Dear Spencer,

Your actions are making a huge difference. The biotech industry has launched a heavy lobbying campaign to stop Bill C-474. Despite this industry pressure, the Liberals spoke in favour of Bill C-474 tonight – but their voice was not strong enough to drown out Conservative opposition, yet. The Conservatives voted against the Bill, but Bill C-474 is not dead yet. The official vote on Bill C-474 will happen on April 14!

Bill C-474 would require that “an analysis of potential harm to export markets be conducted before the sale of any new genetically engineered seed is permitted.” The Bill could stop GE alfalfa and GE wheat.

The industry association CropLife is so worried about the influence of your letters that they have copied CBAN’s campaign, asking their own public to write to MPs as well. (You can have a peek at the copy-cat campaign here: http://www.croplife.ca/web/english/biotechnology/Bill_C-474). We also know that key Liberal MPs have been under a lot of pressure from the biotech industry, including a steady stream of calls to their offices. But your voices are still being heard!

Here are some ways you can make a difference, today:

1. We have set up a new action. You can write an instant letter to Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party leader from CBAN’s website http://cban.ca/liberalact474 Ask him to make sure all Liberal MPs are present on April 14 to vote in favour of Bill C-474. Tonight, the Liberal Party spoke in favour of a transparent debate on the Bill in the Agriculture Committee but will they vote for the Bill on April 14? (The NDP and Bloc support the Bill.)

2. You can also send your MP another letter from http://cban.ca/474action – Your continued pressure is important.

3. Below is an action alert that you can send around to your family, friends, and around your community. For more information and other action see http://cban.ca/474

4. Please consider supporting CBAN’s work with a financial contribution so we can continue this strong campaigning. CBAN is a small organization that is entirely funded by charitable donations and small project grants. CBAN has limited resources but is up against well-financed corporate giants like Monsanto. Donate online to keep this work going and to help us start our new campaign to stop the GE “Enviropig™” at http://cban.ca/donate

Please join us to stop GE crops from causing untold harm to Canadian farmers.

Thank you for your continued action and support, Best regards

Lucy Sharratt, Coordinator, Canadian Biotechnology Action Network

P.S. Contact me any time at 613 241 2267 ext.6 or coordinator@cban.ca

Everything has come up now even the few little herbs I planted have started to pop their heads through the soil. The green onions have taken the longest to get going and I have already thinned out some of the carrots I planted.

I am also happy to report that I have had great success with my beans and peas that I planted as a test to check the germination rate. The peas surprised me the most since I did nothing to them last year we left the plants on the wire and I just picked a couple of pods and planted them 100% success. The beans I only had 1 out of 8 that did not come up. All in all it has been pretty successful so far.

up before planting my seeds in it.

Shortly before noon on Friday I planted my seeds.  Carrots, spinach, lettuce mix, swiss chard, green onions, basil and parsley and a few radishes mixed in for good measure.

Planting my little inside garden was a greater experience that I had originally thought it would be but not for the reasons I originally thought.  My 6 month old son got to sit beside me in his excuser-saucer and watch me.  I was a great moment we got to plant our first seeds together.

I have been keeping the tote as warm as I can.  I placed it where it gets a good amount of sun light but not so that it takes up the entire window.  I did this on purpose.  I wanted to provide the amount of sunlight that someone in an apartment may have.  So I have just pushed over the kitchen table a bit giving the tote half the window.  At night I close the blind to keep some of the draft off and I have a small lamp that I turn on to provide some light and some heat.

Sunday I came in the house around 3pm and was surprised to see that sometime in the past 24 hours the radishes, lettuce and 1 swiss chard were already coming up.  I couldn’t believe it, I know that it doesn’t take long but with the cool nights you never know if the seeds will sprout fast or take their time.

Monday (Today), even more lettuce, radishes and swiss chard is up. I am excited that things are coming around so fast.  To be honest I almost thought that I may have to start over I have used some seeds that are not exactly new, some may even be a few years old.

More updates in the days to come as I am sure that even more activity is coming soon.

Both my wife and I watched in horror as Jamie walked into the schools lunch room where they were serving the children pizza for breakfast then for lunch they had chicken nuggets and flavoured milk.  I was personally outraged when Jamie makes his first fresh lunch and the principal tells him he needs 2 breads with the meal even though he has brown rice.  It really is scary that grains has been turned into breads.  White bread should not count as a grain it should count as a sugar!

The show premiered on ABC tonight at 10 pacific time but you can watch it on A Channel and Access in Canada if you do not want to watch it on the American network.  Check out http://abc.go.com/shows/jamie-olivers-food-revolution for more information about the show or to see clips from the show.  You may be surprised.

www.FeedtheValley.ca

Valley First Credit Union has teamed up with local food banks/cupboards to help keep the shelves full.

