The Compost Diaries

Bread and Brains

Spring Gillard — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:38:34 +0000

My friend Robert Ouimet is the man behind my blog curtain. Former CBC Radio producer and new media wiz, this guy fell from the sky into my life, right when I needed a web site. He also produces Can Urban Agriculture Save the World? – the podcast I do with David Tracey.

Aside from collecting authors, Robert has created a number of cool sites including his own blog, Big Snit and a sustainable living venue called VanGoGreen. His latest is something called Brainpicker. It works like this, he sees something in a blog post, twitter tweet or facebook page, and he calls the person up to ‘pick their brain’ about what they wrote. Of course he records the conversation. He liked my Embreaded post, so he called me up. He shares my passion for Terra Breads, although clearly in a more salacious way. Have a listen.

At the Corner Store

Spring Gillard — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:46:19 +0000

David and I had just wrapped up the previous podcast with Cam, our backyard farmer when we came across this old-fashioned looking corner market. It’s called The Home Grow-In Grocer and they sell nothing but Made in BC products. Not only that, but they have a trust policy that is rare in the city. We talk to staffer and self-proclaimed bag lady, Colleen Belli.

Podcast ISBN: 978-1-926758-01-5

photos and podcast © Robert Ouimet & Bigsnit Media 2009

Out in a Yard

Spring Gillard — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:14:07 +0000

David Tracey and I are doing a series of podcasts, exploring the question: Can Urban Agriculture Save the World?

Today we are standing in a front yard with Cam MacDonald. Cam doesn’t have a yard. He farms in other people’s yards around the city. Although he doesn’t say it here, rumour has it he got his garden training growing indoor crops, as many of our special brand of west coast gardeners have. But now he is strictly a fruit and veggies man.

I would like to hang a video camera at one of Cam’s gardens, not just to follow his progress, but mostly because we could call it the Cam cam.

Runs 14:42

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

podcast and photos are © Robert Ouimet and Bigsnit Media 2009

Can Urban Agriculture Save the World?

Spring Gillard — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 15:03:27 +0000

David Tracey and I are doing a series of podcasts, exploring the question: Can Urban Agriculture Save the World?

David is an environmental designer and author of Guerilla Gardening, A Manualfesto (New Society 2007). You know who I am and what I wrote, I hope. But just in case, it was Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator, Edible Essays on City Farming (also New Society! 2003, so old they’ve now dropped me and you can only get it on my web site!)

Our first podcast finds us Up on a Roof at the downtown YWCA with Ted Cathcart. Ted is the facilities manager, but he used to work at UBC Farm . In fact he and a few students actually started the farm. Which is why when he arrived at the Y, he, other staffers and maybe a few crows pulled up all the ornamentals and started growing food.

The food garden now delivers healthy nutritious food to women at Crabtree corner, one of the YW’s programs for mothers and their families on the impoverished downtown eastside.

Runs 18:15