Common Ground Community Development presents
THE FOUR SEASON GARDEN
A FREE WORKSHOP SERIES
at the St. John's Community Market!
245 Freshwater Road, St. John’s, NL
Thursday, September 13, 7-9 pm
PRESERVING THE HARVEST
Freezing, drying, salting, pickling, canning and root cellars!
(Bring 2 lbs. of fruit ~ Make homemade jam!)
With Shawn Dawson of Barking Kettle
and Dan Rubin of Perfectly Perennial Herbs and Seeds
Thursday, September 20, 7-9pm
GROW UP! VERTICAL GARDENING
Extend the growing season, maximize space, and increase production!
With Danilo González-DÃaz of Growing Global Wellness
Thursday, September 27, 7-9pm
SEED SAVING
Add diversity to your garden and save money...
by saving seeds!
With Sarah Crocker of Seed to Spoon
Thursday, October 4, 7-9pm
CREATING THE YEAR ROUND GARDEN
How to plant, grow and harvest all year long!
With Dan Rubin of Perfectly Perennial Herbs and Seeds
SEATING IS LIMITED. TO REGISTER:
Email Lori Heath at
with "REGISTRATION: [WORKSHOP NAME]" in title,
(please provide your phone number in the email)
call 631-5674,
or visit our Facebook event page at
https://www.facebook.com/events/240148070019605/
This workshop series is offered by
Common Ground Community Development Corporation
with the generous support of
the Department of Children, Seniors and Social Development
and our community partners;
Food First NL, Friends of Pippy Park, MUN Botanical Garden,
The Newfoundland and Labrador Environment Network,
and The O'Brien Farm Foundation
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS:
FOOD PRESERVING AND STORING
In this workshop session, well known local food harvester Shawn Dawson of Barking Kettle and Dan Rubin of Perfectly Perennial Herbs and Seeds will review traditional methods of preserving and storing food for long term use. Learn about drying, salting, pickling, freezing and smoking as well as home canning of fruits, herbs and vegetables and some meats to preserve them for later use. As well as going over details of each of these methods and specific techniques and tips for keeping food safe, we will cook up, bottle and share a batch of homemade jam. Each participant should bring two pounds of fruit or berries they have picked or grown to add to the pot for the jam.
GROW UP! VERTICAL GARDENING
Learn to grow food virtually anywhere, anytime, indoors and out...by growing up! Vertical gardens greatly increase available growing space, and provide a sustainable, pest-free, disease-free, water-wise environment to harvest a variety of edibles! In this workshop, Danilo Gonzalez Diaz of Growing Global Wellness will provide instruction on how to construct vertical gardens using cheap, recyclable materials, and how to care for your new up-do!
INTRODUCTION TO SEED SAVING
Seed saving is a special way to connect with your garden - it adds biodiversity, adapts plants to your growing conditions, and can help preserve unique varieties of special plants. In this workshop, Sarah Crocker of Seed to Spoon will provide you with the basic knowledge behind seed saving, including the biology of plant reproduction, the vocabulary of seeds (heirloom, open pollinated, hybrid), and best types of plants for new seed savers. We will do a hands-on activity for seed collecting and making packets - see how simple tools and keen observation can help grow your seed garden!
CREATING THE YEAR-ROUND GARDEN
Dan Rubin, a home gardener and seedsman in Pouch Cove, has been extending the growing season using raised beds and simple protective structures built from recycled materials. In this two hour workshop Dan will share what he has learned about growing food year-round in our challenging climate. By careful seed selection, building good soil and creating shelter from wind and cold, you can grow crops all year round, and harvest in mid-winter and early spring as well as fall and summer!
PRESENTER BIOS:
Sarah Crocker is the farm manager of Seed to Spoon, a certified organic farm in Portugal Cove. With over 12 years of farming experience, she loves to share the lessons learned and help other people get started. Seed saving is a growing part of her work, which adds bio-diversity and food security to the vegetable offerings of the farm. In 2016, Sarah founded the St. John's Seed Library to encourage gardeners to grow, save, and share the seed harvest.
Shawn Dawson is the owner/operator of Barking Kettle, which provides sustainably-foraged Newfoundland wild edibles to local restaurants, and sells vegetables, herbs and foraged foods at the St. John's Community Market and local food festivals. Shawn hosts foraging tours at the Grounds Cafe in Murray's Garden Center, presents workshops on how to preserve and prepare the harvest, and recently began teaching local high school students how to safely and sustainably forage in Newfoundland. His wild edibles cookbook and field guide is set to be released through Boulder Publications this year. Follow Shawn and his foraging cat, Douglas Fir @flossmandandycabbage on Instagram!
Originally from Chile, Danilo González DÃaz is an Agronomist Engineer and a specialist in Urban Agriculture. He has coordinated a variety of urban agricultural projects with Chilean government and NGOs, and has worked as an Urban Agriculture university professor and thesis advisor. Since arriving in Canada in 2010, he has worked on urban landscaping projects, assisted local growers improve production systems, and worked as a wholesale head grower for Woodland Nurseries Ltd. He is the founder of Growing Global Wellness (formerly GardenMind,) an organization which assists the community in creating sustainable urban gardens. Danilo is also the Market Manager of the St. John’s Community Market.
Dan Rubin is a home gardener who lives in Pouch Cove. Over the past decade he has created a heritage seed company (Perfectly Perennial Herbs and Seeds) and has led spring workshops on Creating the Year Round Garden attended by more than 400 local gardeners and growers. By using raised beds and building simple protective structures to shelter plants from wind and cold, by using organic methods to build good soil, and finding varieties that do well here, he is able to harvest food all year long! For more than thirty years he homesteaded in the Gulf Islands of BC where he built a house, dug his own well, maintained a large garden and orchard and depended on solar panels for electrical power and wood heat for warmth, cooking and hot water.