Seed Celebration & Sustainable Community Fair: February 15, 2014

The Sustainability Project presents the 9th Annual Seed Celebration and Sustainable Community Fair on Saturday, February 15th, from 9 am – 4 pm; admission by donation. This year we are delighted to be hosting the event at Mole Hill Theatre, 789 Gilsum Mine Road, East Alstead, NH.

Over the years, farmers, gardeners, and activists working for sustainable communities have come to know this event as a great opportunity for networking and day-long fun. Come boost your community’s skills for living well in a changing world. Proceeds help support the Seed Celebration and Sustainable Community Fair, our programming throughout the year, and our work to create wheelchair accessible trails and perennial gardens at the Emerson Brook Forest Center. The Seed Celebration is sponsored in part by W.S. Badger, The Gilsum Recreation Committee, The Monadnock Food Co-op, Green Energy Options, The Mountain, Gem Graphics and Mole Hill Theatre.

Schedule of Events:
9 am ~ Opening

10 – 11:30 am ~ Dave Jacke, noted permaculture designer, teacher and author of Edible Forest Gardens, will present “Ecological Culture Design: A Holistic View”

Noon ~ The Solar Sisters duo will perform songs of farm and garden

1:30 – 3 pm ~ Bill Whyte, founder and CEO of the W.S. Badger company, will present “Visualization – The Art and Practice of Imagining with a purpose”

3:15 pm ~ Last call for the raffle

3:30 pm ~ Raffle Drawing

All Day: Cafe featuring soups from local restaurants and kitchens and Orchard Hill breads, Exhibits & Displays, Demonstrations, Seed Sales & Swap, Raffle, & Children’s Activities

Tablers for the 2014 Seed Celebration & Sustainable Community Fair: Stonewall Farms, WS Badger, Kroka Expeditions, Orchard Hill Breadworks, Valley Green Journal, Green Energy Options, RECLAIM: Original Silk Screen Designs, and Wichland Woods

More about Dave Jacke:
Ecological Culture Design: A Holistic View
Few sane, aware and knowledgeable people would argue that our current culture is ecologically sustainable. Clearly we face an urgent need to redesign the ways we live, work and play or risk the worst. If we are to create ecological and egalitarian societies, we must move beyond the traditional environmentalist focus on resource management and technological solutions. Ecologically speaking, culture is the primary adaptive mechanism of the species Homo sapiens, and it is culture, as a whole system, that we must redesign. What is culture? How might we approach the design of ecological and socially just cultures as whole systems? This talk will address these questions, providing a practical framework for discussion and design practice.

Bio
Dave Jacke is primary author of the award winning two-volume book Edible Forest Gardens, a comprehensive guide to ecological garden design (www.edibleforestgardens.com). A student of ecology and design since the 1970s, he has run his own planning firm-Dynamics Ecological Design-since 1984, designing gardens, homes, farms, and communities throughout the U.S. and overseas. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Simon’s Rock College and a M.A. in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design. In his teaching and his design work, Dave has always explored the interrelationships between people and land as interpenetrating whole systems, grounding his vision and theory in practical and concrete reality as much as possible.

Visualization: “The Art and Practice of Imagining with a purpose”
with Bill Whyte. Whether you are working on a personal plan for living a healthier lifestyle, designing a house, planning a garden or writing a business plan, visualization can be a powerful aid in developing a successful plan. Consider this workshop a brief space and time for you to create a “visualization mandala” on paper – a piece of “spirit art” that you can use as a daily reminder, mentor, guide and friend. Bring some colored pencils if you can!

Bill is founder and CEO of the W.S. Badger Company in Gilsum.

Echo Farm Puddings and Monadnock Menus Featured on New Hampshire Farms Network

By Erika Stimpson, From the Monadnock Menus Program

It all started when two sisters showed horses at a 4-H project.  There they met the neighbors’ shows cows and they fell in love.  The sisters convinced their parents to start the dairy farm on their picturesque Hinsdale, NH property in 1990 – just as many other dairy farmers were struggling to get out of the business!

Commercial Kitchens In & Near the Monadnock Region

Compiled from the Farm Focus E-Newsletter

Current list of Commercial Kitchens in or near the Monadnock Region

  • Neighbor Made
  • Monadnock Fusion Kitchen
  • Franklin County Community Development Corporation
  • Who is missing?  Contact us.

Read more information about each Commercial Kitchen:

Neighbor Made: Do What You Do Best, We’ve Done the Rest

From Neighbor Made’s Website

A fully equipped, commercially licensed, shared-use kitchen in Keene’s Railroad Square. Helping you build or grow your specialty food business.  One of the biggest obstacles for starting a food business is the high cost of setting up a commercial kitchen. Neighbor Made is here to help. We are a fully equipped, commercially licensed, shared-use kitchen in Keene’s Railroad Square, allowing you to build your business on an as-needed basis with lowered risk and minimized start-up costs. Like Neighbor Made on Facebook.

Monadnock Fusion Kitchen

From Monadnock Fusion Kitchen’s Website

“Our mission is to empower local food producers in the Monadnock Region.” An affordable commercial food preparation and cooking facility for bakers, caterers, and small food processors and producers in Peterborough.

For details and rates, please call Roy Gandhi-Schwatlo at 603-313-9768.

Franklin County Community Development Corporation

From FCCDC’s Website

Have you ever been told that your recipe is good enough to bottle? That’s the seed that grows into a successful food business at the Center. The Center can help you overcome the obstacles to commercial success and guide you through the process of bringing your recipe to market. With the resources of the Center and the support of the Franklin County CDC behind your business, you can realize your dream of owning your own business.

Localvore & Vegetarian/Vegan

The July 2011 Monadnock Localvore Newsletter honored local foods that are vegetarian and vegan & compiled news and resources highlighting beans & grains:

Divine Burger
Published Monday, June 13, WMUR NH Chronicle

What do you get when you mix a love for cooking whole foods with the search for the best veggie burger in the world? Well the owners of the Divine Cafe and Grille in Exeter think they’ve found the answer. Jennifer Crompton stopped by to take a taste. Watch this news clip at WMUR.com.

Growing Beans for Beantown
By Naz Sioshansi, EdibleBoston, Winter 2010

As the chill of fall became the true cold of winter, Bostonians of Colonial times would settle in for a winter of baked beans and bean soups.”Beans were a hearty staple that would help the Colonists make it through the cold New England winters when there was little else to eat,” explains Charley Baer of Baer’s Best Beans. “The Native Americans taught the Colonists how to grow and cook the beans, along with corn. Back in those days, varieties of soldier beans and Jacob’s cattle were popular.”

MELOMEALS: Vegan for $3.33 a day…it’s yummy! A blog run by Melody Polakow in Portsmouth, NH. She is a vegetarian chef and photographer, and this blog is filled with recipes that incorporate lots of fresh ingredients: Melomeals.blogspot.com.

 

Four Star Farms, Northfield, MA: A family farm that grows and processes buckwheat, whole wheat, wheat berries, hops, barley and more. Their products can be found throughout western Massachusetts (find locations here) and at the Brattleboro Food Co-op! Check out FourStarFarms.com.

 

What’s your interest?
Are you a vegetarian or vegan localvore? Do you have great locally vegetarian resources to share? Do you just have more questions that you want answered?