NEW Fall 2016 Workshops Posted!

Wow!  The new line-up of classes at Little City Farm for the Fall 2016 (and some Winter 2017) is now posted. Loads of new topics and intensive series of classes, to gain hands-on skills for more self-reliant living!  Check out our workshop page here.

We are excited by a whole series of great Herbal Medicine Making classes this fall, including Autumn Wellness Remedies (immune boosting tinctures & fire cider); Winter Health Remedies (cough syrups and more); DIY herbal shampoos; herbal gift-making near the holiday season (felted wool soap, herbal salves and balms, herbal bath bombs & soaks).

There are a number of Soap Making workshop dates (sign up soon to claim your spot, these workshops fill up quickly!), as well as Goats Milk Soap Making - all favourite workshops around here.

Also our usual popular classes on Wild Edibles Foraging and Lacto-Fermented Foods are back for the fall season, with a focus on autumn plants and harvest.

NEW! And new this fall, a series of Waldorf-inspired Art Classes for both children (10 Thursday afternoons from Sept-Dec), and adults (6 Wednesday evenings in Oct-Nov)!  To bring mindfulness, appreciation of nature, joy and calm into our homes through the creative use of natural art materials.  Read our facilitator bios here, and more details to register for these exciting art classes.

NEW! Finally, coming this January 2017 - a 6-Part Organic Gardening Intensive, led by our famous local organic farmer Angie Koch from Fertile Ground Farm.  We are really looking forward to this session, which is limited to 10 participants so that this small group can work through individual garden plans and take 6 weeks to gain intensive organic gardening knowledge.  Sign up here!

Wild Smoothies! Urban Wild Kids Classes at LCF

We've had a great time with wild edibles lately!  Not only harvesting wild fall edibles for our household (more to come shortly about rosehips and goldenrod) but also hosting classes on the topic. 

For the first time this year we are including classes for children - and wild edibles is one topic that is so much fun to introduce to kids.  Our friend Jackie has been here to facilitate the "kids urban wild" series, and did a nice job of explaining simple methods for properly identifying, safely harvesting, and using wild edibles that are all around us.   The way she introduced the tastes of wild foods to the kids in the workshop was to make "wild smoothies".  First we all talked about the plant and how to identify it, then we walked around the yard collecting samples of the plant (so fun to see kids with little baskets traipsing around the yard picking wild greens), and tasted the leaves raw, then added them in the blender with smoothie ingredients to make delicious healthful wild blends.  The plants we included in our wild smoothies were common plants that are not easily over-harvested because they grow wild everywhere around us: dandelion, wood sorrel, lamb's quarter, and wild lettuce.  These can be added a small handful at a time, to taste (depending on how "green" you like your smoothie).

Wild Green Smoothie Base Recipe
1 banana
1 cup hemp milk (or nut milk of your choice)
1 Tbsp chia seeds or hemp seeds
1-2 Tbsp nut butter (hemp butter, almond butter, etc)
1 handful wild greens (dandelion is the most bitter, wood sorrel is lemon tasting, lamb's quarter like spinach)
3-4 ice cubes

Blend well!  Add more hemp milk to thin drink if it's too thick.  Add more banana if the flavour is too bitter.
Experiment with combinations of wild greens (nettle, fennel, dandelion, wild lettuce, wood sorrel, etc).
You can combine all manner of garden greens (chard, spinach, kale, pea shoots) with the wild greens to soften the bitter flavours.  Enjoy!

Fall Schedule for Little City Farm Workshops

Join us for one or more events this fall!  Pre-registration required for classes.

 
Sept 12 from 1-3 pm - Seed Saving, with Taarini Chopra
Sept 17 from 1-3 pm - Wild Edibles/Wild Smoothies (kids class)
Sept 19 from 1-3 pm - Fall Wild Edibles Foraging Class, with Jackie McMillan
Sept 26 from 1-4 pm - Intro to Soap Making, with Karin Kliewer

Oct 1 from 1-3 pm - Make a Medicine Pouch (kids class)
Oct 8 from 1-3 pm - Birch Bark Containers (kids class)
Oct 10 from 11 am-1 pm - POP UP PIE & PIZZA SHOP at Little City Farm!
Oct 15 from 1-3 pm - Burn a Wooden Bowl (kids class)
Oct 17 from 1-3 pm - Waldorf Doll Making Class, with Amaryah deGroot
Oct 22 from 1-3 pm - Make a Dream Catcher (kids class)
Oct 29 from 1-3 pm - Friction Fire (kids class)
Oct 31 from 1-4 pm - Intro to Soap Making, with Karin Kliewer

Nov 7 from 1-4 pm - Intro to Soap Making, with Karin Kliewer
Nov 21 from 1-4 pm - Goat Milk Soap Making, with Karin Kliewer

Dec 5 - A Little Bird Told Me Handmade Holiday Sale at LCF!
Dec 12 from 1-3 pm - Herbal Bath Bombs & Scrubs, with Karin Kliewer

More workshops coming in January 2016!  Please check our website for details.

Weeds + Seeds Classes coming in September!

We love Weeds + Seeds!  If you have looked around our yard (and maybe yours too) at this time of year, you will have noticed lots of weeds...and lots of seeds... Yes, we do have a young baby here so the garden has not had the weeding attention it usually gets, and some of these weeds are certainly not growing here by our intention.  However, many of the so-called weeds in our garden are wonderful plants that we welcome, for food and medicine, for wildlife, for pollinators, for ground cover, for nutrients they bring to the soil, for health in our compost pile, and so on.  And many of our plants are let go to seed, so we can save these seeds for planting next season's garden, and to let stand all winter as forage for birds.

How to learn more?  Here at Little City Farm we love weeds + seeds so much that we offer classes on this topic every fall!  If you want to learn more about the benefits of cultivating, using and eating "weeds" - join us on Sept 19 for our Fall Wild Edibles Foraging workshop.  If you want to learn more about how and why to save your own seeds, join us for the annual Seed Saving workshop here on Sept 12.  Join the I Am A Seed Saver campaign organized by USC Canada - learn more here!  More details on these exciting Weeds + Seeds classes at Little City Farm.  Please register in advance for these classes.

Weeds + Seeds Workshops

Get to know your weeds and seeds! We have two exciting plant related workshops coming up in September.  Check your calendars and let us know if you want to join us.  Registration available here.  Kids welcome to both these sessions.

Seed Saving on Sept 12 from 1-3 pm
During this workshop Taarini Chopra from Seeds of Diversity will walk us through all the steps of seed saving: from planning your planting and isolating varieties, to collecting seeds from plants in your garden, to cleaning and rogueing seeds, and storing your seeds to plant the next year. The workshop will be hands-on, and we will collect and clean seeds from a variety of garden vegetables, as well as tour the Little City Farm property to observe the diversity of vegetable, flower and herb seeds ready for harvest in the gardens.

Fall Wild Edibles on Sept 19 from 1-3 pm
Back by popular demand - Jackie McMillan, local wild foods educator, led us through a delicious spring wild edibles class and will now cover the different roots, barks, leaves and flowers that are abundant in the fall season.  We'll do some tasting and explore what's growing wild at Little City Farm, and also discuss proper plant identification and ethical wild-harvesting strategies.