges our gardening techniques and allows us time to learn and rejuvenate during a long winter.

While standing outside in a new dusting of snow, getting colder by the minute, a keen group of parents and interested community members stood in a potential new garden space. Due to the foresight of these members, permaculture was at the centre of our discussions. As a friend reminded me yesterday, there are 100 hours of planning for every hour of implementation in permaculture. Since "work is a failure in design" we want to make sure that our systems, be they water, paths, beds, or structures, will provide maximum output for minimal work input.

Through my experiences helping out getting a community garden established at Mount Royal University, gaging interest in my community in implementing a garden, and in attending various gardening workshops, I learned have learned of many sources of grants and additional information. Here are some sites to get you started on funding your new community garden or other sustainable project in Calgary:

Take Action Grant through Calgary Dollars

Fiskars Project Orange Thumb

Evergreen Grants

Calgary Horticultural Society

Home Depot

To find out more information about starting a community garden, check out these sites to give you ideas and support:

Tuscany Community Garden

Southwood Community Garden

The AREA in Inglewood

TONS of great support on the Calgary Horticultural Society's website

Start a free website or blog on Wordpress or Blogger like Tuscany did for their garden to document their efforts and raise awareness and support for the project you are embarking on. Print off pieces of paper to distribute to your friends and neighbours in the community and advertise in your community newsletter to drum up support.

If you come across more information for grants or other support, please leave a comment below to help other future community garden supporters!

Parts 2 & 3: People Care & Fair Share

People Care and Fair share were lessons that I learned under an apple tree last year during a pick for the the Calgary Urban Harvest. My husband and I joined the harvest because we longed for free, organic, local fruit that we grew accustomed to while living in Oregon. Not only did we have access to more fruit than we could eat in a year, we learned so many more things while harvesting.

Now that the fruit harvesting season is in full swing again, it has reminded me of all the lessons we learned picking apples, plums, and cherries. After harvesting the fruit from tree owners that would otherwise not use the fruit (earth care), we leave 1/3 of the harvest for them (if they want it), share 1/3 with the other volunteers fruit pickers, and donate 1/3 to charitable organizations. While picking we were building community, making connections, sharing recipes, life stories, and metaphorically weaving a support network of new friends. People Care.

Donations of fruit were shared with the Mustard Seed, Drop In Centre, Food Bank, and other organizations. There is no better way to start a day than dropping off fresh, organic, local produce to a charity in the morning before work! Fair share.

Have you figured out why I chose the title for this blog and my business yet? I believe than many of the world's problems can be solved under an apple tree and the complicated nature of permaculture can be easily broken down.

Bring your kids, friends, and family on our next harvest to share our experiences with the three main principles of permaculture: earth care, people care, and fair share.

Part 1 of 3: Earth Care

The first main principle of permaculture is Earth Care.

In essence, this principle implies that humans are not inherently destructive to the Earth, we can be mechanisms of repair if given the proper knowledge. One of the easiest things we can do in a city situation is to remove our role as a grass farmer and use that space to grow our own organic food. Here is a great article about lawns from my friends at Verge Permaculture: The Grass Isn't Greener.

In our zone 2 climate, it is challenging to grow melons, hot peppers, and okra. However, we can quite easily grow lettuce, beets, carrots, peas, beans, squash, cucumbers, onion, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, apple trees.... and the list goes on. We can grow more edible plants than most people think! It is important to select varieties of seeds for this climate carefully, as some are better than others. Try to save your own seed from successful plants or barter for some from a friend.

Another easy thing to do to aid in Earth Care is to compost. Composting can be done on all sorts of scales in many different ways, but they all need similar materials: browns (carbon) and greens (nitrogen). Here is a good source for more details on composting.

If you do not have space or ability to start a compost pile, you can vermicompost in your home or apartment with worms. Not only is it a great activity for children to be involved with, it can be maintained with minimal effort. Here is where I get my worms and info from: Worms @ Work and "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Applehof. We have maintained our worm bin for over 2 years, feeding them every other week, without so much as a hint of smell from the bin. Give it a try!

