This year's FEASt Fest was a huge success! Over 100 people coming to learn all about seeds, from starting plants from seed, to cooking with seeds and sprouts, to how to stretch your seed dollar. Below are the three talks that were presented at Saturday's event.
Danilo Gonzalez
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNLua_XON4M&w=560&h=315]
Danilo Gonzalez, arrived in St. John's from Chile 3 years ago. For the last 2 years, Danilo has been working at Woodland Nurseries in greenhouse production - ornamental and tropical plants, flowers, herbs, among other crops.
He is an agronomist engineer and since 2004 has been working in urban agriculture projects in South America and now in Newfoundland and Labrador. These include social projects, community gardens, food production for self-consumption, landscaping, and environmental management.
Last year, Danilo created Garden Mind: a group of professionals dedicated to work with the people. They go to individual households or community centres and teach how to grow food year-round, both outdoors and indoors. Garden Mind uses simple techniques and mostly vertical gardening technologies but always using affordable and recyclable materials. They have been working with Food Security Network, McMorran Community Centre and Safer Soil, offering workshops and a technical assistance.
Garden Mind is always open to receive questions from people with little or no experience that want to start to grow their own food at homes, and even at work/office.
Genevieve Brouillette & Angela Heffernan
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa9yyy6fRl8&w=560&h=315]
FEASt Board Members Genevieve and Angela presented on Edible Seeds: nutrition, sprouting, and cooking with seeds. Angela has been a gardener and avid sprouter for many years. Genevieve is currently pursuing her MA in Philosophy, focusing on food ethics. Genevieve also writes The Independent column Potato Potato which deals with food in Newfoundland and Labrador, from local trends to sustainability issues.
Matthew Middleton
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZy4ijYVNHo&w=560&h=315]
Local gardener and self-confessed seed nut Matthew Middleton presented on "Stretching Your Seed Dollar: How and Where to Economize". From deciding what seeds to save, to methods for avoiding over-seeding, Matthew covered all sorts of handy tips to help you save money. The slides from this presentation can be found at bit.ly/10YSGVA
