Robert Ouimet » urban agriculture

Podcast: Heather Johnstone, Edible Garden Project

Robert — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:58:46 +0000

Heather Johnstone runs the Edible Garden Project on Vancouver’s North Shore.

Just wrapping up its 4th year, the the project encourages residents to share their bounty with people in need, as well as putting together a variety of urban agriculture and community garden projects.

This week, Heather and team opened the Queen Mary Community Garden, located in the City of North Vancouver. Those of you who aren’t from the North Shore may not be aware that there is both City of North Vancouver, and a District of North Vancouver. Heather’s project involves both municipalities.

I spoke to Heather about the project and where things are going with urban agriculture on the North Shore. We met up at the Lower Lonsdale Community Garden…

Runs: 11:01

Podcast ISBN: 978-1-926758-03-9
photos and podcast © Robert Ouimet & Bigsnit Media 2009

Meet Cam MacDonald, Urban Farmer

Robert — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:07:43 +0000

Cam MacDonald is a new breed of farmer.

He has no land, and his farm is scattered around the city of Vancouver.

Cam is practising urban agriculture, using yards donated by people he and his partners have met, people who are interested in converting lawns into food producing gardens. No tractor or gas-spewing farm machinery here; Cam zips between his plots on an electric scooter.

He’s the subject of the latest podcast in a series I’m producing with writers Spring Gillard and David Tracey called Can Urban Agriculture Save the World ?

runs 14:42

Podcast ISBN: 978-1-926758-00-8

photos and podcast © Robert Ouimet & Bigsnit Media 2009

Cam MacDonald is also a professional artist – his latest work and exhibits have a food and food-supply related theme. You can see examples of his work on his website, CamMacDonald.ca

Podcast Series – Urban Agriculture

Robert — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:58:30 +0000

I’ve started producing a series of podcasts about Urban Agriculture, hosted by Spring Gillard and David Tracey. The series will run on Spring’s website, CompostDiaries.com, as well as on VanGoGreen.

We recorded the first in the series on Tuesday at the YWCA downtown’s roof garden. It’s an interesting project, and all the food grown in the garden is taken to a women’s group on the downtown east side. You can read more about the rooftop garden / food project on the Y’s website.

Ted Cathcart runs the project, and he was kind enough to spend an hour with us explaining the project and discussing the challenges.

The podcast runs just over 18 minutes.