local food: chickweed

Chickweed. Stellaria media.
We can't do a local food series without mentioning this humble plant.
At this time of the year (and in Spring) when it is still warm but with the damp from the dewy mornings, chickweed really comes into it's own.
Take a walk outside and you will certainly see it in your garden. If you have no garden to speak of, just take at a glance at the edges of your yard or in the more wild areas behind the house.
It will be there - chickweed doesn't disappoint.
I use chickweed in my salads all year round but really it is my staple through the colder months when other salad greens are limited. Chickweed on my crackers or sandwich keeps it green.
The ease of harvesting is what really won me over though- it is almost always in residence near the front door.
When I am mindful, I harvest with a pair of snips for a clean cut. It prevents the dirty, smudgy bottoms of the plant mixing in with the lush tops - makes for easier cleaning. More frequently I am doing a bit of gardening and I just toss a bundle aside to add to the dinner salad.
The snipping method makes for better photos.

If you are a smoothie fan, you can also add a handful of these greens to your morning shake. Just toss some in and experiment.
Chickweed pesto is popular too.
At times, I throw a bit into a stirfry right at the end to give a bit of fresh and raw to the main.
For those who want more, here's a nice link, and here for a great identification pic..

Of course, if you are a gardener one of the greatest benefits of cultivating chickweed is that you have an honest excuse for the lack of weeding when those inevitable Tidys come to visit.
Practice bravery - show them the garden with pride, pick a bunch of chickweed and rock their worlds by adding it to the shared meal.

written by Jacinda, also occasionally writing at www.watchingkereru.blogspot.com

what we learnt from Nicole Foss' lifeboat tour

Yesterday Lyttelton hosted Nicole Foss and Raoul Ilargi of AutomaticEarth as part of their Lifeboat tour around New Zealand.
You can hear Nicole here with Kim Hill last Saturday morning or watch her here and here.
It is named the "Lifeboat" tour because Nicole is here to speak about how best to prepare our communities as the economic collapse continues to unfold and dovetails with the energy crisis.
If you need any convincing, you can also here Nicole speak about it here.
It's difficult to imagine a world so radically different in our future than the one we are living today. We struggle to reconcile the story we are fed by Government and the national media each day with the bigger picture behind the scenes. And then there is our common sense: we know that all bubbles blown large enough will pop.
In attempting to reconcile all of this information we sway from hope to fear and back again.

Personally we can begin preparing: you can read here about what we need to do personally to build ourselves a lifeboat.
And in terms of our communities her main message was to just get on with what we need to be doing.
Take matters into our own hands and build those horizontal networks across our communities that will provide the trust, the shared resources and the skill base in times of crisis.
Here in Lyttelton we saw those networks automatically embrace the community after the February earthquake last year. The buildings fell but the community held hands catching any people who were falling. We were able to hold hands because we had networks in place through which we could communicate and access our skill base. We could gather together and quickly find the solutions we needed because the networks had previously done a lot of the groundwork through building trust and belief in our neighbourhoods and our community.

Build your community's resilience by:

• Beginning a Timebank. If your community has one, join it and get involved.
• Write a regular community newsletter to communicate the good news and how people can participate in community activities.
• Do all you can to relocalise the money in your community: support local businesses, take steps to develop a local currency, gather together a few people to begin a savings pool, start a cooperative in your community that will benefit all the members.
• Do all you can to relocalise your food security. Start with your own backyard and planting that which you can eat and will bring you joy. Remember the joy. Have a look around for some space for a community garden. If you have children in school, dig up some of the grass and plant some veges.
• Nurture a culture of gifting, sharing and possibility in your place. Start a wee stand to share produce, seedlings and friendship. Start a group to give out welcome bags to those new to your community. Get to know your next door neighbour and be interested in their well-being. 

The benefits of these networks give far more to our well-being than the sum of their parts. Trust increases, anxiety falls away, burdens are shared, love grows: the fibre of the lifeboat begins to knit together.
We won't be managing the crunch alone, hold hands and begin to build your lifeboat.

