Research - plants , restoration, replant, food, greenhouse

info on flora


http://northernchirp.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-06-30T17%3A04%3A00-04%3A00&max-results=7
SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008
Gardening in the Snow
We woke up this morning to a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. The hot arctic sun had burned it off by noon, but it was still discouraging. I am so ready for spring.

The skidoos are still getting out on the bay, but its getting harder and this is probably the last weekend. One of my work colleagues said that the other day she was coming back from a trip out to her cabin down Frobisher Bay from Iqaluit and she was waist deep in water for big chunks of the trip. Yikes. I asked her if that wasn't incredibly cold and she said, 'nah. you don't notice it with the adreline when you're skidooing through water.'

Another woman who works in my department was just stranded on a skidoo trip up to Arctic Bay (a trip of a couple thousand kilometres, by the way) and she and her husband had to call a charter in to pick them up at one of the DEW line stations. Inuit colleagues are saying that the snow and ice melt is three weeks early this year.

But I'm ready for srping (especially after a trip to Halifax last week, for work -- I couldn't believe how green it was and how nice it was to see trees and grass and great stretches of spring flowers again).

So, what do you do when the spring gardening bug hits and there is no topsoil outside (only gravel and sand in most places, with some bunches of moss etc)? You join the community greenhouse!

We joined the Iqaluit community greenhouse, so this morning we trekked over the melting snow to participate in the big tomato plant-off. John and I are floaters, so we don't have our own plot -- we help to take care of the plots for a couple local shelters and community organizations.

It was so nice to go out of the snowy cold outdoors into the hot humid greenhouse. Plants which were started last week are already sprouted -- and up an inch, in some cases (yeah radishes). Today we were planting the tomatoes and zucchini that hang from the ceiling.


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Iqaluit-Community-Greenhouse-Society/210639712303406 good contacti have mailed them with some questions - waiting for a responce!

http://northernchirp.blogspot.com/2008/06/1000-household-helpers-move-in.html
1,000 Household Helpers Move In
One of the conundrums about living up here is what to do with compost. There are no community-wide composting programs here (there is one small test one for a few households, but nothing we could participate in). It was a shock to start throwing everything in the garbage again after years of getting used to more and more recycling and composting. (It was also sooooo easy to start doing ....) It also seemed crazy not to compost, because the outdoor soil here is almost all rock and gravel (with patches of moss etc on the tundra, but nothing you could garden with).

So, I began to dream of worms. Compost worms. To chew up our compost and give us nice soil in return. I have friends who have used compost worms in apartments, etc. for years, and swear by them. So I became obsessed with getting compost worms. I blogged about this before: I was plotting how to ship up compost worms - send them by air cargo? take them on the plane as 'pets'?

Then some friends up here phoned us to tell us they were moving and wanted their compost worms to go to a good home. So, about 1,000 little household helpers moved in on Saturday. They were a little spooked by the move, so there were a couple wild escape attempts at first, but as soon as we kept the lid off the bin and shone light in, they all burrowed back down into their dark wonderland. It amazes me that they are so efficient, and industrious, and don't even smell! And you can actually HEAR them if you get up close to the box. I'm very excited about their arrival. Go worms go!


Posted by Northern Chirpat 10:06 PM
1 comments:

Maggie said...
Should you need tips about worm wrangling, please don't hesitate to call us and Al can give you advice. Last time our worms made a break for it, Al diagnosed a combination of lack of food and too much moisture. He added a new layer of shredded newspaper to the top. He also highly recommends the book "worms eat my garbage".

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/dream-of-fresh-produce-in-the-arctic/article794452/

Dream of fresh produce in the Arctic
SARA MINOGUE
IQALUIT— From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jun. 20, 2007 9:00AM EDT
Last updated Friday, Apr. 03, 2009 2:12PM EDT
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While skiers and snowmobilers enjoy the long days of sunshine on the sea ice of Frobisher Bay, John Lamb steps into his brand new greenhouse and takes off his jacket.

Outdoors, the temperature hovers just a few degrees above zero, but sunshine drives the greenhouse effect to extremes. Inside, a thermometer records noon temperatures as high as 50 C - much too hot for plants.

At one end of a 15-metre-long tube, a greenhouse builder from Bradford, Ont., installs the ventilation system that will keep the greenhouse cool. In the meantime, Mr. Lamb and members from the Iqaluit Community Greenhouse Society are busy setting up boxes to grow vegetables.

