A food forest or forest garden is a designed space that combines trees with a diverse planting of edible plants (largely perennial) with...

Timing Find out the average or typical last frost date in your area and count back 8-10 weeks depending on what you want to plant. Sometimes starting too early can result in root bound plants that can require more space than you can give them inside, and starting too late can result in a short to non-existent harvest. Tomatoes: 6-8 weeks Peppers and Onions: 8-10 weeks Squash, Zucchini, Cucumbers, and Pumpkins: 3-4 weeks For root crops like carrots, radishes, parsnips, etc., i

In March, Food Producers Forum brought together fourteen people who work across the NL food system — farmers, fishers, food scientists, researchers, processors, educators, nonprofit reps and policy advocates — f or a wide-ranging conversation on its problems and potentials . The first result is a new report: How Do We Feed Ourselves? A Report from the Provincial Food System Think Tank . One afternoon was never going to resolve the formidable issues in play, but the session es

On Friday, May 8, Food Producers Forum and the Faculty of Medicine at Memorial University are hosting Waste Not! — a full-day symposium on food waste and food sovereignty in Newfoundland and Labrador. The event will feature four panel sessions moving through the full food chain — terrestrial production, fisheries, retail and consumer waste, and a final integration session focused on priorities and pathways forward. Panelists include researchers, farmers, government and indust

On this episode of CBC Radio One's The Signal, host Adam Walsh talks with Food Producers Forum current and founding chairs, Alison Snow and Dan Rubin, respectively; along with playwright Frank Holden; Darren Dinsmore from Aldercroft Farm; and, finally, author Hilday Chaulk Murray. Topics are rich and wide-ranging, but all related to farming and food security, with this guiding question: what can we learn from the way we used to farm to help us today?

Got cluttered window sills full of seedlings or plug trays taking over shelves? Here's the solution for you – a revolutionary seed-starting method that will save space while improving seedling health and success! In this video, Ben demonstrates the ins and outs of making and using seed snails.

Fireweed is a perennial wildflower, best known for its breathtaking pink-purple flowers to be found growing in abundant patches. It gets its name because it is one of the first “weeds” to come back after a forest fire. Thanks to its beautiful magenta blooms fireweed is a very easy plant to identify. The flowers can be harvested to make jelly, but the young shoots of fireweed can also be foraged for food because they make a great substitute for asparagus. You will want to pick

Although not a native plant, I find hops that have escaped from cultivation quite often here in Newfoundland. Early European settlers to the island often planted hops to replace yeast for baking bread, rather than thinking of them as a staple flavouring for brewing beer. Hops can be found growing around old homesteads, climbing up old apple trees or taking over pin cherry or other stands of trees. I am more interested in harvesting the delicious spring shoots rather than the

As its name suggests, river mint can be found growing along the edges of rivers, ponds, streams and wetlands. We have a few different species of wild mint here, although all of them have been introduced to Newfoundland. Mint quickly spreads if it finds a river or wet area where it will thrive. These plants can be easily identified by their strong minty smell, square stems, and oval shaped dark to light green paired leaves. They create tight clusters of pink flowers at the top

Even though it is considered a complete nuisance by many vegetable gardeners due to its spreading nature, love for nitrogen rich soil and a tendency to entangle itself in leafy green cultivated crops, chickweed is actually a valuable salad green. It happens to be one of the best of the wild salad greens with a super long harvesting season. Chickweed is an annual plant that self-sows, so it will be found growing in the same areas each year. When growing in rich soil, chickweed