Written by Jacinda Gilligan, aso occasionally writing at www.watchingkereru.blogspot.com

local food: black beauties.

Do you notice that each year the Black Beauty peaches (often called black boy) are a bit of a surprise at the end of a long Summer and the end of the peach growing season.
Such a tasty and pretty surprise.
They are dropping all over the Harbour Basin right now. Make sure you have the patience to wait long enough so they are perfect for eating. A ripe Black Beauty peach is fairly unbeatable - don't rush it.

If you have come upon a tree dripping with fruit, then you are likely to have quite a few slightly bruised  fruit to take care of too. 

Apart from stewing them and popping them in the freezer for crumbles and pies during the colder months of Winter, here is my favourite jam to make with the the wee beauties.

Just half or double the recipe depending on how much you are dealing with.

Black Beauty and Cinnamon Jam

1.5 kg peaches

800 gms sugar

1 cup water

Sterilise jars in a oven set at 100oc for half an hour.

Stone fruit and weigh. Put in a saucepan with water and simmer until fruit is pulpy. Add sugar and cinnamon and bring to the boil. Boil for about 20 minutes, enough time to reduce a little. I always add fresh lemon juice near the end to my jam to help it set.

Put in jars and listen for the pop of the lids.

Posted by Jacinda, also occasionally writing over at www.watchingkereru.blogspot.com

real wealth

Lying in bed at the end of a day I reflect on the wealth that surrounds me.
Here is a day in the life of Margaret…
I talk to my two hens as I feed them their warm mash, check their water and
pick up a still warm egg. This is like a meditation process for me,
grounding me at the start of the day.

Tuesday mornings in term time I do a regular Timebank trade with Lyttelton
West School helping with the Early Words programme. New entrants get a great
start to learning to read through this work. Timebanking is based on
reciprocity, not just of time spent, but also in the pleasure it brings to
both parties. Who can resist the welcome from a five year old, “Oh,
Margaret, it is so lovely to see you again!” – makes me smile and imagine
what great modelling her parents are doing.

On my way home I drop past the Portal (Project Lyttelton’s office) to touch
base, a few little details but it is a social visit really!
Project Lyttelton has started a new project looking at how we can build
resilience into food supplies in the Harbour Basin. Each project we
undertake has a champion to run with it (me for this one) and an advisory
group to support and direct the process. I’m just firming up this advisory
group today and send out a Doodle to arrange a time for all to meet. Doodles
are so much more efficient at planning meeting times than interminable
emails.
Lunch – based today around my favourite whole grain bread from the Farmers
Market.
On my way to my next meeting I pick up a supply of ionized water from Lyttel
Piko. A Chinese firm gifted our community this ionizer to help ease our post
-earthquake situation. This water is lovely – so much nicer than the
chlorine smelling water we have for the time being.
A meeting at Coffee Culture. I talk with the student working at the counter
and get her email as she wants to be on the contributors’ list of those
writing for the Lyttelton News.
Today at this meeting I am talking with our two newly appointed community
development workers for the food project along with the liaison person from
the funders. There is so much energy here, ideas, development of ideas,
plans, directions, sharing networks and resources. We all recognise that
prioritising is going to be important!
A quick hike up the hill back home, pulling a few weeds out of the cemetery
steps as I slip through the excluded zone. (I’d rather pull these weeds,
often isolated ones, than see them being blasted with spray.)
I pack the car because tonight I am going to my upholstery evening class,
re-covering an arm chair. The preparatory pulling out the staples takes a
long time though.
3.30pm. Eleven of us meet with Professor Bruce Glavocic at the Portal to
have an unstructured conversation about our individual and community
experiences and feelings related to the earthquake. This was quite a
reflective conversation. We learned of successful models of engagement,
recognising we have one such on our own doorstep in Waimakariri. It was
great that we had biscuits and seeded lemon muffins to hold us together – we
talked to nearly 6 o’clock!
I was a bit late for class, but that seems to run on glide time. I
discovered at the bottom of the box (I had stripped the chair eons ago –
before the earthquake – and stored the fabric pieces for future patterns) my
staple puller AND my dressmaking scissors – what joy! I’ve been looking for
those for ages!
Returning home I completed what I was scheduled to do with a section of work
on our Project Lyttelton’s monitoring and evaluating programme.
Satisfaction level is very high! This is what I call wealth! Being
surrounded by a loving world, doing what feels meaningful work, creating,
sharing and being extended.
As I lie in bed reflecting, a feeling of deep gratitude flows through me.