When you are working on a project around your yard or home, think about if you can source the materials you need second hand via Kijiji, bartering with a friend, or check out ReStore. Do you really need to remove your bathroom cabinets, or could you refinish them? Instead of buying new wood to build a raised bed, could you find some pieces that someone is giving away for free or low cost to avoid them being dumped in the landfill. Many construction sites around town now have debris recycling bags that can often be a source of good pieces of wood or other materials.

In summary of Earth Care:

1. Stop being a grass farmer and turn your lawn into a food productive space

2. Plant seeds that are well adapted for your particular climate and growing season

3. Compost

4. Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose

Next topic: People Care

Weeds? No such thing!

"If there is no such thing as a 'weed', what do you call a dandelion?!"

"Food, profit, and a hard working immigrant"

This is a snippet of a conversation that I had with an older man at a bookstore when I was looking to buy "One Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka. I was trying to tell him the basics of permaculture and how we view "weeds". I doubt that he will ever look at a dandelion the same way after I told him what the environment and humans can use them for.

Look for different weeds in your garden with your child and then look them up on a chart like this one: http://www.oregonbd.org/Class/weeds.htm to see what they can tell you about your soil. Many of the "weeds" are edible or medicinal. Since dandelions are so easily recognizable, spend a day picking dandelion flowers in a chemical-free area to make into dandelion syrup. If you are looking for more reasons to love dandelions, check out this site: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/dandelion-000236.htm

While you are out picking dandelions, notice where they are growing. School playgrounds, around bus stops, near sidewalks, but rarely in low use areas. With their large tap root, dandelions help to break up the soil (which can be harvested, washed, dried, roasted, and ground up into a coffee substitute in the fall) to allow for other plants to have a suitable place to live.

Let me know where your adventures lead you and how your dandelion syrup turns out!

What is a wicking bed and how does it work?

After learning about wicking beds in my Permaculture Design Certificate course (which I graduated from last weekend!), I had a hard time understanding how they worked. Here is a great illustration from Urban Food Gardens:

What did not make sense to me was how the moisture got up to the soil even after the water level drops. I had to make a model to demonstrate this purpose using materials around the house. Here is what I came up with:

This is reused container filled about 1/3 of rocks, a piece of landscape fabric, a reused piece of tubing down the side, then cotton from a pill bottle. To make the wicking of water more obvious, I added blue food colouring to the water before pouring it down the tube to fill the bottom reservoir. Additionally, I poked a hole just below where the rocks and fabric meet for drainage.

After an hour or so, here is what it looked like:

After 2 hours and a bit of compaction to make the cotton fibers touch each other better (shredded paper may work better) :

At 2 weeks after construction and adding water, the cotton has stayed moist even though the water level has dropped below the fabric level. The main idea behind this design is that the plant roots will grow down toward the moisture, hence stronger and more resilient. Watering from the surface produces roots that extend outwards (not down) because the whole container or bed rarely gets watered thoroughly enough to allow the roots to grow down. This design is particularly successful in very arid climates or for lazy gardeners who only want to water once a week or so.

I deem this experiment successful and now have a much better understanding for how wicking beds work.

Try this experiment with your children, then make a Global Bucket or larger scale wicking bed if you are so inclined!

Spring rains bring...

...opportunities to learn about water harvesting! The most important principle and design element in permaculture is water; how to direct it, make multiple uses of it, infiltrate it into the landscape, and have it leave your property cleaner than it came in.

A child's mind is an uncluttered, imaginative playground for ideas and innovation. Whereas as adult's mind is often cluttered with thoughts and reasons why something cannot work. As it is raining, go outside and ask your child how the water coming out of the downspouts can be put to better use than simply running into the grass or back alley.