Feed the Valley has 3 goals:

1. Food
2. Funds
3. Awareness

Feed the Valley is a great program where you can donate food or money to your local food bank but the best part of this program would have to be that when you make a donation the donation stays within your community.  Many times large organizations will take your donations and bring them to where their head office is.  Not this time.  Feed the Valley has teamed up with food banks across in Kamloops, the North, Central, South Okanagan and the Similkameen to keep the food and money donations at home where they are needed.

Another great thing about this program is that they will be setting up a way for you to make a regular donation.  So if you wanted to donate every payday or once a month you can have it automatically debited or you can make a one time donation.

Visit the website http://www.FeedtheValley.ca for more information the site has information on how to get involved, facts, and more so visit today and find out how you can help out.  I will be following this program as it develops and grows.

Fresh Food From Small Spaces

Rather than reinvent the wheel I dug out my book Fresh Food From Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal to find a design for a container garden that uses a tote.  So off town to find an affordable tote that I can cut up for my project.  I found myself in the local Fields store where I found exactly what I was looking for a tote for $12.00 but thanks to a 10% off sale I got the bin for $12.10 with taxes.

The next thing I would be a colander and some sort of cloth to cover the water feed tube.  I ended up at Princeton’s Loonie Bin (don’t worry it is just the local dollar store) where I found a plastic colander for $2.00 and a package of cheese cloth for $1.00.  Things were looking up.  The next thing I would need would be some soil but it is the middle of March where would I find a bag of potting mix this time of year.  I decided to check out the local Home Hardware which was the right choice.  Home Hardware had bags of soil for just $3.69 each so I picked up 2 sacks for a total of $7.75.

Soil

I was surprised that my total so far is as low as it is at $23.21.  Now I have not bought seeds yet, to be honest I am not going to I have a big box of seeds sitting in my living room and I really don’t want to buy any more.

I have bought all the parts to this project that I needed and then I looked around my place for the rest.

What I was missing was a couple of pieces of 2×4 roughly 10 inches long and a piece of pipe or a tube 18 inches or longer for the watering tube.  Of course I will need something to hold the tube in place and some tools.

The tools I will need are a jig saw, hack saw, electric drill, marker and tape measure.

mark out where you need to cut

Step 1 to my container garden.

Put your 2×4′s in the bottom of your tote standing on their side.  Measure the dimensions of the inside of the tote from where the 2×4′s sit.

Step 2

Take your maker and mark on the lid of the tote the dimensions that you just measured.  Place the colander in the centre of your lid and trace around with your marker.

Step 3

With your lid on the tote cut the centre out where you traced for the colander cut a little inside the mark so that it will not fall all the way through.  Then cut the rest so you get the bottom of your inside.

Floor to your container garden

Once you have cut your lid to the right size then you need to attach the 2×4′s on their side on the bottom of the new floor.  There is a reason to do this.

Step 4

Take the pipe that you have and put it in one corner of the tote.  This will be for future watering.  On the bottom end of the pipe take some of the cheese cloth or you can use burlap if you have any and cover the end.  Attach it with something that will keep it there, a rubber band, wire, string what ever you have.  You will need to make one last cut to your lid where in the corner where the pipe will go.

When you secure the pipe in it’s corner make sure it is not directly on the bottom of the tote you want to have some room so water can still drain out.

Step 5

Put the floor in place.  Once you have the floor in it’s place put the colander in the hole you cut out.  You may have to cut the handle off it is has one if not carry on.

just before the soil is added

Now that everything is in place dump 1 bag of soil into the tote.  Depending on what you are going to try and grow in your new tote garden will determine how much soil you will need to add.  The bags I used the first one gave me 6 inches of soil I then added another inch from the other bag.  6 inches should be enough but I wanted to make sure since I am going to try carrots in my tote garden.

Now that you have read my really bad directions I bet some of you are still trying to figure out why the false floor, the pipe and the colander.  Well it is really simple and actually pretty ingenious.  The colander is to put dirt all the way into the bottom of the tote.  The false floor provides a reservoir for water and that is why you have the pipe.  The pipe will provide water directly to the reservoir and with the soil being in the water it will allow the soil to draw from the water source as needed so on those hot days when you put your tote garden in the sun you shouldn’t have to worry about it drying out too fast.  The colander should also act as a drain when you are watering from the top down allowing the water to drip out and into the reservoir below.

Well that is part one of this little experiment I will update as progress is made and I will take more time to ensure that it is up to snuff I know this entry is a little poor.

If you want to know more about container gardening or you want a better set of plans than the ones I provided I strongly suggest you get the book Fresh Food From Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal it is packed full of information.

First one is a list of some of my articles that have been published.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/similkameenspotlight/opinion/85888862.html

http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/similkameenspotlight/opinion/85009792.html