written by Margaret Jefferies, chair of Project Lyttelton

seed magic

Oh Spring, you love to do this to us. Warm us up with clear, still days, lulling us into thinking we have made it through into the warmer months and then, as though unexpectedly, you send us back into wintery temperatures.

But even though it may be cold and blustery outside, we can still dream about our feet in the warm earth, plant seeds and prepare for the hard work ahead.

And if you don't believe in magic, find some seeds to plant.

A morning playing with the different shapes, sizes and colours of seeds will astonish and delight.

Doing this with a child helps.

Just slowing down and looking, we remember how dependent we are on these little bundles of potential.

Their shear abundance will convert you for sure.

Plan to save some seed in the coming season. Beans and peas are easy. Tomatoes are simple too.

Even just let some of your plants go to seed and see what happens around the base of the parent plant.

Share spare seedlings with your neighbours and friends. Always.

Supporting your local seed bank also is a great way to get a little closer to your seed; they will hold less common varieties to experiment with and have seeds better suited to your bioregion.

Check out the southern seed exchange if you are local.

Seed guardianship keeps the seeds where they belong; in the hands of gardeners and farmers or in the earth, feeding families. Corporate laboratories and distribution centres are no place for seeds of life itself and if you're not convinced watch Vandana Shiva talk about the future of food and seed and check out the NZ Food Bill 160-2 .

These will inspire you to keep going.

Whatever you choose to do in particular, choose to do the good work and take the next step.
Begin on your path of seed guardianship.

written by Jacinda Gilligan, also at watchingkereru.blogspot.com

NZ Food Bill 160-2

If you live in Aotearoa and enjoy buying food at your local Farmers' Market or have a favourite roadside stall you like to frequent or if you like to swap seeds with friends at your local community garden, or, in fact if you are at all interested in the food you eat then you need to check out NZ Food Bill 160-2. 

Be prepared to be enraged. 

Below is taken from the Nexus website

What are the problems with the Food Bill?

- It turns a human right (to grow food and share it) into a government-authorised privilege that can be revoked by the Governor-General.
- It makes it illegal to distribute "food" without authorisation, and it defines "food" in such a way that it includes nutrients, seeds, natural medicines, essential minerals and drinks (including water).
- It will push up mainstream food prices by subjecting producers to red tape and registration costs. Food prices are already rising due to increased energy costs and commodity speculation, while effective disposable incomes are falling.
- Growing food for distribution must be authorised, even for "cottage industries", and such authorisation can be denied.
- Under the Food Bill, Food Safety Officers can enter premises without a warrant using all equipment they deem necessary, including guns (Clause 265 - 1). Police can be Food Safety Officers, and so can members of the private sector, as at Clause 243. So Monsanto employees can raid premises like houses or marae without a warrant, backed up by armed police.
- The Government has created this bill to keep in line with its World Trade Organisation obligations under an international scheme called Codex Alimentarius ("Food Book"). So it has to pass this bill in one form or another.
- There are problems with Codex also. Codex will place severe restrictions on the content of vitamins, minerals and therapeutic compounds in food, drinks and supplements etc. The Food Bill means that non-complying producers can be shut down easily - thus it paves the way for the legal enforcement of Codex food regulations.

What are the implications for Food Security in NZ?

- The bill would undermine the efforts of many people to become more self-sufficient within their local communities.
- Seed banks and seed-sharing networks could be shut down if they could not obtain authorisation. Loss of seed variety would make it more difficult to grow one's own food.
- Home-grown food and some or all seed could not be bartered on a scale or frequency necessary to feed people in communities where commercially available food has become unaffordable or unavailable (for example due to economic collapse).
- Restrictions on the trade of food and seed would quickly lead to the permanent loss of heirloom strains, as well as a general lowering of plant diversity in agriculture.
- Organic producers of heirloom foods could lose market share to big-money agribusiness outfits, leading to an increase in the consumption of nutrient-poor and GE foods.