Questions to ask:

1. How can we get this water to our vegetable and herb growing areas or to young trees?

2. How can we store this water for later in summer when it does not rain as often?

3. What else can we use the stored water for? (ie dog, feet, or tool washing)

Here are more resources to familiarize yourself with water harvesting ideas:

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/03/13/tackling-urban-water-runoff-in-a-sydney-suburb/#more-1161

Activities on swales and other water storing ideas coming soon! In the mean time, get yourself a rain barrel or repurpose your plastic garbage can into a rain barrel by just putting screen over the top to keep out the mosquitos.

Where does my food come from?

So many children (and adults) do not know where their food comes from. You may not think twice about where the strawberries you buy in February are coming from or how the cows were raised that produce the dairy products you consume. Here is a quick activity that all adults and children should try:

1. Make a list of the 5 most common items you buy at the grocery store.

2. Go to the store, find the products and write down mark on a map (like the one below) where they come from.

3. For older children, calculate the distance that each item travels to get to the store.

4. Look for the same item and see if you can find another variety that travels a shorter distance to get to the store. Decide with your child if you should still buy the item based on your new knowledge.

5. Visit your local farmers market to meet the farmers who grow or produce foods that you enjoy close to your home. Ask the farmers to see if you can visit their farm with your child.

When faced with the choice of A. organic or B. conventional produce, most experts will agree that the answer should be C. local. Local and organic would be double bonus, but may not always be available. Depending on the source you look at, for every calorie of food about 10 calories of fossil fuels were used to produce and transport that item. If we can reduce the calories used to transport the food, by buying close to home, we can positively impact our environment.

Here are a few more sites for information on local food:

http://www.cityfarmer.info/2010/05/26/the-zero-mile-diet-a-year-round-guide-to-growing-organic-food/

http://greencommunityproject.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-far-does-your-food-travel.html

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/camiles/foodmiles.pdf

Which item on your shopping list traveled the furthest to get to the store? Leave me a comment!

Tree patterns

Something that children are very good at is recognizing patterns. Permaculture principles are also based around noticing patterns in a landscape. One of the most common patterns that children will be able to identify are tree or dendritic shapes.

Observe and have your child sketch what a tree branch looks like. Then lie on your back under the tree looking straight up the trunk and sketch the pattern. This is a dendritic pattern and can be found all around us. Look for a washed out bank of a hill, parking lot drainage, pictures of rivers, kidneys, lungs, blood vessels, and the nervous system. As you travel around town or go for a walk around the neighbourhood, point out a few of the tree patterns you see and prompt your child to do the same.

Here are some examples of dendritic (tree) patterns :

Let me know how your pattern observation goes and what your child notices that has tree patterns in their environment. Can you incorporate a dendritic pattern in your garden this year?

Plant seeds

One of the most important things that I have been learning about is food security. Namely, growing as much food as I can on the land that I have available. A great way to teach children about this idea is to help them plant seeds, or if they are older, help them plan out a section of garden that they will be responsible for.

This time of year in Calgary, good seeds to plant include: herbs, lettuce, squash, cucumbers, and any other plant that needs to be started about 6 weeks before the last frost. Young children would benefit most from quickly sprouting seeds like lettuce that can be grown to eating size in your window in about 3 weeks.

Be sure to plant in a container with drainage holes and use organic potting soil with compost or worm castings mixed in. Have your child mist the seeds each day.

Micro green mix planted in a spinach container with holes poked in the bottom and the top cover used as a drip tray.

In 3 weeks, we had a beautiful salad mix to eat for pennies.

Let me know what you plant with your children this week!

Meet the Blogger

Hi! My name is Sara and I am a certified science teacher who is obsessed with learning how to become more sustainable and passing on that knowledge to anyone I meet--especially children.

On our urban homestead, we are constantly striving to grow as much food as possible, preserve food by canning and dehydrating, and learning all that we can about permaculture to make our lot as productive as possible with minimal human input. With my passion for teaching children in combination with the foresight and guidance of Verge Permaculture, I am working on developing courses for children to learn the principles of permaculture in a hands-on way.

Check back weekly for ideas on how to help your child learn about permaculture and other sustainable practices that you can implement in and around your home.