The end of this month will see the official opening of treeless Iqaluit's first community gardening centre.

"It's kind of hard to imagine right now," says Mr. Lamb, the group's president, "but we hope by the end of the season, and our first harvest party, people will think it's kind of a neat thing."

Mr. Lamb isn't just a passionate gardener: He has a vision for this project. He wants to prove that you can grow vegetables in Arctic climates and hopes the greenhouse will become a blueprint for other northern greenhouse projects.

Locally grown vegetables could replace the aging, beat-up produce that is regularly flown into Nunavut's remote towns.

In Iqaluit, population 7,000 and growing, Mr. Lamb recognizes that the vegetables produced in the 90-square-metre greenhouse will be a drop in the bucket. But, he says, "you could have people, for the first time ever, getting really fresh produce."

To Inuit, the idea sounds exotic, but visitors to the Arctic have tried to import gardening since the 18th century. Traders and missionaries planted crude gardens of potatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, turnips and radishes to supplement their diet.

In Iqaluit, several people grow lettuce, herbs and tomatoes in their kitchen windows or garden greenhouses. One woman grew 25 pounds of potatoes last summer.

Locally grown food is more than just nutritional, however. Greenhouse gardening could also be a small contribution toward improving Nunavut's abysmal environmental record.

Electricity in Nunavut comes from large generators that burn diesel fuel. In the brief period when the ocean is free of ice, ships deliver some cargo - such as the building materials and potting soil for this greenhouse - but urgent supplies, or those with an expiration date such as fresh carrots, come in by plane.

That makes this territory the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita in Canada, the third-highest polluting country in the world.

The greenhouse was erected in late November, in time for it to be buried in snow for most of the winter. This May, Mr. Lamb opened the doors with a sigh of relief.

"I was quite worried about it blowing away," he said, recalling a February windstorm that reached speeds of 135 kilometres an hour. The greenhouse is one of the few Iqaluit structures built without pilings, or metal rods drilled several metres into the permafrost.

The biggest challenge is moderating Iqaluit's extremes of hot and cold, and light and dark.

To keep his plants alive during the brief but cold summer nights, he's set up a passive solar system. That is, about 20 plastic garbage cans filled with water. In the daytime, the water heats up, and in the evening, the heat dissipates to warm nearby plants.

Later on, he hopes to install a curtain system, to block out sunlight for part of the day.

The growing season this year will be short - the end of June until early September. Mr. Lamb expects to see the 80 or so gardeners plant fast-growing plants such as climbing peas, beans, lettuce and tomatoes in the plastic beds lined up on benches.

Gardeners have more room in large plastic tubs - the kind northerners carry luggage in - lined up in the centre of the greenhouse. Tomato growers will hang from the ceiling.

Vegetables are really the focus, but Mr. Lamb says there may be room for flowerboxes along the wall, and outside, where he plans to build a deck and picnic area.

"We hope it will be a place where people will want to come and hang out. Stop and smell the flowers, so to speak."

Mary Nashook loves the idea of a place where Iqalummiut can potter around in the garden. For several years, she's grown potatoes, carrots, parsnips, Alaskan peas and lettuce in a sunroom on her deck overlooking Frobisher Bay.

"If you want something fresh, you've got to do it yourself," Ms. Nashook says. "It's different than store-bought vegetables."

Jim Little, another Iqaluit gardener, can see positive spinoffs both for gardeners and for the community at large.

Last year, he ran a project that grew 800 zinnias, marigolds, pansies, violas and other flowers in a classroom at Iqaluit's young offenders correctional centre, using funding from suicide prevention programs.

On Mother's Day, they gave more than 200 of these flowers to moms through the churches.

"The neat thing is the sense of pride people take in growing things," he says.


see also:
http://www.greenhousecanada.com/content/view/1298/38/

http://www.gov.nu.ca/news/2009/april/april2.pdf canada government support for harvesters/ fresh produce

http://www.canadiangardening.com/gardens/indoor-gardening/from-hockey-to-horticulture/a/1242 great article on greenhouse in Inuvuk

http://www.tunngavik.com/programs-and-benefits/frequently-asked-questions/hunters-harvesters/ - Hunters &Harvesters association