If you want more, check it out here, here and here. 

Join with the world's poor who are also fighting similar laws in their own countries.

Sign the petition, write to your MP and generally make a racket.

Posted by Jacinda Gilligan, also at watchingkereru@blogspot.com

Thoughts on What Could Be and What Already Exists

Sometimes I find myself dreaming away…envisioning what could be of this community and what we can create for future generations.

We can enrich the community through local food systems. What if we had a system where we mapped out where all the fruit trees were and had volunteers/time bankers going around and harvesting it all? What if we could Spin Farm (Small Plot Intensive) certain parts of the land? What if we had a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm? What if we had market gardens right here in Lyttelton? What if we had festivals celebrating abundance of produce, tomatoes. plums, pears, or one of my favorites, black boy peaches? What if we had a Co-op Restaurant that the excess flowed into? Sound like a dream? Well, now this is becoming a reality with the funding that Project Lyttelton has recently secured.

Now I know to achieve this level of abundance it is going to take a master plan, a diversity of systems working together, time, teamwork and development. This is all very exciting!

For my family and I after the earthquake the three best things were food that we had growing in our garden, our immediate neighbors, and the community of Lyttelton. The earthquake may have destroyed a lot, but our food was still growing without a problem. Imagine not having to go to the super market, just to the garden to get what you need. It definitely saved us from going out into crazy Christchurch for a while and even more importantly we were still eating really well. Our neighbors even shared food from their garden with us. Imagine that sense of security amongst all of the chaos. We all checked on each other making sure we each had the basics water, food, and more or less a safe shelter. Our neighbors brought us flour, we made them bread. They brought us black boy peaches and we made them black boy peach jam. The night of the February quake we went and camped on the grassy as we were afraid to be in our house and felt safe with the people, the community. That night people played music and sang all night, which helped to drown out the aftershocks and gave out the vibe that everything was going to be all right. This sense of community is deeply felt here in Lyttelton.

For more about SPIN Farming.

A video example of a beautiful CSA in the USA.

Written By: Christy Martin

the cooperative.

The cooperative movement began in Europe in the 19th century as a response to the industrial revolution and the threat that mechanisation of labour had had on people's livelihoods but has just as much relevance in the economic and social climate we find ourselves today.

As communities world-wide grapple with possible far reaching consequences of climate change and peak oil, the carbon footprint of communities are put under the microscope and solutions are sought on how to reinvigorate and strengthen local community's . The term "localisation" encompasses a range of strategies for building resilience and self-sufficiency in communities.

For instance, looking at ways to localise as much of it's food production as possible minimises a communities food miles, cuts transport costs in the food we buy and maintains local control and security for as much of that community's food needs as possible. Another example is creating community work spaces so that we have facilities for people whose work allows them to remain in the community during the day. This prevents "suburbia syndrome" in which communities are left empty during the day as people leave to work in other places. Instead it invigorates the health and well-being of a community and keeps people connected to where they live.

Cooperatives can be part of a community's resilience.

A cooperative is an association of people who have come together voluntarily in a jointly-owned and democratically controlled business to meet the economic and social  needs and aspirations of a certain community. It is based on values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.

Imagine the residents of Lyttelton being shareholders in a network of local cooperative businesses.

Imagine local members of these cooperatives deciding on what businesses are priorities for this community and being employed to manage and run these businesses.

Imagine the economic benefits of owning these businesses locally, sharing these benefits with the broad base of resident members and keeping the money circulating within this community.

As we look toward the future for Lyttelton we need imagination and courage to find solutions to our current situation which will also set the foundation for our strength and resilience in the future.

If you are interested in reading more about coopratives check out www.ica.coop,  www.nz.coop and this interesting article.

Written by Jacinda Gilligan, also writing at www.watchingkereru.blogspot.com