January 2009

Our Meetings

Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of each

month (except July and August) at the Old Town Hall, March Road, Kanata.

Next Meeting: Jan 6

Garden Design with John Szcezepaniak
Tuesday, Jan 6^th, 7.30 pm
Old Town Hall, March Road, Kanata

We are very fortunate to have as our next speaker John Szcezepaniak, a local landscape architect. John will present a collection of stunning photographic images of gardens from the west end of the city to demonstrate the key garden principles for successful, livable gardens.

Since its establishment in 1988, the firm of John K. Szczepaniak, Landscape Architect, has provided design excellence and highly personalized service to a vast array of clientele, both residential and commercial. The firm offers full landscape architectural services for projects ranging from urban residential through to campus master planning.

The firm’s aim is to combine architecture with the natural landscape in such a way as to achieve a unique balance that creates a sense of place and a sense of timelessness. Visit the firm’s website for more information and to view the company portfolio.

John is an avid traveler who draws his inspiration from such sources as the historic homes and gardens of Europe and the landscapes of South America. His love of the Ontario landscape and an appreciation of fine art shape all his designs.

KMHS Announcements

New Look Website: I have been redesigning the KMHS website to make it cleaner looking and easier to read. Some of the pages are still "under construction", as it will take time to research the information and post it. Please note the Bulletin Board on the Welcome page. This is where you will find announcements of interesting events taking place within KMHS or other organizations as well as the current Newsletter. If you keep a link to the website in your favorites, please update this to connect to the new site.

If you have any problems accessing certain pages, please let me know and I will try to resolve your problem. Also, your comments and suggestions would be appreciated. My email is karenhaddon@sympatico.ca

Karen Haddon, KMHS webmaster

Members’ Corner: Eating Locally

In the depths of last winter, inspired by reading Animal, Vegetable and Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, I decided that Geoff and I should try to eat more locally produced food. Oh the dreams of winter! Our rough goal was to have more than 50% of our diet locally produced, although we had decided not to be too rigid about this.

We started this experiment at the beginning of May, having decided that we would allow ourselves some processed staples such as sugar, coffee, tea, spices, a few cereals etc. from afar, but would attempt to acquire the rest of our food from local sources. Where we could not find stuff within a rough 150 mile radius of Ottawa, we allowed ourselves Ontario produce. This proved to be an interesting challenge, at times frustrating, but for the most part rewarding and novel. I’m sure Costco noticed the difference in our shopping habits.

We became regulars at the Carp Farmers’ Market, going into raptures when we found local apples in May and strawberries at the beginning of June, among many other delights. Every Saturday we would return home with our haul and more ideas for things we could plant next year. Very successful were the baby lettuces, purchased in May and kept on the back step for instant salads for many weeks. Other members have also found this a good way of getting garden salad early in the season—and they look beautiful to boot. We checked out a few of the local health food shops, which have some local produce, although less than I had hoped. I spent a great deal of time on the web, learning where our food came from and realizing how little of it was processed locally, despite that fact that Ottawa sits in the centre of a large and productive agricultural area. I also learnt about some local suppliers for eggs, cheese and meat, who had not previously attracted my attention.

The vegetable garden became the major part of my gardening activities. When the alternative to watering the potatoes is paying top dollar for organic spuds at the farmers’ market, it’s amazing how it concentrates the mind! In fact, the vegetable patch produced extremely well. I picked far more produce this year, not wanting to waste a scrap, I preserved lots more and did a better job with succession planting. Still a lot to learn, but I’m looking forward to 2009 with a plan for a more ambitious selection of crops.

To summarize our experience: we ate a lot more fruit and vegetables, although bananas and grapes were sadly missed, reduced our intake of processed foods to practically zero, lost a bit of weight as an added bonus, spent more time in the kitchen, tried a lot of new foods and enjoyed our meals more. We now have a very full freezer of home or locally grown produce for this winter and firmly intend to extend the experiment into this year. I would be more than happy to talk about our results in more detail to anyone who is interested in exploring this direction. I will also ask Karen Haddon to add some more links to the Eating Locally section of the Links page on our website.

Key links

OVRGHS

Algonquin PT courses

OBGS

Centrepointe Box Office

Upcoming Events

Newsletter Input

I would like to introduce a new feature in the newsletter, Members’ Corner, where all of us can contribute ideas, articles or queries to our fellow members. As a starter I have written this month’s article on our experiences in trying to eat local grown produce. Next month we will cover how to recognize and deal with invasive plants in Ontario, an interest of one of our members.

Are there topics on which you could contribute? Some ideas that occur to me are:

v      How about a brief article (and photos) about a stunning garden you have visited in your travels?

v      Or a short article about how you raise a favourite plant(s) in your garden? I know some of our members are expert in growing certain plants successfully.

v      Perhaps some of you have been successful in setting up a compost heap or other garden projects. Tell us how you did it and how you made it work for you.

v      Do you have a plant you struggle to grow and would like advice from other members? Send in your question and I’ll add it to the next newsletter.

Your input can be very brief – even as little as a few lines referring to other online resources. I am happy to help anyone frame and write their input – just let me know and I’ll be in touch.

Please send me a quick email (Margaret Turner) if something comes to mind when you read this. I’d like to line up a few ideas for the remainder of the year.

All general newsletter input is due to me, Margaret Turner, by the third Friday of the month.