A food forest has taken root on Galiano Island, giving residents of all ages an opportunity to learn about sustainable food systems, create their own pollinator-friendly habitat or contribute to food sustainability by learning to grow their own vegetables.
The Galiano Conservancy Association created the multi-layered garden filled with native and edible plants, including edible flowers, root vegetables and berries. Plants in the garden are chosen for a variety of reasons — some are for food production, others for nitrogen fixing, creating mulch for soil building or feeding pollinators.
In an effort to mimic a natural forest, the plants are grown in various layers: canopy, shrub, herbaceous layer, vining layer, rhizome layer and ground cover. The plants are watered via a solar-powered drip-irrigation system drawing from a cistern filled with collected rainwater.
“We work with what we have, we work with nature on locally adapted crops,” said Cedana Bourne, sustainable food systems co-ordinator for the Galiano Conservancy Association. “The Food Forest needs less inputs of time, water and fertilizer in order to sustainably produce food.”
The Food Forest is home to a plant nursery that features more than 60 varieties of plants.
Apart from growing food, the Food Forest provides a connection to nature for the community, with children taking part in programs such as People, Plants and Pollinators and The Future of Food. Adult programming includes spring and fall Herbal Harvest workshops and composting education.
People can learn soil-building methods such as hugelkulture — a traditional way of building a garden bed from heaps of rotten logs and plant debris topped with compost and soil — sheet mulching, where cardboard is used to smother grass and weeds; lasagna garden beds, which use stacks of compostable materials like leaves, grass clippings and cardboard; straw-bale beds or chop and drop mulching, which involves pruning branches, leaves or whole plants and leaving them on the ground. Worm and hot composting methods are also on display.
Bourne said that hundreds of people tour the Food Forest every year.
“Volunteers also provide outreach programs to local schools four times a month in the spring and fall,” said Bourne. An education bursary fund is available to schools wishing to travel to Galiano Island to participate in programs.
She said that grants from funders, such as the Victoria Foundation, enable the non-profit organization to retain needed staff to manage the program and provide educational programming.
Members of the community can purchase native plants from the nursery to create pollinator-friendly habitats, or vegetables to contribute to their own food sustainability.
The Food Forest even has its own tea brand, with seven varieties of tea available seasonally. The herbs used in the teas are harvested, dried, blended and packaged on site. The teas can be purchased at the association’s Millard Learning Centre and at the Loose Leaf Tea and Papery in Sturdies Bay.
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